It's all AU.

All too often, when Jason and Martha spent any time together, it ended up in bed. Not that Jason minded in the least, but it tended not to be conducive to much of anything else.

So he waited until an hour or so after the sun came up before he knocked on her door, hands in his pockets and grinning. "Hey. Breakfast?"

The designers Jason had found for him had done a good job, and by the time Eric opened De Final had taken on a very different look from the abandoned bar he had first walked into. The colors were darker, and much classier, the chairs had become sofas and armchairs, all in sleek angles. Pam would have approved.

Time for the opening, and the local staff that had somehow showed up to be interviewed and hired was ready to work the place. All of it had been too easy, but the tough part would be making it work.

Flyers had been dropped all across New New York and the Old Town both, making no secret that a vampire ran the place, and as soon as he opened locals started showing up to have a drink. The place was quickly busy, and his staff were both alluring and professional. Exactly what he'd wanted.

Yes, Pam would have approved.



OOC: let me know if you want a thread with Eric and any one of your characters at all!

The Doctor was trying to convince a shop keeper that the folded paper rose he'd found amongst the shop's goods really was his. Given that is was a gift shop with a stationary section, it did take a little talking. Then the shop keeper just wanted to see how it had been done. The Doctor insisted he needed the paper as it was, thank you, it might be important. But he was pretty sure he knew who had made it, and he'd send them along to the shop to explain, when he found them.

He turned and practically ran into Martha.

"Oh, hello, Dr. Jones!" he said, beaming.

It had felt good, being able to slip his skin. Okay, the change was a pain and a half, really, but it felt better once it was done. And the woods around the old town had provided plenty that he could hunt and eat. Nothing too big because it would be wasted on a single wolf, but more than enough to satisfy his own hunger after he shifted. He was still running the woods when the sun rose and, since Jean-Claude hadn't called him back, he figured it was all right.

Somewhere around noon, he finally shifted back, pulling on a pair of shorts to make the trip back and get a shower. It was mid afternoon before he came back out, clean and rested from a short nap, but still in jean cutoffs and a white tank top as he padded upstairs and grinned, noting Martha. He walked over, slipping his arms around her from behind. "Hi, gorgeous."

Martha wasn't exactly walking easily. Sore, and aching, but still kind of high on endorphins, and not regretting a moment of it. Her gait, however, was attracting attention.

She caught Donna's eye, and carefully lowered herself to a well upholstered couch, stretching out with a contented sigh. "It wasn't Jack, so don't give me that look."

Martha curled up in the lobby, wrapped her arms around her knees, and leaned her head back against the wall. "I," she announced, "am going to become a nun. A lesbian nun."

It was the only answer.

Mulder was in the hotel lobby. "You think they're putting something in the water?" he asked, conversationally.

Martha stretched out on a bench, set her feet on it, drew her knees up, slid both hands into her hair, and let out a frustrated groan. "What does a girl have to do to get laid around here?"

Dinner. God, it was just dinner and just...just a human, non-immortal, from near her own time, intelligent, charming and good looking man. Alright, yes. Martha was only human, and Mulder was very definitely attractive, on all sorts of levels. She smoothed her dress, checked her hair, double checked that she had no lipstick on her teeth, made sure that her shoes were fastened, and went down to the hotel lobby to meet him.

For dinner.

Just...dinner.

Martha had to admit, it was far easier shopping for dresses when she didn't have to worry whether she could afford the dresses she liked. It didn't make it any easier to find the right one, though, or make a decision about which of the ones she liked was more suitable and oh, God, she was probably making too big a thing out of it and should just...turn up in jeans or something.

She stood outside one store, studying the dresses on display in the window, and addressed the nearest person passing by out of sheer desperation. "Is it better to wear a shorter skirt, or a long one with a slit? Or is that just, you know. Trashy?"

"My God," Fox said, sounding very much as though he couldn't believe his eyes (because he couldn't). "You're a woman. Please tell me you're human and Not Gay."

