It's all AU.

Continued from here.

The Doctor left with Brant and Bran't Jack in a hurry. The Master slowly slid to the floor as soon as they did.

"Boys are dumb," River announced.

Well.

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.

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.

"Someone just stole my wallet," Jack said, to someone he recognized, at the bar. "There's a few things important about this. First: I don't have any money, and I'm pretty sure there's no economy here, my urge to try to sleep with the 'natives' is on the rise. Along with my cock. That's not gonna end well, and I can't count to three because I've had *way* too much to drink."

"Someone just stole my wallet," Jack said, as he sat down beside someone he recognized, at a bar. "There's two things important about this. First: I don't have any money, and I'm pretty sure there's no economy here. Secondly: That's a touch of real city reality that's neither necessary or fun. " He paused and ordered a glass of water. "Finally, and yeah I know I said two things, my urge to try to sleep with the 'natives' is on the rise. Along with my cock. That's not gonna end well."

The Doctor stepped from the hotel lobby into...well it looked a hell of a lot like New to the 15th power New York. But the sense of weird sticky time, and multiple Time Lords in the distance told him he was still the nexus.

He stood underneath a sky scraper, head titled back, gaping. "Oh. Oh. Wow. That's brilliant, that is."

Cold was slowly creeping over the town. Snow falling and beginning to accumulate. The Master hadn't mentioned directly *what* he was doing or why, but Romana had caught on, and the implicit invitation to play. She appreciated it, and walked with him to the park nearest the hotel, the both of them in coat, hat, and gloves.

She stepped into the pristine snow, listened to the crunch, watched her shoes make an indentation, and grinned up the Master. He grinned conspiratorially back. Some parts of their friendship were...still new and almost fragile. They were working on it.

Jack was walking down a flight of stairs inside the hotel, minding his own business, when he nearly collided with someone coming up them. "Whoa! Careful there!" He steadied them with a hand on the shoulder, and himself by grabbing onto the railing. Taking a fall down the stairs didn't seem like a good idea to him. The person he'd 'rescued' may or may not have a different opinion.

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."

Oh goodness, she'd just kissed the Fireplace Man! How amazing was that? There was a definite lilt in Reinette's step as she belatedly made her way through the corridors to join her mother in the carriage.

Except. She stopped, and looked round, confused. That door should lead to the entrance hall, not into a long corridor that looked strangely familiar...

Oh. Oh. She was back in the strange place, outside of time and space. After ten years, she'd given up on ever returning.

But then, she'd given up on ever seeing the Fireplace Man - oh! The Doctor! She remembered now! - again.

She hastened towards the lobby of the hotel, excited and eager to see if anyone she knew was about.

He'd finally sucked up the courage to go and find Jack. That gun was burning a hole in his pocket and he'd had enough of thinking about it. Time to act.

There was no answer at the other TARDIS when he knocked, but he reckoned everyone had to come home some time. So he sat down on the pavement nearby, leaned back against the wall, and waited.

The Master and the Doctor were. Chasing each other over rooftops with fencing foils. Not the deadly weapons they fought with earlier, because they knew they wanted to run run and they didn't want anyone hurt if they slipped. But the contest, the game, was there. Mostly it was just fun.

The Doctor was pleased to discover he was still the better swordsman, although he wasn't terribly intent on *winning* quite yet. Still, one thing the same. He skidded to a halt and called down a hello to Jack before ducking the Master's next strike. Showing off a bit.

After he'd found the Doctor's Ninth regeneration and punched his lights out Jack felt better. After curling up on that TARDIS, with that Doctor, and without sex and romance and complications, Jack felt better equipped to deal. So, he grabbed his coat, stopped by the hotel lobby for a cup of coffee and a muffin, and headed toward the TARDIS with the new Master.

He let himself in just as he finished his impromptu breakfast, and immediately set his cup down. "Morning," he said, as carefully casual as he could manage.

Jack approached the Doctor he'd first known and tapped him on the shoulder.

When he turned around Jack threw a hard right hook that caught him right across the jaw.

"And that, you son of a bitch, is for turning into an even crazier bastard than you already were, who ran away and left me to rot."

Issues, what?

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.

Theta located a long coat. He tugged at the sleeve, then, in a gesture he was really, far too old for, held up both of his arms to be picked up. He looked, and was, tired and clingy.

He'd failed.

( Cut for length )

He followed after the Master and Doctor, because he'd wanted away as much as they had. He hadn't said another word, hadn't made another sound. Shock was protecting him from pain and muddling his thought processes. He hadn't even taken his gun back from the other Doctor. After having been shot with it, he wasn't eager to get it back; though he would later.

He wasn't sure where they were going, and he was so focused on watching the man who was still the Master, but had once been someone very different, that he didn't even notice where they were *going* until they were there. One foot in front of the other, locked in his head, watching and listening.

The Master watched the cameras that showed the lobby, toying with his fork impatiently before taking another bite of the dinner he'd sat down to when the remodeling was finished. Where was...

A smile spread across his face, watching the revolving door start to spin. He leaned back in his seat, transferring the view of the lobby - dimly lit and small as it was now - to the large screen directly in front of him. Peeling paint over flaking plaster for walls, and a dusty concrete floor with some scraps of carpet still glued down.

He waited until they were all inside before activating the one-way com on the receptionist's desk - painted particle board and plastic, to match the rest of the decor - directly across from the door.

"Welcome to my home, gentlemen, Lady Romana. I must say, I didn't expect quite this turnout. Now, I shan't keep you long, it's a bit of a puzzle ahead of you before we meet face to face.

"As you can see, two passages to your left, one and a lift to your right, and two behind the desk. Only one of them actually leads to where I'm sitting right now. Good luck on figuring out which one. Oh, and do mind your step."

He flicked off the com, settling back in his chair to watch their progress. With any luck, there would be some entertainment to be had before he had to play the polite host.

It wasn't until Jack coughed back into life that the Doctor realised that he'd never seen it happen before. He'd heard about it, here, but this was the first time he'd seen it, and it shook him to the core. The extreme wrongness of it. The way it went so completely against nature - not life rushing out of a body the way it should, but into it. He was shaking as he resisted the urge to run, run away from this abhorrence of nature and bent to gather the newly-woken, confused and terrified Jack into his arms.

It took a while of just holding Jack - sitting on the floor and leaning back against the bed with Jack practically in his lap, rocking him like a child - to calm him into coherence. But eventually calm came, and Jack was able to tell the Doctor what had happened. There then followed a period of self-recrimination from the Doctor which Jack promptly put an end to by straddling him and kissing the hell out of him.

No way the Doctor could continue to think with Jack kissing him like that.

The Master glanced up from his notebook, and spotted Jack. He scooped the notebook up, hopped up from his perch under a tree, and came up to fall into step beside him.

"There you are. Now I don't have to suppress the neurotic impulse to go looking." He was teasing. Mostly.