"Right, so when we hit the ground there, stay close," Jake ordered as Pete zipped up is leather jacket, trying hard not to feel guilty as he slipped the nylon cord of the spare jumper around his neck.

"I don't plan to run off, if that's what you are implying," Pete growled. "I did a fair bit of espionage and spying on my own before you lot showed up."

"Yeah, but you've never been in another dimension before, have you," Jake chided, his youthful face disturbingly serious. "Least till the coast is clear, right."

"He's right, Pete, we don't know who is on the other side when we land," Mickey followed up, holding out his own jumper on it's neck cord. "Okay, so, that clock on the wall there, when it times zero, press the button."

Pete glanced towards the red, LCD clock, still at 45 seconds. "Where will we end up?"

"Always on street level on Canary Wharf, just outside of the building. Guess they don't have this room." Jake tugged on his jacket and grabbed his own jumper. "Should be safe enough, this time of night. Few people around, but you never know."

"Brilliant," Pete muttered, wondering, not for the umpteenth time since he had decided to go along with this crazy scheme, why he had allowed himself to agree to it. "I decide to jump into another world, and chances are I'll get nicked by some puffed up security guard who thinks I'm there messing about."

"You'll be fine," Mickey assured him, eyes fixed on the clock above their heads. "Get ready."

Pete turned his eyes up to the flickering, red numbers. When the clock hit 0:00, he heard Mickey order, "now!" His fingers tightened on the plastic device in his hand.

The world compressed into nothing.

Nothing perhaps wasn't the word for it. It was more akin to be pressed through a hole so tiny he couldn't breath. For a split second, everything that made up Peter Tyler seemed to condense itself into the tiniest of particles, shimmering and shivering in the ether of existence. And then, before he could even begin to reason that out, he was gasping, heaving, as cold air and a manky, damp smell assaulted his senses.

"It's all right! It always takes the wind out of you first off," he thought he heard Mickey assure him. With his hands on his knees, Pete coughed and choked, as someone patted his shoulders, thumping between the two blades as he struggled to breath.

"Bloody hell," he finally managed, standing up with streaming eyes, turning gratefully to Jake.

"Sort of like being shoved through the eye of a needle, ain't it," Jake grinned. Something about that made Pete guffaw as well, nodding.

"Right, well, here we are." Mickey cut to the chase, grinning as he waved his hands around where they stood. It was a back alley, behind the familiar hulk of Torchwood Tower. Pete glanced around, eyeing the area.

"Looks just the same."

"Pretty much is," Jake replied, shoving hands into his jacket. "I mean, yeah, it's different, but overall it's the same."

"No zeppelins, though," Mickey pointed out. Indeed, Pete was unnerved to look up at the night sky over the Thames and discover that indeed, none of the flying giants were about. Not that there weren't other things flying around, helicopters he noted were about. And far off in the distance, other lights twinkled and shimmered as they moved about.

"We've got airplanes, here, jets, move faster than zeppelins and are not as annoying. Never been on one, but my mate has, flew to Jamaica once to see his family. Says it's like flying in a tube."

Pete simply stared at the twinkling lights, noting the faint sound above the noise of the city, and wondered if the strange objects were those. How utterly fascinating! A boyish smile lifted his face as he turned to Mickey, who watched him with a knowing smirk.

"Told you."

Jake only rolled his eyes. "Don't get him going on how wonderful his world is. He'll talk your ear off. Now, here is a packet of their money. Use it wisely." He thrust a small, plastic baggie at Pete, heavy with coins and paper money, at first familiar, till he noticed the image of a pretty, young woman wearing a crown on the front.

"Also, you don't have a plan for your phone on this side, so take this." Jake handed him a black, plastic phone, not as sleek and nice as the tablet phone he'd left in his office, but serviceable. "It's prepaid and programmed with me and Mickey's numbers. Just find us and dial if you get in trouble."

"Right," Pete nodded, shoving it and the money into his pocket. "Anything else I should know about?"

"Nothing that's too dangerous. Most of it's the same. Telly's similar, they like footie here, cabbies are better here."

"Worlds better," Mickey agreed. "But the underground here is shit by comparison."

