Doctor Who Fic: In Our Youth Time:Part Three: Spoilers
Part Three: Spoilers
Melody lifted the boxes from the back of the van and walked toward the house with the blue door. Her dad opened it for her and she spoke over her shoulder.
“Where do these ones go?”
“Top of the stairs and to the left, that’s your mother’s work room,” he said.
“Right.”
She climbed the stairs and put the boxes down and then went back downstairs to where her mom was taking a break from unpacking the kitchen.
They drank cups of tea in silence before Melody broke it.
“I could stay longer if you want.”
“Don’t be silly, sweetie,” her mom said. “It’s time for you to get on with it, living life. Most women leave home long before now.”
“I left home,” Melody protested.
“Hard to leave home when it wanders after you,” her mom said knowingly.
“Well, I’m leaving all my homes now,” Melody said.
“You’re very strong,” her mom said, looking sharply at her. “Your father and I have a part to play here, but yours is just as important and I’m sorry it has to be like this.”
“I know, I know. It’s just for awhile,” Melody said. “With the Doctor dead the Silence will probably keep an eye on me even if they don’t come after me. I have to stay away from him so they don’t follow me back to him. We think they know I would never stay on Earth like my two grieving parents either.”
“It’s a bit weird to be back,” her mom said, looking around. “I don’t think I remember what it’s like to cook in a kitchen that can’t fix your every whim before you even know it is your whim.”
“You’ll get used to it,” Melody said. “Besides, I’m not sure you ever cooked anyway.” Her mom shoved her and laughed and Melody continued. “Think how happy Grandpa and Gramma Tabby and Grandpa Gus will be now that you’re home. They need looking after.”
“And then come all the wrinkles,” her mom said ruefully.
Melody laughed.
“I think you’ll start to age gracefully,” she said reassuringly. “But are you guys all settled with everything you need?”
“Yes, everyone knows we were raising our adopted daughter abroad and now that she’s struck out on her own we’ve decided to come back home and retire, taking care of our own APs.”
“That’s not quite what I meant.”
“We’ll get by, sweetie. You go out to the stars and give them hell for us.”
“I will,” Melody said, suddenly feeling teary-eyed.
Everything was happening so suddenly. One minute they’d all been celebrating her graduation and then the Silence had come and somewhat ruined everything. The Doctor and her parents had come up with a plan without her and it was rather cunning though they refused to tell her everything that had happened, but it meant the end of an era of her life. Melody was free of the Silence, they’d leave them all alone now they thought the Doctor was dead so Melody could come out of hiding, but it meant they all had to leave the Doctor and Melody couldn’t imagine a worse fate than that. She already missed him.
The last time she’d really seen him he’d given her a journal and entrusted her with the gift of time, telling her about her future so that she could protect his. She wasn’t sure if the next time she saw him if he would even know her. But she had his gift and everything he’d taught her and she could make visits to Earth a lot more easily than he could. He would need to stay away for awhile as the Silence would likely monitor the Earth just in case.
“You two okay in here?” her dad asked, coming into the kitchen. “Any left?”
“Plenty here,” her mom said, patting the seat next to her and pouring him a cuppa. “You talk to the hospital yet?”
“Yeah, they said they could use some extra help on certain days. Nothing full time obviously since I’m very retired, but it will be good to put my skills to use.”
“Leaving me time to write without you hanging around,” her mom said affectionately.
“Try not to write too many science fiction stories,” he said, brushing a hand down her back as he sat down. “So, Mellie, you all ready for your trip?”
“My world tour?” she said pointedly.
“Yes, the world tour that consists of only this one world,” he said, winking at her.
“I’m sad to leave you guys,” she said, “and I’ll miss everything about before, but I’m ready. I’m ready to really be on my own. We fixed it so my degrees are in my name now so Dr. Melody Pond is off to see the stars. I’ve got a job lined up investigating the Bone Meadows. I’m quite excited actually.”
“We’re proud of you,” he said.
“Don’t start, Rory,” her mom said, but there were tears in her eyes.
