As expected, the plan didn't work and all Matt got from this was a high blood pressure caused by a frothing vampire woman trying to bite him hadn't Jack and his men scared her away.

Matt's still alive, thankfully, but he wasn't happy with Jack right now and waiting for him to come to them with another one of his plans on how to destroy Vena without Lee knowing what's going on.

For now, while he waits, he's doing the only sensible thing anyone would've done in his situation.

Eating chips with a specially made garlic sauce on them at the Milton Ale House.

If what Ripley told him said anything, eating them should keep Vena from trying to turn him into a late-night snack.

It's in his interest as both, the Doctor and himself, to avoid becoming a snack for a vampire.

Ripley bites him enough, but those weren't permanent compared to having his throat completely ripped out.

Slowly pushing the chips over the garlic sauce pooling on the bottom of the basket, Matt proceeded to shove them into his mouth.

Normally, Matt wouldn't expected to like the combination, in fact, if it wasn't for the fact he's dealing with a vampire, he'd order his chips this way instead of the usual.

Sitting across from him, Ripley held a hand under her chin as she chewed on her chip.

After the failed attempt and the attempts after, they've spent time at a hotel that Jack set them up in.

Couldn't even get the TARDIS because of this whole thing.

Jack said it'll be fine for now, the vampire won't try to take it, not that it can, and they could've easily get it in the daytime and hole it up in their hotel room.

Just after he debrief them on the next course of action in dealing with the turned Vena.

"I don't think I slept last night," Ripley sighed.

After Jack huddled them into an undisclosed hotel room where they spent the night, they didn't have energy for anything else, and just wanted to sleep.

Even then, the fear of the vampire breaking into their room didn't help, either.

Slowly, Matt swallowed the helpings and drank it down with some soda before saying to Ripley, "Don't worry, after this, we can catch up, in my flat, with garlic cloves."

He pushed the empty basket to the edge of the table for the waiter to collect and felt Ripley's hand gently touching his other hand.

"Sorry about your birthday," Ripley frowned.

Matt planned his birthday from the beginning to the end and nearly had it perfect, but then came Jack to throw a wrench in his plans. He looked forward to a day where he wasn't wanted and could spend the evening with Ripley without anyone bothering them.

Just one day, he asked.

Couldn't manage that.

"Well, I should've expected taking this job that I might not get my birthday wishes every now and again," Matt frowned as he proceeded to stroke Ripley's hand.

Ripley reminded him that he still needed time to himself and while being the Doctor's nice and all, he's still a human and can't do everything at every time.

"I know," Matt sighs.

Getting his attention, Ripley comforted Matt and offered to help make up for this unexpected adventure that cut into his birthday.

"What do ya mean?" Matt asked her.

Ripley smirked at him.

"Technically, it's still your birthday, right?" Ripley pointed out.

With the way the TARDIS worked, they'll only be gone for a few minutes in their universe, still Matt's birthday.

Catching on to what Ripley alluded, Matt blushed before smiling.

"You don't have to," Matt modestly told Ripley.

She chuckled and tapped her fingers against his hand as she pointed out, "Well, you are the birthday boy."

It's only fair and Ripley aimed to make sure Matt had a good birthday.

After this, he'll need something to take his mind off the fact that Jack tried using him as bait and inevitably failed.

Matt mentioned that he'll have to repay Ripley for it and she waved her hand, saying it's nothing.

"I do recall it's someone's birthday next month," Matt mentioned.

Looking at him, Ripley gestured as she said he didn't have to do anything for her birthday. She didn't really have any plans for it, barely remembered it until Matt brought it up.

"You spoiled me plenty for my birthday and you're telling me I can't on yours?" Matt raised a brow at this one-sidedness.

She got him two presents, but one's stuck in transit and won't be at her shop until the end of the week.

Hence why she had to give him an alternate to tide him over until his other present arrived.

Ripley shrugged as she pointed out that he could've spoiled her any time, not just her birthday.

Wasn't like she was going anywhere anytime soon that he couldn't spoil her, then.

Getting her attention, Matt reminded her that she didn't have to sideline her birthday because of the guilt she had with Jodie.

Nobody's going to fault her for taking a hiatus from her birthday because of what happened and nobody's going to raise their voices when she starts having them again.

If they try, well, Matt's generally a nice fellow, but when pushed, he'll give whoever give his friends trouble a good reason to beware the nice ones.

"Wouldn't know where to begin," Ripley sighed.

She hadn't celebrated in so long, it's just another day for her, and even when Jamie and Mercy were alive, she never really celebrated it with them.

Matt smiled as he offered to plan it for her.

Ripley opted to let Matt plan it, only because she can't think of anything other than sitting around her flat with food and watch daytime Telly.

Fresh chips coated in the garlic sauce arrived at their table with refills on their drinks and the waiter took away the empty basket and the empty cups.

Hungrily, the pair ate from the basket until a familiar face arrived at the ale house with a weak smile on his face.

He sat next to Ripley and Matt couldn't help but give him a look as he chewed on the handful of garlic fries, the garlic aroma wafting in his nose.

"So, I know we didn't do so hot last night," Jack began.

Matt shoved chips dripping with the garlic sauce into his mouth as he leered at Jack.

"…But we have to keep trying. We just got another report," Jack tried to tell Matt as he paid no mind to hi. "A couple got attacked."

Jack tells them about the couple in the recent attack. Went to lover's lane, guy needed to use the loo and left the car, didn't come back, and the girl started getting scared.

In came Vena after the girl and broke through the windshield to get to her, didn't let her get the chance to start the car before she snapped her neck with her hand.

