"Daddy, can we get ice cream after this?" Stella asked, bouncing slightly in her chair as she watched me sort through a stack of intelligence reports. Her black hair was messier than usual, having spent the morning building some kind of contraption in the workshop.
"After what?" I asked with amusement, noting how she'd managed to get what looked like motor oil on her sleeve despite supposedly working on theoretical projects.
"After you finish reading all those boring papers," she said, making a face at the documents spread across my desk. "You've been at it for like, forever."
"It's been forty-five minutes," Reika said with gentle correction as she entered carrying a tray of snacks. "Though I suppose that does feel like forever when you're twelve."
"See? Forever," Stella said triumphantly, grabbing one of the cookies from Reika's tray. "Besides, it's Saturday. Saturdays are for fun stuff, not work stuff."