“I’m so so glad I got to grow up as your daughter on the Tardis,” Melody told them, giving them a hug, wondering why her mom suddenly looked sad, but brushed it off as ‘her only daughter was leaving home, empty-nest-syndrome.’ “Now, I’ve got a visit with the grandparents and then I’m off. I’m going to teleport to a lunar station and catch a shuttle from there. Anything else you need?”
“No, we’re ready to be on our own too,” her dad said. “It will be quite an adjustment, but I think we’re finally ready for it.”
“Not that you get out of visiting quite often!” her mother said. “We’ll expect you on all holidays and in the right time, got it?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Melody said, laughing. “I have a very good sense of time management; I think that can be arranged.”
“You really do,” her dad said, hugging her, kissing the top of her head. “Anybody needs dealing with, let me know. I know you can handle it yourself, but I’m always there.”
“You’d probably just patch them up after,” she told him, kissing his cheek.
“I’d just let them lie there, so come to me,” her mom said, holding her tightly. “So proud of you, sweetie.”
“I love you both very much,” Melody said. “I’ll keep his secrets and yours, I promise.”
“We know,” they said.
Melody grabbed her bag with her journal and various too-advanced-for-this-time-period devices and went to see her grandparents, eating way too much with Grandpa Gus and Gramma Tabby and gardening a bit with her Grandpa.
Then she had to leave the Earth behind. Her life and her childhood and all transition periods were over now. The silent menace that had followed her all of her life was gone and even though she still had a job to do she was free to do it. She blew a kiss to the planet Earth before she vanished.
***
Melody discovered it was rather freeing living on her own without anyone looking over her shoulder, her parents, the Doctor, the Tardis, her professors. Sometimes she did have a boss, but she was strictly freelance so her time was her own and even if someone else was ultimately in charge, she didn’t answer to anyone.
She traveled, glorying in the space of the cosmos, investigating this and saving that, and basically doing everything her parents and the Doctor had taught her. She missed them terribly though, hopping home to see her parents whenever she could. Wherever she went she kept her eyes open for the blue box that was as much a part of her as her limbs.
Sometimes she found it too. Melody went to all worlds and all times and it was inevitable she’d find the man who did the same. She stayed away from his younger selves if she saw them, not ready for an encounter with a Doctor she didn’t know, not sure if she could properly dispatch her duties as a keeper of time. But she did meet her Doctor sometimes.
She was careful. As much as she wanted to call him Uncle and ask him how he was, she never spoke first unless he did. He’d always seen her before, but it was quite obvious that sometimes he did not know her as Melody Pond, just as Melody, that he hadn’t watched her grow up. It was harder than she’d thought it would be, but she did it gladly for him. She hadn’t counted on how much a person’s identity depends on how others see them. But with the Doctor she should have known better.
She saved his life at the Bone Meadows. He saved hers on Easter Island. Afterwards, she went back home to her parents and found them a little sad.
“Did someone die?” she asked, concerned.
Her dad actually laughed at that, but then her mother hit him on the shoulder and he stopped.
“Never mind him,” her mom said.
“Tell me what’s going on?” Melody asked.
Her mom held up a Tardis blue envelope with Melody’s name and a number 3 printed on it.
“For you.”
“What’s that?”
“Open it and find out.”
Melody opened it and found coordinates inside.
“What’s it mean? Where am I supposed to go?”
“A place,” her mom said. “It’s okay, you’ll see us there.”
“Some reason we’re not going together then?”
“We’ve already been,” her dad said, gesturing. “Your turn now.”
“So I’m going to meet younger versions of you?” Melody asked, excited now. “I’ll get to see you when you’re all young and fit?”
Her mom smiled.
“We won’t know you, sweetie. We’ll know you as Melody, but not as our daughter. You haven’t been born yet for us.”
“Oh.”
That was less fun, but still exciting.
“And will the Doctor know who I am?”
“Not as our daughter.”
“Well, I guess I’d better go then.”
“Come back here when you’re done,” her dad said.
“You guys are scaring me, okay.”
She waved goodbye and left.
Melody checked her coordinates and made a short stop to make her clothing more appropriate.
When she materialized at the spot she found her parents reuniting with the Doctor, so young, so innocent. And the Doctor…he looked the same even if he was sporting a Stetson now.
