Chris struggled at first. His mind couldn't comprehend the change going on around him, part memory and part reality clashing in terrible ways that he couldn't reconcile. Contact with Cole helped, and he soon quieted, his mind slowly pulling together to focus. They were still in the house — not the Manor, which had been destroyed when they were just little kids and was more of a dream than even a memory — and not in the drift. The house was no longer safe, covered in everything that formed the Chris After and separated him from the Chris Before.

This was the moment that pulled him apart in two, completely unlike what Cole went through and yet the exact thing that made them fit. All of it was right here, Chris and Cole coming together, and Chris found his breaths turning into sobs and an anguished yell where he could no longer hold himself up or fight. The gun was still in his hand, purpose served and forgotten, still warm with the breath that had killed his brother.

"This is real," he said. Awareness filtered in slowly. He was talking not to himself, but someone. Someone here where no one else belonged. "This is real, dammit!"