"Yeah."

Dave takes a breath.

"I am."

And that's a stupid, stupid thing to think about changing.

(They don't even have mayonnaise here, he thinks, stupidly. Hasn't he handled enough culture shock for one lifetime? For twenty?

All the same.)

"And -" He becomes aware that she's searching for his eyes, and raises his gaze, just a little, to meet hers. "You're right. About all of that. The sensible thing would probably be to set it aside as a great one-time thing, like Maidalaidan or something, and call it a day, but -

"Hell," (he knew meeting her eyes was a bad idea!) "sometimes it is not easy to be sensible."