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..."

dad for me, for going

no

Roseanne was

Wait a minute...

with work, struggling to keep up with their schedule. And he says

was that? Little Roseanne,

workload. Only

be told, Owen was pushing himself harder

Vel

made it

and cheerful.

pretending to do experiments, fabricating reports, writing

it's been over nine hours since you received the preliminary data yesterday. How much have you verified? Is the accuracy up to

The deadly quadruple inquiry.

to have disturbed you,

grimace, facing the mountain of data yet to be

like these, Stoddard found

she were here, she could whip up a program in minutes, making sense of

is easy,

little Roseanne could permanently join

...