She resisted the urge to shoot it off his head.
They went to a diner and she and the Doctor exchanged notes. He knew about Easter Island and Jim the Fish, not very much then. But Melody was starting to enjoy her position as know-it-all and lording information over him. He’d certainly done it enough to her.
Her parents were newlyweds, well, mostly, and adorable. Her dad especially seemed a bit uncomfortable around her and that was the weirdest thing she’d ever encountered. It was also very strange to call them by their names, but she did, not slipping up once.
They went for a picnic and the Doctor told them stories, strange stories about his travels, and then the unthinkable happened.
An Apollo astronaut rose out of the water, the Doctor went to meet it, telling them to stay back, and died.
This was it then, this was how it happened, the plan they’d concocted, it must be, because Melody refused to believe the Doctor was actually dead. She was filled with rage anyway and emptied her gun at the disappearing astronaut and then calmed down again when she saw how distraught her mother was.
And in the end it was horrible but they burned the Doctor and went back to the diner and found…the Doctor.
Melody slapped him. She’d never done that in her entire life before, but he was so cocky and she’d just seen his body disintegrate.
But it was a younger Doctor, one who didn’t even know about Jim the Fish and then she knew the older Doctor had played her even better than she was playing her parents.
She resolved to play this younger Doctor just as well. Melody had a slight vindictive streak inherited from her mother.
They went on a grand adventure with Canton Everett Delaware the 3rd and the Doctor and her parents met the Silence for the first time and hobnobbed with Richard Nixon and set out to rescue some child, which they did.
It was hard actually, fighting the Silence when Melody knew what they were really like, knew what they were after, and had been used by them before. But only when she was looking at them. The horror of the Silence was that one could never quite remember how horrible they were; just that something had been there.
When it was all over and humanity delivered by Neil Armstong’s boot, the Doctor took her back home. Well, back to the right year anyway.
“Not going to travel with us, Mysterious Melody?” he asked.
“You’re a little too young for that,” she told him.
“Do you know how old I am?”
“I doubt it, but that’s all right, I know you.”
“How do you know me?” he asked.
“Family connections will get you anything,” she told him before vanishing into the night and landing in her parents’ backyard.
“She’s here, Amy,” her dad called.
“You little brats,” she told them, hugging them.
“We’re sorry,” her mom said. “Time travel isn’t always easy.”
“I’m sorry I had to lie to you so much,” Melody said. “It was rather tricky.”
“You did it well,” her dad said. “Hey, I can finally say it, but thanks for confiding in me down in the tunnels.”
“I’ve always been able to tell you everything,” Melody said, and it was true.
Her dad was a true confidant, a great listener, and loyal to a fault.
“We know it’s going to get harder,” her mom said. “You’re gonna have to keep on lying, keep on pretending. I don’t know why you keep living backwards.”
“Child of the Tardis, I can handle it,” she told them.
“Stay to dinner,” her dad said. “Got your favorite.”
“Right, then I’ve got to get back. I’m doing a study on ancient artwork that I just can’t wait to get into.”
They smiled at her and led her into the house.
***
Melody landed in her room and crossed it to check everything. She always did that when she came back, not wanting to be careless just because she was time traveling.
“Missing something?” a voice from behind her said.
“Doctor?” she asked, turning around, hating that she jumped.
There was a figure lounging on her bed, though she noticed that her shelves had been completely rearranged. He must have been really bored.
“Melody Pond.”
“What kind of a Doctor are you?” she asked, hugging him tightly.
“One that gave you a graduation present.”
“Thank goodness,” she said, hugging him again. “I didn’t feel up to pretending tonight.”
“You’re doing really well,” he said. “Younger mes don’t have a clue.”
“It’s odd,” she said, stopping to think for a minute. “It’s like I can feel what to say and what not to. Like time itself is telling me.”
“Your connection to the Tardis, I think,” he said musingly, idly running his screwdriver over her form and then looking at it absently.
“To what do I owe the pleasure?” she asked.
“I owe you some memories,” he said.
“What?”
“You remember right after your graduation?”
“Yes, and you wouldn’t tell me about your little fake death plan. Now I see that must have been so I would be genuinely surprised when you invited me to it. Though why you invited me I don’t know.”
