Brina had not spoken much since yesterday, the only words which would come out of her mouth were either her own name or Carlton's name. In a way, Carlton was flattered that the siren kept repeating his name. However, at the same time, he wondered why she was doing this.

Now Carlton was sat in a meeting about his spacecraft, but his thoughts continuously came back to Brina.

Brina.

The name still sounded so amazing on his tongue. "Brina, Brina, Brina" Carlton had thought to himself with a smile, barely even listening about the rocket.

Carlton had two specific science teams, the first one which was the people who studied Brina and the second one who was currently studying the rocket but would study the symbiotes when they got to Earth in a few months time.

Doctor Dora Skirth, Carlton's most trusted scientist was the only one who had the opportunity of being on both teams. Currently, her main focus was on Brina since the symbiotes were not here yet, but once the symbiotes did arrive then her time was to be split equally between both Brina's unit and the symbiotes.

Carlton was to be the same. Once his symbiotes arrived things around the Life Foundation would get extremely busy. He would then be forced to split his time equally between Brina and the symbiotes, and that was not even counting the hundreds of meetings and paperwork he would be forced to do.

Carlton was drawn from his thoughts by the sound of his most trusted scientist's voice; Doctor Skirth. The woman was currently in the meeting about the rocket with him since she was working on this as well, Carlton leaving Callahan in charge of Brina while he and Doctor Skirth attended this meeting.

Slyly, Carlton's eyes slid to the clock, mentally groaning when he saw that he was stuck in the meeting for another hour. It wasn't that he was exactly bored, as anything involving either his symbiotes or Brina always interested him, it was just the fact that Brina had finally begun communicating. It was leaving him anxious to stand outside her containment cell and speak with her.

But alas, Carlton still had a whole other hour until he was free to go back to Brina's unit.

✰✰✰✰✰

"Now, what can I do to make a creature like you laugh?" Quinton Callahan asked Brina, Doctor Linkin rolling her eyes at Callahan's words.

In Cathrine Linkin's opinion, Quinton Callahan may have been a rather brilliant scientist, but he was also a great idiot. From his stupid puns to his sexist jokes, everything about the man irritated her. No matter the way his brown eyes shimmered when he laughed or how good he looked in his white lab coat, and don't even get her started on that accent of his. She especially hated that stabbing feeling in her heart when he spoke about how good his previous one nightstand had been.

Oh yes, Catherine Linkin had it bad for Doctor Quinton Callahan, but she would deny it until her very last breath. After all, the stupid Scot was possibly the biggest player she had ever come across, and that was saying a lot.

"Hey," The sporty redhead narrowed her eyes at him. "You are not supposed to be talking to her, Mr. Drake said." Doctor Linkin spat causing Callahan to look at her and smirk.

Brina tilted her head from where she sat on her bed, drowning out the television and bringing her attention to the humans in the room. In the past few hours, rather than watch the television, she had been watching the scientists interact with each other. She was sucking in any and all knowledge of humans, deciding that since they were studying her, she would essentially study them as well.

"No," She watched Quinton Callahan look at the redhaired scientist. "You all are not supposed to talk to her. Dora and I are Carlton's favorites, he doesn't care if we talk to her." Quinton bragged making steam practically shoot out of Catherine's ears, her face going red with anger.

Oh, Catherine absolutely loathed when Callahan threw the fact that he and Dora were Doctor Drake's favorites in her face. Not only that, but the Scottish man even had the audacity to refer to Doctor Drake as "Carlton" so casually, like they were the best buddies. It simply was not fair in Cathrine's mind, sure she was new, but why did Doctor Skirth and Callahan get special treatment. Herself and the others were busting their butts just as much as the two of them, and yet none of them got all the money and extra vacation time that those two got.

However, Catherine would never in a million years express her thoughts out loud. Everyone knew you simply did not talk to Carlton Drake about matters such as that. Not unless you wanted to get fired.

"Are you kidding me right now? You think you are so much better than the rest of us?" Catherine seethed, motioning to the other scientists who only focused on their work, not wanting to get involved with this situation.

Quinton smiled, admiring how the redhead looked when she was angry. "You know, you are rather cute when you're angry." He had no shame in flirting, Catherine's cheeks turning pink despite her best efforts to stop it.

God, she felt like she was in highschool again.

Catherine sputtered, before shaking her head, and sticking her nose firmly in her work. "Don't you try and butter me up with flattery. And you know what, I don't even care, because when Doctor Drake walks in here and sees you speaking with her, you'll have hell to pay, Scottish man."

