[He's right. Contact is enough to remind him that where he is is real. That he hasn't escaped to some undamaged part of his mind, just to get away from the whip, and the heat.]

...Gives me a convenient excuse not to go back, when this is over.

I'd all but given up on finding out what happened to Lucy, but...

[He sighs. He's too broken to let himself truly hope. Fifteen years in a single night will do that, when they run together until it seems like one interminably long stretch of agony, repeating again and again forever.]