Yumiko Pollington pulled the handbrake as she came to the traffic lights. It had been six years since she'd last been up to visit her grandparents, though she'd seen them at family functions & Christmas in the interim. They'd lived in Cairndon, on & off, for most of their lives, North Fens too. Despite it's generally rough nature, Yumiko had always held a fondness for the borough of North Fens, it reminded her of simpler, happier days. Days spent playing with her grandfather in the back garden, helping grandmother bake or go shopping. As the light's remained at red, she looked to her left & other memories came to her as she observed the familiar pub. Sneaking off with granddad when he fancied a pint, she getting an orange & lemonade, being taught how to play dominoes and patience by the elderly patrons. It was all so simple & quiet. Not like now, being badgered by her agent to come up with more & more stories.

Yumiko eyed the folder sitting in the passengers seat warily, It contained scraps of story ideas & stray lines of dialogue or description. At 19 she had become a successful children's author, telling stories of talking hedgehogs, friendly monsters & castles on the moon but four years on from that success, she had wanted to move onto adult territory. This had proven somewhat difficult for her. No matter how hard she tried, the ideas just wouldn't flow. It had reached the stage where, tiring of Basingstoke & the same old sights, she packed her bag & decided to pay an unannounced visit to the grandparents Balfour.

It took Yumiko a moment to realise that the lights had turned green. Looking over her shoulder, she finally realised something which had been nagging her since entering the borough.

"No traffic, at all." she said. "Wondered why I hadn't been tooted."

Even the streets were mostly deserted, the few who did walk the pavements doing so quickly & with purpose.

Shrugging her shoulders, Yumiko released the handbrake & powered ahead. A few more stops & she could bask in the memory of simpler times, if only for a little while.

The Doctor returned to the Console Room; his grey coat slung over his shoulder & the sleeves of his shirt rolled up. The knees of his checked trousers were muddy & he was idly flicking specks of dirt from his pullover as he reached the console. Laying the coat across the console, the Doctor rolled his sleeves back into place & buttoned up the cuffs. Pulling his coat back on, he sighed happily as he re-centred his red paisley tie.

"Nothing like a little gardening to help you think. Shame Ace never had much interest in gardening, unless it was to blow one up. Like on Verdinia Major." he said with a roll of his eyes. "That turned into a very long day, Dorothy "Ace" McShane."

He had spent three hours in the Botanical Cloister Room, initially with the intent of planting the Solapulkara seed he had acquired from his recent adventure, the task having proven a little more difficult than the Doctor had thought. Upon reaching the Cloister Room in question, he was shocked to find it overgrown, the many vines & plants that had been planted there many years prior having grown out of control in the years since they had last been looked at. So followed three hours hard pruning, cutting back & de-weeding. All in all, the Doctor was surprised he had accomplished the task in so short a time. The actual planting of the seed proved far quicker & easier, so the Doctor had placed it in the centre bed, a small section at the heart of the Cloister Room where it could grow up & out.
He had also been pleasantly surprised to find & salvage the flowers planted by Susan ("She was always fond of the Snowdrop, very similar to a plant found in the mountains of Gallifrey."), Polly ("Begonias! We always did get along very well."), Nyssa ("Such a fondness for the Lotus & Common Daisy, she was particularly interested to discover they embodied rebirth."), Peri ("Strelitzia & Chrysanthemums, freedom I think they symbolised.") and Mel ("Daffodils & Iris, just like her cottage in Pease Pottage."). The creeping vine & ivy which had overtaken much of the Botanical Cloister was bog standard for such rooms. The Timelords who had helped form the more important rooms for Tardises in general saw them as calming & bringing peace. All they had brought the Doctor was bother.

"Though I must admit, it was my own fault for neglecting it." he had thought as he stuffed the last of the vines into the Tardis waste disposal unit.