"What do you propose we do, now?" Ripley asked Jack about their best course of action. She stressed that it appeared baiting wasn't getting them anywhere after the numerous attempts and the fact Vena started avoiding them.

Jack recoiled as his weak smile start warping and he gestured.

"Well, if baiting doesn't work, then we'll have to take the offensive and find where she's hiding," Jack tried to say.

That'll be a hoot, tracking down one vampire in a sea of dilapidated buildings.

Ripley brought up a point as she pulled some chips from the basket.

"Don't you think she might go after Lee?" Ripley asked him.

If not then, it's a matter of when, and Jack needed to prepare for the inevitable one way or another.

Vena might not be acutely aware of what's going on and still think everything's fine in her perspective. She could come back to Lee and since he's not aware of her turning, he'll have no chance with her.

Jack frowned as he thought he accounted for everything.

He tracked Lee and the flat, but Vena never went to either, never went to his job, either.

"She might," Ripley raised her finger. "Jack, you're gonna have to tell him one way or another, how're you going to explain to him when he can't have an open casket?"

Shirking in his seat, Jack mustered that he didn't want Lee to know just yet and he made sure that Vena hadn't gone back to the flat or attempted to follow him.

As for the funeral, Jack might've lied about the state of Vena's body so he can come up with a way to hide the fact. It's just a matter of making sure Vena's accounted for.

"She's right, you have to tell him," Matt raised a chip at him. "His life's at stake. She might not see him as her boyfriend, anymore."

Vena's state of mind changed from her rebirth as a vampire and if Jack's not careful, she might not see Lee as her former boyfriend. The only way for this all to end safely, tell Lee the truth, and keep him safe.

"She might try to turn him," Ripley suggested a possibility.

They needed to consider every scenario and the chance that Vena could turn Lee into a vampire.

"I don't know if she can or not," Jack frowned.

He's only aware the originator turned her into one, he doesn't know if she has the ability to turn others into one or not.

"You have to consider she might try, even if she can't," Matt validated Ripley's concern.

Even if Vena can't turn Lee into a vampire, she won't know that, and risked killing him like all the others in an attempt at reuniting each other.

It meant that there's a good chance she'll rampage after that fact out of grief.

"Are you sure you can't turn her back?" Ripley inquired about the ability to turn Vena back from vampirism.

Jack confirmed that he and his team worked tirelessly with Lee out of the "office" and haven't found a way san killing her outright.

He didn't want to admit it, but he believed that the accidental blood transfusion caused a mutation, a very unique one, and they couldn't do anything about it even if they had backing from every institution in the world.

Frowning, the pair looked at each other as they realized how delicate the situation was and Jack affirmed with a frown.

"We'll have to find her soon," Jack sighed.

He posted men outside their flat to make sure she didn't stop by and kept some near Lee's job, but the matter came when he had to deal with the possibility of a vampire willing to kill publicly and causing discord along the way.

"Is she in one of the warehouses?" Ripley asked him as she munched on a chip.

Jack scoped every warehouse and there's at least a hundred of them and most unused since the downturn.

"She might've broken in to one of them, then," Matt raised his chip at Jack.

Not a whole lot of foot traffic in downtrodden warehouses, Vena's in one of them, and Jack nodded in agreement.

"I wish we had a virgin," Jack sighed as he settled in his seat.

He caught the pair glaring at him and he shrugged his wide shoulders as he pointed out they're not.

"What're you implying?" Ripley eyed him.

Jack said it bluntly, "You two don't hide it very well!"

It's in his job description to read people and he read them like a book.

A book that looked naïve on the surface with some tantalizing pages underneath that the pair attempted to skip over whenever someone pointed them out.

Not to mention, Ripley at Matt's flat and his trousers were recently fixed.

Matt's heart rate somewhat high, so either they watched a horror movie or about to make skin flicks blush.

Jack doesn't mince words much unless he felt like it and as much blunt with them as a baseball bat.

Point is, the two weren't prime candidates for his virgin idea.

"And you are?" Jack heard a voice.

Looking up, Ianto crossed his arms with a look on his face.

"Ah, Ianto, the love of my life," Jack smiled sweetly.

Ianto rolled his eyes as he mentioned, "And the love of everyone on the internet!"

Jack recoiled as he added, "And the bane to my social life!"

Apparently, Ianto tracked the weird stories people posted about Jack on the internet, security reasons, and he found them all entertaining. So much, he had to share them around the office more than once, mostly to note the poor grammar and sentence structure.

Some, he liked the thought put into it, others, he questioned the aptitude of the author.

Often, Ianto wrote stories on the internet and gotten acclaim from doing so. He loved bringing it up to Jack every now again to his embarrassment.

Everyone got a kick of hearing Ianto's newly discovered story every week and Jack grimaced in fear when Ianto found one in particular that had him have relations with things that aren't even capable.

Ianto said he's impartial, as it's in his job description, but Jack knew he always tried finding the weird ones to embarrass Jack. It's one of his character flaws and Jack loved every minute of it.

On the other hand, Jack doesn't know who started the idea, but he wouldn't sleep with a robotic android, there's no authorized ports on it for that function!

"Oh, hello Ianto, slept well?" Ripley smiled at Ianto.

Compared to Jack, Ripley liked Ianto better and the two shared similar opinions.

Sighing as he took a spot next to Matt, Ianto explained that he couldn't on the account he had to monitor communications.

No other people attacked but the couple, but there's a good chance Vena'll try again tonight.

"I'm not doing it, again," Matt flatly told Jack that he wasn't about to play bait again.

Once's fine, four times's pushing it too far.

Jack shirked in his spot as he meekly said that he had another idea.

"What's that?" Ripley asked.

She watched as Jack smiled weakly and looked towards Ianto rolling his eyes.