“You were already there,” he said as if it was the simplest thing in the world.
"You took something from me after my graduation?" she said slowly. "Something that wouldn't have changed the timelines again."
"With your permission," he protested.
“Then, yes, I’d be glad to get my memories back, only you’re sure they won’t…be too much?”
He looked at her in surprise.
“I’ve never known you not to be up to the challenge.”
“I know; I just have this niggling feeling I won’t like what I’m going to get back.”
“Probably not. Not all of it anyway. But isn’t it better to know now that you won’t be messing up timelines by knowing?”
“You’re right.”
“As always,” he said smugly, putting his hands to her temple. “I’m sorry, this will be a shock.”
Oh, then she remembered. She remembered it all, graduating, being taken, shooting him, the fact that she had been someone else once upon a time.
She gasped and sat down on the bed hard, reeling from the suddenness. Yet she had the feeling it was easier for her than it would be for anyone else apart from him.
“That smarts,” she said after a minute.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Fit as a fiddle,” she said frowning.
“Really weird phrase,” he said. “I must see where it comes from. Do you…do you forgive me?”
“What’s to forgive?” she asked. “I saw what you saved me from. I got a good look at the orphanage you all rescued me from when I was a baby. When I- I saw it and, I tell you, in that moment, I could forgive you anything for having rescued me from such a fate. I shudder to think about what I would have been like if I’d been raised there.” Melody did shake her head, throwing off the memories and went on. “I have a feeling you’re not telling me everything about who I used to be, but I know how you saved me. So don’t ever think I’m not grateful.”
“It was still…sticky.”
“Very sticky,” she agreed, bumping his shoulder with hers. “But like jam, not like tar.”
“Hate tar,” he said, shuddering.
“Bad memories?”
“You may find it funny, but there’s not a lot that I don’t have some type of memory of.”
“Not funny, Doctor-y.”
“What frightful grammar.”
“What proper talk.”
“Shut up,” he said, bumping her shoulder back. “Anyways, I have a task for you, should you choose to accept it, though you really have to because if you don’t none of this will ever happen and we’ll all cease to exist, at least you will, and there will be awful causality wounds, Reapers and such.”
She stared at him.
“That was quite a speech. What do you need me to do?”
“Go to Demon’s Run and tell me who you are.”
“The younger you that simply remembers two different timelines but not how they’re connected?”
“Yes, so that I will know who you are and go and rescue you again. And so you don’t get named something horrible like Ruth if Rory gets a hold of you.”
“What?”
“Well, who knows what your parents will name you if you don’t tell them your name is Melody.”
“Maybe they just chose the name cause they liked it.”
“Well, before maybe, but now they know a Melody and I doubt they’d name their daughter after you. No offense.”
“None taken, I guess.” Melody rubbed her head, she was getting a headache. A time headache or something. “So just go to Demon’s Run, tell you that I’m me, and that’s it?”
“You don’t mind giving Vastra and Jenny a ride home, do you?”
Melody rolled her eyes.
“Okay, I’ll do it.”
“No rush,” he said and bounced up again. “Can’t stay, just wanted to let you know all that and everything, but it’s a bit soon for us to be hobnobbing socially.”
“Is your secret safe?” she asked.
“Like a time lock,” he said.
“Then someone could get through,” she said.
“Yeah, if they wanted to go insane,” he replied.
“Hmm, who would want to do that?” she pondered, putting her finger to her chin.
“I’m leaving now,” he said with dignity.
She grinned and hugged him.
“Thanks for giving me my memories back. Sorry for killing you and everything.”
“My pleasure and it’s all a moot point,” he said.
“Where’s the Tardis?” she asked, looking around.
She could feel faint traces of the Vortex like she usually could when the Tardis was around, but it was nowhere to be seen.
He clicked his fingers and the doors swung open in the alcove next to her door and he laughed at the slightly astonished look on her face.
She glared at him and was annoyed at herself especially since she’d just seen the Tardis in camouflage mode and then ran to the doors, looking through, relishing the warm hum of activity and intelligence and time she could feel.