Wandering around the console, the Doctor stopped, wiping his face with his red paisley handkerchief, & stared keenly at a set of grey panels with indents the shape of hands. Scratching the right side of his face with the forefinger of his left hand, the Doctor seemed lost in thought. Suddenly, he spoke aloud, shaking the same forefinger upwards as he did.

"Predicament: I have lost my memory." he said, speaking to the ceiling. "My little jaunt in the Carpathians had nothing to do with the loss, ergo I must search for it elsewhere. A dream I had, of a cosmopolitan alien world, potentially of the Galactic Federation, is suggestive, but not proof."

Turning his head to the console, the Doctor leaned on it & rested his head on the knuckles of his hand, his blue eyes burrowing into the central column of the console as he spoke.

"Question: Where do I search & can you help me? Always do I talk to you, you're a very good listener I might add, but how do I know you can hear me?"
The Doctor had always assumed that the Tardis heard every word he said, but the nature of her existence as a bio-mechanical entity, existing within & without several different dimensions, meant that homing in on something as small as the console room & what was said there constantly was likely a difficult task. The Doctor likened it to living in a mansion & trying to listen in on a muffled echo of a conversation from the basement whilst you were in the loft. Of course, his surmise could be entirely wrong, it wouldn't be the first time where the Tardis was concerned.

The Doctor returned his gaze to the grey, hand-shaped panels.

"Answer: I use the Telepathic Circuits to boost my thoughts & aim it directly at you, my dear old thing." he said, patting the console gently.

"The question is, or will be, what do I ask you to do...easy!"

The Doctor placed his hands onto the telepathic circuits & concentrated, raising his head, closing his eyes & mouthing the words as he did:

"Take me to where I can find my memory."

Minutes went by as the Timelord continued to mouth the words, a steady, low-pitched whine growing in strength & volume as he did. The Console Room slowly dimmed, the faded yellow of the roundels glowing brighter. The column began to slow in its steady rising & falling until it stopped entirely. Silence descended & the Doctor stopped mouthing the words.

With a sudden groan, the Tardis lurched sideways & sent the Doctor sprawling toward the farthest wall. The column sprung back to life, lifting & dropping furiously as the Tardis groaned & wheezed. The tumult continued & the Doctor crawled over to the console & picked himself up, holding onto it for dear life. To his right, he was aware of the hatstand toppling over & sliding to the other side of the room. Without warning, the tumult ceased, the wheezing & groaning of the engines came to a stop with a thud & the ping of the arrival chime resounded.
His eyes twitching from side to side, the Doctor cast a wary glance at the console before travelling around its circumference & twisting the dial for the scanner screen.

"Why am I not surprised?" he said to himself as the screen lifted.

The information had appeared upon a nearby screen as soon as the Tardis had landed, but he had no need to look at it. The evidence of the scanner was enough to tell him where he was.

"Earth." he said, faux-annoyed & rolling his eyes. "Again."

The sight that the scanner revealed was of a desolate looking field. A line of bare trees blocked off the view of the rest of the countryside, but the Doctor was certain that beyond would be more fields. In the distance he could make out the tops of low climbing hills above the treeline. The grass grew unevenly, where the Tardis had landed it had been cut recently, but the biggest portion of the plot of land was covered in tufty, tan stalks of overgrown grass. All around were scattered leaves of varying colours, the most of which lined a well walked path in the grass, long since churned up into lumpy mud.

"Looks like the edge of reality." muttered the Doctor, idly.

Twisting the scanner knob, the camera twisted around &, after a brief moment of the view being blocked by a long line of trees, their leaves dark red & purple, the scanner alighted on the end of the line. Beyond was a T-junction road, also carpeted by fallen trees, the vertical road lined on either side with houses. The horizontal road also held houses, all of which looked out onto the field the Doctor had landed in.
Twisting a dial, the Doctor checked the small screen near the scanner control & read aloud the information flashing there.

"Great Britain, Scotland, Aberdeenshire, Cairndon, the borough of North Fens, 28th October, 1993. Lovely time of year, autumn." he said idly, tapping his lips with his forefinger. "Hmm, haven't spent much time in the 1990's, what could a place & time such as this have to do with my memories?"

