It's all AU.

"Oh, fuck no." Faith almost punched the building nearest her when she realized she'd stepped through into someplace that wasn't the now-familiar shop she'd been walking into. "This is not the time to do shit like this."

She ran a hand through her hair, taking a deep breath as she looked around. At least she knew she'd go back to the same time and place, and wouldn't lose any time searching for her kidnapped Watcher. And in the meantime, she would just have to find something to keep her mind off things she couldn't change.

He was sprawled out on his bed, glasses perched on the end of his nose reading a technical manual for Jack's sonic blaster. It made no sense to him but that was okay, because it was *really* not boring. He got up when he heard the knock at the door and went to answer it.

Koschei was on the room of a tall building, working on a sensor array to gather data and start on his 'trick time into moving' project. In a slightly foul mood that he couldn't find Theta to show off to and talk at, but not enough to stop working. Driven, was the word for it.

Working made the drums manageable, if not an any way quieter. Everything feel into rhythm. Funny how that worked.

After indirectly getting confirmation that Brant was appearently getting eaten by a vampire, he couldn't help it. He had to go check on him. So he went and knocked by Brant's door. Easiest thing.

There was a face he hadn't seen in a while.

"Mr. Ianto Jones," he announced walking over the where the man was sitting. "Care for some coffee?"

Either he'd get some snark about whether he'd learned to make it properly, or he'd get confusion. Either way, it would amuse the Master.

When it got closer to the sun going down, Jason walked the Master back to the hotel. He still didn't understand cricket worth a damn, but it had been a nice day. Even with the seriousness of the conversation.

He asked the Master to stay near the stairs while he went to speak with Jean-Claude first. Pushing the door open, he made his way across the room to turn on a lamp. Softer light than the overhead one and easier on the eyes when waking up.

Then he settled in to wait.

It was an extraordinarily gorgeous day even for fake New New York. The Master and Doctor had taken over a corner of Central Park to try to gather together cricket teams, from visitors or natives, whoever knew or was willing to learn the basic rules and play. Captaining opposing teams, of course. The easy banter back and forth indicated high, good spirits.

"What," Jack asked, as he came to a stop beside the Master. "The fuck was that?"

He really, really didn't know.

He really, really didn't like it.

The Master went to the room Brant had directed him to, and knocked. Waited for Jack to answer. He was calm. He could do this.

He spotted the Master and darted across to the sidewalk, where he fell in step with him.

"You." That came out a little steelier than he'd expected, and took even him off guard. He cleared his throat and tried again, aiming for a lighter tone. "You're not avoiding me are you?"

The Master was restless. He'd resigned himself to returning to a base state of unsettled, despite efforts to distract himself until he, well, got certain things more settled. He was feeling very, very aware of many people he'd let himself get invested in. Personally. A decade ago he'd had one person to look after. Precisely one. That had been complicated enough. He'd hit some sort of critical mass somewhere along the way. He wasn't sure how that had happened.

In the mean time, there was a Time Lord stalking around New New York in the middle of the night, oozing frustrated protectiveness and territoriality. He paused when he hit an unfamiliar but very noticeable presence.

"I don't know you," he said flatly, forgetting all niceties.

His encounter with the Doctor left Koschei disturbed and worried more for his Theta than he was quite willing to admit to the world at large, and he started walking around the city without any particular destination in mind. He knew he would find his way back to his TARDIS eventually, but right now, he needed to be outside and moving.

He wasn't paying as much attention to his surroundings as he normally would, not even enough to notice the presence of another Time Lord, at least not immediately.

The Master was trying not to be in a viscous bad mood. Collecting parts and building something seemed like an simple potential distraction. Except now he was engaged in some sort of bartering haggle with a shopkeeper, which was not what he'd excepted.

The rules had changed, or there was a glitch, he wasn't sure. He was beginning to get into it now that he getting the feeling of his plans being blindsided, though. Completely not paying attention to what was going on around him, past the conversation.

Mulder was not less confused about things in general and himself in particular. The confusion was not made better byrunning into Jack in occasional passing. "I don't know how that many lives with himself," Mulder mumbled at the Master in the console room. "And is either one of you going to sleep with donna you think?"

He waited until River seemed to having a good day before he tracked down Jack again. Fell into step beside him, seemingly calm and steady.

"How are you?"

He stood in the doorway watching the Master quietly before saying, "You were a beautiful boy."

He wandered down a sidewalk with a spring in his step and in his (rolled up) shirt-sleeves. He was repeatedly tossing a cricket ball into the air and catching it. His hair was mused, his jacket and hat were no where in sight. He looked both extremely chipper and extremely well fucked. Both were accurate. "Did you know that there's still a blonde Master around? Crazy as a loon but the best lay I've had since I got here."

And some days didn't go so well.

She'd played hard, too hard, and was tired. Her shields were slipping, she was inundated with thoughts and emotions and psychic static on every side, which was frustrating, which was exhausting, which. It was a vicious cycle. She just wanted to go somewhere quiet or get close to someone who could help her hide, but focusing was harder than it had been in weeks.

She was on the verge of crying. Or mentally screaming for help, which she didn't want to do because she'd been *fine*, she could do this. She felt about two.

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.

Mitchell cupped his gloved hands around the lighter's flame to stop it getting blown out by the breeze as he lit his roll up in their doorway. He adjusted his cap, so that it shadowed more of his face, before he finally looked up into the street... and found it wasn't their street anymore. He spun on his heels to check back behind him and the door, and indeed the house had disappeared too.

"What the hell?" he said, obviously startled, trying to keep the panic from his voice. "No, no, no, no.." He looked down at the cigarette in his hand. Surely George wouldn't have spiked his tobacco?