She could sense his hesitation to her touch, but was immensely relieved that he allowed it anyway. She needed to reaffirm their connection somehow. He'd always put himself out there for her, always waited for her to be ready to meet him half way, but this time she was going to have to keep showing him her love even if he couldn't do the same. She just wished she knew what he needed to hear from her.

When he offered her his hand she gently guided it under the water again and used soap to clean the bruised knuckles and the area around the small cuts. Then she turned off the water and cleaned the cuts with iodine, eyes flickering between his hand and his face. "It looks like there's a little splinter," she said softly, picking up the tweezers. "I'm going to pull it out, okay?" Still carefully holding his hand in hers, she delicately slipped the prongs against the cut to extract the small splinter of wood.