It's all AU.

He was squinting up into the sky with a quizzical expression. He pointed off into the distance. "Was that there before?" he asked. He was pointing at a very slightly 'wavery' spot in the sky -- a place where the air looked like it was being warped by something.

One down on the list of people to see. Now for Romana. He knocked on the door of the TARDIS she had moved herself to before he'd dropped out of the nexus last time, and waited.

He'd been keeping an eye out for Doctors - he'd got over the feeling of wanting to get away from the Doctor once he'd been in the nexus a couple of days without one - but it was still a few days before he saw one.

He'd just come out of a sweet shop, so it was perfectly natural to wander over to the Doctor and hold out the paper bag in his hand. "Jelly baby?" he offered, chewing.

She wandered up to the Doctor. Literally poked him. "How do I tell if I know you then, without asking a bunch of questions? Oh, well. I'm Donna Noble. Do you know me?"

He was in 'Old Whoville', which was to say the small town, with grass and trees, and a lovely little lake with ducks. He was sitting by that lake, feeding bits of breads to the ducks and humming to himself. He was, apparently, quite happy with the utter mundanity of it all. Just this once. For a little while.

He'd go find something exciting to do a bit later. When his head felt better and he felt more himself.

Maybe after he'd had another nap, or --

"Oh, hello. Care for a bit of a chat?"

After he'd had a nice talk with the first person to wander along.

He was in that kind of mood.

He was walking down the street, headed for somewhere to get a bite to eat and maybe a paper if he was lucky. Then he passed someone who felt... odd. Very, very odd. So he backed up, looked around and then spotted Jamie. "Hullo," he said, carefully. "What're you?"

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.

The Doctor woke up with a pounding headache. It took him a bit to realize that the pounding in his ears wasn't the same as the one in his head. It was faster and - a heartbeat. A doubled heartbeat. He blinked his eyes open, and, more slowly, into focus. "What're you doing - Oh, right. Hello."

The Doctor did eventually end up in the hotel lobby, but by the time he made it there the party had ended and he'd forgotten what he was looking for, anyway. His head was aching, in a way that was nearly crippling. It didn't feel like a headache, really, it was deeper than that. It was rawer, sharper and more exposed. It made it impossible to think, and behind the pounding there was an echo of a memory of a rhythm that he couldn't shake. It wasn't real, it wasn't driving him, but it added one more layer to the distracting, maddening, sense of being undone.

He was tired, but he couldn't go to sleep because he couldn't stop moving for long enough. If his TARDIS had worked - hell, if his brain worked- he likely would have been running. As it was, he was just wandering. He left the hotel and restlessly roamed the confines of the town. When he got near the park he was aware of the Master - not his, but the line between the two less distinct than before - under a tree with a book, but not until he'd just about fallen over him. He sat down beside him abruptly and closed his eyes. "What're you reading?"

((A place to put more threads, since some people are having trouble with loading large pages))

Continued from here.

"You said you wanted help," the Doctor said, once they were away from the party. "I'm helping. Pick a room, any room." He flashed a grin that was bright but didn't get anywhere near his eyes.

The Master was sitting at one of the tables savoring a shot of whiskey as he waited for people to show up. He'd traded out of his usual politician's suit, for a longer, more closely tailored knee length jacket, and had actually lost the tie. The white rose remained pinned, of course.

Everything was set up. Tables, large enough for 4 or 5 people to sit comfortably, around the outside of the room. Food and open bar at the far wall from the doors. And still a fairly large space in the middle for dancing. It was going to be interesting to see how many people showed up, because frankly he wasn't sure what the population of the town was. He couldn't help but wonder, given the malleable and mind bending nature of the this place - if more people showed up then could really fit, would the room mysteriously seem bigger? It wasn't a completely absurd idea, here.

As predicted, there were no Doctors with red roses and black converses in sight, yet.

Finally, the Master was ready to post his notice for the party. He pinned it to a large bulletin board easily viewable in the hotel lobby. In careful flowing calligraphy it read,

"All are cordially invited

To an evening of conversation, food, drinking, music, and dancing

In the company of fellow visitors and semi-residents

Located at the hotel ballroom beginning at dusk tomorrow

Dress up is highly encouraged

Less than civilized behavior while in attendance not tolerated

With warm regards,

Koschei (who will be dressed in style) & Theta Sigma (who will probably be late)"

He was trying really hard not to laugh, as he stood back and looked at it. Ok, he laughed. And then wandered off, with a stupidly happy grin on his face.

The Doctor lay on his back in his favourite spot in the park, gazing up at the stars, a big box of chocolates at his side.

He was finally - finally - starting to get bored with his holiday.

"I miss my TARDIS," he grumbled.

