Ben was worried about Melody. He didn't know whether he should be, or whether he had any right to be, but he was all the same. She seemed to have been getting quieter by the day, though that may have just been his imagination. He thought, too, that she might be getting sick, but he couldn't put his finger on exactly why. Something about the way she carried herself, or how she ate, maybe. He felt as though she were withering away before his eyes, but he hadn't noticed anything concrete enough to say whether that was really happening or not. If it was, he felt it was probably his fault. Maybe not directly, but perhaps by forcing her to live in this squalid little hotel room for so long. She was used to much, much better, and they'd been killing time in Paris longer than he'd thought they would've.

Even if there was cause to worry, though, was that his place? Maybe she was depressed, and maybe it was because the realities of the lifestyle change were finally starting to sink in, but who was he to tell her how she ought to feel about that? He'd never been exceptionally wealthy, though his family had always been well-off. He'd never been cut off so completely from the future he should have had as she had been when she decided to marry him. If she was depressed about it, then what was he supposed to say to her to talk her out of it? It wasn't as though he could empathize. Not really.

So he was trying his best to stay out of it. When he came home that day he tossed a bag from the local bakery onto the small table, as he usually did, then moved to sit so that he could remove his shoes. "Hey," he greeted with a bit of a weary tone. "Good news. I think I've closed this deal I've been working on with the French distributor. Haven't signed anything yet, but... it seems like it's more or less in the bag," he said with a shrug. "Which means I probably won't be unemployed when we make it back home."