It's all AU.

"Yes, Harry, I know, but I'm being careful and for goodness sake, I'm not ill! And I'm only shopping, you know, not... Harry? Harry?"

Lucy stared at her phone as it abruptly lost its signal - and then stared about her. Because she was fairly sure that Oxford Street didn't have skyscrapers that tall.

The next moment, her eyes widened and she gave a little gasp as memories returned - one in paticular. "Oh, my," she murmured, slipping her phone away into her jacket pocket and turning on the spot, wondering just where to go first.

Koschei peered over the shoulder of the server he'd coaxed out to the lake, nodding to himself at the charcoal, and the plates of meats waiting to grill to the demands of party guests. He grinned as he turned away, watching the path leading towards town for anyone who'd come down for the party.

Corwen had finally met up with John in the hotel bar. There'd been talking, rants and tears, and they'd both gotten extremely rat arsed as they'd both tried to put their immediate world to rights, talking drunkenly and long into the night about Jamie, Gray, immortals, and lost loves. 

Corwen had finally tucked John up in his own bed, after much coertion to get him there. She'd crashed out herself there for a few hours, before dragging herself down to the restaurant in search of some caffeine, a hangover cure and sober company.

She was sat at a table, head in her hands, nursing the worst hangover headache she'd had in years when she heard someone approaching.

Following Rose's advice, Lucy pinned up a note on the board in the lobby:

Harry,

I'm dreadfully sorry I ran off like that and I'd really like to talk to you. Please come and find me as soon as you see this. My room number is the same as the number of the room we had in that lovely hotel in Edinburgh last year - you remember?

If I'm not there, leave me a note to tell me where you can be found.

Please, Harry. This is important.

Lucy

Then she went back to the room she'd occupied on her previous visit – all her things were still in there, which saved a lot of trouble. She waited up for another hour or two, but there was no sign of Harry. In the end, she gave up and went to bed, and slept soundly, exhausted by the long night.

Lucy basically just ran and ran. She wasn't running from Harry, so much as from the memories that had just been dumped into her mind - memories of half a dozen different versions of Harry, most of them alien and one of them very, very frightening - and the knowledge that her Harry wasn't human either, not really. It was just too much to deal with with him standing there in front of her.

She ended up outside the back door of the hotel and just slid down the wall to the ground, heedless of her beautiful red dress in the dirt as she sat there, gazing out into nothingness as she tried to get her head round what had just happened.

( Harry and Lucy's arrival – cut for length )

For a long moment, Harry stood where he was and gazed around at the corridor, puzzled and irritated because he didn't understand what had happened – where they were, how they'd got here, or why Lucy had run off like that. He could also feel one of his familiar headaches starting up, the annoying duh-duh-duh-dum rhythm thudding in his head.

He sighed, pursed his lips and set off towards the stairs, to see what there was to be seen. He ended up in a hotel lobby. Most peculiar.

At least there were people here. He let a couple go by, and put a hand out to the sleeve of one of them, to stop them. "Excuse me," he said politely – but with authority. "Could you tell me where I am?"

John had woken up in Jamie's room, well their room, wrapped up in strong arms and sheets. 

He was walking through the lobby when he spotted Lucy. He waved over at her, smiling broadly.

Lucy was trying on clothes in one of the several designer stores the town now sported. She'd spotted Captain John Hart from a distance the other day and that had reminded her that they'd planned to have dinner some time. So she was looking for something new to wear when she went knocking on John's door.

Unfortunately, she was feeling conflicted about what to choose. She was in the dressing room modelling a satiny little black dress when she heard someone else come into the store. Perhaps they could help her make up her mind.

She went to the door and leaned round it. "Excuse me," she said to the blonde who'd come into the shop. "I don't suppose I could ask your advice for a moment?"

Koschei collected his box of firework materials from under the table where he'd left it, and took it up to the store room above the shop he'd found most of the materials in. Safer, at least, even if they were useless without some sort of propellent and powders for the colored lights. He sighed, giving them a wistful look before heading back outside, hands in his pockets as he wandered along the row of shops.

Spotting someone ahead, he called out a cheerful, "Hello there!"

It was the middle of the night and Lucy couldn't sleep. She got dressed in far more casual clothes than anyone had seen her in here - a sweatshirt and jogging pants - and went downstairs for a change of view and some tea. Then she wandered outside into the night with her mug.

