Doctor Who Fic: In Our Youth Time: Part Two: Woman on the Run

[jesterladyfic]

Part Two: Woman on the Run

Melody’s life was absolutely amazing. She threw the grapple hook and tugged it forward to make sure it was secure. Sliding her gloves on more securely she started to climb, enjoying the stretch and pull on her muscles.

“She’s up there!” came the cry below her and she flashed a smile over her shoulder and kept climbing.

“Will you hurry up?” the Doctor shouted above her and she shook her head.

“Honestly, Uncle Dear, you do carry on. I’ll get there when I get there.”

“Core explosion in two minus fifteen seconds.”

The computer’s voice drowned out any protest the Doctor made and Melody concentrated on making it to the top before they all died.

She threw the device they’d come for into the Doctor’s outstretched hands and he starting fiddling with his screwdriver while she finished climbing.

“That’s my girl!” he crowed. “Melody Pond scores again.”

“Don’t let my dad hear you talking like that,” she cautioned, looking over his shoulder to see if the countdown was stopping.

“He does have a very big sword even if he is getting a bit old to wield it,” the Doctor mused.

“He’s also got very good aim,” she reminded him, holstering her own blaster that the Doctor hated that she carried but she did anyway after the events of her seventeenth birthday.

“Ponds, horrible Ponds, with all their weapons,” the Doctor said, shuddering. “I’m getting soft in my old age.”

“Yet you insist on looking about twelve,” she told him despite the fact that she was only twenty two and probably not old enough to judge anyone on their age.

“That’s very much beside the point,” he said, screwdriver waving dangerously close to her face. “Come along,” he said, twirling the device into the air and then sticking it firmly to the terminal. “I do believe our work is done here.”

“And we’re ahead of schedule, I do believe a prize is in order,” she said.

“Ah, ah, Melody Pond,” he said, striding away, annoyingly guessing exactly what she wanted. “I am not either of your parents, thank all that ever was in the universe, and you’re a grown up woman, sort of, so fight your own battles.”

“You know how protective they are!” she said.

“With good reason,” he pointed out.

“Better reason than most tv sitcoms, but still…I need to be free. I need to explore. I need to know. I need to…stand on my own two feet. I want to learn.”

“No reason you can’t do all that in the Tardis,” the Doctor said. “Besides, what do you think we’re doing here now? Do you see your parents anywhere? Do you or do you not have free control of your limbs? Have you or have you not made some incredibly risky decisions so far today that they would never agree with?”

“Stop being ridiculous,” she said. “I know perfectly well you’re reporting back to them.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you. Don’t try to deny it.”

“Well, Amelia Pond has had me wrapped around her fingers since she was younger than you,” he said. “But I resent the implications. I am a neutral third party, like Switzerland or the Third Brain of Belitzi.”

“You couldn’t be neutral if you painted your body with it,” she said, sliding past him and clicking open the Tardis doors with her fingers.

He snapped them closed again and faced her.

“Now, just cause my Tardis likes you…”

“I’m a part of the Tardis,” she corrected him. “I’m not like you, but I am like her. I have the right to open my own doors.”

“There’s something very wrong with that statement,” the Doctor said, and then stopped as he saw the horde of aliens running toward them over the bow of the ship. “And I will analyze it later and give you a full report.”

He opened the doors and shoved her inside, then slammed them shut behind them.

Melody was already at the controls, flipping the levers to dematerialize them.

“Where would we like to go?”

“I promised your mother somewhere with lots of greasy food,” he said.

“Done and done,” she said, turning the dial. “Now, if you don’t need me I shall take your excellent advice and talk to my parents directly.”

Her mother was sitting in the kitchen flipping through a magazine.

“Good world saving then?” she asked idly.

“Why is it that you’re so okay with my risking my life on alien planets but absolutely can’t stand the idea that I’ll go to university and get an education?” Melody asked, sitting down, peering to see what magazine it was.

