Tried several variant rewrites, but they weren't where I wanted this to go.

They started meeting up on Tuesdays and Saturdays for lunch, and she had a standing invitation to visit his parents for dinner on Tuesday nights. Initially she'd gone to get away from the dining hall food - Calvin's mother's cooking wasn't nearly as bad as he'd always claimed. After a couple weeks, though, she'd realized that she liked spending time with him. They talked about things as he gave her a ride to his house and back, and frequently ended up hanging out in his room as his mother finished up dinner.

She sat on his bed, flipping through a sketchbook. "You've really gotten good at this," she said, looking at a picture of a bird. It was just a rough sketch, but she could see the skill involved, the subtle strokes that brought it to life.

He shrugged. "Dad wanted me to do something with," and his voice dropped into a fair imitation of his father's voice, "a real future." He grinned. "Mom argued that art hadn't hurt her, and now that she's working in graphic design again, she can try to get me an internship when I'm ready. If I'm ready."

"You need to pass English for that to be an option," she said with just a bit of snark.

He shrugged, then turned to Hobbes. "Don't you start." The tiger, as always, didn't react. "Actually, Susie, I need to ask you a favor."

"I'm not writing your English paper for you," she said primly.

"No, not that. It's for my drawing class. I need...would you be willing to model for me?"

"Model...how?"

"Wear something you like, sit in a chair long enough for me to get the sketch done. Simple."

"Oh. Sure."

"Thanks. It means a lot to me."

She flipped through her small wardrobe, trying to find something that felt right. This wasn't a date, so she didn't really want to dress up; she was just doing a favor for a friend. But he'd said to wear something she liked, and she didn't get enough chance to wear her dressier clothes.

"If I didn't know better, I'd swear you were getting ready for a date," Kristin said.

"That's silly. I just want to look good while I'm modeling."

"What, it's not nude?"

"No, of course not." Susie picked out a blue dress Calvin hadn't seen her in before. It was modest but attractive, and she'd always liked how she looked in it.

"Why not?"

Susie paused. "Well, that's not what he asked for."

"If he had, would you do it?"

She looked over at Kristen, who was grinning. "I don't think so."

"You sure? You two seem to spend an awful lot of time together."

"He's just a friend," Susie said quickly.

Susie sat still on the park bench, one arm stretched along the back, trying to move as little as possible. Calvin sat on the grass a few feet away, alternating between looking up at her with a practiced eye and intently sketching. Finally, he paused and smiled at the drawing briefly before frowning again.

"No. The face isn't right yet."

"Am I doing it wrong?" she asked. "Sorry, it's a little chilly."

"Sorry about that. I'm almost done. It just needs a different expression." He thought for a moment, then said, "That's it. Remember the time I tried to lure you into the back yard with a note that I accidentally dropped..."

"And I ambushed you instead. How could I forget?" Susie laughed, and Calvin sketched madly.

"Perfect, thank you," he said, then looked down at the picture and nodded in satisfaction. He turned it around and showed it to her. He'd caught her in mid-laugh, and the picture was so beautifully-done she had a hard time believing it was her.

"Thank you," he repeated. "That was exactly what I needed. Now I need to ink it."

"You're welcome. Can I see it when you're done?"

He smiled at her. "Absolutely."

A sudden warm spell had hit, and Susie was enjoying a final chance to wear shorts before autumn turned cold again.

She saw Calvin's car in the café parking lot, with him sitting on the hood. She waved, and he broke into a broad smile.

"Hey, Susie! Think fast!" he said, tossing something to her. She caught it out of reflex; it was a squirt gun. Just as she realized that, she felt a cold spray of water hit her bare leg.

"Ah! You!" she shouted, ducking behind a trashcan as she pumped up the squirt gun. Fortunately, it was full of water, so when she broke around the corner and sprayed at where he'd been, it fired; unfortunately, he'd moved.

"Gotcha!" he said, attacking from the side and hitting her in the chest.

"Calvin!" she yelled, chasing after him, squirt gun firing.