Lucy was gazing at the noticeboard in the hotel lobby, fascinated by the chart one of the Jack's had posted there and the answers the others had given.

"A hundred and ninety-six?" she read aloud, breathlessly.

John was feeling good, for the first time in days.

After he'd left the Master, Romana and Jack at the jail cell, he'd headed back to his hotel room. Showering throughly had got rid of a lot of cobwebs, as had getting his stuff back. After a bottle of hypervodka and a nightmare-free sleep, he was well rested and relaxed.

He was desparately wanting to see Jamie and the Jack he'd killed, and talk to them, but he understood why he'd been told to not seek them out. He was also really wanting to see what he'd come to think of as his Doctor, but he was willing to wait for him to come to John, if that's what it took.

So instead, once he'd woken, and dressed back into his own clothes and jacket, he grabbed some fresh bread and snacky things from the restaurant, and headed out for a walk. Tucking the obligatory bottle into his gunbelt, he started ripping off bits of bread, and stuffing them into his mouth as he strode out into what seemed like early morning sunlight. 

He let himself wander. He'd not really had much of a chance to explore since he'd got here, and his mind could do with the break. He whistled loudly as he walked, and sang long, complex and somewhat tuneless drinking songs into the air. 

John eventually found himself at a peaceful-looking lake. He was swinging his legs off the end of a small wooden jetty, boots off beside him, feet trailing in the water when he heard footsteps approaching behind him. He reached inside his boot, cautiously touching his knife that was inside, but not drawing it. He let the footsteps get right up close behind him before he turned around.

The professor was in the library; he hadn't actually been in there in a while. He was flipping through Astronomy texts and trying to compare the star clusters there to the ones in the night sky here. He wasn't having much luck, but he didn't particularly care; it was distraction enough, for the moment.

Lucy was staring at a blue Police Box tucked away in a corner of the library. "Well. How long have you been there? And who do you belong to?"

Continued from here.

Being a sensible girl, Lucy soon recovered enough presence of mind to move away from the doorway of the office. She wanted to get as far away from the Master as possible.

She pushed away from the door and stumbled down the street, blindly just trying to get away.

Hardly surprising that she bumped straight into someone coming from the other direction.

"Sorry!" she gasped, automatically veering to the side to just continue on her way.

Lucy wandered aimlessly into one of the empty office buildings on the edge of town, wondering why on earth they were there. It wasn't as if anyone actually worked here.

She ran her fingers lightly over the shiny surface of a desk, then froze, as she caught a movement from the corner of her eye.

"Is anyone there?" she asked cautiously.

Another day, another meal in the - what sort of felt like a sun. Romana looked up to see a young woman settling a table over.

"Pardon my forwardness," she called out, "But there are so many men about. And so few of us. Would you mind joining me, so that we may despair of their ways?"

She didn't usually give one damn about who anyone's gender was. Except, as she'd told the Doctor, the imbalance was interesting. And Doctors kept making such a fuss about it. So, she was annoyed. And curious who this woman was.

((A place to put more threads, since some people are having trouble with loading large pages))

The Master was sitting at one of the tables savoring a shot of whiskey as he waited for people to show up. He'd traded out of his usual politician's suit, for a longer, more closely tailored knee length jacket, and had actually lost the tie. The white rose remained pinned, of course.

Everything was set up. Tables, large enough for 4 or 5 people to sit comfortably, around the outside of the room. Food and open bar at the far wall from the doors. And still a fairly large space in the middle for dancing. It was going to be interesting to see how many people showed up, because frankly he wasn't sure what the population of the town was. He couldn't help but wonder, given the malleable and mind bending nature of the this place - if more people showed up then could really fit, would the room mysteriously seem bigger? It wasn't a completely absurd idea, here.

As predicted, there were no Doctors with red roses and black converses in sight, yet.

Finally, the Master was ready to post his notice for the party. He pinned it to a large bulletin board easily viewable in the hotel lobby. In careful flowing calligraphy it read,

"All are cordially invited

To an evening of conversation, food, drinking, music, and dancing

In the company of fellow visitors and semi-residents

Located at the hotel ballroom beginning at dusk tomorrow

Dress up is highly encouraged

Less than civilized behavior while in attendance not tolerated

With warm regards,

Koschei (who will be dressed in style) & Theta Sigma (who will probably be late)"

He was trying really hard not to laugh, as he stood back and looked at it. Ok, he laughed. And then wandered off, with a stupidly happy grin on his face.