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The volume dropped considerably as the fire pit and the gathered crowd fell away behind him. Sid's path led them northward and before long, grass gave way to the uncertain footing of the sandy beach that ringed lake Huron. The sun had just dipped under the horizon now and the sky was a wash of blue and orange and pink. It was pretty, Sid had to admit. Different from what she was used to in the city.

Once on the beach, Sid swung towards the left to walk alongside the lake as she dropped Rob's hand to dig into the pockets of her shorts. She pulled out a small wooden case and a lighter before she twisted the top of the case open. Inside, a small well held ground up leaves and a ceramic bat painted to look like a cigarette.

There was silence from the young woman for a few steps as she packed her bat and slipped it between her lips. The lighter produced an orange glow from the end of the bat as she inhaled and soon there was a stream of blue smoke from between her lips. With it came a feeling of settling and expanding, like something inside of her loosened up as the world lost it's hard edges.

"This whole place is kinda surreal, huh?" She said at last, glancing over at her old friend. God, it was still hard to believe he was here, of all places. Mixed up in all this craziness. Coming here had felt like getting pulled into a movie, and seeing Rob only underscored how strange the surroundings were to the still-skeptic young woman.

Rob was the first to break the silence and Sid smiled around her bat as she walked, her stride a loose and swinging affair to account for the sand under foot. She took a drag, killing the last of what was in her tiny pipe and then used the edge of her dugout to tap out the burnt ashes.

"Oh, I dunno... Life I guess. Swallowed me up whole." She said. "I had a lot of s**t going on at home and then I met my Ex. You know how it is, when you get caught up in someone. You sort of forget everything else. Then I got into music and parties and gigs..."

The short woman angled a glance over at him as she pressed refilled her bat with practiced motions.

"I'm sorry about that. I should have kept up with it." She offered the bit of ceramic out to him, pinched between her fingers with the filled end up. "I don't think I really realized till just down how much I was gonna miss that mug of yours."

Sidney laughed and tossed him the lighter, the corners of her eyes crinkling with the genuine smile that pulled her mouth wide.

"What about you, though? We're together now. What have you been up to? Did they pull you from London or did you move to the States before hand?"

She grimaced at his comment, feeling faintly bad about it. She could have kept in better contact, if she'd tried harder. Too late now to go back and change anything, but at least they were together now. She'd just have to make up for lost time with him... while also trying to figure out all of this stuff. Woo.

"Yeah, it wasn't you. Just me being a deadbeat friend, that's all." She swerved in her path to bump into his shoulder as he lit up, giving him a friendly shove. Sid couldn't help grinning as he talked about himself, absorbing it all in relative silence while she watched the sand under their feet.

"San Fran isn't a bad place, from what I remembered. We lived there for a little while. I remember hating the hills the most. New York is better, just in my opinion." She said as she took the bat back. She packed it a second time while she talked, prepping for a second hit. It was a sad fact that one didn't really do it for her any more, not unless it was the really good stuff. "There is a lot of competition there for musicians, but a lot of places to play too, and a good scene for my kind of music. I dunno if I'd say I'm still in New York though."

She lit her pipe and then reached to loop her arm in Rob's, leaning on him as she blew out the smoke.

"I was sort of couch surfing when I got that freaky vision. I'd just broken up with my Ex a month or two before, and I hadn't really found a place yet. Which means when they brought me here, they sort of brought all of me here... so I guess if I'm anywhere, its here. I don't really have anything to go back to in New York, except for a lot of uncomfortable memories of Ice. So, you know... I dunno what I'll do when they start letting us out again." She smiled, hugging his arm. "Maybe I'll pick a new city at random and go try my luck. I kept up the piano through school, sort of doing my own private study, until I caught on to electronic stuff back in highschool. Took to it like a match to gasoline, I think, and started doing gigs when I was old enough they'd hire me. I can show you some of my stuff any time, I've got basically my whole kit stowed in my room. I think they've got places for us to actually set up and play too, so maybe I'll see about that sometime and put on a little private party for the Chosen."

She chuckled, feeling odd calling them all that. The whole thing was weird, but it was hard to complain too hard when it came with free rent and board, as well as studio space. What more could a girl want?

Sid's lips were pursed as she gave her friend a look, almost pouty as she lifted a dark eyebrow. The offer was rather unexpected and it took her back a little bit. They hadn't properly seen each other in some fifteen years and the day they meet up, he's offering to take her in? Long-honed instincts were crying 'where's the catch', but there were others saying 'never turn down a hand out, you never know if you'll get another'. And those weren't even the parts of her that, way down deep and secret, still yearned with a hopeless sort of desperation for the hazey, gold-tinted life she remembered in only a blurry sort of way. It had been ripped out of her hands without warning and she'd never really stopped yearning for it, though she'd long ago run out of tears to spare.

And here Rob was, a spectre of that time, large and warm and giving her that look, offering her a taste of it again... Self-preservation warred with a knotty, tangled mess of emotions.

"Sounds like you got it made, Playboy." She laughed as she squeezed his arm and bumped him with her hip, shrugging off the weight of it all as though she'd never felt it at all. She took another drag make sure her bat was finished off before she tucked it away, running her tongue over her lips in a thoughtful way. "I suppose it'd be silly to turn you down without seeing the place, huh? It might not be that bad in San Fran, actually. But I'm promising you now, I will get on every last nerve you have."

Sid teased as she tossed a look out over the dark grounds. The Apollo dorms loomed, a dark bulk in the night with pinpricks of light over the doors.

"I think a party sounds fun, and we can take turns playing the music. Maybe there are some other peeps in the Chosen who want to play and we can have some fun with it. Sounds like my kind of party, really, save for a few missing bits." She said with a grin.