How these two meet
It takes about ten seconds and then it is over, and it is only over for one of you. Aries said the thing at full volume, meant every word of it for the length of the sentence, and has already gone into the next room. Cancer is still standing in the first room at three in the morning, holding the sentence.
Aries genuinely cannot see why it is still here. Cancer genuinely cannot see how it could be anywhere else.
Mars goes 2.13 years between reversals, the longest run of any planet, and does not signal the turn: it commits, completely, at once, and the commitment is total for as long as it lasts. The Moon crosses the whole zodiac in 27.3 days and never looks the same on two nights running. One of you discharges and the other one metabolises, and neither of those is the same thing as getting over it.
Underneath, you are both cardinal, which is to say you both start things, and you have each spent your life being the one who moves first. Neither of you had ever lived with another one of those. It came as a relief and neither of you has ever mentioned it.
For Aries, the work is going back into the first room. Not to apologise. To be in it for as long as it is still happening to the other person.
For Cancer, the work is saying that it is still happening, out loud, the same day, instead of filing it somewhere safe.
The question
How long does it take either of you to come back?
One conscious action
ten seconds, and then the room
Next time it happens, Aries stays. Physically, in the same room, for five minutes after it is over. Nothing has to be said in them.
Cancer says one sentence inside the hour: this is still going for me. Not what it means. Only that it is.
Mars discharges and the Moon changes shape, and neither of those is a decision that either of you gets to make.
The ten seconds are not the problem and neither of you has ever thought they were. What has never once been said out loud is what the three hours afterwards are for.