Chapter One: Broken Time

The doctor had just gotten done dropping everyone back where they belonged and stood against the railing of the TARDIS' control room. Suddenly the engines of the TARDIS stirred to life with their usual ancient groan, and the consoles and controls below the engines in the center of the room went mad with various graphs and data as the ship plotted a course all on its own. This was bad and the Doctor knew it. This never happened unless something was horribly wrong.

"Jack! You're not holding onto the outside of this thing again are you?" The Doctor asked in an attempt to find a simple explanation that would put his mind at ease and didn't involve the umpteenth return of some enemy that was supposed to be locked away in the time war.

"Hmm Guess not…" The Doctor said and began rushing around the control room trying to both stop and make sense of this sudden course the TARDIS was taking him on.

"2006?" The Doctor observed from looking at one console and raised an eyebrow, just as everything quieted down and the room shook as the TARDIS touched down wherever it was that it had dragged the Doctor to. "Well… better see exactly where you've taken me…"

The Doctor threw on his long brown coat and ran for the door. When he opened the door The Doctor was surprised to see where the ship had taken him with such urgency. He knew this exact street. This was the former and given the year current residence of none other than Rose Tyler.

It must have been winter the Doctor observed as the snow was falling heavily. Wait no this wasn't snow and the Doctor knew it. He knew where he was and he knew the exact day or at least within a day or two. The ash had fallen for three days after the Christmas day Cygorax invasion. That still didn't answer why he had been brought here.

"The Ash fell for three days… but you already know that." A voice said from down an ally to the left.

The Doctor's hearts dropped. He knew that voice. There was no way he could ever forget it. He turned and stared down the ally. Hoping that it wasn't who he thought it was as a shadowy figure slowly came towards him.

"Don't worry you won't create any time ripping paradox by being here you were about 50 miles away helping to spread doubt and bring down my predecessor…" The figure said again as he stepped closer and all doubt of this man's identity quickly faded from the Doctor's mind.

"Thanks by the way." The man said as he stepped out into the light and revealed himself as none other than the Master.

The Doctor's face changes to a look of absolute disbelief and dread. "You…" He stared at the Master for a second or two. "How? I saw you… you're dead! Lucy shot you onboard the Valiant!"

"AHAHAHAHA!" The Master laughed maniacally and threw his head back. "That's a relief means I won't be crossing my own timeline in this universe after all. That's all I needed to know and you have no idea how long it took for me to figure out how to get you here."

"How am did you get me here? More importantly how are YOU here?" The Doctor asked.

"Well it really is difficult to keep track of everything that comes through the void now isn't it." The Master said with a smirk. "Where I'm from that lesson cost you… oh it cost you!"

"Cost me?" The Doctor asked with a very dubious look.

"Yes. Back in my reality I'm ruler of this little planet and most of this galaxy in fact. Oh and you're an old man still locked up in a cage like a little birdie. Tweet Tweet Tweet." The Master said with another maniacal laugh. "Oh, Martha's little trip round the world got cut short too! Met a nasty little end in Japan."

The Doctor got a look of absolute horror on his face that told the Master everything he needed to know.

"Judging by your reaction I can see in this universe that didn't work on you. So I went with my gut and decided to keep you busy another way." The Master laughed wickedly.

"What did you do?!" The Doctor demanded although he already knew deep down that it definitely had to do with Rose.

"Why don't you go take a look in there?" The Master said and pointed in the direction of the Tyler residence.

The Doctor took off running in his usual frantic run with the bottom of his brown coat flailing wildly behind him until he reached the door of Rose's apartment. He reached for the handle but it was locked. The Doctor took out his sonic screwdriver and took care of the lock in a second and a half. He ran around the Tyler's apartment knocking on doors and poking his head into rooms that any other time he should have knocked and would have knocked. This time however The Doctor didn't care he had to know where Rose was.

"Figured out how I got your TARDIS to get you here?" The Master yelled from outside.

The Doctor ran out to the platform outside the apartment door and glared at the Master, who was standing in the street below.

"What did you do?" The Doctor demanded.

"I moved… various assets…" The Master smugly stated. "On the bright side if she stays where she is now then she never gets stuck in that other dimension."

"Where did you put her?" The Doctor demanded again with his hands clenched around the railing on the platform so tight that he could rip it off at any moment.

"Oh see that's the ticket. The longer you're out trying to find you're little blondie the longer I have to enact MY plan."

"Look if this is about that drumming just tell me where she is. I can help the drumming in your head. Together we can find a way to make it stop." The Doctor pleaded.

"What are you driveling on about? Drumming? Are you daft?" The Master scoffed.

"My god… you really are from another reality…" The Doctor exclaimed.

"Yes but that got… boring… and so when the rift in space time began popping up between so many dimensions… I popped through them. So many things I couldn't imagine. One thing though happened over and over and over. The time war… we lost it… The time lords all gone. It appears though that here there are none of our people… and there is no me, which means that I can become Master of time and space itself." The Master gloated.

