A/N: Well, what can I say... I suck big time at updating?
Sorry about that, really. The only excuse I have is that my muse is a fickle thing and motivation for anything creative a hard won and rare treasure these days.

On that note, a huge shout-out to those of you who've been following this story for literal years now - in a show of positively saintly patience - and are still sticking around, even continuing to share your thoughts with me. You're the coolest readers anyone could ever wish to have, really! (And the reason I keep going with this story despite the many long breaks and writer's blocks.)
Thank you all for being awesome!

With that said, I have to admit that at this point I need a bit to slowly get a feel for this story and the characters' mind-sets again, what with not having worked on it for such a long time... (Oops.)
So, sorry if things might seem a bit out of the flow in this chapter, or if the Doctor and/or Lydia come across a bit odd. I mean, there is some adjusting of their footing going on, after clearing things up between them in the last chapter, so... Let's just see where it'll take us? (Hope it's not going to be too bad, though!)

Again, thanks for being so patient with me and I hope you enjoy :)

Lydia's head moved from side to side, trying to take in all of her surroundings at once, as she followed the Doctor from the town square like, open space the TARDIS had landed in into one of the adjacent alleys leading away from it. The cobblestone pavement they were walking on and art nouveau architecture around them lay in stark contrast to the countless, multicoloured holographic adverts and signs hovering in front of the buildings – not to mention the tall, more futuristically shaped skycrapers towering over the view against a dusky sky in the distance.

After the TARDIS had finished filtering out the particles of her blood, the Doctor had checked the control screen and fiddled around with his sonic screwdriver before inserting it into a slot in the console – which was followed by a declaration of having to follow the signal on foot, as their current location was apparently as far as the TARDIS could narrow it down.

He had unhooked Lydia from the device's tubes again then, and surprised her by not even suggesting for her to stay inside the TARDIS and wait, when she had been half prepared to argue that she had a right to know whatever - and perhaps even confront whoever - had taken her from her home. (Well, that, and then there was also the desire to be of any kind of help; being presented with a potential way back home had her wanting to be proactive part of finding it).

But it turned out there hadn't even been any arguing necessary, as the Doctor had been quick to once more remind her not wander off while they'd be following the signal on foot.

He had just requested one more thing of her before they had headed out...

"Just one more thing; and I know this might be an uncomfortable issue for you after what happened earlier, but it's something that needs to be addressed," the Doctor began, the careful tone of his voice and look on his face making Lydia tense in anticipation. "As we have established not too long ago, your foreknowledge about me and the events surrounding me has the potential to turn very dangerous. And from what I have seen from your reaction regarding the fate of the Bowie Base One crew..." He trailed off, averting his eyes and seemingly gathering himself for a moment, before continuing, "From what I have seen, you seem to have some understanding of just what kind of consequences tampering with it might result in."

Lydia swallowed the unexpected lump in her throat at the returned mention of a topic that had been haunting her conscience these past weeks, still not completely over the earlier emotional shock of having played an unwitting part in the Guardian's fate. Her pulse quickened at the direction the conversation was taking, fingers boring nervously into the worn leather of the jump seat.

"I do..."

"Good. So with that said, I would like you to seal your memories of any knowledge concerning me, so they can't be accessed from an outside force."

Lydia's jaw clenched with increased nerves as she frowned at the man, instantly on her guard at the idea of another attempt of a telepathic connection with the Time Lord.

"I thought you said you couldn't do anything about my memories without seeing them...?" she asked, voice laced with uncertainty.

"Oh, it's not me who'll be doing the deed – it's the TARDIS; or, to be more exact, her telepathic circuits," the Doctor clarified. "She'll be able to put a barrier around your memories, which will keep most telepathic beings and devices from being able to access them as long as you're within her reach. Including me."

"And that's all she's going to do...?" Lydia checked, hating to be so openly doubting the Doctor's intention, but wary of it all the same, with the memory of Donna's mind wipe still lingering faintly int he back of her own mind.