Quinton chortled at the nickname, simply winking at his cute co-worker. "Whatever you say, red."

Catherine only growled at the nickname, Quinton turning back to the subject who was staring at him curiously. Even Brina could smell the sexual tension between the two, and it had her wondering whether it was normal for humans to deny themselves from mating. In the ocean, if you were attracted to somebody, you wasted no time in approaching them and mating with them.

However, for sirens, once you mate with somebody, you are mated for life. Therefore, finding an attraction to somebody was difficult as attractions did not pop up often. Maybe only six times in an entire life, which for a siren was not many as they lived until a thousand. That was why once a siren found their first attraction, they generally jumped at the opportunity as they never knew when the next would arise.

For Brina and her sister, they had yet to come across a strong enough attraction for them to want to mate. In fact, for Brina, the strongest attraction she had ever come across was probably the liking she had taken to Carlton Drake. There was a reason that she continued to mumble his name.

As Brina sat on the bed watching Callahan who was grinning at her, she could not stop herself from wondering when Carlton was going to come back. He had stopped by briefly a few hours ago both to say hello to her and to pick Skirth up for a meeting.

"AHA!" Her attention focused on Callahan whose eyes lit up as if he thought up the best thing in the world. "I got it, I'll tell you a joke!" He cried, Brina not knowing what a joke was but willing to listen.

"What do my dick and a Rubix cube have in common?" Callahan questioned, Catherine, looking up with a loud gasp, glaring harshly at Quinton.

"Quinton!" She hissed, Callahan only turning to her with a wink.

Brina did not know what a "dick" nor a "Rubix cube" was leaving her clueless. Standing from the bed, deciding that she would prefer communicating with Callahan rather than watch some more television, she slowly inched closer to the wall of glass separating them.

"I do not know," Brina answered in her silvery accented voice.

Her voice still mystified the other scientists, all of them in disbelief that she truly was not mute and that her voice sounded so angelic.

With a grin, Callahan looked to Brina, ecstatic that he was actually speaking with her. "The more you play with it, the harder it gets!" Quinton slapped his knee, falling into a fit of laughter while Catherine gasped.

The other scientists watched Brina's reaction seeing her confusion. They decided to stay out of whatever was happening between Catherine and Quinton, opting to focus on their work.

"I do not understand." Brina finally answered. "What is a dick and a Rubix cube?" She inquired causing Callahan to burst with even more laughter.

Brina simply crossed her arms over her chest, enjoying the softness of her shirt while watching Callahan laugh. Why he was laughing, Brina had no clue. However, for Catherine that was the last straw.

"Quinton! You are such an idiot and I could seriously kill you--!" Catherine stood, marching up to Quinton poking his chest as if to pick a fight with him.

She was harshly throwing insults and scolding him, Callahan still cackling madly while he watched the pretty redhead scream at him. He was not focusing on what she was saying, but rather what it would feel like to kiss those soft pink lips of hers. He always did have a soft spot for redheads.

Tilting her head, Brina furrowed her brows. If she did not know any better she would say the two were squabbling like an old mated couple. Why were they so adamant on denying the obvious attraction they held for each other?

"Is it normal for you humans to deny yourself to mate?" Brina questioned while narrowing her eyes.

The entire room went silent, nobody used to Brina speaking in general but the question which flew from her mouth was completely unexpected. Quinton and Catherine both turned to Brina with wide eyes, a blush spread heavily upon both their cheeks.

"N-NO!" Quinton quickly denied. "In fact, I mate with somebody almost every night." Brina's raised her eyebrows at that, tilting her head and stepping so she was just a few inches from the glass.

The other scientists had quickly taken to writing the interaction happening, describing the sound of Brina's voice and accent to the best of their ability. They were also describing the personality traits that Brina had shown in the past two weeks that she had been here.

"Is that normal for your species to do?" Brina automatically asked, Callahan, shrugging in reply. "Because mating with anything and everything in sight seems like a horrible thing to do." She explained, shaking her head at the thought of it.

Catherine glared at Quinton, hitting the back of his head harshly. "No, most people do not mate anything and everything in sight. Quinton is the exception." Catherine quickly explained, turning around and making sure that the other scientists were writing down this conversation.

Once she saw that they were, she sighed looking back at Brina with an idea pricking at the forefront of her mind. "Is it normal for your species? Do you mate often?" Really, Catherine wanted to ask Brina so many questions, she had since day one.