“Hello, Mother Tardis,” she said, stroking the door slightly.
The Doctor went inside and tapped her nose before shutting the doors.
“Go save the universe, Melody Pond.”
Melody smiled and gave him a little wave as the Tardis dematerialized, her signature sound echoing in the suddenly quiet room.
Melody moved around her room silently, putting her things away, rechecking her security systems, getting ready for bed. She didn’t need as much sleep as most normal humans, but she was exhausted, having been up for more than a few sleepless nights during her latest adventure.
She lay in her bed, rearranging her thoughts, trying to make sense of everything, making sure she understood all of her memories. She’d made it her business to understand all the mysteries of her life from a very early age, gaining answer after answer with each new stage, but there were still things she didn’t know.
The mystery of the Doctor’s death was very much over, but the mystery of River Song was only just begun. Her parents might be a good place to start, but she knew they were just as careful as the Doctor, or more so, about the subject of spoilers. So she’d have to be very nosy in a subtle way. But that was okay, she was good at that.
And it could wait. That and her Demon’s Run job. She was in no rush. She was only thirty years old and for a human that was nothing, let alone someone so graced with time as she was. She had years to find out the Doctor’s secrets about her and tell him hers. In the meantime, she was due tomorrow aboard the Starship UK to do some archeological dating. Melody had made the plans before she’d decided to visit her parents and then been sidetracked with the Silencio trip and saving the world.
Which happened a lot more often than anyone else would like. But if there was anything Melody was good at, it was adaptation and improvisation. She was glad to return to her set plans now though because she was dying to get her hands on some of Earth’s old treasures and what the generations since her parents’ time had thought of them.
She must have drifted to sleep because when her phone rang, she started awake. It was too early in the morning in her very isolated apartment. Her parents maybe?
The panel flashed the word Doctor on her screen.
She answered.
“Doctor?”
“No, and neither are you. Where is he?” came the voice of Winston Churchill to answer her.
***
Melody took a second to be surprised and then answered promptly, realizing how important this probably was.
“You’re phoning the time Vortex, it doesn't always work. But the Tardis is smart, she's re-routed the call. Talk quickly. This connection will last less than a minute.”
When Melody heard what Churchill had to say she quickly packed her bags and went to her destination early, realizing that if what she wanted was going to be anywhere it would be on the Starship UK.
She marveled at how easy it was to be in the right time at the right place, like something was guiding her.
It was late when she got where she needed to go and she decided she would rather not go through all the bother of a proper check in. Besides, the knowledge she wanted to take away something of historical value might be a bit of a no-no for her, career-wise.
She searched for the better part of an hour before she found what she was looking for and began to leave only to be stopped by a gun in her face.
“This is the Royal Collection and I'm the bloody Queen. What are you doing here?”
Melody recalled stories from her childhood and her mother’s voice telling her about Liz 10.
“It's about the Doctor, Ma'am. You met him once, didn't you? I know he came here.”
“The Doctor!” Liz asked, lowering her gun.
“He's in trouble. I need to find him.”
“Then why are you stealing a painting?”
Which was a rather practical point actually so Melody handed the painting over.
“Look at it. I need to find the Doctor, and I need to show him this.”
Liz looked at the painting and then at Melody and her face echoed Melody’s own consternation and alarm. There was no time to lose.
Melody found it was rather easy to steal things when the Queen sanctioned your theft.
Of course, then she hastily did some calculations and tried to ascertain exactly what to tell the Doctor. She tried ringing him up but he wouldn’t answer. So she rang her parents.
“Oh, is it time for that already?” her mom asked casually.
“Amy, don’t be flippant,” her dad said. “Look, Mellie, you need to get the Doctor to 102 AD, the Roman encampment by Stonehenge.”
“Okay…will he know what’s going on?”
“No, he’ll be clueless, won’t know you, all that,” her mom said. “And you’re gonna have to pretend you don’t know me or your dad when he shows up.”
“This is ridiculous,” Melody muttered. “Right, how do I get the Doctor there?”
“Try a little graffiti,” her mom said. “Think old and wide and far.”
“You two are no help at all,” Melody spouted. “Right, love you, bye.”