He still wanted that nap, but writing down everything he'd learned here was more important. After leaving the hotel, he found a shop and picked up a notebook and pens. It was a pleasant day outside, so he found a park with some nice trees, planted himself under one, and started summarizing the conversations he'd had so far. When he was done with that, he tore out the pages, folded them neatly and put them in his jacket pocket.

Then then started working on a project he'd been thinking of doing for a while, but hadn't gotten around to - working out the math to see if the Rift in Cardiff could be stabilized so that less anachronistic matter came through. The Rift had been just a nuisance, so it hadn't been worth the risk of messing with it lest it become even more unstable. But it had attracted more trouble over the last few months, so it was worth investigating.

Normally, he'd want computer power to make this faster and to check himself, but he needed a challenging distraction. Also, it was something completely unrelated to what was happening to him here in this place. A control for his little experiment. He was curious to see if, when got back home, he'd have two sets of paper, one, or none. And if he did have a set of calculations that he didn't remember doing, would that jog his memory?

He was pretty deep in thought, but not completely oblivious. He knew that not everyone here was friendly to him.

One last glimpse of her parent's solemn face, and then the world blurred, harmony blending with counterpoint in dizzying fugues of motion, lifting her from her home and beyond. To where she needed to be, to the start of her journeyquest.

To...there.

Melodi landed in an ungraceful heap and jangle of dischordancy, sooner than she'd expected, and this place was wrong. No sense of motion, no dance to it, rhythms slow and tangled and everything was the wrong color. The sky was gray-blue, the trees were brown and green and red and gold, the ground beneath her feet a jumbled tangle of grays and browns and it was definitely not where she'd intended to arrive.

Standing up, she brushed off her tunic and looked around. Buildings, too many buildings, too tall, too confining. She headed in the opposite direction, in search of air and space and light.

And "Oh! I didn't...good morning to you."

Morning was mostly a guess, but her smile was genuine.

Earlier, he's wanted to avoid this alternate him, who came out of the war alone and was possibly mad. Now he was looking for him.

He really couldn't fathom what this other Doctor thought he was playing at, feeding Yana little snippets of information about Time Lords, getting rid of the drums, and then not opening the watch. Was he in love with his own misery? Did he enjoy the thought of the Master trapped in a watch, doomed to an incorporeal prison if his aged human body died?

The Doctor knew, in the back of his mind, that it was never smart, to go looking for someone when he was so angry. He tried to tell himself that he was leaving it to chance, whether he walked off his anger or found himself first.

Yeah, that was the ticket. He was just...going for walk. Oh, wait, that suit over there looked awfully familiar.

He was soaking wet, as he walked into the dining room. Really dripping, all over the carpet.

The truly strange part was that he didn't seem to notice. He took a cup of tea and a chair, ignoring the 'squish' when he sat. He swiped a stream of water away from his nose to keep it dripping into his cup, and looked around. "Well. That was fun," he said, to no one in particular.

He certainly didn't need a lot of sleep - not by human standards, anyway - but he couldn't go forever without, either. Eventually, he got tired. Eventually, he needed to go the hell to bed.

When eventually rolled around, he was left with a choice. He could go back to the TARDIS, which had infinite space, and damn near as much possibility for people who could have a key and come waltzing in, or he could have a hotel room with less physical space and chance of having unexpected (and possibly unhappy) company.

He was worn the hell out, from talking to past and future and alternatives to the people he'd loved and lost and killed and hated and fought with and, apparently, fucked or been fucked by and oh, what did it matter? He just wanted somewhere to curl up, go to sleep, and be left in peace.

Which did not explain how he ended up passing by a lot of completely empty rooms to go to Professor Yana's.

Maybe he was more self-destructive than he thought, but he didn't really want to be alone and of all the people here, Professor Yana was who he felt safest with. So, he let himself into his room. He crawled into his bed and curled up facing the door. He fell asleep waiting for the old man to get back.

Koschei had decided that, if he had to be stuck no-where and no-when with a TARDIS unable to escape either, he had best make the most of it. At least things looked comfortable enough. All of the necessary items as well as a few little niceties that would have made things easier for some people around. Slipping his hands into his pockets as he walked, a soft smile on his face as he took in a town clearly modeled after 21st century Earth, complete with little computer terminals for information on the surrounding areas, his grin widened as he spotted a familiar figure.

"I should have known you'd be here, you big galoot!" Koschei called to the turned back as he closed the distances between them, wrapping his arms around the Doctor's waist and picking him up, spinning him around a bit before setting him back on his feet and turning him so that they were facing as he laughed and clapped the Doctor on the shoulders, beaming. "So, no-where and no-when, huh? Quite the trip."