Her mother flipped it shut and leaned forward. She had aged, though not too much. Living in the Vortex/Tardis tended to slow down the aging process. She was older but she kept her hair a violent red and insisted on keeping fit and active and painting her fingernails though she had foregone a lot of the short skirts and Melody loved her deeply.

“Because none of us will be there to look after you and the Silence come at you from the shadows. In the excitement and blaze of adventure you’re safer than in the quiet of books.”

“You read that somewhere, didn’t you?” Melody asked suspiciously.

“No, I did not,” her mother protested. “Besides, you know I’m right.”

“I know you’re right to be worried, but not that you’re right,” Melody said. “I know you’ve felt what I feel, Mother. You grew up dreaming of the Doctor. I had him right in my grasp all along, but though the Tardis is wonderful, I’ve lived most of my life cooped up in here because of something that’s not my fault. I need to breathe.”

“And if you get captured and…”

“Then you can say I told you so,” Melody answered promptly.

Her mother laughed, then grew thoughtful. Melody waited for a few agonizing moments before her mother spoke again.

“I’ll talk to your father. But I’m still against it.”

“Against what?” asked the man in question, coming into the kitchen.

“Melody going to university.”

“I…agree?” he said hesitantly.

“Have your own mind, Dad,” Melody said flippantly.

“You keep a civil tongue in your head, young lady,” he said.

She sat up straighter like she always did whenever her dad got stern.

“Yes, Father,” she said sincerely.

Her mother shook her head at her husband.

“Only you, Rory.”

“That’s why you married me,” he said, dropping a light kiss on her lips then turned to Melody. “Mellie, I think you can do whatever you want to, you know that. We’re just hesitant to let you go. We’ve tried to keep you safe for so long.”

“I know how to take care of myself,” she said. “Please, let me do this. I’ll check in, I’ll use a perception filter; I’ll do whatever I need to. I’ll take my courses in different years if need be.”

“That’s…not a bad idea,” her mom said.

“I like it,” her dad agreed.

“The Doctor will have a field day,” her mom said.

“Just remember how the Silence almost got you on your birthday,” her dad said.

“And how they might be influencing you and you’d never even know it,” her mom put in.

“How terrible it would be if they succeeded,” her dad added.

“How-"

“Look,” Melody interrupted her mother, “I know all that. But I’ve got to get out there and see for myself. I need to make my own mistakes. I’ve got the best defenses anyone could have. I have the Doctor on my side, I’ve got the gift of the Tardis, I have you two, and I grew up saving the world. But someday I have to know if I can do that on my own or if it was just the company I keep.”

“There’s nothing wrong with being supported by those you love and who love you,” her dad reminded her.

“Exactly,” she said. “That’s my point. Support me and let me try. I’m not too proud to say I failed or too arrogant to think there might not be a failure.”

“That’s true,” her mom admitted.

“Then I can?” Melody asked.

Not like she couldn’t just go, but they were a family and they were on the run and that’s not how they operated.

They looked at each other for a long time before turning back to her.

“Yes,” her mom said.

Melody hugged them both.

“I love you guys,” she said. “I’ll make you proud of me.”

“We already are,” her dad reminded her.

“Oh, but just wait till you find out who Melody Pond is going to turn out to be,” she said, barely noting their suddenly blank faces.

***

Melody lifted her wrist and discretely scanned her location. Everything looked all right but she wanted to make sure. Everything about her life had a secret purpose. Her earrings were detonators, her necklace was a teleportation device, her bracelet was a Vortex manipulator, her boots had concealed slits where she kept her knives, and her pockets were bigger on the inside and always held at least one blaster.

She was simultaneously doing four years of university in four different time periods under four different names. It made life exciting; that was for sure. It was the best cover that they’d been able to come up with and Melody was rather proud of all the layers of protection they’d generated to prepare for her to come.

And she was almost done.

