[ To his credit, he does feel bad for a second afterwards, pressing the incredulous smile out of his expression as quickly as possible. Everything just seemed so ridiculous as of late that parental cop-outs on innocent enough matters tickled him in a way he wished it didn't. It was unfair.

Clearing his throat, he considers her answer. ]

I'm more surprised they thought you'd buy it. Even without — [ shrugging vaguely ] — all of this, you couldn't have been very satisfied with that answer, right?

[ There's a scuffle of activity off on a different path, through a row of trees. He glances off at the group of kids carrying on about shoving one another in the fountain for a moment. ]

But it's not like all those rules are going to help us out now, or even be enough to keep us safe. Just because they can't see the full picture any more than we can. I don't really like thinking about it that way though.

[ Mostly because it meant giving up another tie to normal life. ]