The Doctor pondered. Though he was certain the dream he'd had was something to do with his amnesia, he had also long since accepted that it was easier & more fun to go with the flow.
Making a brief check of the temperature, the Doctor winced as the screen flashed "Currently 2 Degrees Celsius."
Turning, the Doctor made his way over to the toppled hatstand & returned it to its rightful place. Pulling his Panama hat from the stand & onto his head, he clutched his question mark handle umbrella in his right hand & lifted the arm of his duffle coat with the other. For a few moments, he regarded the garment.

"I shall live to regret it no doubt, but I think I'll survive without you this adventure."

Reaching over the console, the Doctor pulled the lever to open the Tardis doors & stepped out. As he did, the Tardis interior doors closed behind him & the information on the screen flashed new words.

"Will drop to -5 by night, to last until months end."

Freya Drury was not having the best of mornings. She had fallen asleep looking over the various case-files concerning the missing people of North Fens the night before & had woken up at half-past nine instead of half-past seven, as she had intended. When she had gone to the leisure centre canteen to sneak out a few tea bags & biscuits, she had to put up with the advances of the Manager, Mr David Barrett. He wasn't difficult on the eyes, though he was not an immediately likeable individual, being obsessed with health & safety to the point of hindrance. Her wariness had been further raised instantly because he was flirting with her of all people.

Freya looked into the mirror near her desk & saw a 30-something woman looking back at her. She had never considered herself pretty. Her long hair was messy, the blonde mixed so thoroughly with brown that it was neither one nor the other & the visible scar of a childhood bout of measles prominent on her face. The scar in question stretched horizontally across the bridge of her nose & under either of her green eyes. It was the scar, coupled with her low self-esteem, which coloured her view of her appearance. For the most part, however, she had very little interest in matters of the heart. Even more so since she had volunteered herself for this assignment.

Worrying the scar with her forefinger, a bad habit her father was always chiding her to stop, she sipped at her tea & stared out the first-floor window of the office she had been given. Plastic horizontal Venetian blinds covered the window, but she could still see out onto the Lord Tennyson Square below.

Directly ahead & to the right was a row of shops. The branch of a national supermarket chain in miniature, the local bakery, a hairdresser & the fish & chip shop, closed until later on in the evening. Directly ahead & facing the Leisure Centre, and to the left of the row of shops, was the Lord Tennyson Pub. A rougher place Freya had never come across. If there wasn't a punch-up going on, there was usually some drunken argument occurring outside in the dead of night. In the middle of all this was the Square itself, a mixture of car park & grass. To the left were low-to-mid quality tenement houses, built close to the end of the Victorian era.

Freya Drury was thankful that all seemed peaceful, she was in no mood for the usual trouble that ensued with a rough area like North Fens this morning. Lifting up one of the police reports, she read over it for what seemed like the millionth time. A whole family disappeared; gore & viscera left behind & no evidence of the presence of another person within the home.

Taking another sip of her tea, Freya sighed heavily, slumped back into the old office chair she had been given & clasped her hands on her lap. The office she had been offered by the manager was not uncomfortable, a little dark, but it mostly served its purpose & nothing more. It had evidently, however, not been used in a long time & was situated so far from any of the centre's amenities & other offices as to be impractical for day-to-day use. Freya found the isolation both pleasant & unnerving depending on her mood. At the moment, thanks to the overcast sky, her late awakening & inability to concentrate on the task at hand, Freya found the office unbearable.

"Bugger it." she cursed softly. "I'm going for a walk, maybe that'll clear my head."

Standing, she grabbed her coat from the coat peg on the door & passed out of the office. Stopping outside the door, she looked between the fire door at the far end of the corridor on her right & the corridor leading to the rest of the leisure centre on the left. Biting her lip, she came to a decision.

"May as well chance it & go the normal way."