"If you've been to all these other realities and that's remained constant then you have to know I always come out on top." The Doctor said in an attempt to reason with him.

"Not every reality." The Master corrected sharply. "Remember where I'm from I run things and you're some forgotten withered old thing sitting in a cage."

"You're not going to get away with it. I'm going to find her. And then I'm going to stop you." The Doctor said with a glare and turned to run back to his TARDIS.

The Master wasn't going to let that slide and quickly pulled out his own flashlight like device similar to the doctor's sonic screw driver. The Master pointed it in the doctor's direction, pushed a button, and sent a bolt of crimson red light shooting at the Doctor, missing him but blowing a significant chunk of concrete out of the wall behind him.

"First to the finish then!" The Master yelled and shot two more laser bolts wildly into the air neither one coming nearly as close to hitting his foe as the first one had.

The Doctor ran down to street level back towards the TARDIS as the Master ran back to the shadows of the ally he had come out of laughing maniacally.

"Okay he's still going to be Harold Saxon to everyone in this reality. So he's not going to be able to walk around just anywhere he wants. That gives me time… Time to find Rose." The Doctor thought out loud as he reached the TARDIS and opened the door.

"Now if Rose is on this planet and she most likely is knowing how the Master doesn't always think about the small details, there's one place that can help me find her." The Doctor continued to ramble as he closed the door, threw off his coat, and ran over to the console and turned a few knobs and pressed a few buttons.

"TORCHWOOD THREE!" He exclaimed in a tone that was equal parts excited and urgent. The TARDIS' engines groaned as they always did as the doctor flew through time and space more recklessly than usual towards Cardiff in the year 2008. After a couple minutes the TARDIS had landed right outside the headquarters of TORCHWOOD 3.

The Doctor grabbed his coat which he had only moments ago thrown aside and threw it on. "You know I really should just leave this thing on if I know I'm going to go outside again." He mused and ran outside hell bent on finding Capt. Jack Harkness. A man and a woman stopped running about thirty feet away from the TARDIS once the Doctor came running out.

"Gwen, Ianto, Where's Jack?" The Doctor asked as he stopped about five feet away from the two members of Torchwood.

"We don't know! Harold Saxon is somehow back and he had some guys and they took him and his stuff." Gwen said.

"I am assuming you know something about how the man that got the President of the United States killed and then got shot by his own wife in front of the entire world is suddenly back and kidnapping people involved in clandestine top secret organizations." Ianto said.

"I have a rough idea but I'm not quite clear on all the details." The Doctor said in a tone that suggested extreme discomfort and anxiety. "Tell me do you know that thing Jack sometimes wears on his wrist was he wearing that? Did they take it?"

"I don't know… They took him and so it was probably on him." Gwen reasoned.

"Okay that explains how the Master was able to go take Rose before any of the void incidents had happened." The Doctor said out loud as much for his own benefit as Gwen and Ianto's. "He fixed that thing… It was so much more convenient when I was the only one who could do that."

"Okay then… do you two have a computer I could use? I have an idea. The Doctor and the two remaining members of Torchwood 3 got to their main hub of operations as fast as their legs could carry them.

"What are you trying to figure out?" Ianto asked.

"I need to figure out if he, the Master I mean has taken anyone else connected to me." The Doctor said as he frantically typed at the computer.

"Well we have the ability to search police and government databases around the world to check for missing persons reports." Gwen suggested.

"No he's clever nearly as clever as I am, except completely psychotic. You could say he's my polar opposite." The Doctor said half paying attention to the man and woman standing behind him. "If he's going to take people without the general public knowing but to effect the timeline as much as possible the Master is going to have taken them right after they met me so that anyone who is close enough to miss them will just assume they're off traveling with me."

"No I'm gonna have to do some more subtle searches." The Doctor said and let out a frustrated puff. "Okay I'm going to search employment records, medical records, and credit card histories. I'll look through historical records as well. I just need to find her."

"Ah! Yes! Found her!" The Doctor exclaimed before looking at the screen a second time getting a look of disappointment on his face.

"What's the matter? You found her. You should go get her." Gwen said happily.

"I have to be careful… That event is fixed… I can't do anything to change it or it won't be good." The Doctor said.

"If Rose is there does that mean that Jack is there as well?" Ianto asked seeming very concerned.

"No idea. If I had to guess, though the Master is going to hide them all in fixed events to keep me from going in and getting them out easily." The Doctor thought out loud once again more for his own benefit than Ianto's.

"Well I'll just have to be discrete." He exclaimed and began his run back to the TARDIS. "You two stay in here and do that thing you did when the Daleks were trying to get in. I want you both here when I bring jack back!"

"Where are you going?" Gwen asked just before the Doctor got out of earshot.

"Scranton Pennsylvania circa 2009" The Doctor said and ran off to the TARDIS.