She hung up and cast her mind far and wide, trying to figure out what and how she was going to tell the Doctor.
Gradually the glimmers of a plan came into being and she immediately put it into action.
It was actually a lot of fun and involved some hairy escapades with falling down cliffs, but soon she was on her way to Roman times and got to dress up like Cleopatra. Hallucinogenic lipstick was something she really must learn how to manufacture herself.
She grinned when the Doctor came through the tent flap.
“You graffitied the oldest cliff-face in the universe,” he said accusingly.
“You wouldn't answer your phone,” she rejoined and brought out the painting.
“What's this?”
“It's a painting. Your friend Vincent.” The Doctor eagerly unrolled the canvas while her mother peered over his shoulder. “One of his final works. He had visions, didn't he? I thought you ought to know about this one.”
“Doctor? Doctor, what is this? Why's it exploding?” asked her mother.
“I assume it's some kind of warning,” Melody said, watching the Doctor sit, his brain working overtime.
“Something's going to happen to the Tardis?” her mom said.
“It might not be that literal.”
At least, Melody hoped not. If there was anything she did not want, it was the Tardis exploding. She almost felt that a part of her would wither and die if it did and maybe all of her.
“Does it have a title?” the Doctor asked.
“The Pandorica Opens.”
The Doctor suddenly grinned and strode out of the tent and Melody could hear him issuing orders for horses and she was happy to hear them all stumbling over themselves to obey. But that meant Melody was left alone with her very young looking mother.
“The Pandorica? What is it?”
“A box,” Melody answered. “A cage. A prison. It was built to contain the most feared thing in all the universe.”
“And it's a fairy tale, a legend. It can't be real,” the Doctor said, coming back into the tent. “Which is why I know exactly where to look.”
He pulled out some maps.
“Hidden, obviously. Buried for centuries. You won't find it on a map,” Melody said.
“No. But if you buried the most dangerous thing in the universe, you'd want to remember where you put it.”
He pointed on the map and Melody turned appreciative eyes toward him.
“When do we leave?” she asked.
“How does now sound?” he asked.
They got their horses and Melody thanked her Doctor for all the time spent riding on the Tardis trails as well as that one trip with John Wayne. Her mother wasn’t doing nearly as well.
But they made it and started examining the site. The Doctor was rambling on about fry particles, running all over the place, leaving the two women to stare at the massive stones.
“Okay, this Pandorica thing. Last time we saw you, you warned us about it, after we climbed out of the Byzantium.”
“Spoilers!” Melody said, repeating her mother’s own words, putting her finger to her lips.
“No, but you told the Doctor you'd see him again when the Pandorica opens.”
“Maybe I did. But I haven't yet. But I will have.”
Melody took her mother’s bewildered face as payback for all the times Melody hadn't known what was going on and went to find the Doctor.
He discovered the Underhenge and they explored. They found the Pandorica, a huge box, black with sigils, glowing slightly green.
It was opening.
Melody didn’t know why, but it scared her more than a lot of things she’d faced had.
The Doctor explained the legend more fully to her mother while Melody put her time to use examining the stones and comparing the readings to the ones she’d taken up above.
The stones were transmitting, the same signal Vincent heard in his dreams and used to communicate with the Doctor. And others were here, millions of others. Daleks and Cyberman and Sycorax and Sontaran and every alien in every story Melody had ever heard.
“Doctor, I’m going to ask you to do something for me,” she said.
“Favors already?”
“Run. This is everyone who hates you. Run. Please, just run. For once, listen to me and run.”
He stared at her and she could see fear in his eyes because of her fear but he just grinned.
“I don’t run. Well, I do run, but for some reason it’s toward danger, not away from it. Dropped on my head as a child.”
“Eighty four times,” she mumbled.
He looked sharply at her.
“Yeah. So, instead of me running, how about you run?”
“I don’t run either,” she said sharply.
“I need the Tardis,” he said. “As I remember, you are quite good at flying it. Plus, I could use some Romans.”
“For what?”
“Fun,” he said. “They are the largest military machine in the history of the universe after all. Could be useful.”
It was a rubbish plan, but the best one she’d heard so far today, so Melody jumped on her horse and rode for the Roman encampment.
