During the several beats of silence that followed Ford's statement he'd managed to pry his eyes up from the table and look at Lestrange's face. He thought he saw something in Cash's expression change, though he couldn't have said what — and maybe it was less of a change and more of a flicker that had passed through, but there was something there regardless. Whatever it was, it made Ford believe what he eventually said, and he felt a rush of relief.

"Good," he said, with a twist of his mouth that approximated a smile but wasn't quite. He thought, but thankfully prevented himself from saying aloud, Thanks.

Trying may not have seemed like much, in the grand scheme of things, but Ford had enough of a sense of what Cash had been going through today to recognize that it wasn't just a baby step forward; if he really meant it, that was a huge leap into the unknown for Cash. And it was important, because it wasn't as though anything Ford said or did could actually make a difference if they didn't start here, with Cash trying.

Ford leaned over his curry bowl, elbows on the table. He picked up his spoon, though not to eat but rather to skate the edge of it over the top of the curry as he turned over what to say next. "So, I don't really know what I'm doing here," he admitted; giving Lestrange an out in case the next thing Ford said was too strange or too much. "I've never —" been in love, he was going to say, but stopped; Cash hadn't ever actually said it, and though Ford thought by now it was obvious he was hesitant to be the first of the two of them to put that word to it. He glanced away from the booth for half a second as if trying to decide whether or not to finish his sentence, then decided against it. "Anyway. I think you should write him letters."