The Time Lord studied her from his position for a brief moment, before stepping closer and crouching down in front of the jump seat, making sure they were at eye level before he spoke again.

"I know it's a lot of trust to ask of you, Lydia, and that it basically leaves you with only my word on not altering your memories in any way – the same way I'm counting on your word not to make any further use of your foreknowledge, trusting you to be able to judge the consequences and danger of that," he pointed out.

The redhead held his unwavering gaze, taking in the most open look on the Doctor's face that he had yet shared with her.

"I think that should sound fair enough?" he suggested.

Lydia's thoughts raced.

Yes, he had acted against Donna's wishes back then – but the situations weren't exactly comparable, were they?

Plus, this was still the Doctor. The man trying to help out and make things better wherever he could. He wasn't someone who intentionally seeked to cause harm, even if she still felt some indignation about the spiked drink.

The fact that he hadn't simply gone ahead without her consent or even awareness of his intention, speaking openly about the issue to her and asking her permission, was rather telling, wasn't it? He could've probably just tricked her into a scenario where she'd unwittingly lose those memories with her being none the wiser if he so wished, clean his hands of the problem nice and quick without bothering to tell her as she wouldn't even know, anyway.

While that thought was pretty scary in itself, it also underlined her assessment of his person.

And she supposed he had a point about her knowledge being a potential danger; she hadn't even considered that anyone other than him might try to get access to it and mess around with it before he had mentioned the possibility, should the fact for some reason become known somehow... She was beginning to understand why he requested this of her, as disturbing scnearios popped into her mind following that line of thought. It was likely even a safeguard for herself.

She also came to realise that he truly was taking quite a gamble himself here by counting on her word not to act on what she knew, showing quite a bit of trust himself – without even really knowing her, apart from the few days they'd spent together.
A fact that awed her a little, if she was honest.

Holding the Time Lord's intense, waiting gaze for another second, the air between them thick with anticipation, Lydia finally gathered her courage and made the decision to trust him with her memory.

Taking a deep breath and exhaling it slowly, she finally answered, "I guess it does."

The Doctor's face softened into a genuine smile at her agreement, the sight relieving some of her uneasiness.

"Thank you."

Thinking back to that one, fearful moment when a brief glimpse of resurfaced doubt had her wondering if she was about to lose her memories, after all, while connected to the TARDIS' telepathic circuit, had Lydia momentarily shuddering again as she followed the Doctor into the alley. She hadn't been able to stop the small spike of fear in that very moment, despite everything, so when the Doctor had declared the deed to be done shortly after with her still recognising him and not feeling any different (well, other than feeling a slight pressure in her head, which had soon started to fade again, though), Lydia's relief had been immense.

It seemed that the mutual show of trust in the other, as well as the confirmation of Lydia's honesty in regards to her story dissipating the Doctor's suspicions, had soothed the waters between them. The Doctor no longer seemed quite as closed off and wary around her as he'd been at the beginning of their reunion (and, if she thought about it, all that time on Eden, really), and while Lydia was still feeling rather sheepish over her earlier blunder from the telepathic connection, she felt a lot more at ease around the Time Lord now. While a small part of her was still somewhat vexed about the spiked drink and being tracked without her knowlegde, understanding the reason behind it now had cooled the initial anger down.

So finding herself wandering out into the unknown again, with the hope of getting back home blooming in her heart, left one Lydia Rayne with a renewed sense of excitement, successfully distracting her from the guilt of likely having played an unwitting part in the Guardian's demise for the time being.
There was nothing she could do about any of that anymore, anyway, so her mind welcomed the distraction with figurative open arms, eager to focus on the now and on finding what they were looking for instead of mulling over things that were bound to throw her off balance.
She knew the suppressed thoughts and emotions were likely going to catch up with her in the near future, but for the moment she was more than happy to push them away in order to concentrate on the task of finding a potential way back home.

