Avoidance was easy to understand. Wasn't it always? How often did any of them actually want to confront the things wrong within reach? They were always aiming for the higher causes. Maybe because they needed a distraction from themselves.

"I wouldn't know." She met his glance, kept her eyes on him still when he looked down again. "Is it?" A dare, in a way, for him to tell her the truth here.

Or perhaps dare wasn't quite the right word. A request, an attempt to show that she was willing to listen. They couldn't subsist on subterfuge forever - or they could, but it wasn't for the best.

And there it was - an opening up of something, if not much. Direct statements or not, it was harder these days to be certain of what he was saying. "Do you think it's getting better?"