"Roxy!" Ronnie shouted up the stairs, getting more and more impatient. "Come on! The train is at quarter to. If we leave much later we'll miss it!"
"There's a train every half an hour, Ron!" The younger blonde shouted back. "We can just catch the next one!"
"Yes and we've already missed three, Roxanne!"
Rolling her eyes in frustration, Ronnie went back into the living room, scooping James off the carpet and settling him in the buggy beside Ruby. Amy was pulling all the toys out of the bag her Aunt had packed them in and piling them up beside it. Sighing, Ronnie sent her to find Roxy, before repacking the bag.
"Calm down, darlin'!" Peggy said with a smile. "Your sister will be ready in her own time."
"We haven't got time, Auntie Peg!" Ronnie reminded her. "The train leaves in twenty minutes."
"Yeah and we'll be on it, Veronica! Chill out!" Roxy sighed, coming down the staircase with her daughter clutched to her hip.
Ronnie rolled her eyes again and picked up her bag from the sofa. "See you, Auntie Peg. Thanks for having us."
"Oh, anytime, darlin'." Their Aunt told them, giving each woman a hug in turn, before bending to kiss the children. "Make sure you bring your sister next time."
"We will." The older sister agreed, manoeuvring the buggy through the door sideways. "She wanted to come with us, but she had to work."
"I understand. Give her my love."
Promising to do so, the sisters and their children made their way towards the tube station, still bickering. Roxy didn't understand why her sister was rushing to get back to the Square, while Ronnie was getting frustrated at her younger sister's apparent attempts to delay them. It was almost as though Roxy was trying to prove that there was no need to rush.
To Ronnie's frustration, they made the train with time to spare, even though they were moving at Roxy's ridiculously slow pace. All the way back to Walford the younger Mitchell gloated until Ronnie wanted to slap her. The older blonde was relieved when the tube stopped and they had to get off.
"Why don't you and Amy go and get dinner from the chippy?" Ronnie suggested as they started walking towards the Square. "It's dinner time and I really don't feel like cooking tonight."
"Alright. D'you want me to take the buggy too… let you and Jack say hello in private?" She grinned.
Ronnie rolled her eyes. "Don't be ridiculous."
Roxy chuckled and headed towards the chippy, swinging Amy's hand in hers as she went. Watching them before she headed on her way, Ronnie smiled fondly. Sometimes she wondered whether Amy was more mature than her mother.
On her way through the market she stopped to chat to several people, being filled in on what had been going on while she'd been away. Lots of people asked about Peggy and her niece was only too happy to tell them what she'd been doing.
Finally Ronnie made her way up the steps to the flat, unlocking the outer door before returning to lift her son and niece out of the buggy and carrying them inside. Kissing Jack quickly, she set James and Ruby down on the floor in the living room while her husband went to fetch the buggy.
"Had a good time?" Jack asked, wrapping his arms around his wife moments later.
She smiled and kissed him, resting her forehead against his. "Yeah, thanks. It was nice to see Auntie Peggy and Aunt Sal. What about you?"
"It's been quiet. I haven't seen Katy all weekend."
"Did she stay at Tyler's?"
"I'm assuming so, because I ain't seen him around either." Jack chuckled.
Ronnie laughed, gave him another quick kiss and pulled herself free of his embrace. "Roxy's gone to get fish and chips for dinner." She called, carrying her bag into the bedroom and starting to unpack, piling the washing up on the bed.
"Great, I'm starving!" Her husband answered, scooping James up off the floor and holding him high above his head. James giggled excitedly.
In the bedroom Ronnie suddenly stopped what she was doing. Something didn't seem right about Jack not seeing Katy all weekend. It wasn't like her not to let them know what she was doing and where she was, unless she was in one of her moods. According to Jack she'd been perfectly cheerful since they'd been away, so she wasn't likely to have stormed off anywhere.
"Have you tried phoning Katy?" She called, keeping her tone casual.
"I tried this morning after you let me know you'd be late."
Pulling out her mobile, Ronnie dialled her younger sister's number. "I'll let her know we're back."
She waited a couple of moments for the call to connect. It didn't even ring before Ronnie heard her sister's voice on the other end. "Alright?"
"Yeah, Katy, we're ba–"
"Haha! Gotcha! I'm not actually here at the moment, so if you leave a message after the tone I'll get back to you as soon as I can. Thanks."
Growling in frustration and thinking about how many times she'd fallen for the teenager's stupid answerphone message, Ronnie dropped her mobile onto the bed. Chewing on her thumbnail, she hesitated, wondering whether she was being too overprotective and jumping to conclusions. The blonde was convinced that something was wrong.
"I'm just gonna pop out and get a bottle of wine." She said, shoving her phone into the pocket of her jeans, before grabbing her jacket and bag and disappearing through the flat door. Jack didn't have a chance to say anything before the door closed behind her.
Ronnie almost leapt down the steps, practically running to the Moon boys' house and hammering on the front door. When Tyler answered it a couple of moments later, dressed only in a pair of jogging bottoms with his hair tousled, her heart leapt.
"I've just come to tell Katy we're back." She said with a smile.
Tyler looked confused. "Katy ain't here." He told her slowly. "I ain't seen her since… last weekend. I ain't even spoken to her since Thursday."
"Have you two had an argument or something?" Ronnie asked trying to hide her worry.
"Nah… we just… well, she told me that she kissed Joey Branning."
"What?" The blonde was shocked. That didn't sound like her sister.
"Well, he kissed her." Tyler clarified. "But we talked about it and decided to forget about it."
"Hang on, when was this?"
"Last Friday?"
Ronnie was quiet for a moment, thinking hard. Why hadn't Katy told her any of this? The teenager had been working a lot since Phil had put her in charge of the club, but surely she'd have had time to tell her that something like that had happened. The last thing Katy had kept from her was the truth about Heather's murder.
This realisation made Ronnie even more concerned. "D'you have any idea where Katy is?"
"Nah." Tyler shook his head. "I've been trying to ring her, but… oh my god… nothing's happened to her, has it?"
Ronnie looked at him seriously, chewing her lip. "I don't know."