[For people like them, it's worth it; perhaps the only thing worth it. He's able to settle, now, into the persona he's named, able to relax into being this person he's decided he's going to be now.

And if his smile back to her is just a little more satisfied than it is sly, well. That can be a silent signal, too, that disappears a moment later behind his much more characteristic banter.]

Most people are, sweetheart. I suppose you've found somewhere safe from all this, then? Which I wouldn't be too busy to hear about, incidentally.