"So take cabs, avoid the underground, got it," Pete took a deep breath. The air smelled the same on this world. The people looked the same. Everything felt so similar. And yet, he couldn't help the prickling sensation along his neck, the feeling that everything here was so...different.

"Estates are the same place as always," Mickey offered knowingly, nodding across the Thames. "It's not that late, and Eastenders should be on about now."

Pete didn't know whether to laugh or cry at that. His Jackie had always had a fondness for trashy soaps too. Instead, he chose to feel vaguely sick at it, only shrugging his shoulders by way of recognition. Maybe he'd go to the estates, maybe he wouldn't.

Who was he really trying to kid, anyway?

"Phone gets internet on it, if you want to look up anyone. But I'd suggest keeping your profile low with the old folk. Most of them think you're dead," Mickey warned.

"Right, no showing my face, no letting anyone believe I'm Pete Tyler or from another version of this world, got it." He forced a bright smile on his face. "When do you want to see me back, Team Leader Simmonds?"

Jake glanced at his heavy, military grade watch. "Say about ten hours, oh-six-hundred. Gives us time before everyone shows up to duck back out of here without anyone seeing us disappear."

"Okay, then." Pete paused, not sure what to do next. "Stay out of trouble, you two."

"I don't think we're the ones you've got to worry about," Jake muttered, jerking his head at Mickey. "Come on, got night shift the two of us, let's see what our evil, alter-ego Torchwood is up to, eh?"

"Be careful, Pete," Mickey warned with a hint of worry, before flashing a brilliant, white grin. "And don't have too much fun."

Fun? What did the bastard think he was up to anyway?

He watched the pair wander towards the eerily familiar office building, before he turned resolutely to the well known and yet strange streets of London. If he had felt unnerved simply by standing by Torchwood Tower, it was worse as he walked about Canary Wharf. Everything looked disturbingly the same. The cars were the same, the buses, they even drove on the same side of the road. The adverts were similar, though Pete didn't recognize some of the brands and products being sold. And it was clear that Vitex hadn't ever caught on in this world, as there wasn't a single billboard with it anywhere he looked. So strange to see something he had spent the better part of his life fostering simply not even existing.

He took the boys' advice, and hailed the first cabbie he could. He was friendly enough, though he did look twice at Pete in his nice, if casual clothes, when he asked to be taken to the Powell Estates. Knowing the man must think him mad, he simply said his no-good brother lived there, and that was reason enough for him, he guessed. The cabbie was chatty and friendly, and eager to sympathize with no account relatives. He had several himself, a son who'd taken to drugs and he'd seen hide nor hair of him in years, and a nephew who kept trying to mooch off his wife because he knew she was a soft touch. Pete only half listened, but had to admit quickly the cabbies in this world were better than the ones he avoided in his London. Quickly and efficiently he got Pete over the river and to the Powell Estates, with a gentle warning to be careful, and handing him a card with his number, "just in case you need to get out quick". Pete thanked him and tipped him double, climbing out of the back and turning to regard what had once been his home.

It didn't look that different here.

The Powell Estates had been built in the post-war years, quick and easy housing for the thousands displaced by the Great War as they called it in his world, He had gathered from Mickey they'd had a similar war at a similar time in this one. It was meant to be modern in design, but the gray, utilitarian blocks of flats had given very little cheer, and by the time Pete had secured one from him and his Jackie in the 80's, they've become little more than low-rent, council housing, home to those who couldn't get a job in the economic downturns, or those who simply found living on the dole better than working. Not that it was all bad. After all there had been some decent folk there when he and Jackie first moved in. Poor, but all right. Sure, there were the losers, the alcoholics, the druggies, those he knew moved in bad crowds, but his memories of the estate hadn't been all bad. Not that his Jackie would have ever admitted to it, years later, when they'd moved to their fancy house and forsaken all memory of the Powell Estates.

