Long day, yes it was. Ethan PINpoints into the apartment he shares with Jubilee and is quickly and excitedly welcomed by Tobin.

"DADDY! You're home! You've been gone forever, I thought you'd never come home." Tobin wagged happily, the collar translating his thoughts.

Ethan bent down to pet Tobin with his one clean hand. "Tobin, sometime I'll try to explain time to you. I don't think you understand it like people do. I've only been gone since this morning."

Tobin follows Ethan as he walks to the bathroom, stripping out of his ectoplasm and mud covered flight suit. He tosses it in the hamper and turns on the shower. Stepping inside he leans against the wall, letting the hot water run over his muscular form and wash away the aches and ectoplasm.

Ethan didn't know if Jubes was home or not, she'd been busy lately with work. He was glad she seemed to be enjoying what she was doing.

Ethan had decided to take the big step and move in with Jubilee, but before he could do that he had some work ahead of him. Namely how to figure out how to patch the alarm bell at the firehouse into the PINpoint to alert him when he was needed for a call. He carefully took it apart after getting a few spares from the Nexus, after all he didn't want to not be able to get back there if he screwed it up.

He called Egon in on this one. The two of them examined and pored over the complicated electronics.

"This is truly fascinating Ethan." Said Egon. "I'd love to examine it further."

"Sure Egon, I'll get another one next time I'm in the Nexus and you can play with it til your heart's content." Ethan replied.

"Hmmm, it appears to have a universal translator built in to it. This could be worth billions. Of course it would be unethical to make such a thing available to just anyone when we're not the inventors." Egon said and Ethan nodded in agreement.

"I wonder though...." Ethan mused.

"What's that?" Egon prompted.

"I was just thinking.. if I could miniaturize it and build it into a collar I wonder if Tobin could speak..." Ethan raised a brow.

"A sound hypothesis." Egon nodded. "It seems to be self contained in a small chip in the unit. Perhaps if we removed it, we could fashion such a device."

"Well I've got a few spares." Ethan said, taking another apart. "I'm definitely going to try it. That would be GREAT!" He removed the chip from a spare and set it aside.

"So what I'm trying to do is upgrade my PINpoint so that it will send an alert to me when Janine sounds the alarm and then immediately open a portal to the firehouse so that.." Ethan was cut off by Peter chiming in who had just entered the room.

"Hey Sparky, I noticed your stuff is all packed. You moving in with that sweet piece of a..."

"You finish that sentence Venkman and you'll be picking your teeth off the floor." Ethan growled.

"Whaat?" Peter asked, with a look of innocence on his face. "I just appreciate a fine body and a tight little ass when I se.." his next words were cut as Ethan turned from the table, grabbed Peter by the front of his flight suit and slammed him against the lockers so hard that all the contents inside clattered to the ground. Ethan's nose was mere inches from Peter's.

"I've warned you multiple times to do a few things for me. One was to stop flirting with my girl. Two was to stop objectifying her. Three was to treat her with respect." His fists clenched in the fabric of Peter's clothing. "You're apparently either fucking deaf or you're stupid." He pulled Peter away from the lockers and then slammed him back into them.

"Ethan, calm down." Egon said in a quieting tone. "Stay out of this Egon." Ethan growled through grit teeth.

"Hey listen here Rookie." Peter said, trying to push Ethan back only to have Ethan's more powerful body push him back again with a clatter. "No YOU listen old perv!" Ethan yelled. "I don't need this team. I signed a franchise agreement with Egon and Ray about a month ago. I can leave here at any time, open up my own Ghostbusters franchise and be done with you and your shit. As part of that contract, all my intellectual property belongs to me, all my inventions, ideas, all of it. Any upgrades to the packs that I've done can be out of your hands in a blink and you go back to your own equipment. I am NOT putting up with your shit anymore Venkman." He yelled, spittle hitting Peter's face.

Ray walked in the room to see what all the noise was and Egon gave him a signal not to get involved

"If I hear ONE more word from Jubilee about you harrassing her, you're going to spend some time on the bench recovering from the shit-kicking that's going to rain down on your ass and when you're back in action you're gonna be one man, one dog and some equipment short." He shoved him again. "Are we clear?"

Peter didn't answer.

Ethan knocked on Peter's balding forehead with his fist. "HELLO?! Anyone home Venkman? I SAID are we clear?!"

"Yeah.. we're clear." Peter said, finally breaking Ethan's hold and skulking angrily from the room.