He ran, dodging across the mostly-empty parking lot, firing back until they both ran out of water.

She caught up to him, panting. "Any particular reason for that?"

"Nope," he said with a grin. "Just felt like it." He glanced down, then quickly glanced back up, looking her in the eyes with an embarrassed expression.

She looked down, realizing that she'd picked a white shirt today, which was now wet enough that it was obvious her bra was light yellow. She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him.

"Sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to do that."

Shaking her head, she led him in to get some lunch.

It was the final party before Thanksgiving break, at a different fraternity; Susie wasn't sure how Calvin had gotten an invitation. She was careful to keep an eye on her drinks this time, watching them get poured and covering them with her hand when she wasn't drinking out of them. Calvin didn't comment, but she noticed that he was keeping an eye on her drinks as well.

He suddenly waved to a tall, dark-skinned young man across the room, who came over to greet them. "Hey, Calvin! How've you been? Who's this?"

"Rob, this is Susie, an old friend who used to live next door to me way back when. Susie, this is Rob, a friend of mine from high school."

Rob nodded. "Is this the young lady that Billy caused problems for?"

"Yes, she is," Calvin said.

Rob bowed to her. "On behalf of my brothers, please accept my apologies for Billy's actions. Even though he was not fully one of us yet, his unacceptable actions were done under color of membership. We are truly sorry."

Susie smiled. "Thank you. And thank you for your..."

Rob waved her quiet. "He left on his own before we could remove him, but I suspect one of my brothers may have helped. Apparently one of them placed some alcohol in his room just before his parents arrived."

Susie glanced at Calvin, who was barely suppressing a smile. "Oh, is that what happened?" Calvin asked. "We heard the blow-up when his mother found it."

"We're not sure who it was; everybody denies it was them," Rob said. "The fraternity president was furious, but without a culprit, there isn't a lot he can do."

"Last I heard, Billy's transferring at the end of the semester. His mother wants him closer, where she can keep an eye on him," Susie said.

"Better for all parties involved, then," Rob said. He raised his glass to her. "Nice meeting you, Susie."

"Susie, welcome home," her mother said, giving her a hug at the airport. She'd flown back for Thanksgiving break, and really didn't have the heart to tell her mother that a place she'd never been before wasn't really home.

Her room had been unpacked, and her mother had arranged it as best she could, but...it wasn't right. But then, she never really had had a home for more than a couple years at a time. Now she was at college, but she knew that was only going to be temporary too. Will I ever have a home to call my own?

Her mother had offered to take her out shopping for Black Friday, but she'd decided not to go along for the pre-dawn sales. She'd borrow her father's car and meet her mother for lunch at a reasonable hour instead.

She was reading her history textbook when her phone rang, the sounds of Eye of the Tiger indicating that it was Calvin. Her father looked up from his newspaper, shrugged, and went back to his reading as she wandered up to her room for some privacy.

"Hey, Calvin. What's up?"

"I had to tell somebody about this. Awesome Tales of Adventure got mentioned in today's Penny Arcade newspost!"

"That's good?" she asked.

"That's fantastic!" he said. "Penny Arcade is huge, and I found out early enough to warn my webhost. They've bumped up my bandwidth for the month if I give them a promo. I'm getting literally thousands of times more page hits than usual. If even a small chunk of them stick around, Awesome Tales starts making money for me."

"Oh, that's great!"

"How are you doing?" he asked casually.

"Enh. Mom's Mom. Doesn't quite get why I'm not thrilled to be home when 'home' is somewhere I've never been before. I mean, I suppose home is where my parents are, but..."

"Home's always more about the people than the place, I think," Calvin said.

"Easy for you to say. You've lived in that house forever."

"I wasn't talking about that home. Think about the people you want to spend time with."

She paused, thinking. "By that definition, I'm going home on Sunday when I fly back."

"Why, thank you."

"It's quiet here without you," she said.

He laughed. "We'll fix that, that's for sure. Wanna go explore the steam tunnels when you get back?"