He crossed the street, walking across the same broken cement and brick plaza, with it's shabby little shops, all closed for the night, litter and graffiti decorating their pull down shields and gated grates. The stairs at the far end still smelled of vomit and stale piss, just like always, and he made his way up the four flights to the familiar apartment that he had once inhabited in his world. Sure enough, the lights were on, the television a low murmur, and a voice he'd recognize anywhere could be heard, loud and clear, carrying through the night as if the neighbors cared about her conversation.

It was Jackie.

His heart clenched as he stopped, flattening himself against the wall by her window, not daring to peek inside for fear of detection. He instead listened. Just listened, to that same voice, one he'd had screaming at him, shrieking both in laughter and in anger, and it only just then hit him how much he missed even her acting like a shrew.

"And so I says to him, 'If you can't do more than show up at my doorstep expecting me to feed and shag you, then you can take your fat arse and march it right back downstairs to the other whore you are getting to do the same thing'. And you know what...he did just that, and she kicked him out too, and he's been crying across the neighborhood. And well, no one's giving him any sympathy, mind, because he's done this three other times, but still, I wish my name wasn't caught up in it."

That hadn't been the conversation he'd expected to hear. Jealousy briefly flared inside of him, before reason tamped it down, hard. This wasn't his Jackie, after all, and she'd been a widow for twenty years now. Small wonder she wasn't remarried. She could see whoever she liked, though, clearly she had no desire to see some arsehole who was willing to cheat on her with another woman just to feather his nest.

"I won't stand for it, you know. I deserve better than that, and well he knows it now. Doubt he'll be by here anymore, and good riddance. Didn't need his extra newspapers anyway."

Unexpected pride brought a smile to Pete's face. Good for her, standing up for herself. Jackie never did suffer fools lightly. Well, save him. .

"Anyway, enough about my lovelife. What are you doing? That stupid alien taking you any place fun and exotic?"

Stupid alien? It didn't take Pete long to realize just who Jackie was talking to. Rose. The daughter that they never had in his world, but they had in this one. Something aching and sad bubbled to the surface as he listened to Jackie talking to her daughter, chattering about whatever adventure Rose was having with her Doctor, apparently involving something having to do with an event called " the Olympics".

"Well, I'm glad you got to go to the opening ceremonies, love, but you know, you could just go in a few years when they have them." Whatever Rose's comment was to that, he couldn't tell, but Pete could hear something sad and forlorn in Jackie's voice. It was clear she missed her daughter, and that she was lonely, and that Jackie was feeling just a tad left out. As if she was being left behind. So strange. His Jackie was always the life of the party. His Jackie had been a trendsetter, in the thick of it, whether it was one of her many soirees, or an appearance on television, or some charity function she was in the middle of, the spotlight was on Jackie Tyler. She had led the way to fashionable vacations and smiled and waved at the paparazzi. His Jackie was never left out of anything.

"When you convincing that madman to bring you home for a visit, eh? 'Bout time I saw my daughter." More silence, as Pete strained his ears. "Well, come home soon, yeah? I have a surprise for you! No, I'm not going to tell you. You'll just have to see. I will say this, it's someone you haven't seen since you were a kid, and who'd love to see you again."

Pete's gut wrenched at that. She must be talking about her ghost. Strange, though, this Jackie's dad in her world died long ago, well before the Cybermen ever appeared. Why then appear as her father on this side? Unless, it was a random effort, simply picking up on a signal that would be familiar to her and acceptable, one that would make her go along with it. As lonely as she sounded, he'd bet this Jackie would agree to anything, if it meant a little company.

He felt a flash of annoyance for the girl he met, the one who Jackie now chattered to about what was going on with her favorite show and what she'd missed with some celebrity he hadn't heard of. Off, galavanting across the universe, leaving her mother behind like this. But as quickly as it had risen in him, it ebbed away. He remember himself once at about Rose's age, dying to get away from home and have adventures. He'd never gotten far, not till his Torchwood happened into his life, but he'd dreamed big dreams once, and been young, hadn't he? All those fights with Jackie in their flat, just the very same as this, so long ago, when he'd twiddled and sketched and dreamed that he could do great things, all the while Jackie had yelled at him about rent and bills. Perhaps Rose wasn't doing exactly the same as him, but she was the same in that she too wanted something more in this life than watching trash telly and keeping tabs on celebs.

