all_inclusive | Gathering: New Year's Eve Gala

Gathering: New Year's Eve Gala

The annual Nexus New Year's Eve gala began at 8 in the evening. Too grand to be contained by the lobby or dining hall, the gardens at the front of the hotel were employed, with long strings of white lights forming a twinkling canopy from the front doors all the way to the hedge maze. The weather was temperate and calm, and the night perfectly clear.

Drinks were served at various bars set up throughout the gardens and lobby, with champagne cocktails being the specialty of the night. Wheeling through the crowd was a bartender with golden cart providing warm drinks on the go: Tom and Jerrys, rum punch, negus, and Irish coffee.

Crisply-dressed wait staff wove through the collected guests with an abundance of hors d'oeuvres for all different tastes. The Bistro remained open with a limited selection of items for those who were wanting something more substantial.

Above the front doors was hung a large, gold-rimmed clock counting down the last hours, minutes, and seconds of the current year.

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Martha considers this, then nods, smiling a little more. "All right, that's fair play," she agrees. "What are you having, Jamie? So that we can get ourselves right before the clock strikes."

"A whiskey, neat," he says. It's a simple drink but in a lot of ways, Jamie Fraser is a simple man. While he likes wines and champagnes, a good whiskey aged in an oak barrel is still the best.

"Got it," says Martha, who ends up at the bar, asking for a neat Islay and another Irish coffee (she's gotta stop with these or she'll never sleep tonight). The order's fast, though, and she's back in a moment or two.

Jamie's not hard to find, considering the kilt, though there are one or two more about in the crowd. He's the best-looking, even if she's Not Going To Hit On Him, having seen the way he talked about this Claire.

"Slainte, isn't it?" she says, handing over his glass before raising the tempered glass mug.

"Do dheagh shlàinte," Jamie says in response. "And aye, you have the right of it. To good health and a great year." Martha is one of the better sorts he's met since being here and she makes him feel like he's not quite so far from home. Granted, in his day, there wouldna be many lady doctors with skin so dark but he's discovered that just because something's familiar, doesna mean it's right. He's glad that things have changed in the future.

A nod and a sip to the toast, and Martha lets the warmth of the coffee run through her for a moment. "Good health and a great year indeed," she agrees. "So I take it you're based here these days, then, not getting home much?"

She's trying to put it in as gentle a phrasing as possible, seeing as it's a touchy subject for some.

"That's the way of it," Jamie agrees. "Havena been able to go home since I came here a year ago. I've tried, ye ken, but the doors dinna seem to work for me that direction. I can go other places but I canna go home. It's troubling but I'm hoping that I can get back one day. What about you? Can you go back and forth, then?"

"Sort of," says Martha, gesturing a little with her glass. It's a very timey-wimey gesture. "I can go back, but getting back here is a bit awkward, much more random. It does seem to happen more when I'm going somewhere at home that I don't really want to be, to be honest."

"Bit of a nice escape, then," Jamie says with a little chuckle. "Reminds me of when I was a wee boy and me feet found me in the stables instead of at the table for supper or to my father for a beating. Funny how the doors can do that for ye."

Martha smiles and takes a big sip of her drink. "Some of an escape. Other times it's just a bit inconvenient, but things just seem to get that way for me..."

She trails off, lifting an eyebrow slightly at 'for a beating' and 'stables', and more than that, the casual way in which Jamie referred to both. Neither are exactly usual conversation in her day, and put together... "Do you mind if I ask you a personal question, Jamie?"

This might not be a good idea, but she's curious.

"Well, that'll be depending on how personal the question is," Jamie says, grinning at her. "But ye can ask, if ye like. I promise to try and give ye an answer if I can." He's always been an honest sort and unless it's something intimate, he's not the kind to keep himself hidden away. It's something he doesn't share with scheming MacKenzie side of his family.

"What would ye like to know?"

Martha tries to phrase the query as tactfully and with as little shock value as possible. Not everyone is as...chill about shifting in time and space as the people she knows, even if they've done it. "Are you from a different time? To the one that we're in here, I mean."

She gestures slightly around the room with her nearly empty glass.

"Aye, that's the way of it. I gathered that everyone mostly knew, the way I am. I'm from the year of our lord, 1746," Jamie says.

"Which, I gather, is a long time before you. My Claire's a time traveller."