She’d passed test after test before she even placed into her courses, cutting out years of work, and now, within a few short weeks, she’d be a full blown archaeologist. A doctor. She couldn’t wait because then she was going to make the Doctor and her parents do something with her about the Silence so they could stop living like this and she could go out into the universe and turn it on its head.

Melody Pond was going to live her life no matter what.

She whispered the voice activated codes into her manipulator and put up a field around the closet she was currently hiding in.

“Hello, APs,” she said, having recently acquired an affinity for Dickens.

“Don’t call us that,” her mother responded, a hologram of her image flickering in and out of the darkness.

“Amy, give her a rest,” her dad said, appearing at her mother’s side. “We only get a few moments every time, don’t waste it being picky.”

“You are so going to pay for that,” her mom said.

“I hope so,” her dad said and Melody wrinkled her nose.

She was a lot less opposed to lovey-dovey interaction between her parents than most humans her age, but now who was wasting time?

“Have you got the coordinates?” yelled the Doctor from the background and Melody’s smile grew larger.

“How’s my dear uncle?” she asked.

“Bored,” her mom said. “We haven’t let him planet hop because we didn’t want to be in the middle of anything when you called.”

Melody’s parents and the Doctor had spent the last four years being a red herring for the Silence, resuming their life of mad adventuring, slowly at first, then building up to what it had been before Melody was born. They were always on the move instead of spending practically all of their time in the Vortex as they had while she was growing up. They used tricks of their own to make the Silence think she was still with them, flesh gangers of her, illusions, filters, and running a lot.

Melody sometimes thought they were getting the better end of it. Her parents were getting older chronologically, but physically they were still able to keep up with the Doctor as well as they ever could. Plus they were traveling, doing things, saving worlds. Melody was simply studying. Okay, and meeting people and blokes and she wasn’t ever going to tell them about her Easter hols her second year, but she’d had very minimal danger because she was being more cautious than was her want.

“Well, I’ve got them for you,” Melody said. “Tell him I’ve been using those forging skills and now…at the end of the road, all of my different years are being combined into one person. That one person, Joan Smith, will be receiving her doctorate on this date at these coordinates. Sending now and I hope to see you there.”

“Of course we’ll be there,” her mom said, eyes shining. “We couldn’t be prouder of you, Mels.”

“No, we’re fairly bursting with it,” her dad agreed. “And so’s the Doctor.”

“That’s right,” the Doctor said, bursting onto the scene and shoving her parents off. “You, Pond Jr, are a star. I never thought anyone could pull it off, but then I did teach you all you know. So there is that. Now…you sent it all? Right, see you there.”

“We love you,” said her parents off screen.

“Yeah, yeah, all that,” the Doctor said, winking at her and then the image faded away.

Melody shook her head and left the closet.

She spent the next few days preparing, being extra careful, and ignoring invites from her mates to go out after exams. She didn’t want to put anyone in danger and she didn’t want to put herself in danger.

It all went off without a hitch. She crossed the stage and winked at the professor she’d had her completely innocent eyes on all year and launched herself into her parents’ arms.

“You did it,” her dad said. “Congratulations, Mellie.”

“We’re so proud,” her mom concurred. “Well done.”

“Got you a little present,” the Doctor said, looking smug, “but it’s back on the Tardis. You’ll get it when you come back.”

“Oh, Uncle Doctor, you spoil me. Just a hint as to what it could be?” she asked, putting her hands together for effect.

“Won’t work on me,” he said, looking away valiantly.

It would have but her parents intervened.

“We can’t stay long,” her dad said. “It was a risk coming at all.”

“Especially with all your different personas combining into one degree,” the Doctor said. “A lighthouse in the fog if ever there was one. They can’t recognize us. Now…you’ve got the meet up, right?”

“Sure, just have to wrap up my loose ends and I’ll be home,” Melody said, hugging them all one more time.

