A/N: I'm not even going to pretend I'm not imensely proud of this. It's fictional and it's real and I'm feeling awefully possessive about it. Sunlight In A Jar by The Lucksmiths
It's like catching sunlight in a jar.
None of this matters, because none of it happened.
Professor River Song's memory has always been a fragile thing, some of it weathered like the ancient pages of her blue diary and some of it enhanced so brightly it blinds her senses.
Melody Pond; a part of herself she does not like to think of and yet finds that all she was is indefinable from who she has become. They are drenched in fact and fiction.
Three years old (more or less)
When she sneaks out of the room no one notices.
Through the front door she can hear shouting and in the next room she can hear her younger brother's cries.
There are a pile of shoes by the front door. She grabs her Dad's trainers because they're the biggest there and balances on them, her little hands press against the wood panelling of the door as she stretches up on her tiptoes.
And it's through the letter box that she first see's him.
It's the mad man from her Mum's stories.
All the noise from outside is coming from her Mum and the fairytale man with a bowtie. Dad never shouts not even when he is really angry, but he is pushing the other man away.
She makes a noise when the wizard's impossibly old eyes snap to her, and she falls backwards off Dad's trainers, the letter box rattling.
As the front door opens she is crawling under her bed.
#
Somewhere between ages Four and Five.
Her Mum warns her friend that Melody has a tendency to run off. The woman; whose name she can no longer recall, makes the mistake of thinking her Mum is joking.
It's a big field, grass stretching out before her feet the instant the silly woman lets go of her hand.
Melody runs as fast as her red wellies will allow. She doesn't head for the little park and its swings or the shadow of the woods.
She runs straight though puddles to the gap in a hedge.
The woman lost somewhere behind her is screaming her name, but Melody doesn't listen, she keeps running towards the road.
She hits pavement just as hands grab her and lift her up.
It's the man from the fairytales her Mum won't tell her anymore.
He gives her a beaming smile and she finds herself smiling back, then she puts on her 'telling off' face.
"You're not allowed here," she tells him in all seriousness and then grabs his bow tie, "Mum says these are stupid."
He puts her back on the floor. "Bow ties are cool."
She bites her lip, worried she's upset him, "but I like them."
And that's enough to put the smile back on his face. Her eyes widen when he pulls the bow from off and stuffs it into her hand.
She doesn't get the chance to say thank you, because the silly woman that let go off her hand has finally caught up. She holds Melody's wrist too tight as she leads her away and when she looks back he is gone.
#
Sixth Birthday.
After a few rough starts...
"Whatever you do don't use the brakes," Dad assures her as he stands a couple of yards in front of her.
Melody takes a deep breath as she begins peddling and her Mum lets go.
And for a whole 26 seconds she is riding her bike all by herself and then over her Dad's shoulder she see's that man with the bow tie.
She wobbles to the side and instinctively presses the brakes. With a scream she goes over the handle bars and into her Dad's arms.
Her knee is all scratched up, but she doesn't start crying until Dad notices the yogurt in her pocket has burst and sends her to her room for stealing.
...she learns to ride a bike without stabilisers.
#
Seven years old, maybe.
She's not entirely sure what is transpiring downstairs, but there are voices she recognises from years back shouting at each other.
Melody creeps down the stairs. Until she can see her Mum's back and the strange fairytale man brought to life.
"I don't care!" Her Mum shouts with such passion her fiery red hair ripples.
The Man is trying to push his way in, even though her Mum has the safety lock on. "You've torn her out of time."
Melody frowns. "How can you tear someone out of time?" She asks, because it doesn't make any sense.
He grins despite his struggles. When her Mum turns to her she is crying, Melody takes one look at her face and runs back up the stairs.
There is no hiding under beds this time, instead she runs to the bathroom, locks the door and climbs up onto the bath and uses the sink as a step so she can get onto the windowsill.
She waits with her head poking out of the small window and watches in wonder as he opens the door to a blue Police box.
Her Mum bangs frantically on the bathroom door and Melody sighs as she jumps down from her spying spot and opens the door.
It isn't till bedtime when she is supposed to be brushing her teeth that she get the chance to look out of the window again, but by then the man and the mysterious blue box are gone.
#
A few months later
Her Mum's angry with her, because she refuses to take her roller skates off and has to be carried as they search for her little brother.
He told her earlier he was going to run away, but she was too busy skating up and down the hallway to notice.
If Melody's honest she doesn't really like her little brother, except when he shares his sweets with her. She does, however, wish she had thought of running away, because he is definitely going to get that rabbit now.
It is her mad man that finds him. Her Mum and Dad seem all the angrier for it.
When Melody is set down on the floor she throws a glare at the man who she had thought was all hers and snarls, "Bow ties are stupid."
She skates off ahead of her parent with tears in her eyes.
#
12 days before her Eighth Birthday.
She falls out of a tree.
The man with the bow tie catches her.
He's called the Doctor.
While her Dad plays hide-and-seek with her brother, she and the Doctor turn over an old log so they can watch all the ants, earwigs and woodworms run around looking for somewhere to hide.
She pokes the woodworm in her hand until it curls up into a perfect ball and then carefully rolls it into a ridge on the fallen branch. They both watch it until it unfurls.
Her Dad's calling her.
"You can be my best friend," She says earnestly, "But only if you don't talk to my brother, he's stupid."
The Doctor smiles and nods at her in a strange way that makes his hair sway side to side and bob up and down at the same time. "Best friend; Melody Pond, I like it."
She skips off waving over her shoulder as she goes to find her Dad.
Later when she's laying in bed tying knots into the old bow tie he gave her she realises her Mum and Dad will never let the Doctor come round to play.
#
The night before her Eighth birthday.
She is not really sure what is going on when her Mum comes in and wakes her up, in one hand a gun and the other her little brother's hand.
Her Mum tells her she loves her and hugs her so hard it hurts.
And then she is being pushed under the bed. Melody just catches a glimpse of a Dad she doesn't recognise; deadly and dressed as a Roman, as her Mum shuts the door.
During the hour of gun fire and raised voices she is sure she hears the Doctor shouting her name.
She's hiding under the bed with her brother, his face wet against her pyjama top, when a woman with dark lips, dark hair and an eye patch reaches under the bed and pulls her out.
River has found that just because something did not happen as long as she remembers it is real.
Even fiction matters.