But with Carlton's rule of only him communicating with the siren for the first few weeks, she believed she would never be able to ask her questions. Even with this opportunity presenting itself for her to ask her questions, Catherine took the smart route and refrained from overloading the subject as she did not want Brina to close up again.

Quinton mentally scolded himself for acting stupid in front of the siren, but he too was curious of Brina's answer to Catherine's question. Perhaps Quinton had been underestimating Catherine, it seemed that she was incredibly smarter than he gave her credit for. He may just put in good word for her with Carlton.

Studying both Quinton and Catherine, Brina was willing to bet that they would be a couple within the next few months.

"No..." Brina decided to answer their questions for the first time since she had been here. "In the ocean, we mate for life. You see, with my species we live for a long time. Approximately 365,000 cycles so it can get rather lonely. In our entire lives, we will be attracted to about six people maybe seven if we are lucky, so usually, we will mate with the first one we are attracted to as you never know when the next attraction will arise." The answer was far longer than anyone was expecting to hear, even Brina did not think she would spill that much.

However, she saw no harm in answering the human's questions. After all, she was quite curious about their species as well.

The other scientists quickly wrote everything she had said down, Emerson shaking his head while speaking to Billings. "Holy shit," He muttered, Billings nodding back.

   "Holy shit is right!"

Doctor Callahan was astonished, his mind quickly flipping the switch. No longer was he in the joking laid-back mood, no his fascination had been peaked. He never thought that he and Catherine of all people would be the first ones to truly have the first conversation with the siren. Once Carlton found out, he would no doubt throw a fit, but he would get over it once he saw how much information they had gotten out of this.

"Hold on," Brina looked to Callahan who was now standing next to Catherine just in front of the glass. If the glass was not there, then Brina and them would be just a few inches apart. "Just a few days ago you were unable to understand any of what we we're saying, but now you are fluent in English?" He raised his brows, Catherine nodding along.

Brina pursed her lips while nodding. "Well, can you blame me? Your language is not exactly easy to pick up, so sorry if it took me a couple of cycles to become fully fluent in it. If it were as easy as the language of the whales I would have picked up on it in hours." She huffed with a roll of her eyes, Catherine's mouth dropping open. "Besides, I don't see any of you making an attempt at speaking my language." Brina accused, Callahan, flapping his hands about shaking his head in disbelief.

He could not believe that this was the same siren from two days ago. What happened to the naive little thing sitting watching the television or peeing her pants? Well, apparently she didn't exist!

"What?" Callahan spoke in disbelief, looking around to see if anyone else was seeing this. "How in the hell is this even possible." He threw his arms in the air, Catherine quickly grabbing her own notepad and writing down notes.

"Someone video this!" She ordered, Billings wasting no time in starting a video.

Brina gave him a 'duh' expression, jerking her head toward the television. "I have been here for 14 cycles, the magic box and watching you humans taught me enough." As soon as Brina brought up cycles again, they all realized that the cycle must have been her way of telling time.

"Wait," Catherine's face drained of color, her eyes reflected pure shock. "You said your kind lives for approximately 350,000 cycles and assuming cycles is our equivalent to days that means..." Catherine mentally did the math. "Your kind lives for one-thousand years!" She exclaimed, causing Callahan to choke and the others to begin scribbling things down at the speed of light.

Shrugging, Brina got a thoughtful expression on her face. "I suppose." She murmured while nodding. "Yes, that sounds about right. I mean I would not exactly know as I haven't a clue how your species tells 'time'." She said time in an odd voice as if the concept still confused her.

Brina jumped slightly at the looks of awe she was receiving, tilting her head. "What are those looks for? How long do you humans live for?" She could not imagine that humans lived for a short amount of time as they were the dominant creature of the land.

"Give or take; we live for about seventy-five years." Catherine breathed, Brina's face twisting into one of shock.

Gaping, Brina shook her head. "But that is just a blink of an eye, I thought your species had at least 182,500 cycles!" She exclaimed, Quinton, shaking his head.

"Nope, I wish we had five-hundred years." He had done the math in his head. "Wow, this is unbelievable." He placed a hand on his head. "Is this normal for your species? Adapting to your surroundings and learning this quickly?"

"Yes," Catherine's excitement was growing, her right hand clicking her pen repeatedly as she listened to the beautiful voice speaking to her. "We can all turn to have the appearance of a human and we learn quickly in order to blend in with our surroundings. But we do not like to transform often." Brina explained, Emerson deciding to take a chance in yelling out a question.

