Love Burned, She Rose Unscathed

No sooner had she said it than she was out the door in a rush.

Roseanne felt numb all over.

Oh well, as long as they're happy...

In the lab-

Owen was poring over two sets of data from last week, spotting a discrepancy in the fourth column of the second set, just about to call Sammy over when his phone rang.

He answered it without looking-

"Hello?"

"Mr. Reynolds, it's Roseanne."

Owen paused, his gaze slowly drifting away from the screen, his voice softening, "What's up? Everything okay?"

"My dad, he... he wants to invite you over for dinner. He's cooking himself... If you're too busy, it's okay, I'll just let him know..."

"I'm free."

Roseanne stopped dead for a few seconds: "...Isn't the lab swamped?"

"It's manageable."

"So..."

And thank your dad for me, for going through the trouble

it's no trouble at

hanging up, Roseanne was slightly

Wait a minute...

yesterday, Jen was texting her complaints about how swamped they all were with work, struggling to keep up with their schedule. And he says

"Who was that? Little Roseanne, right? I could hear her voice."

about the workload. Only you, Mr. Reynolds, can speak of it

pushing

Vel

made it

and cheerful.

just pretending to do experiments, fabricating reports,

his watch, "If I'm not mistaken, it's been over nine hours since you received the preliminary data yesterday. How much

The deadly quadruple inquiry.

disturbed you, I'll see myself

to his workstation with a grimace, facing the mountain of data

Stoddard found himself

a program in minutes, making sense of

is

Roseanne could permanently join their

...