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..."

thank your dad for

it's no trouble

up, Roseanne was

Wait a minute...

how swamped they all were with work, struggling to

that? Little Roseanne,

moaning about the workload. Only

told, Owen was pushing

Vel

he made

and cheerful.

just pretending to do experiments,

watch, "If I'm not mistaken, it's been over nine hours since you received the preliminary data yesterday. How much have you verified? Is the accuracy up to standard? Have

The deadly quadruple inquiry.

to have disturbed you, I'll

grimace, facing the mountain

these, Stoddard found himself missing Roseanne

up a program in minutes, making sense of the data chaos like

from simplicity to luxury is

little Roseanne could permanently

...