The redhead even felt a spark of amusement as she watched the Time Lord being in his element, eyes fixed on the screwdriver in his hand as he approached the alley in purposeful stride, while chattering absentmindedly about their location to her. It was an extremely Doctor-ish sight, one she'd been used to seeing on the telly, and she tried her best to fight the creeping sense of surrealism that accompanied it.

"You have to admire the inherent sense of nostalgia in humans, always keen to keep things in a retro style, no matter how far along into the centuries you go," the Doctor commented after she had remarked on the contrasting sight of the traditional architecture meeting the modern technology around them earlier.

"Says the man keeping his TARDIS stuck looking like a 1960 Police Box?" Lydia couldn't help quipping.

The Doctor shot her a look at that, and Lydia pursed her lips to keep from outright grinning at him, which did nothing to hide her amusement, though.

"Right..." She cleared her throat. "So, how far along into the future did the signal take us then? From my point of view, I mean," Lydia asked curiously, before checking, "We are still on Earth, right?"

"Yep, this is Earth in the twenty-third century. Bit of a troublesome era for your lot..."

"Oh? How so?" she asked, taking another, more careful look around their surroundings. As far as she could tell, things looked pretty ordinary and peaceful... Well, if you ignored what looked like a pair of armed guards she now spotted patrolling the street ahead of them. The sight didn't seem to be unusual though, as none of the poshly dressed people walking about or sitting at tables in front of a café seemed to pay them much mind.

"Well, in that humanity has polluted the planet to the point of near uninhabitability, causing conflicts between fractions of people who have to fight for mere survival, and those who chose to ignore the consequences of their means of profit-making by depleting the Earth of its resources and poisoning the environment," the Doctor replied in one long breath. "The planet will recover eventually, but it's a long and rough road for those living through the aftermath."

That had Lydia stopping in surprise. "But... Everything seems pretty normal here?" she pointed out, taking another look at a fancy looking restaurant to their right, with a few people mingling inside, casually enjoying their dinner or a drink. Nothing here indicated any struggle for survival, as far as she could see, and the place seemed pretty clean, too, cosily lit up with lots of dim lights.

The Doctor came to a stop as well and turned to face her. "That's because we're inside the centre of one of the major cities, where the wealthy made sure they could keep their sophisticated lifestyles up under a nice glass dome, supplying their homes and entertainment centres with clean air and water through a filtering and ventilation system, happy to ignore that the world around them is falling apart – as long as they can, that is, since even they will eventually run out of what meagre resources they still have," he muttered. "Trust me, it's quite a different sight at the edge of the city where those without enough money for the centre live, nevermind those who're unlucky enough to be stranded outside the domes and exposed to the pollution, or having to work in one of the factories."

Lydia stared at him, at a loss for words. There had been talks about climate change and pollution in her world, too, calls for change as long as there was still time – but to hear about things actually turning out like that...

She looked up once more at the dusky, orangey sky above them, trying to make out the dome, but couldn't see it. Probably too far away, she mused. Instead, she spotted a brighter spot high in the sky, just barely shining through the dusky haze.

"Hang on, I thought it was around evening time...?" she wondered aloud, frowning at how high what she assumed to be the sun was hanging in the sky.

"It's quarter past four in the afternoon," the Time Lord corrected. "This is about the brightest it gets now during most of the days," he informed her, correctly guessing the reason of her confusion, before indicating they should continue with a nod of his head.

Following the gesture, Lydia resumed walking, morbidly fascinated with the dusky sky for several more seconds. "This is awful... And people just calmly continue living like that?" she asked, hardly able to believe that.

"Oh, not all them – most of those who can afford it book their way out to one of the colonies throughout the solar system, before the planet dies out compelety on them after they've robbed from it for as long as they could. Leave those who're already struggling behind to deal with picking up the pieces."

Lydia scowled at that, feeling disgusted by the very idea.

