Sorry that it's a tad shorter than the other ones and sort of fillerish but it had to be done. I wish that I didn't have to cover all of the stuff that happened in the Series but I'm afraid that some of it is integral to the plot. Please review if you enjoyed/hated it, it's nice to hear what people think of you're writing and I know mine is not the best- also I know there are a couple of typos that I have probably missed (sorry).

To the reviewer who asked about Alex, well we'll have to wait and see won't we :) Oh, and I am sorry for the poor Hal and Mitchell interaction in this chapter.

Thanks for reading!

Tom was lonely, that was how he would put it. He had lost his father, or who ever McNair really was, and now in this new house, with these strange people, he did not really know. It was hard being around the two vampires, he knew what they were and it was difficult after years of hunting down vampires, now changing and having to be friends with them. But it was the only place he had, and the only place he knew to go to at the moment.

–/-

It was at five o'clock in the afternoon that George found out that Nina was dead. A person from the hospital called and said that Nina hadn't turned up for work, and later that day a call from the police came through, saying that she had been found stabbed and her body had been laid by her murderer on the beach. Of course there was going to be an investigation, but knowing the vampires, there was no way that anything would ever come at it.

George did not really do much for days, he stared at the television or lay on the couch. He ignored his child, and it was as if he had died. The rest of the housemates were on edge around him, Annie would occasionally give him cups of tea, which she would find half-drunk on the floor by his sleeping form. He refused to go back to the bedroom that he and Nina shared and so most nights he could be found sleeping on the sofa. Mitchell almost felt as if it was his fault, for refusing Wyndam, for killing those twenty people on a train which brought him to the attention of the Old Ones, for everything really.

Those days were strange days indeed, punctuated by the occasional wail of Eve or the door closing as Michell or Tom went to work, but no one said anything really, George's position at the centre of the house meant that it was impossible for them to have conversations in the kitchen or anywhere really. And of course, Annie and Mitchell were both in mourning- for both of them Nina had been a friend for a long time, and her loss was felt, but neither felt it as keenly as George.

It was a week into this period of mourning that Annie and Mitchell decided to do something about the George situation.

'George, get up.' Annie stood above George from his position of the sofa, and he opened his bleary eyes to find her standing there. The television blared in the background, and he realised he must have fallen asleep watching the reality television show that he had tried to use to distract himself.

'I can't.'

'You've been like this for days George, you have to get up.' He closed his eyes again and tried to shut them again, to keep out the real world, but he was rudely awakened when he felt someone grab his arms and hoist him into a standing position.

'George, come on.' His head turned and he looked to Mitchell. 'We've already lost one friend, and we can't lose another.'

'I don't want to.'

'Do you think Eve needs a father like this?' Annie asked after a moment, 'She needs a proper father, you can't stay like this forever.' Mitchell let go of him, and he was standing on his own two feet, he stared at his two friends, the stood at an awkward distance from each other, and a spiteful part of him revelled in the fact that they too did not get to live happily ever after.

'Annie, I can-'

'You can't what George?' Right now all he wanted to do was return to his position on the couch, and fall back asleep, but he realised that he couldn't be selfish.

'She's dead,' he paused, grief over taking him at that realisation, 'how can she be dead?' The morning of the day that she died, she had been so full of life, so normal and yet his whole world had changed in a matter of moments.

'George,' Mitchell began and he too paused struggling to find the right words, 'I know she is, but life has to move on. You have a child now.' With a resigned sigh, George nodded and moved zombie-like up the stairs to have a shower.

–/-

It was around this time that the housemates realised that the vampire who was lodging upstairs would have to start paying rent, since this seemed to be a long-term thing, and in some ways Mitchell didn't mind the idea of Hal staying, not since he fended of Wyndam. But he still felt slightly apprehensive, the idea of two vampires staying together, well it just never tended to go well. He knocked on the door, slightly worried, and glanced at Annie behind him.

'Come in.' Mitchell pushed the door and saw Hal lining up the dominos just as he did every day, and silently he wondered how the man had the patience to do that. Hal turned around slightly and looked at the two of them. 'What is it?'

'Well, the thing is,' Annie begun, finding it difficult to be subtle, 'is er, well, we're not a homeless shelter.' Just after she said the words she almost wanted to smack herself in the head, she had just implied that he was homeless.

'We need you to pay rent.' Mitchell said after a moment. 'Do you have any money stored away or...'

'A bit, but it might be unwise for me to access it.' There was a moment of silence and Hal stared at the pair in the doorway, before he pushed himself up from his chair.

