[ It shouldn't sting as hard as it does, the step away from her. It hasn't been that long that he's been close to her, has only even been in the past few days that she hasn't just frozen every time he touches her at all. Closeness to people, physical contact -- she can handle them on a professional level, if she needs to to sell an identity.

Actual closeness, the sort that comes from knowing and being known and caring, that's harder to compute. Marlowe in the past few weeks has been the first time in years, and as new as it still is, as strange as it still, it twists in sharp as a knife to have it removed.

She watches the data, sees the encryptions, the lack of trust, and that trust was still so new and building that she doesn't know what to do, just looks at him, her face going blank the way it has several times when he says things that she doesn't know how to process yet, has to take time to pick her way through. ]

I don't understand what you mean by that. It was just a few days ago. You were --

[ She pauses, tucks her hands into her pockets so they stop trying to twist together anxiously. ]

It can't have been -- I just got here.