Luke's place.

::Basil enters the large, light-filled apartment and waits for Luke.::

::Luke enters behind Basil and smiles at the sight of the place. It will suit his needs and looks better than his old place at CW. Looks like it's a deal.::

"So how much is rent and when's it due?"

"I think you'll find our prices are very reasonable. Of course we expect prompt payment at the beginning of each month, but don't worry about that now. Feel free to pop in downstairs when you're ready, and we can make sure you're satisfied with everything."

::Basil searches his jacket pockets for the keys and hands them to Luke.::

"Is there anything else I can do for you?"

"No, I think that's just 'bout it. Thanks... Sir Basil."

::Basil beams like an old softie.::

"Don't mention it."

::And he leaves.::

(What a well-mannered young man.)

::Luke locks the door and exhales sharply.::

(Home sweet home.)

::He smiles at the place, relieved that he doesn't have to worry about students making obnoxious noises throughout the ungodly hours of the night. It is nice for the man to have some space from the school, especially now with the new semester and the influx of students, both new and returning. Luke walks through the apartment, planning out in his mind how everything is going to be situated in his new bachelor pad. He winds up in the master bedroom, his eyes focused on the bed. It looks rather inviting and perhaps Leo's idea of taking a nap wasn't a bad idea. Luke then remembers that he told his friend that they would watch over everything at the school, but come on, loser... a nap. Surely you can make time for one of those, huh?::

(I'll just sleep for an hour or so. It's still mornin'. It's not like the vampires are gonna come out.)

::Luke sets the alarm on the nightstand to go off in sixty minutes and he retires into bed, snoring away the second his head hits the pillow.::

::Luke can feel Danielle's terror, and also her location. The training room at magic school.::

::Luke is alarmed by said terror, which wakes him up from his much-needed slumber. He crawls out of bed and stretches out his limbs. After checking in the mirror to make sure the appearance of bedhead is minimal, he orbs to the training block.::

::The naked whitelighter orbs in and dumps his clothes in a dirty clothes hamper. He strides to the bathroom purposefully and takes a nice, long, hot shower.::

(Not bad.)

::After a few minutes of lathering and such, Luke steps out, dries his hair, fixes his hair and gets dressed. He's not up for orbing back to the mansion; he'd much rather drive. The man picks up his keys and walks out into the hallway.::

::Luke orbs in and unloads his bags of groceries, setting them into the proper nooks and crannies. He orbs to the mansion once he is done, particularly the parlor since he senses some people there.::

::Luke orbs into the apartment and sets his stack of syllabi on the coffee table. He still thinks of what happened at the school and his last minute change-of-heart regarding the demon hunt, almost considering to go back and take on the deal. Maybe they could go on one, though in a more organized fashion rather than being reckless. At least there would still be explosions and gore to satisfy the whitelighter. Instead, he ignores this bloodlust in favor of taking a seat on the sofa and opens up his laptop so that he can search for something using the very convenient and very handy ACWeb browser. Upon finding the information he needs after about an hour or so, he pulls out a phone and calls a number and starts a phone conversation with the person on the other end.::

::Luke's Orb Waiting gets jingled.::

(Doesn't he have a whitelighter?)

::Luke sighs irritably and almost considers putting Petunius on mute so that he can at least finish the conversation. Alas, he abruptly ends his phone call, completing it with an apology. He slips it in his pocket and utilizes his whitelighter sensing ability to locate the witch, who is in the training block at the school. Away he goes!::

::Luke orbs back in and attempts to resume his phone call with the vendor. It's busy and it is likely that it will be some time before he can contact the person again. He decides that right now might be a good time for a jog, which is perhaps inspired by the training scenario back on campus, as a means to clear his mind as meditation doesn't seem to work and nor do his powers, which are hardly aggressive in nature. He walks to his bedroom to put on some more appropriate clothing: a shirt designed specifically for this activity, knee-length shorts, ankle-cut socks and a pair of tasteful-looking running shoes, which he kneels down to tighten, going as far as to triple-knot them to lessen the chance of them unexpectedly coming unloose. Luke picks up his iPod and straps it to his arm after slipping the earphones in properly. He tosses his keys on the bed so that he doesn't have to worry about them annoyingly jangling in his pocket or falling out and interrupting his jog. Feeling that everything is about set to his liking, including the necessary stretching, he orbs out.::

::Luke orbs back in, fresh from his jog in some random spot on the globe. He takes a shower and gets dressed into something suitable enough to go out at this time of the evening. The whitelighter scoops up his keys from the bed and continues to the hallway, locking the door behind himself.::

::Luke orbs in and the lights that transmute into his head aggravates his headache. He hauls himself over to the bathroom to make his hair somewhat presentable and goes all for it, biting back the splitting pain in his head; he hopes that Petunius still has more of his hangover cure stocked away in the kitchen at the school and if not, well, this will be an interesting day to say the least.::

(It's not like it's the worst one I've had.)

