It's all AU.

Ianto looked up at the endless red sky of the town, tucked his hands into his suit jacket pockets, and sighed. Long sufferingly.


"Bloody Torchwood."

Rose rounded a corner at a run, ran into someone, and swung behind them, "You didn't see me."

A version of the tenth incarnation Doctor, one that felt wrong, strolled by the intersection a moment later, heading right past them.

Rose leaned back, her back against the brick wall. "Oh thank God."

When Jamie and Jamie met they. Well.

Had a whole pot of coffee between them, leaning in to talk over a tiny cafe table. They mapped out where their lives diverged, where they were the same, with a kind of amused glee.

They talked, they got to know each other.

Jamie made a promise to the other man that if he left, the younger Jamie would take care of Jack, the closest to their father, his actual father, and John.


Which turned out to be fortunate, as the older alternate left the following morning.

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."