“Of course things are troubling me. What’s not troubling me? This is the happiest time of the year for so many people, and I don’t have my parents, and I lost nine months of the last year anyway, so it feels like I’m in some kind of eternal winter, and you could’ve died.” He’d touched Wells only once that he could remember – other than carrying him away from Farooq – and then it had been a thoughtless pat on the back rather than the tight, lasting hug he wanted to give now (not that a hug was a good idea anyway). But he let his hand rest on Wells’ forearm, and Wells didn’t snatch it back. “I don’t know what any of us would do without you.”