Love Burned, She Rose Unscathed

Jen, never one to hoard knowledge, swiftly grasped the gist of Roseanne's experimental procedures and offered her advice for adjustments without hesitation.

When Liz arrived and saw Roseanne engrossed in her work, she couldn't help but scoff. "Just an undergrad," she thought, "What groundbreaking ideas could she possibly have? She's just putting on airs!" After toiling away all morning, Roseanne realized everyone else had left their stations, probably off to lunch or taking a break.

Glancing at the clock, she noted she had an hour and a half. Opting for a quick bite outside before returning to her experiment seemed like a good plan.

However, no sooner had she stepped out than she saw Owen, carrying a takeout bag towards her.

"Picked up lunch downstairs and grabbed something for you too."

Noticing he only had one meal, Roseanne guessed he must have already eaten.

"Thanks."

After fueling up in the break room and brewing herself a revitalizing cup of coffee, she reflected on Jen's advice. Adjusting the ratios of her reactants had moved her closer to her desired outcome, but not close enough. Though the data she now had could technically support her thesis, Roseanne felt she could still enhance its precision.

That meant starting over with her experiment.

could afford to redo the experiment as many times as needed with such resources at her

head back to her workstation when she noticed several people

their circle disbanding and everyone quickly retreating to their own

but didn't dwell on it. She dove back into her work, embracing the

different quests-one for game, the other for firewood-they might

crossed and harmony existed, a shared journey was possible. And if diverged,

Restarting her experiment meant

was racing against

on sampling, data

and everything in

between-essentially, the workload

an entire research team

but her, the solitary commander in

Stoddard occasionally dropping by for a chat and Sammy mostly hung out with Liz, so he

hadn't