Catherine turned toward him as he opened his laptop, the soft glow of the screen lighting his face, sharpening the quiet focus in his eyes.
"So… this is my password," he said, almost casually, as he signed in. "This laptop is where I keep everything."
There was something deliberate in the way he said it, something that didn't quite match the lightness of his tone.
"How good are you with Linux?" he asked, glancing at her briefly.
Catherine frowned faintly, not entirely sure where this was going, but she answered anyway. "I'm used to it. We use it in the lab too."
He nodded, as if that confirmed something for him, and then… he continued.
Not just with the laptop.
With everything.
Passwords. Encrypted folders. Backup systems. He repeated certain details twice, slow enough for her to remember, as though it mattered that she did. And before she could even fully process that, he moved on, into things far beyond a device.