The Roman commander who’d just returned was a mite cross at how she’d bamboozled all his men, but he was soon far too worried about the alien ships flying overheard to worry about that.
And then Melody’s dad showed up, volunteering, and he’d obviously never seen her before, which was disheartening but, never mind, she’d go and have a good Laurel and Hardy flick marathon with him when this was over and done with.
After she sent him and his cohorts to the Doctor she phoned the Doctor and let him know he was surrounded and then went for the Tardis, which was acting up, taking her back to her mother’s childhood house with strange landing marks in the front yard and showing her pictures of books and her parents dressed up and then Melody was very puzzled.
She really had no idea what was going on and she had the feeling that if she were River Song she might have had a much better idea of what she was supposed to do. Maybe.
She called the Doctor and they quickly came to the conclusion that her mother had more to do with this than anyone else. But before Melody could say anything else the connection shut off and Melody felt herself exploding into a million pieces.
***
Melody was certainly living a very curious life. She was in some sort of loop, throwing a gear and lever, running to the Tardis door, and opening it to find a brick wall.
“I’m sorry, Uncle Dear.”
Then back to the beginning again. She did it over and over and over for what could be a couple of thousand years.
But she was also very aware she was in the loop which was unusual in her understanding of time. The whole point of the loop was to keep her safe and oblivious, but Melody was still too aware of what was happening.
It hurt. Somewhere she was burning, she was split into pieces, scattered over all time and space, and it hurt. Her connection to the Tardis was always a visceral experience, but this was beyond anything Melody had ever known.
The worst part of it was knowing that she was actually being shielded from it by the loop and that since she was only part of the Tardis she could only connect on the smallest level so what the Tardis was feeling had to be a million times worse than this strange fiery sensation Melody felt as she ran her loop.
Then there was a point where a strange popping sound occurred and the Doctor stood there with a fez on his head grinning at her.
“And what sort of time do you call this?” she asked, running to him, finally free of the loop and feeling the familiar transportation of a Vortex manipulator.
They landed on top of a roof and her parents were both standing there, looking confused.
“First things first,” she said, about to make a comment about his hat because really, but her mother interrupted her.
“Why did you call him uncle?”
“What?” Melody asked, certain she had done no such thing.
“In the loop, I could hear you,” her dad said.
“Hear me what?”
“Call the Doctor uncle,” her mom said.
“Who said I was calling the Doctor uncle?” she asked innocently.
“Who else would you be talking to?”
“My uncle,” she said pointedly and then distracted them all by killing the Doctor’s fez.
It made up for restraining herself with the Stetson.
Of course there were more distractions in the form of a lovely and handy Dalek and soon they were all running for their lives and the Doctor was spouting nonsense about the Pandorica.
“The Pandorica partially restored one Dalek. If it can't even reboot a single life form properly, how will it reboot the whole of reality?” she asked him impatiently.
“What if we give it a moment of infinite power? Transmit the light from the Pandorica to every particle of space and time simultaneously?”
“Well, that would be lovely, but we can't, because it's completely impossible.”
“Ah, no, you see, it's not,” he said, tapping her on the forehead, which she really hated. “It's almost completely impossible. One spark is all we need.”
“For what?”
“Big Bang Two! Now listen-"
Melody knew well what it was like to watch the Doctor die. She’d done it herself after all, but that had all been a clever ploy and the Doctor was alive and Melody knew how time could be rewritten.
Her mother dropped to her knees despondently and her father held off the Dalek, but Melody took three seconds to just hold herself together and think of what to do.
She told them to run, to go to where the Doctor had disappeared to. Then the Dalek rolled up to her. Melody had never met a Dalek before but she knew all about them.
“You will be exterminated!”
“Not yet,” she said coolly analyzing it, “your systems are still restoring, which means your shield density is compromised.” She got out her blaster. “One Alpha Mezon burst through your eyestalk would kill you stone dead.”
“Records indicate you will show mercy. You are an associate of the Doctor's.”
“I'm Melody Pond.” She aimed the gun. “Check your records again.”
