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"I made it to the rage phase," Sloan says coolly, leaning in nice and close to get a good photo of Scott with her phone. He looks terrible, writhing in pain on the floor with blood streaming out of his nose.

Good. Asshole deserves it.

Spinning on her heels, Sloan exits the board room and crosses the waiting room, where Don (good pal that he is) is waiting. Scott's $400 wing tips stomp across the floor as he follows her, but Sloan doesn't slow down or even look back. Don has her covered.

As she looks down at the photo on her phone (which she is strongly considering making the wallpaper on her work computer), a triumphant smile appears on her face.

The rage phase feels good.

Exhaling slowly, Sloan pushes open the door to the stairwell and steps through, knowing Don will catch up in a minute.

Eyes flicker up from the phone's screen and widen.

"Okay, maybe not," she mutters to herself. The stairwell that she knows is supposed to be there just isn't. There's a bar, but it doesn't look like any bar she's ever been to. Whirling around, incredibly confused, she turns the knob on the door she just came through. When it opens, she sees nothing familiar, not the hall she just came down, no Don waiting for her, nothing.

Stifling back one of those laughs that tend to bubble up when you panic, Sloan swallows heavily and looks around.

It had been a hell of a day and she was in a bar. Maybe a drink wouldn't hurt.

Besides, after the day she's had, Sloan figures she deserves one.

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Will and MacKenzie have been back and forth between New York and the hotel a few times since his father's death. Will used to find it creepy, but now that he knows he can come and go at will without losing any time back in New York, he just finds it to be a pleasant escape. Sometimes he comes with Mac, but he often comes alone.

Tonight is one of the nights he comes alone. He goes to the bar and orders a drink and it's only then that he realizes that Sloan is here, too. He hasn't seen anyone else from ACN here. This is a first. "Put her on my tab," he tells the bartender, and takes a seat beside Sloan.

Her brows lift in surprise when Will slides into the seat next to hers. Promptly, she pinches herself...

and then curses. "Sonofabitch," she mutters, and then rubs furiously at the spot on her arm she just pinched.

"I thought I was dreaming," she informs Will. "But I guess I'm not, unless you and I are doing some strange beta testing for a demented theme park with shared dreaming attractions, not that anything like that exists but you never know, right?"

As soon as the bartender places a drink in front of her, Sloan takes a huge gulp. "What the hell, Will?"

"I've asked that question a million times," he says. "And there really are no satisfactory answers. This is a hotel, called The Nexus. Apparently you can come here from any time, any where, as long as there's a door. Completely fucked up, right?" It's not a useful explanation, he knows, but honestly? There really isn't one.

Sloan listens carefully as Will attempts to explain what the hell is going on, but it still makes zero sense to her. Another gulp and she whirls in her seat suddenly. "Why didn't you mention this place before, Will? I mean, I know it'd sound crazy but you shouldn't keep the fact that you found some messed up adult Narnia from me. I could have been prepared. Like a Girl Scout. A Girl Scout with a rainbow badge! Or whatever that badge was!"

Edited 2013-09-13 00:13 (UTC)

"As if you would have believed me!" Will protests. That, and he didn't want anyone from work knowing about this place--it's become his escape. (It's bad enough that Mac knows about it; now he can't even get away from her.) "Honestly, would you have believed me? You would have told Charlie to have me committed."

After a pause that is most likely longer than necessary, Sloan concedes Will's point. "Yeah, I would have thought you were higher than a van full of hippies," she says with a sigh.

For a moment she grows silent, swirling her glass on the counter top. On one hand, this situation is unbelievably cool and interesting, but on the other it's messed up. Like, messed up messed up.

"Is anyone else here, or is it just the two of us?"

"Mac is here, sometimes," he says. "No one else from ACN, at least not that I know of--which is nice. It's like a little, I don't know. Escape from reality. When you get back, it was like you were never gone. Some kind of cosmic time-out corner. No tabloids, no bullshit, and all the anonymity you want."

Since it's one of the few places where people hang out during the times he's awake and around, Nick has taken to haunting a stool in the bar and nursing a single beer as the night goes on. After nearing a month in the hotel, he started feeling one thing he never thought he would: he started to miss the damned island.

The snort of laughter has barely left his lips before he feels something that has is other senses perking right the hell up. Whatever's driving this chick, her emotions are strong.

He turned to find the source and took a deep breath then shot the woman a smile. "You look like you need this more than I do," he said, holding his glass up.

"I don't know about that, but I'll agree that I need one," Sloan says, waving the bartender over and ordering a gin and tonic. Fidgeting with an abandoned coaster a seat down from her, she gives the guy a small smile. "I was just in Manhattan literally 5 minutes ago."

Worrying her lower lip, her eyes shoot toward the doorway. This whole situation is so bizarre and unreal; she almost wonders if she's going insane.

"Do you know what's going on here?" she asks, eyes sidling back to her companion.

"Ah, a new arrival," Nick nodded, and took another miniscule sip from his bottle, his demon side searching the air around them for more of the emotions it'd sensed earlier.

"There's a long version and a short one. Got a preference?"

"I like to be well informed," Sloan says automatically. A moment, and then her brow furrows. "Unless the long version is as long as War and Peace. Then, I'll just take the Cliff Notes."

"We'll start small and go from there," Nick nodded. "Short version is that you've stumbled into a pocket universe ruled by some sort of power that has, for whatever reason, pulled people from their native worlds to this hotel and its grounds." He paused for a micro-sip from his bottle while that settled in. "That do? Or do you need a little more?"

Olaf is always going to notice a beautiful woman.

He's ninety-three years old, has had countless children, and has made love to an obscene amount of beautiful women. He has sex and gorgeous women down to an art and so when a new gorgeous vision walks into the bar, Olaf is quick to lean over and pour her a drink, making one for himself at the same time since it's only decent.

He reclines back, his hawaiian shirt open to the breeze and offers out a glass of scotch. "A fine drink for a fine woman?" he offers with an easy smile.

Sloan's head swivels slowly in the man's direction. He doesn't look creepy or like an asshole (although, to be honest with herself, she is a horrible judge of character at times), so she gives him a flicker of a smile.

"Sure, thank you," she says, accepting the glass with an appreciative nod.

Offering her free hand, she adds, "I'm Sloan."

"Olaf," he replies cheerfully, drinking back half his glass with the practiced ease of someone who does that more often than is likely healthy for their liver. "What's a beautiful woman like you doing alone in a place like this? I know this place isn't that blind."