It's all AU.

Jamie chewed at the cuticle of his thumb; the nail was too short now to do any quality biting. He was half-curled in a chair in the lobby of a hotel, writing in a bound book, neat hand tiny on the mostly empty page.


He was swearing softly in a language that wouldn't be invented for five thousand years from his time.

When he spotted someone who looked an awful lot like himself - in dress, posture and attidue - he didn't bother beating around the bush. "Hey," he said, with a slight incline of his head. "Do you have a kid named Jamie?"

Martha had lost track of how long she'd been stuck in...wherever she was stuck. And more than a little bit fed up of being stuck in nowhere so technically not stuck.

She'd been through the library. She'd studied. She'd thrown something across the room when she'd woken up thinking about Tom Milligan and her hotel room had oh so helpfully provided sex toys in her drawer. If she'd wanted that, she'd have...well. There were enough Jacks around, apparently. Not that she'd managed to meet any of them.

It all added up to the fact that she wasn't in the best of moods when the sky randomly changed colour - twice - and then it rained - and then went back to something that looked like an idylllic Surrey July afternoon. Complete with birds singing and apparently distant cricketers on the green.

And she wasn't even taking anything that could be considered hallucinogenic, so it had to be actually happening.

With a sigh, she stretched out on a handy and rapidly drying bench, closed her eyes, and wondered if it would all go away if she ignored it.

Jack had slept (some), adjusted, settled, worked through his hangover (emotional and physical), and decided to greet the new day by...well. Standing on a roof. He hadn't indulged in a while, and it helped to clear his head.

He stood on the edge of the roof, toes of his boots over the guttering, and stared across the hotchpotch skyline, not looking back when he heard footsteps behind him. "If you're thinking about pushing me," he said conversationally, "I'm gonna come back and haunt you. And I make one hell of a corporeal ghost."

The Doctor was merrily - downright joyously - working in finally requiring the TARDIS. Installing the brand new dematerialization circuit that the Time Lord had gifted him with, in thanks for dealing with Omega. Given him back the parts of his knowledge necessary to fly her. His exile on Earth - save for those few jaunts through various means - was at an end.

He thought he heard Jo come into the lab, and he stepped outside the TARDIS to greet. But he wasn't in the lab at all. He was on a street corner. He whirled around - the TARDIS was still behind him.

Couldn't his people leave him in his peace and freedom for five minutes?! He'd just saved them all.

Or maybe this was some new game of the Master's?

He looked around for some sign of where he was. So far the town looked quite ordinary, on the surface. But something was. Off.

Rhiannon curled up on a park bench with a basket of chips and a cheap novel, humming as she took the chance to relax. After all, this place would spit her back out when it was done with her, and she might as well enjoy herself. And it was an interesting cheap novel.

She looked up at movement in her peripheral vision, closing the novel with a smile when she saw a familiar face. "Doctor!" She held up the basket. "Care for some chips?"

He'd been a bit sceptical about there actually being a jailhouse, but there it was, on the edge of town, just as Jack had specified.

He'd also been a bit sceptical about John still being there - he'd seen the guy imagine an intricate and fully-equipped bedroom; he was sure he could imagine a door out of a cell - but there he was too, asleep on the cot in the corner.

The Doctor let himself silently into the cell, locked it again behind him, and leaned back against the bars to wait for John to wake up.

continued from here

Rhiannon forced herself to take a deep breath as she stalked along the road, scanning the buildings as she moved along for something that looked like an arcade. Nothing appeared, and as the edge of town came closer, she scowled, cursing under her breath a moment. "Fine, if that's the way of it, you bloody bitch."

She started to jog, then to run, feet hitting the ground rhythmically, starting to soothe. Or at least to drop her into a zone where she didn't worry as much about the upset of running into that... twisted mirror of the Doctor she'd all but grown up with. Focused on her breathing, her pace, but aware enough of her surroundings to notice someone else on the path as she approached him.

Slowing down, she dredged up a polite smile from somewhere. Probably one remembered from working for the British government for three years. "Evening, sir."

Something about his face looked familiar, but she wasn't quite sure where she'd seen him before - or if she'd seen him before, honestly.