"It was a guess," Martha admits with a soft smile. "But 1746...that's quite a jump." Culturally, she could only imagine how much of an adjustment it would be. But if his partner travelled in time as well...

"It's a good thing, though, because that means you'll believe me when I tell you I used to do quite a bit of time travelling myself. Never was in 1746, admittedly." Something about that period and Scotland was tweaking her memory, but it wasn't clear how.

"Where have ye been, then? Anywhere I might know?" Jamie doesna know if she has, considering he's from pretty far in the past, but maybe she's seen Claire's time. Maybe she's been two hundred years into the future and she can tell him whether or not Claire lives or dies.

"I've an interest, ye ken."

Martha isn't sure about how well Jamie will take the whole space and aliens and millions of years things, though he seems like a pragmatic guy. Besides, it's not exactly first impressions conversation. So she goes with something more...conventional.

For a given value of convention.

"Understandable, having an interest," she says, gently teasing. "We did end up having an interesting time with Mr Shakespeare at the Globe--not making that up. Have you read his poetry ever?"

"Oh, of course. I'm a learned man," Jamie says, puffing up a bit in pride at that. He's always loved to read and his room at Lallybroch had been covered in every novel, poetry collection and scrap of paper he could find. It's something that's soothing to him, reading, and it suits him a hell of a lot better than trying to write anything with his stiff right hand.

"Shakespeare, Thomas More, Cervantes...all of the great ones. I ken them."

Good, Jamie'll at least know what she's on about--some people (even doctors) don't know a sonnet from a haiku, much less that Shakespeare wrote any. Martha grins broadly, and points to herself with her free hand. "Dark Lady of the Sonnets?" she says. "That's me."

Jamie bows gallantly and when he tips his face back up, he's grinning. "It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance, then, and only hope I'm worthy of it. Muse, surgeon...is there something you're not capable of?"

It's been a while since he's got on so well with someone and Jamie thinks it's about time he starts making friends in this place, seeing as how he's a wee bit stuck.

"Saved the world, once," Martha says, and it's only because she's drunk that she mentions it, only glibly because that's the only way she can talk about it. "But I'm a rubbish cook, for starters, so I honestly can't do everything," she feels compelled to add.

"I reckon if ye ken save the world a time or two, being able to cook doesna matter quite so much," Jamie says. It's never something he's ever considered, a woman who can't cook, but he supposes in the grand scheme it isna so strange as to be unheard of. If a lady is more focused on other things, cooking's not something that would keep her from being successful.

"Dinna fash yourself about that," he says. "Not that you were."

"That and having a good curry house around the corner," Martha replies with a smirk, though she realises after she says it that Jamie will have zero frame of reference for this. "You say not to worry, but my auntie still can't believe I can't make a decent pepper soup. Never mind that I could sew someone's leg back on, given the right equipment."

She winks at him--she can't help it.

Jamie laughs a little, more relaxed and more comfortable with Martha than he's been with anyone in a while - and certainly more than he's been with anyone else here in the Nexus. "I think I'll take the mending over the cooking. I ken how to cook well enough to keep myself and others alive but I canna save a life. I value that skill more than anything else, I think."

Martha had to stop herself from saying 'och, Jamie' involuntarily--she didn't want him to think she was mocking him, she'd just heard 'och, Martha' way too many times from Ails, one of her flatmates at uni. "Hey, eating's a damn big part of staying alive," she pointed out. "But there're a few things you can learn to do, doctor-wise. Anyone can be a first aider, do CPR, as long as they've got a steady head in a crisis."

She was fairly confident Jamie was one of those people.

"Aye? Well, if you've a mind to teach me, I've a mind to learn." Jamie has always been of the opinion that a good mind is in need of a whetstone and that even the keenest intellect wants for sharpening once in a while. He feels that learning some of Martha (and Claire's, at that) trade might give him something to occupy his time while he bides in the Nexus.

"I'd like to know how to save a life with something more than just my wits."

"Excellent," Martha says; though she's sure the hotel staff are all first-aid trained, it certainly can't hurt to have a good first responder about the place, particularly one who doesn't just up and leave periodically by chance.

She slurps the last out of her glass. "Though I'm assuming you know how to bandage things up, somewhat, if you've been in battle?"

Gathering: New Year's Eve Gala

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