Author's Note: Please check out my profile page, for the Torchwood sequel. It's technically an AU even to this fic, diverging off from chapter 10.

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Epilogue: Welcome Home

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"Where are we?" Jenny asked, staring around her in awe.

They were walking on a cracked and glassy beach, the edge of which overlooked a great abyss where the planet they were on had cracked down the edge of a tectonic plate. The sky was filled with a vast field of debris and broken planets, interspersed with shimmering silvery-blue gasses and weak white dwarf stars that barely sustained the remnants of life on these shattered worlds.

"It's called the Silver Devastation. Almost two hundred trillion years ago, two galaxies collided, causing this." the Master waved overhead, indicating the aptly named spatial anomaly they stood within, "And here, on this unnamed and uninhabited ruin on the coast- about five years ago, now- is where my human self, whom you so sweetly described as a 'cuddly grandpa'-" oh, how he sneered at those two words, "-was first found."

Jenny grinned at the thought, and turned on the spot to stare around her, "It's beautiful." she observed. The cliff rising up from the beach was made of jet black rock, shiny and crystallised from the vicious storm that had rent this planet in two, looming over the two Time Lords as they walked, drawing her eyes up towards this planet's shattered sister-world, shimmering violet and indigo, the closest world overhead and the brightest.

"I like your taste." he said calmly, smiling slightly.

The air smelled of fire and lightening, and was so thin that the only sky to be seen was the jet-black of space, and the ethereal glow of the Devastation itself. It was truly spectacular to look at, although more than just a bit chaotic. Aside from the dying stars that held this anomaly together, there was nothing else to be seen... except for one speck of light in the far distance, beyond it all.

"What's that star, out there?" she asked, indicating just about the only star out there at all. It flickered and wavered slightly, as the silver gasses shimmered across it like a cloud in the night.

"That?" the Master laughed, dark and sardonic, "That is Utopia."

Jenny frowned. She knew the story behind that, and found it quite a buzz-kill, in this wondrous new world she was exploring. They continued to walk for a few minutes. The only sound was the crunch of the once-sandy beach, as it crackled under Jenny's boots. Somehow, the Master's steps were light, and left no mark on the fragile glass.

She soon saw that they were approaching, ruins of actual structures. A tall tower of dusty white stone, partially fallen down. Walls of the same material, barely waist-high, but she imagined that they might once have risen high above her. The Master led the way carefully through what looked like it might have been a gateway- evidence of pillars on either side, and some rubble across the stone path that led through it. All that same dusty white.

He led her along the path, to an open space covered in the white stones, with a pile of indistinguishable rubble in the centre. A town square? Jenny tried to read back in time, to see it as it had once been, but her head started to hurt after only a few thousand years, and nothing had changed in that time.

Turning to face her, he gestured to the foot of the former-statue, "This is where they found me." he said, "Just there. Which means..." he turned on the spot, slowly, eyes scanning the area very carefully, "Somewhere around here... ah ha!" he suddenly burst into a run, charging off through the ruined streets.

Jenny grinned, 'Finally!' she thought, barely suppressing a laugh as she turned and ran after him.

She weaved through rubble and fallen stone, following him closely. They hadn't gone very far, when she ducked under a particularly large piece of fallen masonry, and emerged in another dusty-white courtyard, this time with what must have once been a fountain as its focal point. It actually looked like some of the jets of water had been frozen and crystallised in the cataclysm that had taken this world.

She stopped short when she saw the Master standing in front of what must be about the only completely intact pillar in the ruined city. It looked like it was made of the same sort of stone as all the rest of it, but Jenny could feel the psychic energy radiating from it, and the Master was looking up at it with a sort of reverence that stilled her and made her wait to see just what would happen next.

Slowly, deliberately, the Master took the one step that closed the distance between himself and the pillar, reaching out a hand to touch it. When he did, a door opened in its side, and now Jenny recognised what it must be. "A TARDIS?" she asked, picking her way across the rubble on the ground, towards the two of them.

"My TARDIS." the Master corrected, turning to smile at her, and with a wave of his arm- a chivalrous gesture- he indicated the open door. Jenny could just see the room within, all sleek lines in black and silver. "Ladies first."

Jenny laughed, and quickly trotted past him, into the TARDIS. It felt cooler in here than in the Doctor's TARDIS... almost chilly, even to her. The door closed behind her, and the Master stepped past her. She looked around the room, sensing sadness in the air, where the Doctor's TARDIS emanated joy. She queried it, and heard morbid laughter in her mind... then another emotion, relief from solitude. Welcome.

"It's good to be home..." she heard him whisper, as he approached the control column. His expression was sombre and calm, a direct contrast to the way the Doctor would behave in the same situation, "Now where would you like to go?"

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