It's all AU.

He was sitting at an outside cafe, bag of ice held to his (swelling and blackening) eye. "Well. That went well." His tone was dry and self depreciating, but not without some humor.

He'd ventured out of the TARDIS in search of really good chips. He'd found them, in New New (etc) York. He'd had precisely one when a massive gull swept down, screaming, and stole the second right out of his hand. He looked up in disbelief, then cursed. "Fucking bird."

Romana was peering into the window of a slightly shabby gift shop.

"Five billions years later and humanity is still making copies a portrait of one woman, with no eyebrows, which was a fake to begin with," she marveled. "I suppose it's comforting that it's not just our people who are so silly," she said, turning to the Master.

He wandered, after leaving the cafe, humming to himself as he watched people around him. Idly watching for anyone who looked familiar, though he didn't have nearly as high an expectation that he'd actually meet anyone he did. Not in a city the size of New New York, even if this wasn't the real place.

Running into another version of himself wasn't exactly planned, but he smiled when he saw a familiar face anyway, pausing in his humming to call out a friendly, "Hello!"

He went looking for his counterpart and found him in the library. "I was asked to pass a message along to you," he began, voice quiet.

The Master had slipped into the library while it was empty. The lights were off, but the fire was lit. The Master was curled into a large, wingback chair -- the sort that the Doctor's seventh regeneration would have been fond of. He was peaceful, and he was at rest.

Until he realized the Doctor was there.

Then he shoved himself out of the chair and onto the floor, with an apology. "I'm sorry."

The Master left the snooker hall and went looking for a TARDIS. His encounter with River had shaken him more than he'd expected and he was looking for help in the place he knew best.

He had no idea whose TARDIS it was, but he knocked anyway. And waited.

Jack knocked on the TARDIS door, bright and early. He could have let himself in, but he wanted to make sure they were both awake and not trying to murder each other. He also really, really wanted them to come see the surprise he'd brought them. If he had to wander around the TARDIS looking, the effect wouldn't be nearly so good.

The surprise was The Master. He was rumpled, his hands were cuffed behind his back and he was gagged with his tie. He looked far more exasperated and resigned than pissed off.

Jack was holding him by one arm, bouncing on his toes and grinning from ear to ear when the door opened. "Look what I found!" he exclaimed, followed closely by: "Can I keep him?"

All he'd really been doing was going to the bathroom for a glass of water.

Which was why, when he appeared in the middle of what appeared to be a hotel lobby, he was very confused. "Either this regeneration visually hallucinates, or there is something very strange going on," he mumbled, very softly.

He looked around, spotted someone and then said, extremely precisely: "Pardon me, have you seen a lunatic with brown hair that looks as though it's never seen a brush, a pin-stripe suit, and a silver bracelet wandering about?"