"My sentiment exactly," the Doctor commented at seeing her face, "But this is not what we're here for. As I said, Earth does eventually recover."

The young woman frowned at his quick dismission of the situation. "Aren't you–... I mean, wouldn't you want to do something about that?" she voiced her confusion aloud. Wasn't that exactly the kind of situation the Doctor would ususally intervene in?

"Who says I haven't already?" he countered, raising his brows at her.

That had her blinking at him in surprise, mouth opening into a small 'o', making the Doctor smirk slightly in amusement.

"Let's just say we're lucky the signal took us to a place and point in time where we don't have to be careful about running into myself just yet."

With that they turned into another alley, passing the guards Lydia had spotted earlier. While they didn't look twice at the Doctor, despite him running around with a whirring device in his hand, their eyes did linger on Lydia for a moment longer, seeming to measure her up. She frowned, feeling a little uncomfortable when she turned around to see them still watching her, wondering what it was about, but decided to ignore it and continued following the Doctor.

As they continued following the signal, their path seemed to take them away from the posh centre they had landed in, the surrounding buildings losing more and more of their noble decor the further they walked, restaurants replaced by less fancy looking bars and later on more ordinary shops and premises. While their surroundings seemed to get less and less posh, the amount of people they met in the alleys increased, indiciating that the less wealthy districts seemed to be more heavily populated. Lydia also noticed that while the amount of more simply dressed people they passed by in the streets increased, the amount of armed guards patrolling the streets increased as well.

One thing that did not change, though, was the amount of holograms adorning buildings and machines, from signs and menus to news tickers running under adverts, each bright and colourful display catching the redhead's eye and tickling her curiosity. She even noticed what looked like a drink dispenser sporting a holographic interface.

"Is everything holographic now?" Lydia asked, unable to help her curiosity as she eyed the dispenser. "I mean, does no one use touch screens anymore?"

The Doctor looked over his shoulder to see what had caught her attention. "Oh, those are still around, but usually not around public areas. People have grown quite fond of waving their hands around the air instead of having to get them supposedly dirty by physically touching public spaces, or so I've been told on several occasions."

"Waving their hands around?"

The Doctor came to a stop at that, turning around to fully face her with a slight frown. "Yeah. Have you never used an AR interface or seen one in use before?"

"AR?" she asked again, feeling a little dumb.

"Sorry, augmented reality," he clarified. "Never heard that term before?"

She shook her head.

"Must be introduced a bit later in your world then..."

"Might be..." Lydia mused. "I mean, I've seen holograms similar to this in movies and the like, but it's not actually around in my time, more of just a potential idea used in fiction."

The Time Lord hummed at that and stepped closer to her. After a moment of watching her curiously study the interface, he nodded towards the drink dispenser, offering, "Want to give it a go?"

Lydia could feel a tiny wave of excitement bubbling up at the chance of actually using futuristic technology she only knew from science fiction – even if it was just on something ordinary as a vending machine.

"If there's time for that...?"

"As long as you don't get stuck on deciding on a drink, I don't think sparing a minute will do any harm."

The young woman grinned excitedly, appreciating that the Doctor was indulging her curiosity. She turned to face the machine and its semi-transparent interface displayed on a thin glass pane, taking in the moving, colourful images on it.

"So, what do I do?"

"Raise your hand up to the interface," the Doctor instructed, positioning himself next to her so he could look at the interface with her.

As instructed, Lydia raised her right hand until her palm was in height with the interface, and watched as the display reacted by fading into a text based menu with different categories being shown as button-like fields.

"Let's see... Point at the category you want."

She decided to go with the field in the centre, suggesting carbonated drinks, and pointed her index finger at it. After a few moments of pointing, the text of the field was highlighted with a green colour with a short 'ding' sounding, before the display changed once more to show a close-up image of a bottled drink and its logo on the side.

"Now move your hand to the side, in a motion similar as if you would wave a fly or smoke away, to browse through the offer."