"Why?" Brina's eyes darted to Emerson who stood by his computer, her head tilting as she wondered exactly what the miniature version of the magic box did.

"The transformation is very painful..." She caught sight of Billings video taping her, and she wondered what exactly the video camera was. "Especially the first one, I was just lucky I was sleeping through it," Brina stated, keeping her eyes locked on the video camera.

"Wait, that was your first transformation. On your way here?" Catherine asked softly.

"Yes," Brina nodded. "I've never been on the land before the men caught me in their net. What is that?" Brina pointed toward the camera, Callahan and Linkin turning toward the video camera.

A large grin grew on her lips, Linkin slowly motioning to the camera. "It's called a video-recorder and we use it to video things we want to remember." She explained, Brina snapping her head to look at the red-haired woman.

"Video?" Brina said in a questioning tone.

"Uhm, it's like..." Quinton scratched his head trying to find the best way to explain it to her. A lightbulb went off in his head, the male quickly taking his cell phone out of his pocket, going to the video section. "Like this." He said proudly while playing a video of himself at some random karaoke bar last week.

He brought the phone up to the glass, Brina taking in the video with curiosity. Her eyes were wide when she saw Quinton on the phone, eyes gaze flashing back to him and the video him making sure he was still here and not on the phone.

She made a noise of wonder, placing her hand on the glass while taking in the video. "Amazing." She expressed, the video ending far too quickly for her liking.

Looking back to the video recorder, Brina waved at it causing Catherine to giggle lightly. Before any more questions could be asked, the door to the lab burst open and Carlton Drake walked in with Dora Skirth trailing him.

"Sorry, we're late, the meeting was extremely important and went overtime--" Carlton cut himself off when he saw the scene before him, Dora's eyes widening at the sight as well.

Doctor Callahan and Doctor Linkin were standing just in front of the glass, Brina standing close to them on the other side of the glass. Everyone's eyes snapped away from whatever they had been doing before the two walked in, their attention now on Carlton and Dora.

"What's happening?" Carlton questioned, walking toward Catherine and Quinton slowly, his gaze going back and forth between them and Brina.

Dora trailed behind her, gaze stuck on Brina who was giving a surprising amount of attention to all of them. More so than she ever had, it seemed.

Immediately, all of the scientists in the room began talking at once, their words rushed with excitement and glee. Quinton's accent got stronger with his exhilaration, so much so that understanding him was now impossible for anyone who wasn't Scottish.

Shaking his head in irritation, Carlton held up a hand motioning for everyone to be quiet. "Be quiet!" He snapped, everyone quickly shutting up in fear of their boss.

Carlton was not a mean boss; however, he could be extremely scary and strict at times.

Calmly, with Brina in the corner of his eye, he looked at Callahan expectantly. Catherine Linkin nearly rolled her eyes, of course, Carlton would choose his star pupil to explain what happened. It was not like the others in the room hadn't seen what happened.

With a smile, Quinton quickly stepped closer. "Carlton, it's Brina. She's more than we ever thought, none of us realized how much she's adapted, she understands almost everything and has been answering our questions--"

Brina furrowed her eyes, feeling insulted at Quinton's words. She did not mostly understand everything, she did understand everything.

"I understand everything, Quinton, I don't see you trying to learn my language!" Brina exclaimed, her tone giving away that she was insulted.

Both Carlton's and Dora's eyes widened, their attention turning fully to Brina who was standing scowling at Quinton. Slowly, a grin formed on Carlton's lips, his gaze never leaving Brina.

"How long has this been going on? And why wasn't I called?" Carlton questioned while keeping his gaze set firmly on Brina.

If this was what happened when he left the room, he never wanted to leave again. How much had he missed?

"Only about fifteen minutes, and we have most of everything recorded!" Catherine Linkin quickly said with excitement as she looked to Brina whose gaze moved to her.

"I still don't understand why you and Quinton are denying the chance to mate with each other," Brina said causing everyone to go quiet, a blush going onto both of said people's cheeks.

With his brows furrowed in confusion, Carlton looked back and forth between Callahan, Linkin, and Brina. "Wait, what?"

"I also still do not know what a Rubix cube or a dick is?"

It was silent for a few moments before Carlton narrowed his eyes turning to a sheepish looking Callahan.

"CALLAHAN!"