"I am..." Honesty, he reminded himself, and after an exhale he finished: "I am as best as can be expected. I have had to face some uncomfortable thoughts of late, and needed the time to reconcile them in my mind."

Not that they were wholly reconciled, he realised. There was still a part of him that looked at Shiro and thought of Malik. Still a part of him that found it easier to trust him than was his normal state. If he draped a Dai's robes around Takashi's shoulders, he doubted he would be able to stop himself from saying everything that was in his mind. For the best, then, that there were no robes to hand.