In the back of the car taking them to training, Ellie Simmonds giggles next to her dance partner Nikita Kuzmin. They're in stitches about the fact she's always staring at his chest.
Training six days a week for hours upon hours a day is not easy even for a Paralympian, but it's clearly a right laugh.
"I am so used to where I am in Nikita's height, I see his chest a lot," the five-time gold medal winning swimming champion chuckles. "I focus on his necklace," she adds, quickly.
Ellie, 27, who competed in her first Paralympics in Beijing in 2008 aged 13, winning gold in the 100m and 400m freestyle events, is one of few celebrities in the public eye with achondroplasia, a form of dwarfism.
In a long line of firsts, the youngest British Paralympian ever at those Beijing games, the youngest person to be awarded a MBE aged 14 (four years later she scooped an OBE), Ellie is the first with the condition to compete on Strictly Come Dancing in the UK.
She is 4ft tall and Nikita is 5ft 9. But she and he are past that now. "Honestly I find it weird now to dance with an average height person," says Nikita.
Ellie adds: "I found it so funny when he commented about that this week. At the start he was trying to figure out adaptations but now he knows what moves I can do, which moves I can't do. It’s really nice he's so used to me now."
Ellie's fast become a Strictly favourite.
She admits in the past, before the hit Saturday night BBC show, she'd experience name-calling on the streets.
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"It has happened and I know so many people in the dwarfism community that get that, on a daily basis it happens even now but it is changing," she says.
"When they see someone looks different you do get the stares, but now when I go out in the streets the support has been amazing and the response phenomenal. It has made things better."
She adds: "TV is so powerful and that's why representation is so important, you saw that with Rose [Ayling-Ellis] last year.
"I'm not just representing myself but the dwarfism community and the disability community and if I can create change people like myself in the streets don't get the stares, the name calling, the abuse.
"If I could just change one person's life that is so powerful."
Ultimately though Ellie's goal is to be accepted as Ellie. "I'm just trying to focus on my dancing," she says. "I'm all about going out there on a Saturday night and representing myself, and the disability and dwarfism community.
"I am so proud to go out and represent but I think people are seeing me for who I am, Ellie - my personality."
The retired swimming superstar lives with her partner, Matt Dean, in Cheshire. The pair have been together for two years, having met in childhood.
Matt, who also has dwarfism, is the son of Arthur and Penny Dean, who also have the condition, and started the Dwarf Sports Association.
That's how the couple met, although Ellie laughs he's nothing like her. "He's not sporty, he likes football but he's the total opposite," she says.
He encouraged her to take part in the show but prefers to stay out of the spotlight, and, he's regularly in the audience supporting 'Team Elita'.
Ellie even keeps her dances secret from Matt. "I want it to be a surprise on a Saturday night," she says. "At the start they were like 'You can actually dance’. I was like 'I'm alright, yes.'"
On Monday Nikita and Ellie were among celebrity guests at the Daily Mirror's Pride of Britain Awards, in partnership with TSB, where his home country of Ukraine was given a special accolade.
All his family are safe and this week he told ITV's Loose Women: "I call my grandparents every single day.
"The most important thing for me is to know that all of my friends are safe. All my family is safe. I just hope that it ends as soon as possible. It’s really heartbreaking."
Through this unimaginable situation Ellie has been there for Nikita – while he whips her into shape ready for Saturday night.
"Our priority each week is to have the most amount of fun," said Nikita, 24. "My priority for this whole journey is for Ellie to have the best time of her life, enjoy each week, enjoy each dance, enjoy each character and have fun."
Growing up in Walsall, the youngest of five, Ellie always did things her own way, taking to swimming early, and competing against non-disabled youngsters as early as age eight.
At 11, her mum moved to Swansea with her so she could train with the GB squad.
She's always been driven, going on to win after Beijing in London 2012, achieving gold in the 400m freestyle and the 200m individual medley, and a further gold in the 200m individual medley at Rio 2016.
That same competitive spirit burns for Strictly too where her routines have been technical, glamorous and fun-filled. Edgy, too.
Last weekend she was deducted marks for an "illegal lift" in her paso doble which lasted longer than it should. More giggles. She and Nikita claim he needed to get her down from the platform she was dancing on.
This week they will be dancing the foxtrot in Halloween week to Scooby Doo, Where Are You?
For a girl who rarely wore heels before, and whose mum and aunty have to alter her clothes, Ellie has now embraced the razzmatazz.
"At the start of the show I was like 'I only want a few eyelashes', now I'm loving every second, full lashes, tan!"
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