“We can’t wait to have you back, sweetie,” her mom said, holding her tightly. “I’ve missed you so much.”

“I missed you too,” Melody said truthfully.

“Gotta go, gotta go,” the Doctor said.

Melody rolled her eyes and stepped back.

They disappeared into the crowd and Melody blinked back a little tear. It had been really good to see them in person and touch them. It had been too long.

But she had a lot of goodbyes to make and some touch up work to do in the administrative offices after hours so she spent the next few hours doing everything she needed to. She was all packed and went to the library to grab a few things before leaving. She was seated at her favorite table, nicking a few books, ones that mentioned the Silence and the Doctor, one of which had the rhyme that had always puzzled and scared her as she didn’t know what it meant.

Tick tock goes the clock and what now shall we play?
Tick tock goes the clock now summer’s gone away.

Tick tock goes the clock and all the years they fly,
Tick tock and all too soon you and I must die.

Tick tock goes the clock, we laughed at fate and mourned her,
Tick tock goes the clock even for the Doctor.

Tick tock goes the clock, he cradled and he rocked her,
Tick tock goes the clock till River kills the Doctor.

She didn’t know who River was, but whoever it was had better watch out because Melody would never let anyone hurt the Doctor.

She was thinking about that when she looked up and saw the thing she dreaded the most even if she couldn’t remember what it looked like most of the time.

“You never really escaped us, Melody Pond. We were always coming for you,” a gravelly voice from the shadows said.

“Who are you?” Melody asked, pulling out her gun, but a sharp pain slipped into her neck and her vision was foggy and for a second she forgot there was anything to be scared about and then…a woman’s face filled her vision, cold and sharply angled with a black eye patch covering one eye.

“I will make you into your destiny. The woman who kills the Doctor.”

Melody’s eyes shot open in panic and she struggled for a few moments but everything was so heavy and cold and then there was just nothing.

When she woke up she was underwater and inside what looked like an old Earth astronaut suit.

***

Melody wasn’t having the best day. It was difficult to move and she was feeling somewhat claustrophobic. Her eyes blinked rapidly, the only part of her with any real freedom. When she tried to shift her arms and legs she found it was impossible; somehow the suit was controlling all of her movements. She was suspended in water, peering through the tinted visor at passing fish and trying her very best not to panic.

She was usually quite cool in sticky situations, but this wasn’t something she could wiggle out of with hallucinogenic lipstick copped from a brothel on Lidas 7 or the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver. She was well and truly stuck, in the clutches of foes who had been trying to capture her since she was a baby. It had to be the Silence, who else would have gone to so much trouble to capture her like this?

She couldn’t remember how she got here. She’d been in the library speaking with a woman and then she’d woken up here. She had no idea where here was or what she was supposed to do. Perhaps she was meant to float there for all time, slowly dying, yet somehow her oxygen had to be resupplying. Melody took a deep breath and tried to think.

When she was little her parents had told her stories about an astronaut in a lake. The story had changed several times and sometimes they checked themselves before saying things when she questioned them about it. Funnily enough they never talked about the astronaut in front of the Doctor. There hadn’t seemed to be much importance to it at the time and they’d never gone into much detail as if it was too painful for them, but she had remembered it all the same.

Was it possible she was that astronaut?

She couldn’t tell how long she floated there but all too soon and yet not soon enough she was jerked forward, her motions stiff, controlled by the suit. She walked forward, each step a little weirder, until she rose from the surface of the water and took in her surroundings.

She thought it was Earth, red, rolling cliffs above a brilliant blue lake. There were people on the shore. The Doctor was one of them and he strode to meet her. With absolute clarity she suddenly understood her parents’ stories and what the suit was for and why she was here.

And she’d never been more terrified in her life.

She immediately started trying to fight the suit, trying to figure out how to stop it, manipulate it, or trick it. All for nothing. Nothing let her change anything. She just kept moving forward to the Doctor and her unwanted destiny.