Despite her office overlooking the Square, the reception was situated on a street leading away from the hub, to the left when looking at it from the Square, with most of the leisure centre amenities being in the larger buildings further back. The centre itself was almost maze-like, suggesting to Freya that the architect had had no idea what he or she was doing in the building of it. The very fact that there was no direct route from her office to reception was one of many such suggestions. As such, Freya would have to pass through corridors which overlooked squash courts, gymnasiums, football/basketball courts & swimming pools, before eventually finding herself at the reception area.

At the reception desk, the bushy hair of Valerie Terry was all Freya could see from behind the large bulk of the computer monitor. The rapid clacks & taps of the keyboard were the only sound in the quiet. Valerie was a speedy worker, but greatly disliked her concentration being broken. This made her dealings with the public, and indeed the Manager, a little difficult at times, though she always seemed to have time for Freya.

"Hullo Val, busy morning?" asked Freya, leaning on the counter.

"Couple of people in, but it won't get busy till after 3 & 5. Great time to get the paperwork done." Valerie tilted her head to the side of the monitor & grinned. "You going for a walk? Taking a chance coming this way, Casanova's pain in the arse brother might catch you."

"I know." winced Freya. "But I didn't want another song & dance after the last time I used the fire escape."

Irritation, at having to meander the corridors of the North Fens Leisure Centre for the umpteenth time whenever she wanted to leave, had made her take the fire escape. As soon as she had exited, an alarm had blared & the fire brigade had arrived in record time. Freya had made good her escape, but was subject to what Val had called a "whinge-fest" from Barrett for having used the fire escape when there wasn't an emergency.

"If I'm missed, say I'm out on enquiries." she added, worrying at her scar again.

Turning, Freya made her way towards the sliding doors &, upon hearing steps from the nearby stairs situated across from the reception desk, leapt through the doors & shuffled off to the right as the Manager arrived in the entrance.

"Remember to smile for the customer, Valerie." he said, sidling past into a nearby corridor. "And a pleasant ""How can I help you?"" won't hurt."

Swivelling her eyes in the man's direction, Valerie slowly shook her head & returned to her work.

Stepping over the wet mud & onto the leaf strewn street, the Doctor looked about him. To his right sat an old blue Ford Sierra. The only reason for catching his attention being that the tree it sat under was in the process of dropping most of it's leaves atop the roof of said car. Walking over, the Doctor gave an idle examination of the interior before looking over the houses.
They were typical terraced housing, likely built in the 1950's, as such they had a varied look of lived in to outright neglect. The house that the Ford Sierra was parked outside was clean, grass trimmed & the house front spic-&-span, but the two houses either side were sorry affairs. The one on the left's guttering had broken off in the centre & now dangled before one of the stained bedroom windows. In the right-hand house, the front was more akin to an untamed jungle than garden. This was repeated Ad Nauseum up & down the row.
As he examined the right hand garden, the Doctor caught a movement behind the ground floor curtains. Someone peered out for a second before disappearing back.
The Doctor stood for a moment, tapping the handle of his umbrella on his lips, before turning left, heading to the T-section & entering the next street. Nonchalantly, he gave the street sign a desultory glance.

"Davidson Street." he muttered.

Davidson Street's houses were much the same as the original three the Doctor had already observed. Sitting on a brick wall at the corner of the street near the sign, the Doctor examined his surroundings, resting his hands & chin on the handle of his umbrella as he did. The area was certainly not high end, but not exactly low end either. Neglected, rough, but the houses weren't too bad, dependant entirely upon the occupant. North Fens reminded him of his visit to Perivale with Ace, in a way, though it was much colder here.

"Hmm, that had been 1989, if I recall correctly." he said to no-one in particular.