"Sparky... you gotta watch that temper." Ray said, looking concerned. Egon interjected on Ethan's behalf. "Peter really did have it coming."

Ethan took a deep breath and then turned to Ray. "New geek project on the go, wanna help?" he asked, changing the subject.

"Do I?" Ray replied, the impish smile back on his face. "Does a free floating vaporous apparition have a polarity of 578400.98?"

Egon smirked at Ray and Ethan nodded. "I'll take that as a yes."

The three geniuses got back to work.

Ethan was sitting at the table upstairs in the firehouse. A slime coated checkerboard was spread out in front of him and across the table from him was his little green opponent.

"Your move Slimer." Ethan said.

Slimer examined the board for a moment. "Aha!" he squealed, then picked up his playing piece and double jumped over two of Ethan's pieces, picking them up as he jumped them and swallowing them. Ethan rolled his eyes. "No wonder we never have all the checkers." Ethan said.

Their game was interrupted by Janine, leading a delivery man up the stairs. "He's right over there." she said. "Sparky, ya got a delivery." Ethan stood up and walked over to the man. "Hi, I'm Ethan Sparks. You're looking for me?" he asked.

"Yeah, gotta package for ya." the man said, putting down a crate with what looked like air holes. Slimer scurried over to look at the package excitedly, wondering what it was. Ethan signed for it. "Thanks."

"What is it Sparky?" Janine asked as the delivery man left. "Dunno." Replied Ethan, pulling off the envelope and opening it.

"It's from my sister." he replied before reading the letter aloud.

"Dear little brother, It was so great to see you recently. The last thing I expected was to see you show up at my flat in Paris. I had missed you and mom and dad so much that it.... blah blah blah.." he continued.

"...living in a Firehouse? I thought that was pretty cool. I know how much you love your new job and I got to thinking that anyone working in a firehouse needed one little thing that you were missing. I named him Tobin, after that book you were always carrying around and sticking your nose in when you were a kid. Take good care of him. Love, Jennifer." Ethan looked down at the crate.

"Him?" He pulled open the top of the crate and laying inside, asleep was a dalmation puppy. It wore a red collar with a Ghostbusters Logo tag hanging from it. The name Tobin was engraved on the back.

"Ooooh! Uppy!" said Slimer, peering into the box.

"Aww Ethan, he's so cuuuute!" said Janine shrilly which woke the puppy. It jumped up and put its paws on the edge of the crate and barked at Ethan. Ethan smiled and picked him up. The puppy replied by licking Ethan's face thoroughly. "Aww I guess you know your daddy already huh?" He chuckled. "Janine, we got anything we can feed the little guy til I can get to the store?" Janine nodded and rushed off down the stairs to get some food for Tobin. Slimer was beside himself with excitement.
"Okay okay Slimer. You can pet him, but.. try not to slime him okay?" said Ethan

"Otay Parky!" he squealed and gently pet the puppy. The dog's hair rose up on end a bit and he whimpered. "He'll get used to you spud. I've heard dogs can sense ghosts and such."

Putting Tobin down on the floor, he watched the pup as he explored his new home.

A drop of sweat hissed fiercely as it hit the freshly soldered connection. Ethan set down the soldering gun and picked up his towel, wiping it across his forehead. A heat wave had hit the city. Not uncommon in the summer, but this one was worse than any he could ever remember.

The shirt was off and the sleeves of his flight suit were tied around his waist and STILL he was boiling. Even the bandage over his ribs was soaked with sweat and a small seeping of blood. It was healing well though.

He was determined to get this modification of the proton pack done by tonight, he really wanted to show Egon what he'd been working on but damned if he didn't just want to take a break and grab his PINpoint and find a nice cool lake somewhere.

"Hey Sparky!" Janine said as she came up the stairs. "I wondered if..." she trailed off for a second as she saw Ethan shirtless. Then she seemed to let her brain catch up and continued. "..you want some lunch?"

Ethan looked up to her and nodded. "That would be great Janine. You ordering in?" She nodded. "Louis is going out, I can call in your order and bring it up to ya when he get's back." she said.

Ethan thought for a minute about what would hit the spot. "Some meat lasagna with three cheese would be great, garlic breadsticks and a big ass iced tea." he said. "Heavy on the ice." she gave a knowing nod and headed downstairs to call in the order.

Ethan got back to work, grabbing a small, delicate screwdriver.