'Could you maybe get a job?' A flash of annoyance passed over his face and Hal stared at Annie for a moment.

'A job?' He looked almost gobsmacked.

'Well, I mean it just does-' Annie begun, but Hal cut her off.

'I don't really do well around people, it's how I manage my condition.'

'Mitchell's been alright.' A hollow laugh escaped Hal's mouth.

'Mitchell,' he said slowly, 'has also "fallen off the wagon" quite a few times as well.' He didn't speak for a moment, before he realised what he had just said. 'I don't mean that offensively of course.'

'Don't worry about it.' The Irish vampire said quietly, and he tried to avoid the look that Annie gave him.

'Hal, we really can't just let you get away with not having a job. Getting out might be good for you, you never know.' Annie walked closer towards him, and thought about giving him a comforting pat on the shoulder, before realising that it was far too awkward. 'Look, with Nina gone and George out of action, we really need the money.' Hal relented.

'Fine. But where am I going to get a job then, it's not exactly as if they are falling off trees at the moment.' Before Annie could speak he interrupted, 'And there is no way that I am getting a job at the hospital, there's far too much blood around there.' It was at that moment that the person who had been watching the conversation from afar joined in.

'He coul' ge' a job with me?' Tom said, and they all looked at him.

'How long have you been standing there?' Mitchell asked, a tone of baffled amusement evident in his voice.

'No' that long, just to hear that Hal needs a job.' Hal bit down the annoyance at the young man's generous offer but nodded.

'Thank you Tom.' Even to him his voice sound strange, and he was barely keeping down the anger at the fact that he was being forced to work. Didn't they know that keeping away from humans was the only way for him to stay clean.

–/-

This meant that Hal soon found himself in the dank cafe that Tom worked at, but it wasn't so bad, the job that was. The cafe was empty quite a lot, and the risk of him throwing himself at someone and draining them was therefore small. The only problem was Tom, the young werewolf seemed to not particularly like him much, and he had to say that he didn't particularly like Tom, not since he found the stake underneath the towels on top of the fridge.

'Tom,' he called, he was standing in the kitchen washing the grease from his hands, but he had glanced into the cafe and saw that there was a customer outside. 'There's a customer.' The werewolf came running out from behind the door, looking quite shifty, had hurried over to the customer. Had Hal been his previous self he would have killed the werewolf for the trick that he pulled on him, and he could just feel that side of him practically begging to come out. He had thought that he had beaten the beast inside him, but he had forgot how easily he changed, all the times it had happened. London, 1621; Paris 1712; Washington, 1813; Berlin, 1908- he could list them all off in his head. He cleared his mind, he was not overdue, he was a different person, he could beat the monster that lurked in the inner depths of his mind.

He took a breath and stared into the cafe, and watched Tom interact with the customer. She was pretty, a blonde, and he envied Tom and how easily he functioned with the world around him. That's why vampires hated werewolves, and he sighed and took the rubbish out. He didn't quite realise who would be waiting there for him, he recognised the face almost immediately.

'My Lord, it's really you?' Hal stared at him, not quite believing it.

'Get up.' It was pitiful really how the vampires he had recruited flailed around him. 'You have the wrong person.' The man looked up, still in his kneeling position and he slowly pushed himself up.

'No it's not. I'd recognise you anywhere.' A slow smile found it's way onto the vampire's face.

'I am not the same person, Fergus.' Hal took the other by the throat and slammed him into the wall, trying to keep some semblance of a sane personality. 'Leave me alone.'

'I heard you're living with John Mitchell. He's caused a few disturbances.' Hal's eyes widened slightly, and he lowered the man from the wall.

'What? How do you know that?'

'You pulled him off the man at the shop, didn't you.' Fergus laughed for a few seconds, and then he focused his attention onto Hal again. 'The two most moral vampires in the whole world, living together. But you know it's not goin-'

'Fergus. Please, I don't want to cause any trouble.'

'Well Wyndam's got his eye out for you.' The older vampire closed his eyes briefly, and pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to calm himself down. He flicked them open after a moment, and looked around at the surroundings he was in, he was Lord Harry and he was working at a bloody cafe. No. He had to keep those thoughts out of his head.

'I appreciate the warning Fergus.'

'Did you like his little gift to your merry band?' Hal sneered slightly.

'They are not my merry band.' He said that, but did he really mean it? They seemed to be the only people he had. 'And what gift?'

'The werewolf bitch.' For a moment Hal didn't say anything, so Wyndam was behind it? As much as he hated the man, him being killed would perhaps cause some complications. How was he was supposed to deal with this now?