Dear Diary,

Nothing much to report. Same old same old so far.

It's actually good to be home, sort of. I forgot all the passive aggressive warfare going on. Somebody's tried to cook again and they've left a weird brown ring over the middle of the cooker that nobody has bothered to touch. There should be biohazard tape over the whole kitchen. Nobody's done the dishes and the toilet paper keeps going missing. Either they're hoarding it somewhere or they're doing some kind of modern art paper Mache with it.

We're heading towards having to write our names on the stuff in the fridge that we bought with the arguments over who nicked all the milk and the last egg.

I've bought paper plates so I can just bin them when I'm done. Dishes be dammed.

It was a few days after she'd gotten home to the welcoming covers of her bed. Things had carried on as normal and the end of the week came around in a blur. For the most part she had spent her time putting most of her effort into catching up on the reading until she had worked her way through most of it and onto the extra parts just to keep herself occupied. Things felt better when she kept her mind busy.

She had sat in the studio keeping an eye of Chris's slot and took the occasional call-in, spending the remaining time messing about with him and Ewan between the ad breaks. Music was still a great distraction and she was using it to the maximum that Friday night while she flicked through her copy of NME.

'Rae,' she didn't even hear Chris come into the next room. Her eyes were busy scanning over an article about the Red Hot Chili Peppers upcoming Californication tour and their European leg. They'd be in Leeds next August after Belgium and Paris. Her mind unwillingly wandered to France and beautiful French women filling the cafes, bars and gigs she couldn't.

'Earth to Rachel,' Chris brought her out of it by waving a hand over her face and blocking the rest of the article.

'Sorry,' she blinked herself out of her daydream, 'what?'

'I said are you still up for Amped next year?'

'Chris, you do know that's next week?'

'I know, just winding you up. Mark's put you down for Saturdays. He's a really good guy, you'll like him.'

Mark was a distant relative of Chris who had managed to get him a job lined up as soon as he graduated in the head office at full pay. He worked as a presenter at Amped Radio down at Clifton and he'd been kind enough to set her up with her internship at the end of February next year. The only way it could have been better is if she was actually getting payed as much for it herself.

'Saturday?' She had hoped for a mid-week day. Her whole week would be filled up. She'd hoped to save at least one day to keep up with her classes.

'It's the only time I could get you.'

'No, it's fine. I just need to bring my work with me.'

'Cracking. I'm heading round there tomorrow so I'll let him know to expect you still.'

'Thanks.'

'No worries. No point in having connections if you don't get to milk them for all they're worth.' Chris winked at her and grabbed his bag up from the floor. Ewan followed soon after and he and Rae shut everything off early for the evening and headed back outside. It was strange for her to think, as she passed through the doors, that a few months ago the whole idea of even being involved in anything like this had been as unthinkable as one of the Gallagher brothers going solo. In the short time since she'd reluctantly offered Ewan her help it had quickly become the dream she didn't think she would ever have a chance with. Life was strange that way, constantly throwing the unexpected. Whether she liked it or not.

The two of them made their way back to the flat and found that the door to the flat was already open when Ewan put his keys into the door. It swung open with Kevin and Sam already on the other side with their bags and coats on.

'Coming round to the chippy?'

'Yeah, two seconds.' Rae stepped through and went into her room to dump some things out of her bag and run a hairbrush through her hair. They waited for her outside the door and she locked it from the other side and followed the three of them down past the windy cobbled street to their usual post-pub chip shop destination.

They made their way inside and took a table by the window. The seats were made of cracking blue plastic and cheap garden furniture tables, but they made the best-well the cheapest chips and it was close enough to the pub and home that it had become their choice out of habit. It was a dive but it was their dive. Rae sipped at her coke as Sam smothered her chips in tomato sauce and stabbed at them with her fork, failing to pick anything up through the thick layer of sauce.

'So I was thinking that we'd all go out somewhere for New Year.'

'Thought we were staying in.' Rae glanced between the two of them sat opposite her at the table.

'And then I decided that that was the most depressing thing ever.' Sam replied as she popped open her can of coke.

'Right.'

'Where to?' Ewan shifted down in his seat and his knees grazed hers. Rae twisted her legs to the side. He gave her a gesture of apology and moved back up.

'The Blue Mountain Club.'

'Can't,' Bob-Kevin piped up. She really needed to stop calling him that first name, she kept having to catch herself when she spoke to him. So far she'd managed to avoid it by just not using names at all. 'I'm heading home for it, tradition.'

'You're such an arse,' Sam threw her hands up in a huff. 'Can you not skip it and stick with us?' He shook his head and shot Sam a sheepish smile.

'I'll make it up to you. Bring Chris,' Kevin looked to Ewan who nodded and finished the last of his drink.

'You better,' she narrowed her eyes at him teasingly and stole an onion ring from his box. He swatted at her hand and missed which earned him a smirk as she bit into it. 'So, we're settled for the Blue Mountain at nine?'

'Done, let's us get some pre-drinks before we head out.' Ewan closed his chip box over and tossed it into the bin behind him. They sat there for a few hours after that organising times to be ready for and what drinks they were going to buy from the supermarket to drink at home before they'd need to get ready. Rae had hoped for a quiet night in but relented at the idea of switching her brain off for a night with friends.