It’s only a little, just barely, but he flinches. Still Radar’s hand settles gently on his elbow.

“I’m sorry,” again, it’s the kind of pleading you do when it isn’t that you expect to avoid getting struck, but perhaps you won’t be struck as hard; not that he’d expect it from Radar, but he’s just so used to doing it. That’s his whole problem. He doesn’t know how to live in peace anymore. “I didn’t mean to. I…”

Mea culpa. Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa.