It's all AU.

There was no way to be certain that just because the man in the park looked like the Master he'd met with River that he was. No way by looking, anyway. The fact that it was also the Master who'd unlocked Brant's memories made things simpler. Jack might not have had direct contact with the man, but that distant faint connection gave him a 'flavor' of the Master's mind, distinctive enough to identify him with the faintest, politest brush of contact.

He settled on the bench, wrapping his coat around him against the chill of night, reminded himself that the Master could always say no, and waited to be acknowledged.

Theta grabbed a bottle of milk then headed into the aquarium in New New New New York. He peered through a tank then waved at Brant. "Hello."

Jack had meant what he said to the Master - he didn't believe in rivals. At least, not emotionally. That didn't mean his thoughts or emotions were any clearer when he left the Time Lord in the hotel lobby.

He'd intended to go to find Brant. Instead, his steps took him up the stairs. Up, and up, until he came out on the roof, hands pushed into his pants pockets, coat pushed back from his hips, head tilted back as if it made it easier to breathe, eyes closed.

It wasn't like the fall would kill him if anyone pushed him, anyway. Not permanently.

The Master got laid. And slept a lot more. When he finally emerged from the TARDIS, he looked significantly less like shit.

Time to go looking for his people. Like Brant.

continued from here

The TARDIS that the man led them to - and it took seeing the TARDIS for Jack to actually connect he was another version of the Doctor, which given that he'd already seen the sonic screwdriver and heard him mention the TARDIS, was a pretty big indicator of how preoccupied he was with Brant's condition - wasn't the same one Jack knew, but similar enough that he didn't pay much attention to the differences. He just carried Brant in to the console room, mentally reached out to greet the TARDIS with a mildly obscene caress, and looked back at the Doctor. "Which way?"

He actually had to look for the Master. Fortunately, he didn't have to look very hard. He saw The Master's Jack leaving the room, remembered what he'd heard about them staying togehter and knocked on the door.

He'd meant to just step outside for some air. It had been an eventful day, though in his experience, weddings usually ended up being pretty dramatic, even without alien intervention. This one, though...Jack shook his head, and chuckled, looking up at the night sky. Rhys had a lot to cope with, and yeah, he was probably good enough for Gwen. If he kept trying hard.

Taking a sip from his champagne glass, he turned to head back into the building, intending to go back to the function room and supervise the clear-up operation.

Only the building he went back into wasn't the one he'd just left. He looked around, recognized New New (he'd not quite identified how many times) New York through the window, shrugged, and lifted his glass in the direction of the back of the nearest (familiar-looking) person. "Here's to you."

He tripped and pretty literally fell into the Doctor. He managed to not spill the cup of iced coffee he was holding down anyone (his or the Doctor's) shirt, but that was about all he managed as he slammed them both into a wall. "Shit! I'm sorry. Are you all right?"

The Master was in the hotel lobby. Suddenly. Not in this incarnation's usual outfit, but a black and silver uniform, and gloves. He looked around, gathered himself together, and said as he sank into a chair, "I should have seen that coming. If I'd remembered."

He looked tired.

Ianto's temper was, frankly, shot.

He finished his (admittedly acceptable) coffee, took a deep breath, looked around, and asked person he saw who didn't look like Lisa, "Would you like to have sex?"

Because frankly this place was freaking him out and he needed distracted. Also his temper was shot.

The Master was on a promenade in a section of the city high enough to get a sense of the scope of New New York, and that it was, in fact, the entire huge metropolis.

He cocked his head contemplatively at it all, and murmured out loud, "I think I've been topped."

The Master was taking a cat nap in the park, fedora pulled down over his face, the book he'd been reading laying beside him.

"Hello," he murmured sleepily when he heard someone come near.

Brant was outside with a book. He was sprawled out, flat on his back. The book was being held up both so he could read without sitting up and to block the sun. When he heard footseps he looked back. "You look familiar." He was... being sarcastic. There were versions of the Doctor all over the place. He still knew which one it was.

He was wandering in the park, enjoying the peace and quiet and pondering on his meeting with his former self. It had been rather eye-opening in a number of ways.

When he saw Jack - a Jack, a mortal Jack - in the distance, he couldn't help but head towards him. He'd never met a mortal Jack before. He was curious.

More sleep, on Jamie's insistence, dinner with the Doctor and Rose, having all in one TARDIS - the Master felt a bit more centered.

This was, he admitted to himself as he wandered towards the library, possibly because the number of people here he counted as family here was larger then back home.

Speaking of. There was a young and mortal version of Jack, walking the other way. The Master stared more than was really polite.

"...Let him stew for a minutes. We'll just keep a leisurely pace, and his curiosity will get the better of him," the Doctor finished, trying to put on a brave face for his companion before he processed they were in fact in a hotel lobby. He staggered for a moment as over four months of memories came rushing back.

Rose tried to hold him up, looking very worried, and steered him over to a chair. "Doctor, are you all right?"

"Oh, my head," the Doctor groaned as he sat, hands in his hair.

"We're not where we were a second ago," Rose whispered to him. "Transmat?"

He lifted his head, eyes wide. "Something a little stranger than that, Rose."

He was stretched out on a couch in the main lounge, ankles crossed and hands behind his head. The window behind him was open, and there was just enough of a breeze coming through to ruffle the pages of his book. He glanced over the top of it when someone walked in, flashed a quick smile and said, "Hey."

It was obviously some version of him, and it was obviously not some version he'd met before.

Brant spotted one of the men he recognized as the Doctor, of some incarnation or another. He poured a cup of tea, took it over and handed it to the Doctor. Then he curled up beside him on the couch.

It was late.

It was always late, but this was a late Jack spent alone. A late night he couldn't look Ianto in the face, because he wouldn't understand. No one could understand. No one he could contact from 21st century Cardiff.

He'd been back in the 1940s, again, World War Two for the fifth time, and it was still beautiful. Still somewhere he wouldn't mind getting trapped, except for the responsibilities to his team and...to his namesake. If that was the right word for a man whose name he'd stolen without ever knowing the true worth of the man.

Well, now he knew. Now he'd seen, danced, kissed, loved and lost, all in one night, and better to have loved and lost, right? He'd believe that again soon.

Draining the last of the brandy from his tumbler, he set the glass down on his desk, pushed his chair back, and ran his fingers over the photograph one final time before adding it to the pile in the tin box and locking it away in the drawer. Reports of disturbances were already coming through, but with any luck, there were purely after effects of Owen tearing the rift open to retrieve them.

An urgent beep from the direction of Tosh's desk called to him, and Jack sighed, pocketed the key to his cabinet, and went out of his office to check on it. Intended to check on it.

Ended up in a familiar looking bar that he recognised within heartbeats, along with a slew of memories that...shit. Shit. Brant.

Jack and Brant and Ianto.

Now he really needed a drink. He crooked a finger at the android behind the bar, ordered a New Canaan brandy, knocked it back in one swallow, regretted it, and ordered another, turning to survey the inhabitants of the bar while waiting for a refill.

There were a lot more doors in this place then Jack had expected. After a while, he wished he'd started marking the ones he'd already checked. Then again, who was to say getting out of here didn't involve some roving wormhole.

He could practically feel Carter's eyes glaring at him from across time and space when he thought that.

He opened another door and stepped across the threshold.

"Woah! Hey! Sorry."