"I worry about you all the time," Bert said, after a moment, looking mildly disgusted at his own frankness. "Don't tell me I'm important, though, I'm big-headed enough already." And, surprising himself a little, he leant in and kissed her - not a lover's kiss on the lips, but a kiss just above the temple that was at once more chaste and more intimate. Gods, he was going soft. Worse, he didn't even have it in him to mind any more.

"I'll pick up the shards," he said after a moment, clearing his throat. "You shouldn't touch them, I think. Not if they can do that to you. But they can't get through my head, it's bone all the way through." He rapped his knuckles against his head, and laughed a little. "Ro' might know better what to do with them. But if it's broken, for real and true, then we may as well head back anyroad."