Sharon's apartment.

::Basil brings Sharon into the apartment, followed by Jasmine.::

"Feel free to look around."

::The flat is as he described downstairs, but better. There's two bedrooms, the master one having an en suite bathroom. There's a kitchen and a living room, with a second spacious bathroom coming from the kitchen.::

::Sharon's surprised by how nice the place is. Grudgingly, she steps away from Basil and wanders into the bedrooms. They're nice. So's the kitchen.::

"Yes, I think this will do."

(I wonder how far away the penthouse is. I don't suppose it should be too hard to avoid Meredith...)

::Happy enough that this place is at least as big as her old apartment, Sharon comes back over to Basil and nods again.::

"Wonderful."

::Basil grins and hands Sharon the key.::

"If you want to phone down or pop down to see me at some point, I'll put your details into our files and so on. And if there's anything else, do let me know. Shall I leave you to it?"

"Thanks."

::Basil gives the pair a short bow and leaves.::

"Are you not going to find a place here, then?"

::Sharon goes to test out the sofa.::

"Eh, I dunno. I don't know if I want to live in a place operated by a weird Bush girl and her English dad. What the heck's that all about anyway?"

::Not that Jasmine's father is English or anything... and her mother...::

"I might stick on at the school. They need some idiot to hang around at night anyway."

(All by myself. God life's gone downhill.)

"I don't see why that should be you. Paige runs the place, it's her responsibility."

(And why anyone would want to look after those children at night after spending all day with the them... I don't know.)

"It's just a shame there don't seem to be any other respectable apartment complexes around here. I don't want to be running into 'Mary' in the elevator."

::Jasmine chuckles.::

"Being the hardcore religious zealot you are, I thought your sole goal in life would be to run into Mary in the elevator."

::She smiles at Sharon.::

"And you can't be serious about poor Paige. She's all fat and has her own children to worry about."

"Exactly. She's already got looking after Piper's child, so she may as well be at the school looking after all the others. And she has Azura."

::Sharon stands up again and brushes off the sofa, enjoying the obviously expensive leather.::

"Fancy a housewarming drink?"

::Jasmine checks her gold watch.::

"At this time in the morning? Duh."

"I didn't mean that kind of drink..."

::Sharon smirks.::

"Tea or coffee?"

::She makes her way into the kitchen and looks through the cupboards. They're conveniently stocked with a few basics - some tea bags, coffee, sugar and so on.::

(Oh, lovely...)

::Sharon lets out a small sigh of appreciation as she sets the kettle on top of the modernised aga against the wall. It doesn't matter that she never cooks, just the sight of the large, homely oven is comforting.::

"I think I've spent too much time with your sister."

::Jasmine follows Sharon through.::

"Oh, for crying out loud this place is spiggin' awesome."

(I miss the old building...)

"Paige has had her baby."

::Jasmine says this without even thinking. It's just a piece of information that suddenly came to her. She doesn't even realise what she's said.::

"... what?"

::Sharon half-turns towards Jasmine, not understanding.::

"It's not due for weeks..."

::Jasmine blinks a few times, replaying in her head what she just said.::

"... what?"

::Her eyes move up and meet Sharon's.::

"Sharon!"

(Az! Is it true!?)

(Yes it is, they are at the mansion.)

"Crikey."

::Jasmine mutters to herself and looks at Sharon with some disbelief. She puts a hand over her mouth, shaking her head.::

"Az has confirmed it. She's had the baby."

::Sharon stares back at Jasmine.::

"But is it okay? Did they go to the hospital?"

"They're at the mansion! Well we gotta tell everybody! Come on!"

::Jasmine tears out into the hallway.::

"... Well this is clearly a bad idea."

::Sharon follows.::

::Andy shows up outside, and basically uses teh magics to let herself in. Sharon ALWAYS has to kick her ass about something, so this is nothing. She walks in and roots around the apartment. Then finds Sharon's £3000 fiddle. A look of sheer lawbreaking incredulity crosses the Irish's face. She holds her breath as she opens the case. She picks up the violin.::

(So this is reverence.)

::Grabbing the instrument and a bow, Andy runs out, leaving the case empty for all to see as she head back to her and Julie's.::

::Sharon pushes her door open and enters her apartment slowly, taking everything after her absence. Taking in, specifically, the empty violin case lying on the floor next to her instruments cupboard. Her face goes white, her eyes widen.::

(ANDREA?)

