Resigning himself to splitting his attention, he set about working from home. Most of the files only needed some touching up, but there were also several new projects that others had worked on previously. He hated working on something after others, it always meant cleaning up their work. It only took ten minutes before the alien chirped from the tub again. His chair and desk sat almost right beside the door to the bathroom, and he leaned back to look in on her.
Her spots had turned a full blue, and she had a hand stretched out for him. Was she lonely? He figured he probably would be, so it made sense. He stared thoughtfully for a moment. How to keep her wet to heal, and also nearby?
When it clicked, he smiled. She looked confused, and flickered yellow. Careful not to move too quickly, he grabbed a large beach towel and stuffed it into the water before motioning for her to stand. She needed his help, and nearly fell twice before he got her on her feet and wrapped the soaked towel around her. He guided her to his desk and sat her down, closing out of his work projects. She chirped harshly at that. She was probably curious. He gave her a pat on the shoulder and set up a video playlist for children learning to speak. She flickered blue and stared intently.
With her occupied, he grabbed a stool from the kitchen and his tablet, sitting beside her and logging into his work files on the touch screen. It was entertaining hearing her learn to pronounce letters, and impressively fast. He caught her stealing glances at his work now and then, and left some pieces up for her to read or see diagrams.
It was in the middle of one of these that she surprised him. A diagram of someone's messed up schematic for a new cruise ship engine. He'd been in the middle of fixing the placement of the internal components to make ignition and propulsion more efficient when she took the device from him.
"Hey!", he reflexively snapped. She flickered green and put a hand on his chest gently. Sighing, he figured she needed some entertainment and resigned the device to her. First, though, he put his hand over hers and saved the file. She immediately deleted more than half of the components, and he felt a wave of relief that he had managed to save it in time. She continued making changes, and it started to look like she knew what she was doing. Eventually what she made looked like a pile of nonsense. Strange ignition systems in a pressurized chamber, and no fuel tank or fuel system at all. It made less sense the more she worked, and before he could react she'd copied the spots she had seen him tap and saved it over the original.
Shit.
He ran his fingers through his hair, he hugged a heavy puff of air. "That's...going to come back to bite me, isn't it..." She shimmered blue and green, pushing the tablet back at him. She gave a short trill, and turned her attention back to the video which currently taught her to say her first words in English.
"Aht'sz...ouu-kyaay."
No. No it isn't.
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