She stopped in front of him and her hand moved without her permission, sliding open her visor to reveal her face to the Doctor.

“Well, then. Here we are at last,” he said and there was only kindness in his face.

“I can't stop it,” she whispered. “The suit's in control.”

“You're not supposed to. This has to happen.”

“Why?” she asked, desperate for him to answer her with a clever plan.

She’d never known the Doctor not to have a plan, never known herself not to be able to change a situation. The two of them could do anything, yet there she was, unable to move, and there he was, apparently refusing to.

“Melody, there’s a lot I wish I could tell you, but I can’t. You just have to trust me.”

“You could run!” she pleaded.

“I did run. Running brought me here.”

“I’m trying to fight it, but I can't; it's too strong.”

“I know. It's okay, Melody. This is where I die. I’m so sorry it has to be you, but this is a fixed point, this must happen, this always happens. Remember what I always told you.” She did remember. From her earliest moments he’d told her about time, about the vast spectrum of it, how it could be manipulated, when it should be, when it absolutely could not be. And she’d always understood his words with a bone deep clarity she knew came from the Tardis. “Don't worry, you won't even remember this. Look over there,” he said, pointing.

She looked and saw that her parents were standing there, looking younger than she’d ever seen them, and a woman. With shock she realized it was herself, one arm holding her mother back, one arm clutching her father’s hand.

“That's me. How can I be there?” Melody asked, practically sobbing now.

“That's you from the future. Completely unaware that you’re standing here in a suit as well.”

“Why would you do that? Make me watch?”

The Doctor was many things, many terrible things, but he was not cruel and he had never treated her badly. Why would he make her watch as she killed him, her best friend, her mentor, her family, the most wonderful person she knew? Why would he make her parents watch their daughter do something like that?

“So that you and I both know this is inevitable. And you are forgiven. Always and completely forgiven,” he said gently, smiling his special smile for her.

“Please, Doctor, Uncle, please. Please, please just run!” she said as the arm of her suit began to rise.

“I can't.”

“Time can be rewritten,” she said desperately. “You taught me that.”

He stepped closer to her and she was so close she could see everything she’d never noticed before. Nobody looked too deeply into the Doctor’s eyes if they could help it, but she was forced to now.

The levels of pain and regret and age written there thrilled and horrified her and she would have wept again if she wasn’t already. But there was something else, something else in his eyes. Something that suddenly gave her hope even if she didn’t understand it.

“Not this time,” he said, winking at her. “Goodbye, Melody.”

It was the most awful thing to ever happen in the universe but Melody watched herself pull the trigger and kill the Doctor. She shot him in the middle of his regeneration cycle and he fell to the ground and the suit took her away, back into the deep, while her parents ran toward their best friend and her older self emptied a revolver pointlessly in her current self’s direction.

Melody let herself cry as the water swallowed her whole and barely noticed the suit taking her deeper, the ship that opened to receive her, or the woman who deactivated her suit.

“Well done, Melody,” the woman said.

“Who are you?” Melody asked sharply as the suit came off.

“My name is Madame Kovarian. We met on the day of your birth.”

“Why did you make me do that?” Melody asked, feeling completely worn out.

“To win,” Madame Kovarian answered. “Now it is over.”

“Then let me go,” Melody said, fingers itching for her blaster.

She wanted to be anywhere but there right now watching this woman gloat.

A bright flash of light interrupted them as the other woman opened her mouth to answer and Melody wanted to cry when she saw her parents appear, looking the same age as when she’d left them. Her mother held a Vortex manipulator while her father wielded a gun and his sword, which conveniently materialized right underneath Madame Kovarian’s neck.

The woman froze but her eye patch suddenly flashed silver around the edges.

“Time to go, Melody,” her mother said.

Melody rushed to their side as Silence appeared all around them.

“She did what you wanted her to,” her father said dangerously. “Now, you don’t come after her ever again, understand?”

