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Homecoming
"He refused to give in to the town that takes all..."

Home, as it turned out to be, was a loft on the third floor of an apartment complex not to far away from Jensen's "birthplace." The building itself was very .exe friendly, save for the fact that he had no way of opening the doors to the stairwell.

Rebecca frowned at him when he pointed this fact out. "You'll just have to take the elevator," she stated, as if this were obvious.

"By myself? That'd be too weird," he replied, appalled by the idea.

"... Maybe I can talk to the building manager about that. He can be a right b*****d though," she added at his eager look and joyful tail-wag, "so don't get your hopes up."

The standard.exe did his best to look mollified.

"Here we are." The duo stood before Apt. # [...]. They stared and waited, one eager, one hesitant. Rebecca paused at the door, still not quite used to the idea that she now owned a thinking, speaking pet. A shrug was her only option- if she really was that uncomfortable, she shouldn't have bought the damn thin- him in the first place. But she did and now he was her responsibility. It was one duty she wouldn't shirk.

"Sometimes, the door sticks," the young woman commented blandly, speaking simply to fill the silence while fishing about in her pocket for her keys.

Jensen made a happy little nose. "Home sweet home, neh?" His tail wagged, a surprisingly cheerful beat.

Rebecca coughed as she forced her way inside. "Something like that, I guess." She didn't sound to sure of herself.

Acting as tour guide, Rebecca pointed out areas of interest. "Entry way. Kitchen. Bathroom, no drinking out of the toilet. Living Room. Roommate's room," she called as he investigated a closed door, sniffing and snuffing, "so stay away from that. Our room is upstairs."

"Do we have a view?" The first words out of his mouth since entering were calm, but Jensen himself was quivering with excitement. He bolted up the staircase, having little trouble adjusting his gait to deal with the steps. The door was unlocked, he found as he pushed it with a paw, but still he hesitated at the threshold.

Rebecca noticed and waved him on ahead with a slightly bemused smile. "Go on, it's fine."

As he entered the room, he gave it a once over. After all, from now on, this was home. Jensen was distracted from investigating the various piles of stuff (the one closest to him appeared to be a stack of clean, but severely wrinkled laundry) that cluttered the floor, by a smear of of white across one of the blue walls.

"Ooo," he said, tail flicking back and forth in delight as he bounded over, "What's this?"

His new owner trailed after him. "It's a map," she said, still unsure what to make of her new pet. With a minimum of effort, she detached it from the large square of paper from wall, revealing the oversized dart board it had been hanging on. She seated herself on the floor, cross-legged, with the map held open like a newspaper in front of her.

Jensen thrust his head through the gap between her arm and her knee to nose at the paper curiously. "Of where?" he asked, nuzzling his head against her elbow. She shot him an unreadable look that slowly became a wry grin as she found herself scratching the top of his head. She could feel the .exe's approval as his tail whacked her repeatedly in the back of the head as he wagged it.

Rebecca cleared her throat, bringing his focus back to the matter at hand. "The world," she told him, a note of reverence in her voice- for the map or the world itself, Jensen couldn't tell. "This section," she indicated with a finger the square that had been predominately featured on the dart board, "is the continent of our current location. Aaaaand Calanom," she thrust a finger to a red ringed dot on the map with an extravagant flourish, "... is here."

"Hmm." Jensen appeared to consider this fact deeply for a moment. "Home sweet home." His gold eyes scanned the area nearby the dot that was home. "And these other red rings? What are they?"

"Those are places I've been." There weren't many of them, and almost all of the red rings he could see where circled around Calanom. He could tell from her smile, small and shy and so very very wistful, that this was something near and dear to her heart. Nostalgia, perhaps, as she thought about times past when she'd visited. There was a pressing need for him to get to know her- otherwise, living with her would be uncomfortable, at best. He could tell she was nervous, and maybe this, a comfortable and well loved subject of conversation, would help her to relax. Resting his head on her leg seemed to be just the encouragement she needed, for she started to list off each ring and when and why she'd gone.

Certain now that this was a good course of action, he phrased a question to her after she'd finished. "These green ones?" He pawed at one. Rebecca hissed at him, not a malicious sound, but a non verbal warning: don't rip the map. Jen ducked his head, properly chastized and removed his paw. She mustn't have been too upset, he figured, as she had given his head a conciliatory pat. Give and take, live and learn. That was the whole point of this exercise and as such, he still counted it as a victory.

"Those ones, are the places I want to go." The green rings out numbered the red ones by a great amount. Jensen blinked, clearly surprised. He waited, expectantly, but no list of reasons followed this admission. Looking up at her, he caught sight of the astonishingly guilty look on Rebecca's face. "I was never happy where I was. I always wanted to be somewhere- anywhere- else." To him she looked insatiably melancholy. This was not quite what he had envisioned. However, he saw no other options but to press on. He wrapped his tail around her, in an odd sort of hug, as encouragement to to continue. Jensen noticed that she had set the map carefully aside. Her fingers dug into his fur and he bit back a yelp. She must've noticed anyways, because she eased up, but did not stop her nervous petting.

"My mom got me this map when I was ten with the promise of a roadtrip. 'cept..." she paused, looking absolutely forlorn. Then she flushed and shook her head. "Things happened... and the road trip didn't." The young woman uttered the latter with an air of finality. Case closed, the prosecution rests. "It's stupid," she muttered. "To not want to be at home."

Jensen had the sneaking suspicion he wasn't supposed to hear that. She really underestimated the power of an .exe's ears.

"I don't know..." he began cautiously. "Home's not so bad if you know there's somebody waiting for you." He looked up at her, golden eyes hopeful and tail a wagging.

For a moment, she was like stone, rigid and unfeeling. Suddenly she was sagging, just the slightest bit, soft and warm and vulnerable. "Yeah," she answered, shakily at first, but more solid with each syllable she spoke. "You're right. Of course, you'd be right." Rebecca exhaled and returned Jensen's easy grin with one of her own.

Jensen's grin became more toothy as he radiated a palpable sense of joy. Then he moped slightly, his eye attracted by yet another mark on the map. "Oh, hey, there's a hole in it."

His owner laughed and he eyed her warily in response. Her expression became sheepish. "Yeah, well, it was hanging on the dart board. Normally it lives over there." She indicated a bare-spot on the wall to the side with a jerk of her chin as she folded the map and set it carefully aside. "Baxter, who I really must introduce you to and soon, started it." She reclined, resting on her arms and she leaned back to look at the ceiling. "He was sick of my constant debating of names for you. So he said we should leave it to fate. So, he set up the map and I tossed a dart and the nearest city was..."

"Jensen Beach," he answered for her, reading the name off the map. The .exe stood shock-still for a moment, digesting this information. "So... I'm not named after an uncle's wife's best friend's dearly departed hairdresser or anything." He didn't know if he should be disappointed or not. "There's no secret meaning to my name that sheds light on the deepest workings of my fragile psyche."

Rebecca considered this for a moment, turning the idea over in her mind. Finally, she shook her head slowly. "Nope. I just liked the way it sounded."

Jensen's expression was thoughtful. "Huh." Then he snapped back to his earlier perky demeanor. He gazed around the room, then looked back at his human, a sly grin on his face.

"So," he began. "Do you get the bed, or do I?"