My continued apologies for the erraticism of the posting. Thank you to all my lovely readers for sticking this out with me! Special thanks to NoraFreeze, Sckrillaz, and Tangentially Hal for the reviews! :)

As always, the characters and the world that they inhabit belong to the BBC, to whom I am eternally grateful!


The restaurant was small- what some people might call "Intimate." The delicious aroma of cooking food wafted out from the kitchen and onto the pavement outside. Alex felt like a cartoon, floating half a foot off the ground and following her nose, the smell a physical presence. Hal kept his hand around her waist, which was probably good. Otherwise she might have floated away. He also insisted on opening the door for her, which was a little old-fashioned, but still very sweet. He was an honest-to-god gentleman. She supposed that Tom was gentleman too, but he lacked Hal's finesse.

Murmuring voices, punctuated by bouts of raucous laughter greeted them within, as well as a waiter dressed in dapper waistcoat and bow tie who seated them immediately. There were flowers on the table- red carnations- and a small, flickering candle. It was all very romantic. It was also very Hal.

"So," said Alex, steepling her fingers and resting her pointy chin on top of them. "This is a date, is snit?" Her nose wrinkled up with a pixie grin.

Hal nodded "Of course." His palms were sweating. Actually sweating. He wiped them hastily on his trouser leg.

Alex looked up and around the room, taking in the other tables and couples. "Nice place."

"Yes."

"How'd you find ou'bout it?" Talking to Hal was sometimes like talking to an empty chair. He was really good at not responding.

"Phonebook."

"Do we seriously have a phone book? No, don't answer. Of course we do." She rolled her eyes. "Hey, Hal, the fifties called- they want you back!" Alex laughed her loud, snorting laugh that Hal found utterly adorable. She touched his arm, just a bit flirtily. "But really mate, you are so old-fashioned. Tom told me that you actually still call this, what we're doing right now, courting." She made air quotations as she said the word "courting."

"Would you rather I call it "chatting up?"

"I think we're sort of past the chattin' up bit. I mean, I'm basically one of your best mates. Me and Tom. Just be comfortable with me like you are with Tom. Easy peasy summer breezy."

"Yes, but I am not, er, 'romantically interested' in Tom." God damn these sweating palms and the way that his head seemed to go empty every time she looked into his eyes!

Alex sat back, her shoulders heaving as she laughed. "Well thank goodness for that, ya numpty!" she gasped. Her wide eyes got all squinty when she laughed, creases forming at their corners. Hal noticed little things like that. She picked up the menu, scanning it. "I can honestly say that I have no idea what any of this is. Nervetti? Bagna Carda? Tortano? Dafty names, those are."

"Pressed beef cartilage!" Hal said, desperate to be of some help

"Eh?" Her eyebrows almost disappeared into her hair.

"Nervetti. It's, ah, pressed cartilage." he scratched the back of his hand.

"Ack, that's pure gingin." she wrinkled up her nose. "And it does not sound like somethin' I'll be trying tonight."

"It's actually not completely revolting. I tried it in Venice in, oh, 1807? I knew an Italian chef. Good man. He introduced me to many strange and wondrous foreign delicacies."

"A vampire chef?" Her interest was piqued.

Hal shifted back in his seat. "Well, no, he was human when I met him."

"Aaah, so you turned him, dinnya?"

"I did not!" He sounded perturbed. "The whole thing took place during one of my periods of abstinence from... vampiric activities. I ran away to Italy. Away from the monsters back home. I thought that a new country, a new language, could free me from the demons of my past. Of course, I was wrong. When they finally caught up to me, I was living above a small restaurant off of one of the canals. It belonged to my friend Alonso and his young wife, Ceria. They were the ones who found me, wandering alone and weak in the streets of Venice. They took me in, gave me lodging and a job in the kitchen." Alex gave him a look of surprise, and he sighed. "The Cafe was not my first place of employment in relations to the food industry, although it was certainly the least glamorous. Scraping boiled fat off that godforsaken griddle."

"Did they know what you were? That man and his family?"

Hal's eyes were growing distant. She'd seen him get like that before. It happened whenever he took a journey back in his mind. A trip back to the painful past of Lord Harry and is merry vampire men. His arms were crossed loosely on the table and he fidgeted with his fingers, running them across the glossy red cover of the menu. "They did," He said. "There were many vampires in Venice in those days. I'd imagine that there were many still, up until yesterday. Vampires from all across the known world. Old, monstrous things and young, in vogue creatures. All of them were monsters of the time. They congregated there, had business dealings with each other and humans alike. Alonso's was a half-way house fro those trying to escape from the thrall of the blood. Trying to be human again. Or at least as human as a hundreds of years old blood-sucking monster can get. I went to Venice to escape, and ran into others of my kind trying to do the same. I found it very heartening. There was Madulah. She was the oldest of all of us. Five hundred years, the last seventy of them sober. She was my sponsor, my rock against the cravings. Cheng-gong was the youngest of us there- both in years of mortality and years of vampire hood. He was just a ten year old child, and a thirty year old vampire. There were others who came and went. Some fell off the wagon, others struck out on journeys to remote parts of the world. Some returned, but many did not. Madulah, Cheng-gong, and I were long-time residents. I spent fifteen years in the care Alonso and his family. They were good people. Better than I deserved.