“We have no more need of her,” Madame Kovarian said gleefully. “The Doctor is dead.”

“You don’t have to remind us,” her mother said bitterly. “Just be glad my maternal instincts are stronger than my desire for revenge.”

“I will count my blessings,” Madame Kovarian said scornfully.

Melody grasped hold of her mother’s arm and the Silence disappeared and Melody couldn’t remember exactly what they were running from except that the Doctor was gone and she was free and then they materialized and they were on the Tardis and the Doctor was standing in front of them.

***

“You’re alive,” Melody cried, throwing herself into the Doctor’s arms.

He caught her and squeezed her tightly.

“Now, Pond Jr, what kind of a greeting is that? You know better. I could have been a younger Doctor who didn’t know anything about Silencio.”

“Shut up, you’re alive!” Melody said and felt him kiss her forehead.

“Yes, I’m alive,” he said.

“What happened? What the hell was that about? Are the Silence really done running after me?”

The Doctor looked over at her parents and they nodded as one to him.

“The minute you didn’t show up to the rendezvous we knew something was wrong,” her mom said.

“So I went to the library and followed your trail,” the Doctor said smugly. “You were in Silencio Lake and so I wanted to go get you.”

“But then we had to tell the Doctor something we’ve kept from him for a long time,” her dad said. “About his death.”

“He took it like a baby,” her mom said. “He started to run and there wasn’t much we could do to stop him. It was about six months before he slowed down.”

“I don’t understand, how did you know?” Melody asked. “I know you were there but…”

“When we were younger the Doctor invited us to Silencio,” her dad said. “We saw you kill him, but we didn’t know it was you. Then a younger Doctor showed up who didn’t know anything and we met the Silence and there was a whole summer that happened and pretty soon after that we went to Demon’s Run.”

“So, you didn’t know you’d died?” Melody asked the Doctor.

“Had the Ponds holding it over my head for about a quarter of a century,” the Doctor said, looking quite proud. “Never happened before. Of course I got my own back just now.”

“Spoilers,” her mom said, giving the Doctor her patented 'I'm being more mature than the thousand year old alien' look.

“You can take the girl out of Earth…” Melody said, trailing off, hugging her mother. “So you confessed once you knew where I was to get him to go die.”

“If it’s a choice between you and the Doctor,” her dad said, his voice shaking, “we always choose you. All three of us.”

The Doctor nodded, but Melody saw something sad in his eyes and she knew that no matter how many things someone else may know, the Doctor would always know just a little bit more. She didn’t want to know what kinds of things those were.

“But it turns out because I’m very brilliant that I didn’t really die,” the Doctor said. “While we were running, well, while I was trying to figure out why the Silence wanted me dead so badly, I learned a new trick or two. Handy little things tesselecta.”

“So it was a robot?” Melody questioned.

“Not quite,” the Doctor said smugly. “It had to be perfect. The perfect copy of me, it had to be able to emulate my regenerations and everything. I barely even got singed in that boat.”

“Boat?” Melody asked.

“Oh, well, you and your parents burned the tesselecta, getting rid of the evidence. Younger parents, older you. I got out in the Tardis while your parents went to rescue you. Older parents, younger you.”

“That makes so much sense it could be in a book,” Melody said sarcastically. “But I still need to know…”

The Doctor looked at her and his face tightened. He glanced back at her parents and after a minute they got up and squeezed her firmly.

“We’ll be in our room,” her dad said. “Just yell if you need us. I think the Doctor has something he needs to say.”

“You don’t do anything you don’t want to,” her mom said. “And, Doctor, try not to change things. I’ve already got two different versions of that beach swimming around in my head, I don’t need more.”

“Do my best,” the Doctor said, giving her a salute.

When they left Melody sat for a minute while the Doctor paced around.