His mind dwelt on the young woman, wondering what she was up to now & who with. The Doctor's ruminations were interrupted by a noise from across the street. An older man had exited the house, a large black bag of rubbish in his hand & an even larger Alsatian sitting in the door. The Doctor silently observed him as the man moved across his garden path to the ramshackle driveway. There was a furtiveness in his movements & worried look about his face. As the man reached his bin, he looked up & seemed to see the Doctor for the first time. With a start, he turned & hurried back into the house &, pushing the whimpering hound back inside, slammed the door. Even from 25 feet away, the Timelord could hear the locking of the door & hurried attempts to fix the security chain on.

The Doctor, rising & placing one hand into his coat pocket, watched the house for a moment before walking up the road a way. Keeping his head forward, the Doctor watched out of the corner of his eyes as various movements in the many windows of the houses caught his attention. On the right side, he saw a woman holding a baby duck to the left of her window. On the left, a bruiser of a man stood ominously in his living room window, arms folded & an aggressive look in his eyes. Somewhere, a large dog was barking, probably the Alsatian from before. The twitching of curtains & sudden locking sounds from doors where no life seemed to exist told the Doctor all he needed to know.

"There's something wrong going on here." he mumbled.

Continuing up the street, the wind hurling leaves about & around him, the Doctor soon found himself at a crossroads. The longer road, running horizontally, stretched for a full mile to the right but came to an opening less than 30 feet away on the left. Many more terraced houses populated the strip of road that the Doctor soon learned was called "Summervale Road". An equal number of cars to the houses sat parked on either side of the road, creating a small gap for drivers to pass through. It mattered little, however, as the road & indeed the area seemed desolate.

Turning left at the crossroads, the Doctor soon found himself at an open area. Further ahead was another housing estate, but to the left was a continuation of the field that the Tardis had landed in. Just before this was a small roundabout, which served as a terminus for buses. To his right, the road seemed to lead out of the borough he had found himself in & into other parts of the town. A small bus shelter stood alone & vandalised a little away from the houses, the Doctor being disappointed not to find anyone waiting there. Just as he was about to turn, a bus slowly glided its way from the greater town's direction &, bypassing the stop, made its way over to the terminus & came to a shuddering halt.

Marching over the road toward the bus, the Doctor stopped as he watched the driver, preparing to take a sandwich out of a bag, hurriedly restart the bus. Giving the man a wave, the Timelord was forced to lurch backwards as the driver started the bus up & sped off faster than the Doctor had ever seen a bus go.

"Hey." he said, narrowly avoiding being clipped by the fleeing vehicle. "I just wanted to ask where the community centre was!"

Watching the smoke emanating from the bus dance & dwindle to nothing, the Doctor frowned deeply. He had decided that if there was a place to find out the comings & goings it would be the community centre, there, at least, would be a notice board. Passing back over to the side of the road he had come from; he walked at a modest pace as he re-entered the maze of houses. Checking his watch, he observed it was 10:15AM.

"I know it's a late Thursday morning, but there should be someone about."

As he passed through more streets, the Doctor was treated to the same as before. A mix of well kept, modest & ramshackle abodes caught his eyes, all with closed curtains or furtive eyes watching him from behind the double-glazed windows. If he saw anyone, they quickly fled into the confines of their house or, on one occasion, their car & sped off. Following a curving road, the Doctor passed by a Butcher, a sign in the window denoting that they were closed for the foreseeable future.

Close-by, a detached house stood vacant, police tape fluttering in the bitingly cold breeze. Examining it, it was clear that if not for the police tape, the house would look occupied. The curtains were open, a car sat in the slanted driveway & the garden was trimmed, if a little shabby. Standing before the vacant house, a dark feeling fell over the Doctor. Had something unspeakable taken place here? Whether it was just an ordinary piece of human depravity or something preternatural, it made no difference, a pall had been cast over the home & made the hairs on the back of the Timelord's neck stand on end. Shivering a little at the icy wind, the Doctor considered nosing around the place, but thought against it. If anyone saw him, he'd probably get lynched as soon as he exited.

"The people here are frightened, wary, but of what?" he thought, mentally taking note of the house.