::Luke tiredly peels off his shirt and walks to his closet to get something more appropriate for a teacher. Actually, he doesn't because he's already pressing for time as it is, so it's just a random t-shirt for him, at least until he can be bothered with at the moment. When that is done, he leans against the door frame for a moment and spaces out prior to orbing to the kitchen at the school.::

::Luke unlocks the door and looks at the dusty apartment. Has it really been four months since he was last here? With a sigh, he shuts the door behind himself and gathers up some cleaning stuff to occupy his time to making his bachelor pad presentable.::

::Luke sighs, glancing away from the laptop screen. He gave up on dusting about a half-hour ago, having thought of something more important to occupy his time with since that moment. He looks to his cordless phone on the counter. It's so far away over there, or really it's not; Luke's more terrified of picking it up than he is lazy, which is what keeps him from doing this and he returns his attention back to the screen.::

(I need to do this.)

::Having gotten over these conflicting interests somewhat, Luke gets his ass off of the couch and walks to the kitchen to pick up the phone. He pokes at the numbers that will end up calling Sharon's cell and waits anxiously for a response.::

omg it's ringing!!!!!11111

"Hello Luke?"

(She actually answered.)

::After a hesitant pause, Luke speaks into the phone.::

"Oh, uh... hey. I need to talk to you about something. Are you available sometime tomorrow?"

"Sure..."

Pause!

"Is it important?"

"Yeah, I'd say so. It's pretty a life-altering decision."

"I see. Okay. Will you be at the school tomorrow?"

"Yeah, more than likely. I guess I'll see you there."

"Sure."

(She couldn't sound more unsure.)

"Okay. Bye."

::Luke hangs up and puts the cordless back on the charger. He decides that it might be a good time to catch up on some sleep while he can, but before he can do that, he'll have to shower as his grubby fingers remind him of the little workout in the training room and the garden he had just hours ago. He does all of that grooming junk in a reasonable amount of time before retiring for the night in a pair of boxers under his bed sheets.::

::Luke has been up for quite some time at this point, just staring at the ceiling fan. While his slumber was a brief one, it helped somewhat, though he wishes it were longer. He wishes he had a tennis ball in his possession, so that he could bounce it against the fan blades or the ceiling itself. But he's not eleven anymore, so that's not an option. He spends a few more minutes in his trance, the only thing stirring up within his vicinity is his stomach. It comes to Luke's mind that he hasn't eaten anything for some time. He glances over at the clock, trying to think of what might be open at this late hour. Juneau might be, but that's not really a place for him to be alone. The temptation is just too much in that type of setting, anyway. Luke wants to go somewhere that's guaranteed to be open and very simple.::

(Ed's is always open. I've been hankering for some red meat.)

::Luke sighs and tilts his head back to allow him to sink further into that soft pillow of his. Did he just think to himself that he had a craving for red meat? Silly Texan. Luke slips out of his bed and puts some clothes on, freshens up and walks out to the hallway.::

::Leo orbs in with Luke and lets go of his arm. He's distracted.::

"Are you coming to the manor once you've cleaned up and had some rest?"

"Yeah. I'll drive there."

::Luke notes Leo's expression and speaks up with concern.::

"Everything okay?"

"Yeah."

::Leo pauses, now looking more distraught. He pulls in a big breath and lets it out, his shoulders dropping.::

"Actually, no."

::He looks up at Luke, meeting his eyes, though doing so somewhat unwillingly.::

"Jasmine... died."

"What...?"

::Luke looks gobsmacked by the news. This does affect him quite a bit. Jasmine was probably one of the few people he regularly got along with.::

"Seriously...?"

::He realizes that this isn't something to joke about, but he just wants some confirmation.::

"Are you sure?"

::Leo thinks back to what he saw. It was obvious to begin with that, even from a distance, that was a dead body on that bed. And then, as if seeing it with his own eyes wasn't enough, the looks on Lucinda and Richard's faces - and how Paige clearly already knew from her dismissal... well.

He just nods.::

"Wow."

::Luke glances to the window and then lowers his head. This was the one thing he hated the most about being a whitelighter and that is the idea of seeing everyone die around him and it is even worse when it's a premature death like Jasmine's. There exists that survivor's guilt and he doesn't like it one bit.::

(I should have taken the wheel from the beginning.)

"Yeah."

::Leo also bows his head.::

"There's been... so much death today. Woody and Paz and... Monica..."

::He grimaces. This is just the way things go.::

"I better get back. Don't want people catching pneumonia."

"Yeah. I'll freshen up and meet you guys at the Manor."

"Sleep."

::Leo orbs out and back to the grounds.::

::Luke sighs morosely as the blue lights fade to nothing. After standing there lost in his thoughts for about two minutes, he shuffles himself to the bathroom and pulls out the things in his pockets, including his cell phone which was obliterated at one point of this war. He doesn't really care about it because he can just buy another one later.

Instead, he just focuses on washing away the stench, sweat, mud and blood from the day's events. After the nice, long shower with the relaxing hot water, Luke emerges clean and heads to his bedroom to get on some lounge pants on and slips under the covers. The exhaustion and the softness of the bed is more than enough to knock him out.::

[Rest my little friends. The scene fades out.]