::Sheer panic flashes across Sharon's face as she rushes out of her flat and over to Andrea and Julie's place.::

::Sharon's gaze is caught by the empty violin case once more as she enters, but she's too tired now to bring herself to do anything about it.::

(Ugh. Andrea had better have it.)

::Dropping her bag on the table, she heads into the shower to clean up.::

::Andrea bangs on the door.::

"Sharon, it's me!"

::She doesn't wait for very long before just opening the door and walking in. If it was locked, she did her usual and used her power. She glances around, spots the empty violin case, and swiftly closes it. She locks it. Maybe she'll have forgotten. The last thing Andrea wants right now is for her sister to throttle her when she's feeling this homesick.::

(Then again...)

::It'd actually be pretty nostalgic. Maybe the throttling could work. Hearing the sound of the shower, Andrea heads into the kitchen and turns the tap on and off a few times so Sharon will know not only that someone's here, but who it is, before heading back into the living room and sitting on the coffee table to wait.::

::Having luckily gotten out of the shower as soon as she heard someone's voice, Sharon misses the burning/freezing and quickly wraps her hair in a towel and her hot body in a dressing gown.::

(Only Andrea has timing this bad.)

::She sighs and unlocks the bathroom door, padding into the living room with her arms crossed and giving Andrea an unimpressed look.::

"What is it?"

"Um, hello? That's what?"

::Andrea folds her arms, feeling annoyed and self-conscious now.::

::Sharon frowns and uncrosses her arms.::

"You're just here for a chat?"

::It's not really a question, Sharon realises she should've known that Andrea would get her out of the shower for no reason. She turns round and heads back into the bathroom, leaving the door open while she starts applying some moisturiser to her face.::

"Sharon, I've only not seen you in bloody months and all!"

::Standing now, Andrea raises her voice to shout through to the bathroom. Her homesickness has put her into a pretty foul mood.::

"If you want me to just go then that's fine! I'll go!"

::In a strop, she heads to the door.::

"Oh, stop being a baby!"

::Sharon finishes rubbing the cream into her cheeks and wipes off her hands on a towel before coming back through and quickly catching hold of her sister's arm.::

"Put the kettle on, hm?"

::She twists Andrea round and squeezes her shoulder before gently pushing her in the direction of the kitchen.::

"F--"

::Andrea is almost about to do lots of swearing, but let's face it - she doesn't really want to leave. For some reason she is in an abrasive mood, though. Turns out Sharon is the easiest person to pick a fight with and know you're safe. She's Andrea's sister; she has to love her no matter how much of a cow she is.::

"Stop telling me what to do."

"I will when you do it."

::Sharon prods Andrea in encouragement in the back before she goes into her bedroom to quickly pull on some clothes.::

::Andrea does something she rarely, rarely does: she grinds her teeth. Then she walks into the kitchen, slams on the kettle, whacks a single mug on the counter, throws a teabag at it, misses, picks it up, drops it, misses again, then gets really pissed off and hits it into the mug so hard she thwacks her hand off the rim. She presses her lower teeth into her lip at the surprising pain, then just stores it all up for later. The bad mood has been really sudden. Really sudden. Before she was just sad.::

"All right, I don't want the kitchen redecorated while you're at it!"

::Sharon calls through from the bedroom. She puts on some slim black jeans and grey top before brushing through her hair and wandering back into the living room to put her make-up on in the big mirror.::

"Are you okay?"

::See, she does care.::

"I'm fine."

::Andrea replies too quietly to be heard. She drums her hands on the counter like Caroline while waiting for the kettle to boil.::

::Sharon takes this apparent silence for sulkiness and rolls her eyes. She doesn't say anything else, just continues applying mascara and foundation and such things.::

(She could at least be happy to see me after three months.)

(She could at least be happy to see me after three months.)

::Finally finishing up, Sharon snaps her compact shut and bustles into the kitchen.::

"Is it not boiled yet?"

"It's your kettle."

::Andrea growls, then gets another cup and another teabag. She sighs, wondering why she came. If she'd stayed at home, she could've woken up Julie and gotten her to rub her feet or kiss her or something.

But she doesn't have her sister's accent.::

::She bites her lips, almost smiling, and decides to be nice to her sister.::

"Here."

::She reaches over Andy's head and pulls a packet of biscuits from a cupboard, holding them out in her direction as she leans back against the counter.::

"How have you been, Ands?"