“Could you please tell me what the hell is going on?” she asked. “You’re not dead. I’m glad you’re not dead, but wasn’t someone named River supposed to kill you? How will you keep the Silence from figuring out you’re alive? Will they really leave me alone? What now? What did you change about the beach?”

“Easy now,” he said, folding his arms. “You’ll do yourself harm.”

“Just tell me,” she whispered. “Who am I?”

“You’re Melody Pond, daughter of Amy and Rory, child of the Tardis, the woman who killed the Doctor, Dr. Joan Smith, archaeologist.”

“That doesn’t help.”

“I’m going to tell you some things,” the Doctor said, crouching in front of her. “Hard things. Hard things about me and about time. But I can’t tell you everything unless you agree to something first. I’m going to have to make you forget.”

“Then why bother tell me at all?”

“To ease my own conscience maybe,” he said ruefully. “But just a few things. You’ll remember most of it, but I have to make you forget about killing me otherwise the beach will change again for your mother.”

“I guess I wouldn’t mind not knowing that,” Melody said. “But…how can I forget? What about the Silence?”

“Timelord wiles,” he said, tapping his head with a self-deprecating smile. “As for the rest, well, let me tell you a story. The story of a woman named River Song.”

The Doctor spoke for a long time, pacing, using silly words, not looking at her, standing too close at other times.

Melody listened, listened as she found out she was someone else, that she’d lived a whole other life. That the Doctor had taken it from her; that he’d given her a life with her parents instead. That she had been brought up by the Silence, brainwashed, put in prison for murder, that he had erased that existence.

“If time's been changed why do the history books say River kills the Doctor?” she whispered, unable to really think of anything else.

“That’s what we’re going to say,” the Doctor said. “We’re going to circulate that so the blame doesn’t fall on Melody Pond. The Silence doesn’t care who takes the fall so long as I’m dead. You’ll be able to live your life without boundaries.”

“That’s all you’re keeping of her, the fact that she killed you,” Melody asked, suddenly furious.

The Doctor rounded on her, his face full of pain.

“I gave up more than you can ever dream. I keep everything of that woman and all that she did. That woman is you, Melody. I made a promise to your mother a long time ago and I kept that promise at the expense of a lot of things but don’t make the mistake of thinking I don’t mourn the loss of River Song.”

“Do they know?” Melody asked, slightly taken aback. “Do they know I used to be River?”

He nodded.

“They don’t know everything either and they can’t remember the old timeline as well as I can, but they know enough. They were in the eye of the storm and they've been through the Vortex, so they remember, but it fades the older they get, and the more time they spend away from the Tardis. The younger versions won't know anything at all. But…don't be angry at them for keeping this from you, Pond Jr. They always wanted to tell you when it was time.”

Melody looked at him numbly.

"I'm not mad at them," she said. "They've always told me the truth when it was time. I just feel a little…lost."

"Er, sorry," said the Doctor, never the best at giving emotional comfort.

“So everything that I-she-River did, what happened to it?”

“You were still there; you still did everything you needed to, just by a different name, a different way of life.”

“So…time was rewritten,” she said to solidify it in her own mind.

“But time has a way of healing its wounds. It couldn’t hide what happened from someone like me or the fact there was a different timeline from time travelers like your parents, but it makes sure things happen the way they’re meant to.”

“You say that like it’s all fate.”

“I’d say I was fated to meet you, Melody Pond,” he said with a smile.

Melody sat back in her seat, pulling her legs up to her chest.

"So, was River like me?" she asked. "Did she act like me? Was she a part of the Tardis too?"

"Yes, both of you are exactly the same in that respect," said the Doctor. "Your timelines hadn't verged until after you were born, so your abilities, for lack of or maybe in spite of, a better word, are the same. You both know the Tardis, can fly her, can keep track of time."

"Nothing else?" asked Melody. "I won't suddenly be able to fly some day, will I?"

He grinned and shook his head.