Lydia waved her hand to the left, and watched the offered drink zoom out and disappear off to the side of the interface accompanied by a fitting sound effect, just to be replaced by another one zooming in from the other side, in perfect synchronisation with her gesture.

"This is so cool!" she exclaimed as she repeated the gesture and switched directions by waving to the right before waving back to the left, the display instantly following the movement of her hand. She gave the Doctor an excited grin, getting one in return, and after two more swipes to the left she decided to stop when she was presented with a bright pink drink. Checking it out, she snorted at the name. "What the heck is a 'Berry Bomb'?"

"Let's find out, shall we?" the Doctor suggested. "Try making a gesture as if you'd signal someone to come closer to you."

Lydia shot him a sceptical look.

"No, seriously. Just give it a try," he encouraged.

Feeling a little silly as the idea kind of reminded her of flirting with the machine, Lydia crooked her index finger at the interface; but nothing happened, the animated image of the pink bottle simply continued its slow, presenting turn on the display. When still nothing happened after another try, she felt definitely awkward, cheeks growing warm, and shot the Doctor an annoyed look, thinking he was having her on – which promptly turned into a frown when she did actually see him fighting an amused smile.

"You'll have to use all of your fingers," the Time Lord explained, still smothering a smile. "Though I'm sure the single finger has a more appealing effect amongst people," he added teasingly.

"Could've told me so straight away," Lydia mumbled with an embarrassed mock glare, before repeating the gesture with all of her fingers motioning towards her this time. She was rewarded with the logo zooming in with the addition of a price tag appearing on the bottom of the display. "Oh, right." She blinked at the unfamiliar currency symbol next to the number. "Guess that's that then."

"Hang on a tick," the Doctor said, the hand holding the still rhythmically whirring screwdriver pulling his coat open while the other one reached into the inside pocket to rummage around it. After a moment he pulled the black leather wallet carrying the psychic paper out and flipped it open, then held it close to another, smaller display located on the lower area of the dispenser next to the output compartment.

"I didn't know you could also pay with that?"

"Only works on a few prepaid card based payment methods," he replied. "And it looks like we're lucky!"

The price tag on the main interface turned green with another 'ding', followed by sound of the machine dispensing the drink. That really was quite neat, and Lydia was surprised to find that she didn't really feel guilty about basically tricking the drink out.

The Doctor removed his wallet from the display again and took the bottle out of the compartment, offering it to the redhead with a small grin. "To a successful first advance into augmented reality!"

Lydia returned his grin as she accepted the bottle, raising it in a toasting gesture. "Cheers." She opened the cap and took a curious sniff, taking in a sweet scent that didn't really remind her much of fruit, contrary to the drink's name. Shrugging mentally at the fact, she took a swig from the bottle – and grimaced promptly when the overwhelming, chemical tasting sweetness of the beverage hit her taste buds.
"Ugh!" she exclaimed after swallowing, the heavily carbonated and cool nature of the drink making her eyes water. "More like 'Chemical Sugar Bomb'! That stuff has probably never even seen a berry!"

"Well, wouldn't surprise me, as actual fruit is a rare thing to find in this time and certainly not around this price range," the Doctor informed her. His long fingers wrapped around Lydia's holding the bottle as he pulled it towards him, lowering his head to take a curious sniff himself, before quickly recoiling again, his brows arched. "Blimey, that is a lot of artificial sweeteners..."

"Sure you don't wanna try it?" Lydia teased.

"No thanks, wouldn't want to steal your hard won spoils."

"How very considerate of you," she acknowledged in amused sarcasm.

"Yep, that's me," he replied with a cheeky wink, before sobering again. "We should probably move on now, though."

"Right," she commented, also sobering. "Thanks for taking the moment, that was pretty cool."

"Quite welcome," he accepted her thanks with a small smile, before moving on with a call to "Come on then!"

