Andrea had almost reached the door of the courthouse when Rusty caught up to her, catching her upper arm and pulling her to a stop. Drawing in a deep breath, she spun on her heel and fixed her fiercest glare on him, watching as he blanched a little under her scrutiny. "What do you want?" she bit out, tearing her arm out of his grasp and rubbing it absently, never taking her eyes off him.

"I just thought you might like to get something to eat? I can have Gus make us a really good meal at his restaurant. It won't change the outcome, but it might make you feel better."

The earnestness in his voice grated on her nerves, and she struggled to keep from blowing up at him in the courthouse itself. There were so many people who knew her, that she didn't want to have look at her in a negative light, and she knew she had to control her reaction to the boy. "You can go wallow in your pity party of one with Gus. I, however, have to prepare for the next case, since this one was a clusterfuck from the word go. If you'll excuse me," she hissed as she turned on her heel and stalked away from him.

Pushing through the door, Andrea stalked down the sidewalk, trying to swallow her anger as she went, knowing that she had to control her reactions to the world around her. That had been harder and harder to do since Sharon had died, as if her controls had just disappeared. Reaching her car, she was surprised to see that Rusty was trailing along behind her, and she glared at him once more as she unlocked her door and slipped inside.

"What the hell, Andrea? You drove me here today! I don't have a way to get back to the office!"

Andrea groaned as she bent her head low and unlocked the other doors. He slipped into the passenger seat, and before he had his seatbelt buckled, she was peeling out of the parking lot, needing to be away from him as quickly as possible. He was too much a reminder of Sharon in that moment, and the longer he was around her, the more likely she was to just pop off and scream at him that he had no right to be alive while Sharon was cold in the grave.

There was a tense air in the car as she drove back to the office, and she was grateful that he didn't try to make small talk, since she knew that would be more than she could bear. Finally, after twenty five long minutes, she was pulling up to the sidewalk of their building, and she put the car into park as she waited for him to get out.

"I'm going to take tomorrow off, to prepare for my LSATs. I think that's for the best."

Andrea rolled her eyes. "Then you do that. That's what you always do, anyway. Whatever's best for poor little Rusty." The words had more vitriol than she had anticipated, and he frowned at her as he jumped out of her car and slammed the door. "Great. Now he's going to be whining about this for the next three weeks," she muttered as she took off towards home.

By the time she pulled into her driveway, she had thoroughly worked herself into a snit, and she stomped into the kitchen, dropping her briefcase onto the table as she went over to the counter and pulled out a fresh bottle of wine, trying to ignore the fact that there were three empty bottles in her recycling already.

Pulling the cork out, she carried the bottle and a glass into the living room, thumping down onto the sofa without spilling a drop from the bottle. Pouring herself half a glass, she set the bottle onto her coffee table and then picked up the frame that contained her picture of Sharon and herself at the wedding. There was an angelic look on Sharon's face, and Andrea sighed a little as she reached out and ran her thumb over the glass.

"I probably should have bit my tongue today, Sharon, but I was just so frustrated at losing this case. I knew that it was shaky from the beginning, but Provenza isn't as good at making deals as you were. He tried to badger and bully this man into a bad deal, and he called our bluff. There was nothing else I could do then, but go through with the case, and then be left with the humiliation of losing the case."

Letting out a deep sigh, she downed half the glass she had before refilling it a little fuller this time. She knew that she was playing a dangerous game, since she had to be in court the following day, but she had to wallow in her misery a little before she could move on. Hugging the frame to her chest, Andrea sighed again before downing her fresh glass. "I just, I really need my best friend to talk to again. I miss you, Sharon, so much more than I thought possible. I never told you how much you meant to me when you were here. I never told you the depth of my feelings, because you had Andy to love. I feel like I'm falling apart at the seams without you near me."

The first tears began to drop down her face, and she turned onto her side and set her glass aside, finding herself uninterested in finishing the bottle she had opened. She knew that it would do no good for her to get blindingly drunk, as she didn't want to lose another case in court, she didn't want her actions to be detrimental to the case. Biting her lip a little, she ran her hand through her hair and set the photo aside, staring at it as she licked her lips and stretched out on the sofa, pulling the blanket off the back and wrapping it around her body.

"You would tell me that I should get up and take a shower, that I need to refocus myself on something a little less maudlin, and I know that you're right. But all I want to do is fall asleep in my clothes and do all that in the morning."

Glancing over at the picture once more, Andrea groaned, knowing that she wouldn't be able to ignore that inner voice, since it had taken on Sharon's voice. Shaking her head a little, Andrea pushed herself up off the sofa and trudged over to the staircase, heading upstairs and into the bathroom. Stripping off her clothes, she allowed them to pile onto the floor before stepping out of them and into the shower.

The water did help to clear her mind a little, and she started to think about how she would apologise to Rusty, since she really had reacted badly, even if she didn't particularly care for the way he had wriggled out of being responsible for his actions. Again, she felt a hot tongue of anger touch the raw nerve that was Sharon's death as she thought about how Rusty had gone against everything that Sharon had ever wanted for him, and she tried to tamp it down, since she knew that Sharon would want her to look out for Rusty, no matter what. She only had to find a way to do that without destroying her soul in the process.