He stopped when she stopped, not quite realizing why she'd stopped at first. And then she hugged him and he went still as stone for a moment. He couldn't remember the last time anyone had actually hugged him. He rough housed with his boys, they were always touching, bumping shoulders, slinging arms around each other's shoulders, but that was different. They didn't really hug.

After another second or two, more emotional than he'd ever usually let on, he wrapped his arms around her to hug her back, narrowly resisting the urge to press his face into her shoulder. People were so rarely kind to him that he didn't even know what to say, and for a change he had nothing biting or sarcastic that even came to mind. He couldn't imagine being an asshole right now.