And in the end, hadn't that been what he and his wife's argument had boiled down to? They were leading such separate lives. Jackie was happy with her projects and celebrity, and simply wanted Pete to stay and enjoy it with her. And Pete had been too busy with work and his ever growing entanglement in Torchwood. How very different had he been with his Jackie? He'd neglected her all the same. And he wished heartily, now, that he hadn't.

"Anyway, so come home soon, love. Yeah, don't get get caught up in some alien orgy somewhere and forget your mother. What! You don't think that other species do that or something? Alright, I got to wash my hair. I love you."

The phone beeped as Jackie rang off, and Pete flattened himself against the concrete wall. Inside, he could hear footsteps and rattling, dishes being carried to the kitchen, and then more footsteps coming towards the door. He held his breath, wondering if she'd come out, if he should hide.

Instead a door closed, and water began to run as Jackie began to hum loudly and off key. She was in the bath. Exhaling slowly, he rounded the bank of windows he knew led to her bedroom and went to the door. He was attempting something that was completely idiotic, dangerous, and likely to cause a shitstorm of trouble. But then again, at this moment, he didn't particularly care. And he had been a spy for Torchwood for twenty years. Who was to say he would even get caught?

Quietly, he tried the doorknob, finding it foolishly unlocked. Jackie always was bad about things like locking doors and closing windows, it was a wonder no one had tried robbing the place by now. With a silent of footsteps as he could manage, he slipped past the door, past the bedroom and bath, where Jackie's singing could be heard loud and clear.

He hadn't noticed till then how much he even missed her horrible, out-of-tune belting.

He paused, a rational part of his brain screaming at him this was wrong, strange, perhaps even a little on the frightening side, and he should walk out the door. But he didn't. He eased past the door where the water rushed, and into the living space. It looked different. But he supposed after twenty years it would. She'd redecorated at some point, not that it improved the looks of the place, but there was no help for that in the estates. The layout was different, the telly in the corner, the furniture arranged elsewhere. And then there were pictures, all over the place. Mostly of a dark haired little girl, with wide, cinnamon eyes. She had Jackie's pointy chin, but his broad smile, toothless in one picture, snaggle-toothed in another, quickly followed by braces. In one photo she was a tiny tot, in a leotard and tights at a gymnastics event, a small, bronze medal hanging around the frame. In another, she was proudly displaying a red bicycle, a little older, but with that devil-may-care smile. When she hit her teen years the hair changed to golden blonde, a shade or two darker than the woman who was with her, their arms wrapped around each other as they mugged for the camera, looking more like sisters than mother and daughter. And then there was one with Mickey, younger even than he was now, a kiss being planted on his cheek as he held up a pint, New Years hats on. The most recent, he guessed, was her with the Doctor and Jackie, the pair of them sandwiching her, paper crowns on their head.

Twenty years without her Pete in her life, and Jackie had filled it up with this wonderful girl. A daughter, who under different circumstances, could have been his.

Pete glanced around, looked for signs of something that was him. His old trophies were gone, his knick knacks, his tools, his drafting pads. Like as not they'd all got tossed, either from exasperation or heartache, hard to say. All that was left was a small photo, tucked on the table by the sofa, an old picture of him in his footie kit, grinning stupidly. He remembered that photo. After a day in the park with the boys, kicking a ball about, and Jackie laughing at him for acting like a child. That had happened here...that part of his memories was real here.

He reached to pick it up, to cling to it like a lifeline, something hysterical and so broken welling up inside of him. But even as he did, the water inside of the bath turned off. He froze, swearing, his heart now racing in his ears. She'd be out in a minute, and she'd find him. And how could he possibly explain this to her, that he was alive and well, but from a different universe, one where he hadn't died, but Rose didn't exist?

As quietly as he could manage, he slipped back down the hall. He could hear the shower door slam shut as he quietly closed the door, and slipped by, just in time to hear Jackie humming to herself as she wandered into her bedroom. He sat, listening to her for long moments, until the sound of her hair dryer kicked in.

