Author's Note: Hey everyone! This is a sequel to 'House of the Month' so, if your reading this and you haven't read that one....You should :) Please review! Thanks for reading, guys!

Disclaimer: Don't own Dollhouse. Don't remind me. :)

Chapter One,

Washington D.C.

"Miss Halverson, we want you to train a new programmer, he's coming in a couple of days. But we want to bring in a programmer from another house while you train him, so that you don't get behind on other work."

"A new programmer?" She asked, surprised.

"Yes," Her boss replied, nodding. "Like I said, I'm trying to contact someone from another house so that while you train the new programmer there can be another programmer to do the work you get behind on. I'm thinking about contacting the Chicago house--"

"No!--I mean," She cleared her throat. "Sir, if you don't mind, I was hoping we could contact the L.A. house instead? I trust their programmer." She said, hopefully.

He considered it for a moment, "I suppose that's fine, I'll contact Miss Dewitt, then."

"Yes, sir, thank you sir." She said, smiling and jumping to her feet, but then paused. "When does the other programmer arrive? And who is he?"

"His name is James Stephenson. He's young, but a genius.--Not so much as you, I'll admit, but that's why we want you training him. He'll arrive the day after tomorrow. And hopefully, we can get Mr. Brink to come by tomorrow morning."

Los Angeles, California,

"You don't have any objections, I suppose?" Adelle asked Topher, with an amused look on her face.

"No, no! Of course not. Sounds perfect." He said, excitedly.

"Do you think Ivy can handle your job for a while? Who knows how long they want you for." Adelle said, shaking her head.

"Ivy will be fine, and if she needs me she can just program one of the dolls as me." Topher said, "Come on! Please? Let me go?" He pleaded, in a rather childish way.

"I suppose I have no other objections." Adelle decided, "Go pack up your things, they want you there by tomorrow morning, and it's a long flight."

Washington D.C.

"So, whose coming, Ben?" One of the handlers, David Quinn, asked her.

"Topher Brink and James Stephenson." Bennett said, without turning to look at the man. She busily typed away in front of the computer screen.

"Topher Brink? Isn't he the L.A. programmer? The one who hit you?" Quinn asked her, raising his eyebrows.

"He isn't abusive, Quinn, he's not like you." Bennett said, rolling her eyes.

"Abusive? Why would you call me that? I've never hurt you." He objected.

"Leave me alone." Bennett said, sighing.

"He doesn't deserve you. Guys like that don't deserve you, Ben."

"You've never even met him, how should you know?" Bennett argued. She was so sick of David Quinn.

"He hit you."

"He was protecting his active. I would have done the same thing." Bennett argued.

"So he chose his active over you?" Quinn asked, tilting his head sideways a bit.

"That's not how it was. Can you go away now, please? I'm busy." Bennett said, hoping he'd leave.

"Anything for you, Ben." He said, shrugging and leaving. With an amused smirk on his face.


The Next Day,

Bennett check her appearance once more before sitting down, and waiting not-so-patiently for Topher to arrive. She glanced at her watch. Two minutes late. It felt more like two hours. She could hardly stand the wait. She got to her feet and began to pace back and forth, suddenly there was a ding and the elevator doors opened. She looked over, a smile spreading across her face. "Topher..." She said, smiling at him.

"Bennett!" He said, with a grin, stepping off the elevator.

There was a moment where they stood there awkwardly, not sure what to do. After a moment though, a smile broke out again across both of their faces, and they hugged.

"I missed you." She told him, with a smile. "I'm glad you could come."

"Me too." He said, cheerfully. He looked around and then sniffed slightly. "I like the way it smells here, I don't know what you were complaining about." He said, nudging her in the arm.

She blushed a little, "I just...Oh you know." She turned around. "Want something to drink?" She offered, leading him to a small kitchen area.

"Sure. Thanks." He said, cheerfully.

Bennett got him something to drink and smiled at him. "You look well, how have you been?"

"Okay. Doing so much better now." He said, grinning at her. "I forgot how gorgeous you are." He said, causing Bennett to blush once more.

"How could you forget?" Came a voice from the doorway.

"Go away, Quinn." Bennett groaned.

"I just wanted to meet your guest." He objected, coming over and looking skeptically at Topher. "Hmm. Your Topher Brink, huh?" He asked him.

"Um. Yes." Topher said, feeling a little uncomfortable. Who was this guy? Whoever he was, he probably wasn't that great. Because Bennett appeared to hate him.

Quinn looked at Topher for a moment, then extended his hand. "David Quinn."

"Nice to..Er...Meet you." Topher said, "If you don't mind me asking though, um, what do you do here? Are you the new programmer?"

"No. I'm a handler." He explained.

"Ohhh, okay."

Later, when Quinn was gone, Topher glanced at Bennett. "So, what's up with him?"

"I can't stand the sight of that man. He can't take no for an answer." Bennett said, sounding annoyed at the very mention of him.

"You mean...Like...He wants you? That kind of 'he can't take no for an answer' ?" Topher asked, suddenly very annoyed at the man as well.

"Something like that, I suppose." Bennett said, but then changed the subject. "Let's not talk about that, I'm just glad your here."

"To save you from creeps like that?"

"Exactly." She grinned at him.