"When I first decided to go to Venice, it was because I wanted to lose myself. I thought that... If I reverted while i was in Venice, it would not be so hard to cover up. I... was planning ahead." Alex shuddered, and he seemed to notice her for the first time since he'd begun his reverie. "I'm sorry, is this upsetting? I want for us to have a fun night. Not for you to listen to me drone on about things dead and buried. I'm not usually one to reminisce. But now, with the beating heart once more inside my chest, I can't seem to help it!"

"It's only human," she said, gently placing her hand on top of his.

"I suppose." He looked up into her big hazel eyes, with their smiling lines. She was so very kind. The kindest person he'd ever met.

"I don't mind, ya'ken. To tell the truth, it's kind of fascinating, hearing aboot all of the places you've been. Gawd all the things you've seen!" She sat back in her chair, withdrawing her hand. He missed the heat of her touch as soon as it was gone. "I would kill- pun not intended- to experience all of those things. Be the places you've been... christ! It must have been amazing!"

"It was," he admitted. "It was so very amazing. I've seen five hundred years of human history. I was there for it. Part of it. But the things I gave up... God, Alex, it wasn't worth it. None of all those five hundred years was worth it. Not until now." Her heart skipped a beat. "Alex," he cleared his throat nervously. "Erm, would you, uh, do me the honor of becoming my girlfriend?"

She laughed. It wasn't malicious or contemptuous. Just happy and full of light. A laugh like that could brighten even the darkest of his nights. "Of course I will be, ya eejit! For a moment there, I did think you were going to ask me to marry you... That, maybe not so much right now. But date? Hell yes!" Before Hal could even react, she took him by the tie and pulled his mouth to hers. She kissed him hard, passionately. His newly beating heart reached a crescendo. His hand brushed her soft, short hair and she smiled, pulling back. "Before people start staring." She said with a wink.

"That was-"

"Amazing?"

"Yes."

"I've wanted to do that for a long time. You always looked like someone who could use a good snog. But," She steepled her fingers once more, looking at him over their tips. "Your story. I want to hear 'ow it ends."

The story was the farthest thing from his mind at the moment. Luckily, before he could make a fool of himself, the waiter intervened to take their order. It gave him enough time to recollect his scattered thoughts before continuing with his story.

"So Alonso, your mate, ya didn't turn him into a vampire, but, an' catch me if I'm wrong, he did get turned?"

"Yes, he did."

"Wos it one of the other vampire boarders?"

"No, it was Wyndam."

"One of the bloody old ones!" Alex spat.

"Indeed. He'd heard of my reputation as a brutal killer and sadist, and he wanted to meet me in person. When he heard that I'd- to put it in his words- "gone soft" he decided that all I need was a little push to bring me back into the fold. To send a message to other vampires who tried to live a life of abstinence. "You will always return to us. There is no escape."

"Sounds like a gang."

Hal nodded. "In many ways, yes. I had been living under Alonso's care for several years. Madulah, Cheng-gong, and I protected him and his family from other vampires just as the protected us from our selves. I was out, hunting down a vampire who'd killed a young girl near us when it happened. We suspected that the killer was one of our flock who'd gone astray. It was my job to hunt them down and kill them. Madulah didn't like killing, and Cheng-gong was too small to be of much help, so I usually took care of things like that. I was a half mile away when I caught the first whiff of smoke. I swear I've never run that fast before..." He gulped. "The building was on fire. Smoke was pouring out from the upper windows, along with broken glass. In the street, I could see the singed clothes and dust of other vampires. Dead. Boarders who'd jumped from the windows above to escape the roaring inferno, only to be met in the streets below by Wyndam's men and their stakes."

He shook his head. "The shop door hung crooked on the frame, half-blocked by a broken table. I broke the door off of it's hinges and crawled inside. Right by the doorway, I found Madulah's sari, full of dust. She'd died trying to keep them out. I found Cheng-gong's clothes as well. They lay crumpled at the feet of a corpse. It was Ceria, Alonso's wife. Her throat was ripped out, blood all over the rubble-strewn floor. The smoke was so thick in the air, I could hardly see. I nearly tripped over the baby. It was... also dead. And Alonso. He was sitting in the middle of it all, at the only table that had been left untouched by the pillaging vampires.

"His hands were folded neatly on the table top. He didn't look up when I clambered in. When I ran to his dead wife and child. His daughter- she was fifteen- was gone. I never found out what happened to her. I don't want to know. I took Alonso by his shoulders, and I shook him, shouting at the back of his head 'Who did this to you! Tell me!' At last, he turned. So slowly. It seemed to take ages. He looked up at me, and his warm brown eyes transmuted to black. 'You did!' he hissed through his fangs, standing to face me."

Hal went quiet. Alex was worried that he was upset. His voice had become almost robotic as he related the tale to her. His eyes were as distant as she'd ever seen them. Finally, his eyes came back to her. They were sad, but not empty. He took her hand, more for his own comfort than hers. "After that, he walked away, into the flames by the stairs. He didn't make a sound as they devoured him whole. I ran out of there. Out of there and into the clutches of my other self. When I finally met Wyndam, it was as Lord Harry."