Lydia briefly considered leaving the drink behind, as she wasn't really keen on finishing it, but eventually decdided it would be pretty rude after tricking it out. So she put the bottle into her messenger bag after putting the cap back on, before making to follow the Doctor – she supposed it would at least serve as a sort of souvenir from their trip to the future.

As she walked alongside the Time Lord, doing her best to keep up with his long strides, the redhead contemplated their recent exchange, a little surprised at how easy the banter had come. She supposed that the Doctor being less aloof and untrusting of her had a lot to do with that. Being a little silly and bantering felt really good after the emotionally intense evening she'd had in any case, and she decided to simply take it as that and go with the flow.

The good humour the moment had created soon faded again, though, as their route took them into increasingly seedy looking surroundings, confronting Lydia with some of the aspects the Doctor had mentioned earlier. More and more litter was lining the streets with an increasing amount of buildings that looked somewhat rundown as they continued on their way, and less of the people they encountered seemed to be going about some purposeful business than before, with more individuals simply loitering around. Clothes no longer appeared as considerate on looks, like in the previous areas they had been in, seemingly more focused on warmth and function, and some of the premises around them grew more questionable as well.

As they walked down stairs leading to a lower area, they passed a small group of young men and women gathered at the bottom, some sitting on broken furniture scattered around the base, some on the concrete steps and ground. While the Doctor seemed intently focused on the screwdriver and following the signal as they walked past the group and not to be paying them much mind, Lydia took note of the wary looks they were giving them, most of them eying the Doctor and the glowing and whirring device in his hands intently. She couldn't help throwing one more look over her shoulder after they'd moved away from the stairs, and felt somewhat uneasy when she noticed the group still staring after them.

Turning her head back, she hurried up a little and made sure to stay in step with the Time Lord, wondering just where the signal was taking them. As if the screwdriver had read her mind, the rhythm of the pulsating whirring increased drastically enough for even her ears to pick up on the change.

"We're getting close," the Doctor confirmed her assumption.

Lydia felt nerves mingling with excitement at that declaration, unsure of what - or who - they might find when they reached their destination.

They walked through a long, dimly lit underpass, smelling faintly of the litter lining the wet walls, and as they emerged on the other side they found themselves in what appeared to be a residential area, with narrow alleys leading along tall, rather rundown looking buildings connected to one another by walkways on the higher levels.
A woman hanging up laundry at one of the buildings above them briefly stopped in her motion as she spotted them, before slowly resuming her task while keeping an eye on them through the grating underneath her. Lydia wondered why they were attracting so much attention now when before people had barely even taken note of them at all (well, other than those guards she had caught eyeing her) – this seemed to be a pretty big city after all, so surely seeing strangers around wasn't that unusual?

Before she could further ponder over that, though, her attention shifted when the sonic whirring of the screwdriver went up into a high pitch as they turned around a corner and walked into an open area. A group of children in front of them was huddled around something, apparently distracted from a started game of hopscotch just a few feet away from them as a small bag lay forgotten in one of the fields painted on the ground.

The sound of the screwdriver seemed to carry over to the children, since a few of them turned around to look into Lydia's and the Doctor's direction, the movement opening up a view on what they were huddled around: a dark haired boy around the age of maybe nine was holding a metallic device in both of his small hands, the shape vaguely reminding Lydia of those clunky, very first mobile phones from what she could see, with a single orange light blinking on the edge of the top.

The boy, too, looked up from the device when the others turned around, his eyes widening at the sight of them, causing Lydia and the Doctor to stop in their tracks.
The Time Lord exchanged a long look with the redhead, before lowering the screwdriver in his hand and starting to walk towards the group, plastering a friendly smile on his face.

"Hello there!"

Yet as soon as he'd spoken and taken a step in their direction, the group broke out into shouts of "Shit!" and "Run!", before splitting up and running off into different directions, the boy holding the device taking off into an alley to the left.

"Oi, wait!"

Before Lydia had even properly processed what was going on, the Doctor was already running after the boy, the tail of his tan coat disappearing around a corner.