It's all AU.

Rose held out a map at arms length, and sighed.

"Think I owe the Doctor an apology for saying it was always his fault when we got lost," she said sheepishly, glancing over it.

Gwen let herself out of her hotel room, checked Lorne's next door to see if he was there, discovered he wasn't, and decided it was time she plucked up the courage to go for a walk on her own.

Still rather nervous at the sheer strangeness of the place, she ventured out into the city, gazing round wide-eyed at the odd-looking buildings and people and wandering till she'd worn herself out. She made it half-way up some steps leading up to some sort of strange angular monument, and sat down, staring with glazed eyes out over the city.

"It's so big!" she muttered.

Logic was against it. Odds were against it. And yet, when the Doctor caught sight of a familiar blonde head, he couldn't help turning, stopping, squinting, and then running towards her. "Rose!"

Methos glanced over his shoulder at Sarah as he stepped out the door, expecting his foot to land on ground soggy with melt-water. Instead, he felt pavement beneath his feet, and turned to look with a frown. A disorienting moment later, he groaned, bringing a hand up to pinch at the bridge of his nose.

"This is not going to be a good day," he muttered, torn between laughing and banging his head against the nearest building. At least, if nothing else, whatever those creatures that had shown up near the end of winter were, they wouldn't be here. He hoped.

The Master looked up at the sunny sky in the middle of New New New New New York. And Growled.

"This is just shite."

It had been months (Whoville time) since the TARDIS had quietly disappeared from view, taking her shattered and broken Time Lord with her. Where she'd gone was anyone's guess. How long it had been since the day the Doctor and ripped, pulled and torn, put every once of his energy and being, into silencing the drums in the Master's head, wasn't certain, either.

But, as the TARDIS door opened, it was possible to make a guess.

And from the look of the Doctor -- battered, with eyes that looked ancient and bruised, and hair that was more flat than wild -- it hadn't been nearly long enough. He stumbled to the nearest TARDIS (that wasn't his) and knocked heavily on the door. "Hello," he said, pleasantly enough but without energy. "I'm all out of tea. Can I bother you for a cup?"

He'd used all his.

Rose was all bundled up, and looking more chipper then she had in a while. The Doctor just had his coat on, as usual. A good 6 inches had blanketed the town, enough to really play in not enough to trap people indoor is they wanted to get out. The worked on a snowman for a bit, when Rose turned to the Doctor and commented, "Snowball fights work better with more people. Where is everyone?"

Jamie had on earmuffs with little bear faces on the brown fluff. His ears got cold! They were rather large, and well. Goofy. He looked like a student in jeans and a hooded jumper, the hood down as he walked through the town, peering at windows.

"Do you reckon it'll snow?" he asked out loud. "It's winter at home."

Rose wandered up and plopped down next to the Doctor, a bag of chips on hand. She held it out for the Doctor to take one.

"I don't think I've met this you. Something different about you."

Rose stared at her sandwich a little morosely - not really feeling like eating - but going to make herself unlike some people. She took a bite, a set it down for a second, and saw Jack when she looked up.

Some how she didn't think he was as old as the old she was currently sharing a TARDIS with. There was a something more familiar about how he held himself. She waved at him.

Rose sat down by the lake, head resting on her crossed arms braced on top on her knees. When she heard footsteps she said without looking up, "'M probably not good company right now."

Rose was human and not psychically sensitive. She also hadn't gone looking for her TARDIS-mates, content with her own company for the day.

She was sitting licking an ice cream cone in the park, and didn't know a damn thing.

Rose flopped in a chair in a lobby and announced to no one in particular, "Bored Time Lords are a whole new level of strange."

Like she was talking about hyperactive toddlers. Well. Close enough.

( cut for length )

The sign she'd hung out read:

Females only.

No male beings allowed. Not even you, Jack. And especially not the Doctor.

Snacks and movies in the the first door to the left past the control room.

Lucy basically just ran and ran. She wasn't running from Harry, so much as from the memories that had just been dumped into her mind - memories of half a dozen different versions of Harry, most of them alien and one of them very, very frightening - and the knowledge that her Harry wasn't human either, not really. It was just too much to deal with with him standing there in front of her.

She ended up outside the back door of the hotel and just slid down the wall to the ground, heedless of her beautiful red dress in the dirt as she sat there, gazing out into nothingness as she tried to get her head round what had just happened.

The Master was sitting reading a book in the hotel lobby, with his feet propped up when Rose silently came up to him and pretty much curled up in his lap, face against his chest.

Both startled by her forward affection, which was more so than was even usual for her, and worried he asked, "What's wrong?"

She shrugged without looking up. "Nothing new. Just the usual."

He accepted that for the moment, wrapped her in his coat a little, and gently stroked her back. She quickly dropped into a doze, so he picked his book back up, with an arm securely around her.

It was a little strange for him, and he imagined a down right surreal sight for most people who might pass by.

The Master had found a hill. Or made a hill. Whatever. A hill had appeared, and he'd walked up it. Now he was sitting at the top, enjoying being able to look down on the town from outside it.

Not exactly the lord of all he surveyed, but he did like feeling on top of things.

Rose sat in the park with a botany book and a oak leaf, under the tree the leaf had come from.

"Quercus pet- petraea," she slowly sounded out, or "Quercus robur? I am even looking at the right subgenus?"

Rose peered at a bright blue lizard on tree limb. Caught the familiar figure out of the corner of her eye and asked the Doctor, "That color is more a tropical thing, isn't it? Seems like bad camouflage. Well, guess this place didn't exactly evolve."

Lucy was trying on clothes in one of the several designer stores the town now sported. She'd spotted Captain John Hart from a distance the other day and that had reminded her that they'd planned to have dinner some time. So she was looking for something new to wear when she went knocking on John's door.

Unfortunately, she was feeling conflicted about what to choose. She was in the dressing room modelling a satiny little black dress when she heard someone else come into the store. Perhaps they could help her make up her mind.

She went to the door and leaned round it. "Excuse me," she said to the blonde who'd come into the shop. "I don't suppose I could ask your advice for a moment?"