Romana slowed and paused in the dining hall of the hotel. "You're a new face. New to me, at least. I'm Romana."

It was meant to be over. It was meant to be a break. It was meant to be a nice, quiet Christmas with Tom and her family, but oh, no, of course, saving the world again didn't mean that Martha's parents didn't have another flaming row over Christmas dinner or that Leo didn't skip out which meant another row, or that...well, at least Tom was one of the family if they weren't on their best behaviour in front of him.

Piling dishes high, Martha pushed the kitchen door open with her hip, and walked into...the hotel lobby.

"Oh, bloody hell, not again!"

Jack stood in the window of the shop he'd got his coat from. He took the coat off and draped it back around the shoulders of the mannequin who'd worn it before him.

"Suits you better than me, buddy," he said softly, patting the mannequin on the shoulder, and turned away to find a different coat.

Perhaps a jacket. Something shorter and lighter.

Another day.

Or not-day.

Or however time passed in that place.

Martha sat on a bench in the park, watching the sun sink over what passed for a horizon, and tucked her knees up. "If time doesn't pass," she wondered aloud, "then what does it mean that my watch is still going?"

Martha had lost track of how long she'd been stuck in...wherever she was stuck. And more than a little bit fed up of being stuck in nowhere so technically not stuck.

She'd been through the library. She'd studied. She'd thrown something across the room when she'd woken up thinking about Tom Milligan and her hotel room had oh so helpfully provided sex toys in her drawer. If she'd wanted that, she'd have...well. There were enough Jacks around, apparently. Not that she'd managed to meet any of them.

It all added up to the fact that she wasn't in the best of moods when the sky randomly changed colour - twice - and then it rained - and then went back to something that looked like an idylllic Surrey July afternoon. Complete with birds singing and apparently distant cricketers on the green.

And she wasn't even taking anything that could be considered hallucinogenic, so it had to be actually happening.

With a sigh, she stretched out on a handy and rapidly drying bench, closed her eyes, and wondered if it would all go away if she ignored it.

Martha was becoming pretty much resigned to being stuck in this place. It wasn't so bad, considering. No one was trying to kill her, which was a big plus over a few places she'd been with the Doctor and some without, there was no shortage of basics like food and shelter, and she could always get away when she needed privacy.

Tracking people down again was more difficult, but they usually showed up again sooner or later.

For now, though, she really should be catching up on her studies. If she was going to get this extra time before exams, she might as well make the most of it, and the library had texts on every branch of medical science she'd ever studied, and a lot more.

Selecting a book on genetic reconstruction from the shelf, she settled into a chair to try and make sense of it. She'd nearly managed to begin to succeed, when the door creaked open, and she lowered the book just far enough to peek over the top of it, eyes wide.

Jamie left Jack with a determination to um. Lie his ass off for the rest of his time he was here. That was careful, right?

He went to the kitchen and started poking around, finding a shop that had coffee. He came up to the counter, asking the person beside him without looking, "Do you think peppermint coffee?"

Martha wasn't exactly lost. She wasn't certain it was possible to be lost when she didn't know where she'd been to start with, but she was probably as close to lost as possible.

She'd headed out of the hotel to try and get some idea of how big the town was, maybe get some fresh air (though the air seemed as still as ever), and following along one empty road should have made it easy to get back. Except heading back, she was sure she'd not seen those buildings before.

Thinking hard, she stopped, sat down on the nearest seat, and looked around. There had to be something recognisable. Or maybe some one.

Having left the Doctor with his TARDIS somewhere on a floor above (she couldn't find any symbols to indicate which floor was which), Martha made her way down to stairs and followed the distant sounds of voices and the smell of food to find the dining room. There were a few other people there, but no one she recognised at first glance, and it wasn't too busy for her to find a table, get some of that purple stuff the Doctor had mentioned and some food she vaguely recognised.

Settling back in her chair, she looked around the room again, stopping when someone lifted their head to meet her gaze, and she gave them a somewhat hesitant wave.