"We wondered if maybe you might have other tricks hidden away, like maybe you could regenerate like me, but we discovered that wasn't the case. You're more like a Tardis than a Timelord and more like a human than a Tardis."

Melody nodded.

"So, was she like me?"

The Doctor cocked his head and appeared to think.

"River was…mysterious, she liked to keep me guessing, cheeky. But she was a bit…psychotic, a little violent, maybe arrogant. Sometimes you seem like a little mini version of her, but I think you're the her that she could have been. It's, it's your parents, Melody, they gave you love and life and discipline and boundaries. River Song never had any of that."

"Then you think it's for the best?" she asked.

"I don't know," he said. "But, yes, I do. It's best for them, and best for you. Best for time? Best for her as she was? Well, those are different questions."

“So what are you going to take away from me?” she asked, trying to wrap her head around his words.

“Two things. The fact that you killed me and how, and who River Song was. In your mind you’ll have come straight here from graduation. You’ll know River Song as the cunning ploy your parents and uncle came up with to keep the Silence from coming after us anymore.”

“You really think you’re so clever, don’t you?” she asked bitterly. “You think you can just make everything better.”

“If I could take back the memories that have been stolen from those I love…” the Doctor said and Melody had flashes in her head from the Tardis, a young dark haired man and woman and a ginger headed woman, and Melody suddenly didn’t want to know. “I would do it. Sometimes it’s necessary. And I’ve had it done to me; I know how hard it is.”

“I hate this. I never thought I’d say that I didn’t trust you with my life,” Melody said, tears starting to fall. “But right now I don’t know if I can trust you.”

“I trust you with mine,” the Doctor said. “There was something else about River Song. She lived in time and our lives were traveling apart from each other, backwards and forwards. Many occasions when we met she knew things I didn’t know, including who she was. She kept me from spoilers, knowing I needed to live my life in my time. You can do the same thing. I trust you with this burden of time, of preserving it. Will you accept it?”

Melody had to think about it. She’d gotten some revelations she didn’t want. She didn’t know how she’d feel once certain things were taken away. But most of all…there was this new Doctor in front of her, one capable of things she’d never imagined before. Still her mind kept going back to one thing, what it felt like to point a gun at him and what her heart went through when he fell to the ground. Melody Pond had lived her life knowing one thing, she loved the Doctor with a deep passion and he had always taken care of her, changing his whole life, changing the world, to keep her happy.

“Yes,” she said softly. “Yes.”

The Doctor looked at her with wonder on his face and he smiled.

He rummaged around in the console for awhile and brought out a package.

“Your present,” he said.

She took it with trembling fingers and unwrapped it. Inside was a journal, a brilliant shade of blue, the same color as the Tardis.

“Pretty sure I deserve more than a book,” she said, trying for levity, but she loved it anyway.

He chuckled and tapped his fingers on it.

“Not just any book, Melody, this book is the way you’ll confuse and outsmart all my younger selves. It has pictures of all of them so you’ll know if you meet them to keep mum about the future, not tell them who you are or about your parents; don’t ever mention your last name. You’ll meet your parents when they were younger, though I don’t think you’ll meet me before I was this man, but funny thing time…”

“It can be rewritten,” she said, looking at him steadily.

“Yes, but it doesn’t change the events that led to it being rewritten. So I will always, even when I was younger, remember River Song. And every time I meet you, I’m going to remember it two different ways, but I won’t know why, not yet. So I might get very angry with you. Please don’t get all snippy with me over it.”

“You’re so ridiculous,” she said, sighing, feeling completely overwhelmed.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t think as well as I could have when I chose this path, but, Melody, I couldn’t do that to your parents, not again. And…you’ve been happy?”

“I’ve never wanted any other life,” she said, putting any bitterness aside, though some sorrow remained. “I’m ready.”

He put his fingers to her head and the last thing she remembered was his cool breath on her forehead.

“All my love, Melody Pond.”