It's all AU.

The Master was sitting reading a book in the hotel lobby, with his feet propped up when Rose silently came up to him and pretty much curled up in his lap, face against his chest.

Both startled by her forward affection, which was more so than was even usual for her, and worried he asked, "What's wrong?"

She shrugged without looking up. "Nothing new. Just the usual."

He accepted that for the moment, wrapped her in his coat a little, and gently stroked her back. She quickly dropped into a doze, so he picked his book back up, with an arm securely around her.

It was a little strange for him, and he imagined a down right surreal sight for most people who might pass by.

( Cut for length )

"Yeah." The Doctor scowled at the street a moment. "A lot of people could be here."

Gray looked down the street again, carefully stepping out of the TARDIS, looking over his shoulder to make sure something didn't happen to it, the Doctor's earlier actions making him wonder if it would just vanish. He spotted someone coming down the street, and tensed, frowning.

The Doctor was hovering somewhere between irrationally vaguely irritated and relieved that seeing Jack seemed to have flipped something one in the Master that made him bother to eat and sleep properly. Most of the irritation was at himself, for not manging it earlier, but some at the Master for not responding to the Doctor worrying about him. Well, he was smart enough not to say anything about to the Master about it, and be happy he looked better already.

He milled around the town, pondering how long they might be here, and what they could do to occupy themselves. He was frankly not very interested in finding a way home at the moment. Jamie's father might be right, that they were here for a reason.

Simple, easy, good fun would be setting up some experiments to run with Rose. And if he could get the Master involved, wonderful. He peered into a shop, contemplating lab supplies.

He'd gone back after talking to Rowan. Back through a shop door and into Torchwood Cardiff, as if he'd never left. A faint impression of having forgotten something soon abandoned for hauling Mickey back out to the SUV, and refusing to go back into the Hub. Jack insisted on going back to London with them, and the entire trip had been one argument running into another.

It had been made fairly clear that he wouldn't be able to take the Master away from Earth and his little plan without bringing Jack along as well, and he wasn't going to subject his TARDIS to that much trauma. Three days locked in a suite with the Master that he carefully pretended didn't happen, and at least he was fairly certain he could leave the Master alone for a few years without him taking over the universe.

Not that he intended to do so. Took the TARDIS, picked up his companion, headed off on adventures. Walked out of the TARDIS one morning and into a cafe that wasn't where he'd landed it, memory rushing back at him. He spun around, glaring at the empty space where the TARDIS should be, and sighed, running a hand over his hair.

Turning back, he spotted a familiar figure, and winced. He didn't know how long it had been since he'd been here, only that it had been most of a month for him. He approached slowly, his hands in his pockets, and slouching slightly.

"Rose?"

The Doctor shoved his hands deep into his pockets as he wandered out of the hotel, glancing along the street before he picked a direction, starting to walk. He wasn't sure where he'd go, but eventually, he'd have to face Rose, and he knew it. He just... wanted to put it off a bit longer.

"Sounds daft, even in your own head," he muttered to himself, hunching over slightly. He was avoiding running into Rose if he could, and avoiding trying to sort through his emotions about her. The guilt over her death, the need to protect her, even from himself if he had to, and the affection that frightened him more than anything else.

He looked up when he noticed a shadow on the ground, and gave the young man a slight smile by way of greeting.

The Doctor peered out of the hotel room he'd claimed, stepping out a moment later, heading for the end of the corridor with a slightly digruntled expression on his face a moment. He'd almost hoped he'd open the door, and step back into the Hub, but... Oh, well, the universe hadn't done something nice for him since the Time War - at least - and he really didn't expect it to start now. Though, at least he hadn't run into Rose since that conversation yesterday.

If he was honest with himself, which he had no intention of being right now, he was trying to avoid running into Rose again. Or, for that matter, anyone else he even vaguely knew. He really didn't want to deal with any of them right now. Either angry at him, or dead, or just plain insane in his own world, the difference between what he knew, and the people he met here was... unsettling, a little. A lot, in some cases.

He paused, peering around the corner, and then stepping quickly to the rail of the stairs, looking down them to see if there was anyone on them. Well, before he looked up. And so didn't spot someone coming down quickly enough to hide. "Oh. Hello." He gave the person a sheepish grin, stepping back from the railing, and shoving his hands into the pockets of his leather coat.

Rose played with her phone, tongue sticking out slightly as she tried to send her mother another text message. It kept coming back 'Out of Service Area'.

It had never done that before, not since the Doctor had supercharged it on the Platform. That, more than anything really scared her. Even in her nightmares, she figured she'd still be able to contact her mum. Like this? She was completely cut off.

"Come on, you bloody thing. Work damn it."

Shaking the sand off of his shoes, Mickey glanced back up from the ground only to be faced with some place that wasn't the beach he was on a few moments before. Instead, he was standing in the middle of some sort of hotel lobby. Surely he hadn't wandered that far. Bad Wolf Beach was practically deserted. He had not marked it for a resort location. Odd.

Raising a hand to rest on the top of his head, Mickey glanced left and right for something that looked even vaguely familiar with absolutely no luck. "Well, shit," He muttered under his breath. "This is just what I needed today."