To the far left, the Doctor could see the backs of two large buildings standing side by side & hear the muffled sound of activity. Following the road that wound its way around the side of the buildings, various pensioners bungalows lining the wending way, he soon found himself in Lord Tennyson Square.

Freya had meandered her way through the streets without thinking or really knowing where she was going. She had no proper destination or goal on this walk, she just needed to clear her head. The whole assignment was getting on top of her & the memory of volunteering made her cringe.

"What were you thinking, you silly cow." she said to herself.

Passing into a street, the name of which she blanked, Freya wandered up the craggy road. Idly, she noticed how the roots of the trees, which lined the road, had broken the surface in several places. It was as she noticed this that she tripped over one of the raised cracks, hidden by a pile of dead leaves, & just managed to catch herself. Steadying herself on a chain fence, she looked back at the now revealed crack & contemplated stamping on it, but thought better.

"You'd look like a loon, or a halfwit, if anyone saw you." she thought. "Not that there's much going on."

Looking about, the street she had entered was lonely & silent. Everyone was keeping to themselves, and it was her fault. She had been there two weeks now & had made no further progress than when she started. As it happened, three other disappearances had taken place since she arrived.
Worrying her scar, Freya tramped further up the road until she realised she had reached the fields at the edge of the borough. Vaguely, she was aware of a discussion going on behind her.

"Sorry aboot being sae gruff wi' ye, there's strange folk aboot." said a gruff voice.

"It's okay." answered a light, pleasant sounding voice. "Do you know where they moved too?"

"Oh aye lassie, they went up Alpin Crescent, number 21, a' still got the forwarding address fer their mail." replied the gruff voice.

There was a moment of silence, causing Freya's curiosity to get the better of her. Turning round, a young woman, her features a mixture of far east Asian & Caucasian was talking with the scruffiest man Freya had ever seen. It was quite the contrast, an attractive dark haired, blue-eyed & evidently English woman, her long dark hair tied back in a loose ponytail, talking with someone who looked like they'd barely survived an explosion. Much of what the man was wearing looked like Oxfam's waste-bin had gotten up & walked out of the shop. As for the man's face, all Freya could make out was a pair of bleary, beady, but friendly, eyes & a beard that ruffled itself in time with the man's voice.

"That's only up the road..." said the woman, her voice a mixture of incredulity & irritation.

"Aye, but it's a better street. Mair up market." said the scruffy man with a wink.

The young woman placed her face into the palm of her hand, thanked the man & made her way over to a leaf strewn Ford Sierra. In a moment, the car took off up the road, leaves billowing about as it disappeared around the far off corner.

Her curiosity sated, Freya looked out at the green & yellows of the grass, mixed with the grey trunks & bare branches of the trees, as they spread out & went on until they reached lumpy hills far, far in the distance. A cold breeze passed over her face & irritated her scar, dead leaves wheeling up & around her. Turning her head, Freya covered her face & froze. A bright blue was breaking through the trees on the other side of a raised embankment, with several trees lining the top, to her left.
Curiosity getting the better of her, Freya wandered around, following the road up until the object came into view. For a moment, she stood dumbfounded.

"I-I-It's him, he's here!" she stammered.

Her prayers had been answered! As she was about to turn, Freya stopped herself &, making a decision, rushed over to the blue box & knocked before trying the doors. Pressing her ear up against it, she heard a faint, peaceful hum emanating from the interior.

"It must be him!"

Turning around, Freya made her way over the muddy, leaf covered ground & sped through the streets. The Doctor was here & she had to find him, he was the only one who could help her.

"B-b-but how am I going to r-r-recognise him?" she said, her head darting from side to side.

She had seen the five pictures of him in the database, but there were at least 3 other possibles that hadn't been confirmed. What had Consultant Combat Specialist Benton said?

"If you want to find the Doctor, just look for the bloke who stands out whatever time period he's in. That is, if he doesn't find you first." she recited. "Shouldn't be too hard then..."