Proko feels something inside him seize up. It's a conversation he's been meaning, wanting to have. The six weeks of hell Jiang had just been through hadn't seemed the time, but... he's had a bit of time since then.

He wets his lips. "I've been planning to," he says quietly. "The three half hour phone calls you got over the summer seemed like a shitty time." And he hadn't been about to do it on Parents' Weekend, either.