She was merciful, but she’d been hunted for most of her life and she knew something the Doctor couldn’t, that sometimes fighting for what was right was making sure that the evil could never come again. She’d never really had the chance to face her past, but she hoped she would one day and she’d have no problem putting a bullet in every Silence she could find and, as for Madame Kovarian…Melody saw no reason for clemency in her case. It was something she didn’t analyze about herself, didn’t speak about with the Doctor, but suspected he knew it was there anyway. Him giving her all her memories back had only cemented that fact.
So the Dalek didn’t stand a chance.
Melody made her way back down to the others and they found the Doctor in the Pandorica preparing to be brilliant and break her heart all at the same time.
“The Tardis is still burning,” she explained to her parents once she understood herself. “It's exploding at every point in history. If you threw the Pandorica into the explosion, right into the heart of the fire...”
“Then what?” her mother asked.
“Then let there be light. The light from the Pandorica would explode everywhere at once, just like he said.”
“That would work? That would bring everything back?” asked her mom.
“A restoration field, powered by an exploding Tardis, happening at every moment in history. Oh, that's brilliant. It might even work!” She grabbed the Doctor’s sonic and examined what he had been doing. “He's wired the Vortex manipulator to the rest of the box.”
“Why?” asked her dad.
“So he can take it with him. He's going to fly the Pandorica into the heart of the explosion.”
Melody got to work, not bothering to think about what this could all mean for her, for the future. All she knew was that this was the Doctor’s way of saving the universe and she was going to help, as she had always done.
He opened his eyes blearily and looked at her.
“I think I am your uncle,” he said.
“You know full well you’re not,” Melody said briskly.
“In heart,” he said. “That’s okay. I can keep a secret. I don’t know how, but I’m sure I’ll find out.”
“Just try not to die,” she said, feeling the tears well up in the back of her throat.
“I need Amy,” he said.
She gave him one last look and walked out of the Pandorica.
“Amy...he wants to talk to you.”
But her mother wasn’t having any of that. Just like her. Melody had to explain that what the Doctor was doing was tantamount to suicide, to murder really.
But Melody didn’t want to think about that and she didn’t want to look at her parents’ faces anymore and not be able to gain comfort from them. She didn’t want to be their parent; she wanted to be their daughter.
“Now, please. He wants to talk to you before he goes.”
“Not to you?” asked her mother.
“He doesn't really know me yet. Now he never will.”
And Melody stepped back while her mother had her last moment with the Doctor and then held her parents’ hands tightly while the universe changed forever, the Doctor rocketing into the sky.
Melody felt it the moment the Tardis was put together again and the little cracks in her own mind were healed.
But she was also changed then, wandering, barely alive, and certainly not the same as she had been. She was the daughter of Rory Williams and Amy Pond, but she hadn’t been born on the Tardis because there was no Tardis.
All she could do was give a blank blue book as a wedding present before changing until she was someone else entirely and she didn’t really know what happened.
Then bang, everything renewed and she became Melody Pond once more and the Doctor was alive and she remembered him.
She met him outside the hall beside the Tardis. She’d spent her time wandering the halls of the Tardis in her mind, reassuring herself everything was back in place, whole again, just as her mind was now whole.
He gave her back her journal.
“The writing's all back, but I didn't peek.”
“Thank you.”
He gave her back her Vortex manipulator as well and she slipped it on her wrist.
“Melody...who are you?” he asked. “No last name, the Tardis doesn’t even acknowledge you’re alive.” Melody laughed, the Tardis was always protecting her. “You’re very similar to someone else I once knew. Everything you do literally smacks of her. And you’re very connected to me…my niece? So who are you?”
“I think you're going to find out very soon now. And, I’m sorry, your life will change. Hopefully in better ways than you’d ever admit to.”
She’d loved their life on the Tardis but she knew now it wasn’t what he was used to and had probably felt confining. But he’d done it for her parents and for her and she was ever so grateful.
She vanished, not taking the time to look at his face.
She didn’t go see her parents and she didn’t try to find her Doctor. She was knackered, beyond tired, so after a quick trip to make sure that Vincent’s painting was where it was supposed to be, Melody made her way back to her bed and she slept the sleep of the justly exhausted.