Will’s throat was painfully tight and, absurdly, his eyes were wet. For God’s sake, Kim had only repeated back what he’d been trying to get at, except better. He swallowed, as quietly as possible. “Yes. I—Yes.”

Kim breathed out, long and slow. “I have wondered where you were hiding the damage. First things first: forget what I said. I shouldn’t have asked and I’m sorry. You came through a meat grinder alive and won medals on the way. You ‘just got on’ in order to survive hell. If that’s what you have to keep doing, then in God’s name keep doing it, at least until you don’t need to any more.”

Will took a shuddering breath. “Think that’s likely?”

Kim gave him a smile that made his heart twist in his chest. “I was holding myself together by my fingernails for a very long time, until the most magnificently stubborn sod of a bookseller came into my life. You treated me, against all the evidence, as if I were something resembling the man I ought to be, with such pertinacious obstinacy I have all but started to believe it myself. I spent the last few months thinking about this as I reordered your outrageous mess of a bookshop. How I came to be where I was, what I’d done to bring it on myself. What I need to do differently.”

“You didn’t say.”

“No, well, not telling people things is my version of just seeing where we go. Another thing I need to change. Anyway, my point was that yes, I think you might very well find it useful to examine a few things. Know thyself, as the philosophers say.”

“Urgh.”

“Uncomfortable, I grant you, but perhaps necessary,” Kim said. “I’ve always considered you an immovable object—you do such a good impression of one—but of course you’re not. You’re a man like the rest of us, albeit gloriously strong and gloriously solid, but perhaps the solidity comes at the expense of flexibility. That’s physics for you. Maybe you need to be a bit less strong and a bit more vulnerable for a while and see what happens. Good Lord, I felt you twitch there. You can be vulnerable if you want, my love. You aren’t at war any more.”

Will really couldn’t breathe now. Kim’s fingers wrapped around his. “That’s for you to decide when you’re ready to tackle it. For now—well, we agreed to see where we go, and I shouldn’t have tried to change the terms at this damn fool time. I shouldn’t have tied you into my damn fool plans, come to that: this is my decision and my responsibility. I will do what I think best, we’ll cope with what the present has to throw at us, and we can find out about the future once we get there.”