Pete slunk back down towards the stares, guilt gnawing at him as he took the steps down, slowly. He felt like a voyeur, like a peeping Tom who'd just gone through someone else's life and left his fingerprints on it, poked through their medicine camera and pawed through their underwear drawer. How ridiculous was that, wandering into a stranger's apartment, just because she was almost the same person as his wife? Like some sort of weird stalker, mucking about her place while she was in the shower.

Cursing himself as he moved briskly past the shuttered store fronts, he paused as one kiosk at the corner caught his attention. It had been in his world too, his Powell Estates, long ago. An older man had run it, Pakistani he thought, he'd sat with papers and cigarettes and snacks, watching a battered television he kept inside with him. When he'd lived in the estates twenty years before the man had rarely said more than a handful of words to him the entire time, though he'd stopped there every day to buy a pack. Out of curiosity, he wandered over, seeing the glimmering light of moving pictures just inside the open window.

He looked just the same, if older. The slowly graying hair that Pete recalled was now an iron color, and he had to be in his seventies. But he was almost exactly the way he remembered, from his bored expression to battered jacket with the Tottenham football clubs logo on the front. He barely blinked at Pete as he wandered up, simply nodding politely as Pete made a show of glancing through the many papers. More talk of the ghosts, something about giving them rights, and the growing campaign of someone named Harold Saxon, most of it Pete didn't pay attention to as he furtively watched the man for some sort of glimmer of recognition. So far, there was none. Twenty years was a long time. Maybe he'd forgotten Pete in the haze of faces that had come and gone over the years. Like as not, even if he did remember some mad bloke from back in the day who'd always barely scraped the money together to pay for his cheap cigs, he didn't even recognize him after the decades.

"Bit quiet around here," Pete offered, trying to strike up a conversation. The owner only nodded, barely looking up from his screen.

"Guess that's good, better quiet than trouble." More out of curiosity than any real need, he pointed to the cheap brand he used to buy years ago. "Can you get me one of those?"

Without looking at what he was doing, the man reached behind him, grabbing the soft pack. "Six quid."

"Six?" Bloody hell! No wonder he'd stopped smoking. He dug out the plastic, zip bag, pulling out the appropriate bills with their pictures of the Queen on them. The man simply grunted as he counted through them briefly and opened his till, dropping it inside.

"Cheers, mate." He snagged it and a folder of matches and turned, wandering off into the night.

For hours he walked, across the city he knew but didn't know. Most things were the same, but there were things that weren't. Buildings where parks should be, car parks where buildings should be. Thank God, Elvis and the Beatles existed in this world, he couldn't imagine those not existing. Some things seemed ubiquitous no matter the universe, drugs, crime, prostitutes, and complaints about what the government was and was not doing. Having a monarch still in Britain didn't seem to change that tendency. The papers were filled with all of the goings on of the royals, but of the politicians too, just like home.

Perhaps that was the strangest part of all, because with just a few difference it could be...almost...just like home.

The gray light of dawn was creeping in across the eastern skies when he wandered back to Torchwood Tower. He'd thought of sneaking in, but decided against it, leaving the work of espionage to Mickey and Jake. Instead he stood quietly, looking out towards the river, dragging on one of his cigarettes pensively as Mickey and Jakes voices rang out behind him.

"Wondered if you'd find us," Jake called, eyes flickering to the cig in his fingers. "Didn't know you smoked."

"Quit fifteen years ago." He dropped the burning end on the ground, rubbing it out with a toe. "You lot ready, then?"

"Yeah," Jake replied with a yawn. "Need a shower and sleep."

"And breakfast," Mickey chirped. He cut a glance at Pete carefully. "You check things out, then?"

"Yeah," Pete replied shortly. He left it at that.

"Right. About six now." Jake stared hard at his watch, grasping the jumper in his hand. Pete did the same, feeling the weight of it, cool in his fingers. "Five...four...three...two...one...now!"

Again the same compressed feeling, as if all of existence was trying to crush the life out of him. Then he stood, blinking, in his Torchwood.

And Miles Conner waited, and was less than impressed. "Having fun out there?"

"Busted," Mickey whispered behind Pete, ignoring the fact, obviously, that this was all his idea in the first place.