She didn't feel it so acutely as he did. Indeed, to Peggy, it was a lot like holding hands with any other man: perhaps she felt a curious absence of any spark, but that had less to do with him and more to do with her own lingering love for a man long gone. But even now she willed herself to feel something: an itch or a thrill or any indication that there was some true purpose to all this...touching.

Peggy wiped her brine-damp thumb clean on her sleeve and then (on instinct alone) laid her second hand over his -- making a kind of sandwich of his callouses between her manicured fingers. The gesture forced her to lean forward, which made her ribs burn.

And burned more still when she turned her head to look in the same direction: the cave. Hemming and hawing: "I'd counsel you to scout ahead, but--" she shook their joined hands. "I am sorry."

She was the one holding up their expedition with her pain and injury.