He can't fully manage to hug her back properly, even if some part of him instinctively wants to. The rest's reaction is to feel like he should be lashing out at her if he's this close - the idea that she shouldn't be allowed to live is ever present.

But he doesn't. Instead he lets himself rest against her body, his skin strangely hot to the touch, as it always has been.

When her skin comes in contract with his blood, though, it comes with an empathic snap of his own emotions. A still image of the conflict in his head, and of his feelings of being trapped. It's not as clear of a reading as he could take from someone else, but it's more than one would have expected.