Nick makes the first move, after waiting at the door to greet a few more people and let Will get acclimated. He approaches Will with the look of a man biting the inside of his cheek to keep from inappropriate laughter, but the amused sympathy in his eyes is obvious--it's the humor of the displaced.

We need to get you new clothes. Nick settles down next to Will and passes him the note, raking his eyes over the cheerfully patterned pajamas. Unless you dig monkeys. How've you been?

He's glad to see Will here. After himself and Larry, he thinks Will is one of the people who needs this thing the most, even if Nick himself isn't sure what he's doing. They never tried something like this in Boulder, not formally. But Nick remembers all the quiet little groups that would form in the library or the park, clustered in people's houses. People need each other. It's a piece of knowledge he came into late in life.