((Tag Open))

Ethan stepped through the wide doors of the firehouse late at night. He didn't want anyone making a big deal about him being home. It was nice of the guys to give him time to recuperate away on his own. He had hated to leave Jubilee, he did love her. Even though he couldn't make sense of his feelings right after being cloned, he did know that much. Neither of them expected the other not to move on and he wouldn't bear any hard feelings against her if she had although it would be strange for awhile to not be able to touch and cuddle and such.

Slimer peeked his head up through the surface of Janine's desk as Ethan passed by, leaving a large pool of slime. "Markyyyyy!" He said loudly, only to be shushed by Ethan. "Hey Spud. Good to see you too." he said in a hushed tone. "Keep it down though okay? I'm going upstairs." He climbed the stairs, leaving his luggage at the foot of them. He bypassed his bed, just grabbing some blankets and pillows and heading up to the roof. It was a warm summer night in New York and he decided to just sleep in the hammock on the roof. He pulled out his PINpoint and turned it on, sending a simple text message to anyone in his contact list that he was back from his time away and he had missed them.

The Ghostbusters had worked for days, almost non stop. Only stopping in fact to go out on the occasional call and trying to wrap those up as quickly as possible in order to get back to working on Ethan's predicament. They wondered what it was like in the trap. Would he be able to tell them they wondered?

Ray and Winston loaded the Ecto-1 with equipment, Peter guarded the ghost trap with his life. He didn't want it getting mixed in with the others that went into the containment unit, and he certainly didn't want Slimer playing with it and letting Ethan out. Egon came up the stairs, carrying a large covered beaker filled with... well... ooze? "Ethan's protoplasm is ready." he said as he approached the vehicle. "It looks more like Ethan sneezed." joked Peter, then his face sank. "Sorry." he knew it was serious.

"I talked to the city. There are three bomb shelters on site on the property of the old power plant. It's abandoned and I got permission to use whichever looks most stable." said Ray.

"Excellent." said Egon. "Now we just have to wait for Jubilee."

((Might be slow going, but I'm in no rush. You guys post whenever you can))

The door of the Ecto-1 slams, echoing through the garage area of the firehouse.

"I don't get it Spengler. Where did he go?" Ray asked, concerned. "I'm afraid I don't know Ray." answered Egon. "Venkman and Winston are still on site taking readings. They'll radio when and if they find anything." he said, trying to keep his cool.

"But we didn't hit him did we? I mean... we were careful. We're always careful. Where'd Sparky go?" He looked horrified.

"We've got to run some tests on the equipment. Make sure everything is running within proper parameters." Egon said, grabbing the packs and handing Ethan's R.E.Con to Ray.

Gonna be out of town until Friday night or Saturday afternoon. Any threads I'm in will have to wait. Apologies. Will reply when I get back.

 Ethan wondered how much to let the other Ghostbusters know about Jubilee. He figured it best just to let them know that he'd met her and gotten to know her and thought she would be an excellent candidate for a job. He'd forgotten to warn her about Venkman, that guy would hit on just about anyone. He figured the other guys would be much more polite to talk to.

"Slimer. I want you to be on your BEST behavior, do you understand?" Ethan said. 

"I mow marky, I mow." Slimer said, rolling his eyes acknowledging he understood. 

"I'm not kidding. I like you spud, but if you mess this up for my friend, I might just let Peter stick you in the containment unit for a week." He said.

Slimer shrieked and fled from the room.

"Mission accomplished." He thought as he put some coffee on for the guys and waited for Jubilee to show up for her interview. 

Dr. Spengler .. I mean Egon, really loved my schematics for the R.E.Con (Rapidfire Ecto Containment). He wants to start working on it with me immediately and give it a field test as soon as possible. What a great start to my new career. Ray is a hoot, SUCH a nice guy. The press aren't kidding when they say he's the heart of the Ghostbusters. Winston is cool as a cucumber, cooler even. I can see us having a lot of long talks. Peter's kind of a dick sometimes but you've got to admire a guy that looks like he does but still has enough confidence to hit on anything with a rack. Janine... well, she's Janine. I don't see how Egon doesn't see how NUTS she is about him. Louis has to be the biggest geek I've ever met but MAN he's good when it comes to helping the guys tweak the books in our favor.
I swear if Slimer hides in my hair gel bottle again, I'm slamming him in the containment unit so fast it'll make his plasm spin.