Shadow wanted, wanted very much, to reach out and put his hand over Wednesday's gray hand. He wanted to tell him that everything would be okay - something Shadow did not feel, but that he knew had to be said. There were men in black trains out there. There was a fat kid in a strectch limo and there were people in the television who did not mean them well.
He did not touch Wednesday. He did not say anything.
Later he wondered if he could have changed things, if that gesture would have done any good, if it could have averted any of the harm that was to come. He told himself it wouldn't. But still, afterward, he wished that, just for a moment on that slow flight home, he had touched Wednesday's hand.
- Neil Gaiman, (American Gods)