The late morning sun filtered through the floor-to-ceiling windows at Quantum Nexus HQ, casting long, angled shadows across the polished hardwood. Elian sat curled into a plush couch in the executive lounge, bare feet tucked under him, a bowl of half-eaten oatmeal sitting neglected beside a blinking tablet. He stared at the screen, but his mind was clearly miles away from whatever technical document it displayed.
Across from him, Jenna leaned against the opposite wall, arms crossed, one eyebrow raised in a familiar gesture of amused exasperation.
"You realize you haven't gone home in four days," she stated, her voice a calm observation.
Elian looked up, blinking slowly as if surfacing from deep water. "You're the one who keeps dragging me into 2 a.m. debugging marathons, you know."
"Sure," she said, pushing off the wall and walking towards him with a deliberate, unhurried pace. "But three of those nights, you slept in my apartment. The other one, we fell asleep on the server room floor. Which, for the record, is surprisingly uncomfortable."
He blinked again. "Didn't feel like the floor."
"That's because you used my jacket as a pillow, you parasite." She dropped onto the couch next to him, the cushions sighing, and nudged his thigh with her knee. He didn't move. She didn't either.
There was a long, warm pause between them—the kind that didn't demand breaking, filled only by the quiet hum of the building and the distant city sounds of Tallinn.
Then Jenna said, softly, her voice barely above a whisper, "I was thinking. Maybe it's time we stop orbiting."
Elian turned to her, momentarily confused. "Orbiting what? The planet? Our coffee machine?"
"Each other's lives, Elian. Our places. Our logistics. We're not just coworkers or crash-space roommates anymore. We haven't been for a while, have we?"
He didn't interrupt. He simply listened, his gaze fixed on her. She continued, her words deliberate.
"I'm tired of watching you fall asleep sitting up in uncomfortable chairs. And of trying to remember where you left your second toothbrush in my bathroom. Or whether you've eaten anything besides Neurobrew-laced protein bars."
"That's fair," Elian said, a faint smile touching his lips. "I've also used your ridiculously expensive shampoo more times than I'm proud of."
She smiled faintly in return. "That stuff's expensive, by the way. I'm going to start sending you invoices."
They fell silent again, the comfortable quiet stretching between them.
Then Elian tilted his head, a question in his eyes. "So you want to… officially move in? Together?"
Jenna nodded, meeting his gaze. "Not because it's convenient. Not because it makes logical sense for our work schedules. But because it's real. Because I like waking up and seeing your chaotic mess on my counters. I like the fact you still write complex equations on paper napkins and tape them to the fridge."
He smiled slowly, genuinely. "I like when you rearrange my sentences mid-paper because you think I'm too dramatic or imprecise."
"You are," she said.
"But I let you."
"You do."
He reached for her hand without ceremony, his fingers intertwining with hers. "Then yeah. Let's find a place. A home. Somewhere to actually land."
A Place to Land
The first house they toured was too sterile—an all-glass loft overlooking the city, meticulously designed, but it looked like it had never truly been lived in. Its automated voice lighting and polished floors echoed like a parking garage.
"I feel like I'm not allowed to sit down," Jenna muttered, looking around with disdain.
Elian nodded. "Also, I'm pretty sure the couch costs more than all of our initial patent filings combined."
The second one, a charming older house on the outskirts of Tallinn, had character—creaky wood floors, multiple skylights, a quirky sunroom that Elian unexpectedly loved—but no smart wiring, no direct fiber trunk line, and the HVAC dated back to the Soviet era.
"I'd have to build a full Faraday cage in the bedroom just to keep Muse from crashing the local grid when I'm debugging remotely," Elian said, already calculating infrastructure upgrades.
"Or you could just sleep," Jenna countered, deadpan. "Like a human. Without a wireless connection to an AI."
He blinked. "That... feels aggressive."
The third house had genuine potential. It was located in a quiet, leafy neighborhood with a hillside view of the city. It boasted a built-in smart grid, dual office spaces, excellent soundproofing, and even lab-grade ventilation systems. There was a garden in the back, clearly loved by a previous owner, where someone had once tried (and mostly succeeded) to grow something. They toured it mid-morning. The light was perfect, warm and inviting. The walls didn't feel like echoes; they felt like quiet canvases.
Jenna walked through each room slowly, quietly, hands behind her back, taking it all in. She paused in the hallway—where two spacious bedrooms sat across from each other, one with better morning sun, the other more private and secluded.
She turned to him, a decisive look on her face. "This is it."
Elian looked up from the central hub room, where he'd already found a perfectly sized, built-in server nook. "You're sure?"
She nodded. "It's not trying to impress anyone. It just works. It feels... lived-in, but with potential."
He smiled. "Like me, then."
She squinted at him playfully. "No, Elian, you're full of delightful chaos and compulsive overthinking. But this house? This is the house that would genuinely wait up for you if you forgot your keys. It has good bones."
Elian considered that, a warmth spreading through him. Then he gently tapped the nearest wall, the sound solid and comforting. "Let's make it ours."
By the end of the week, the paperwork was signed, quick and efficient thanks to Quantum Nexus's new legal team.
They didn't tell many people. Not yet. There was too much else going on with the Quantum Nexus expansion. But late one evening, Jenna stood in the still-empty living room, arms crossed, watching the last slivers of twilight fade across the hardwood floors. Elian came in carrying two mugs—her preferred ginger-honey tea and his unnervingly strong, almost tar-like, black coffee.
He handed her the tea and looked around the vast, echoing space.
"No furniture yet," he said, the words hanging in the quiet. "But it already feels less temporary than anywhere I've ever lived."
She nodded, taking a slow sip of her tea. "Because this isn't the end of something, Elian. It's just the beginning."
Elian nudged her gently with his elbow, a playful glint in his eyes. "You're not going to let me pick the furniture, are you?"
"Oh, absolutely not," she confirmed without hesitation.
"Do I at least get to choose where the couch goes?"
She took another slow sip of tea, her eyes meeting his, utterly deadpan. "No."
Elian grinned, a genuine, joyful sound escaping him. "This is already perfect."
She smirked, but didn't disagree.
And outside, the quiet Tallinn neighborhood faded into dusk, unaware that a new phase of history—private, quiet, and undeniably human—had just begun behind those softly lit windows.