A/N: Just a theory I came up with to explain how Melody got to grow up with Amy and Rory, (Yeah, okay, she slowed her ageing process) and why she randomly shot the TARDIS. It was really just an excuse to write her with the Master.
Disclaimer: Doctor Who is copyrighted to the BBC, I don't own it.
You let one of them go, but that's nothing new. Every now and then, a little victim's spared. Because... she smiled. 'Cause he's got freckles. 'Cause they begged. And that's how you live with yourself. That's how you slaughter millions. Because once in a while, on a whim, if the wind's in the right direction, you happen to be kind.
-The Doctor, Boom Town.
A full moon was rising above the buildings of New York. It looked ghostly and pale in comparison to the hustle and bustle of the city below. Sirens and the sound of heavy traffic on the road could be heard even in the darkest back alleys of the city.
Streetlights flickered and hummed as a man walked down a narrow street behind a few abandoned buildings near the shipyard. Unlike the usual wandering vagrants, who tended to skulk close to the shadowy walls, the man was walking slowly and deliberately in the very centre of the road.
The scene was certainly peculiar, not because of the man or even the regular four-beat sparking of the lights, but because, by all rights, the bulbs in the glass lamps should have all burnt out months ago.
The Master glanced up at the buzzing noise and sighed. He couldn't go anywhere now, not without setting off whatever electrical objects happened to be near him.
The whole business with the Time Lock had very complicated and perplexing - even the Master couldn't work out exactly what had happened. One minute he had been using up the last of his life force to murder Rassilon, the next he was here, in 1970. He supposed it had been like jumping onto a moving roundabout - spun around and flung off in a random direction.
Still, at least he wasn't burning out his life force any more, although some residual energy seemed to hang around him, sparking off electricity left, right and centre.
Something moved at the end of the alley - there was the screech of a cat and the clang of some metal object, then a human figure emerged from behind a skip and scurried away. The Master didn't bother following. He wasn't hungry.
He continued down the alley, listening to the streetlights fizzling out behind him. Perhaps he could dismantle one of them and use it for spare parts. He was trying to build a vortex manipulator, but so far it could only travel short distances, and not between planets. If he was going to stay on Earth, 1970 New York was as good a place as any.
Suddenly, the Time Lord's head snapped up. Something in the air had just shifted, something familiar. He inhaled deeply, trying to pinpoint the location of the scent.
A strong, familiar smell came first. It was muddy and sweaty; the damp, sour smell of a human. But there was something else, too. Rich, sweet, and ancient, like dust and honey. The unmistakable scent of a Time Lord.
It was close. Very close. Hearts pounding in his chest, the Master quickened his pace and moved towards where the smell was coming from.
It couldn't be the Doctor - he smelled old and musty. This was a fresh, vibrant aroma. A young Time Lord.
Passing the skip where the cat had been, the Master turned a corner and a few lampposts hummed feebly into life, illuminating what looked like a disused car park.
At the other end of it, a small figure was making its way out of the shadows. The honey-like smell grew stronger with every step it took.
"Hello?" called a thin, high voice. As the figure stepped into the light, the Master saw it was a young girl. She was human-looking, with two tangled brown plaits hanging down her shoulders and a grimy leather jacket worn over a long plaid skirt.
The Master hadn't known quite what to expect, but it wasn't this. The girl looked as far from a Time Lord as it was possible to get.
"Hello?" she said again, cautiously taking a few more steps towards him.
"Who are you?" he asked sharply.
"Melody," she told him, and he noticed her American accent for the first time, "Melody Pond."
"Are you a Time Lord?" he asked, taking a step towards her.
She blinked at him. "I don't know."
He took another step, and she flinched back warily.
"I'm not going to hurt you," he said. Melody looked unconvinced.
The Master gave a small sigh and considered the girl. She acted like a human child, and he wasn't very familiar with children in general, let alone Earth children. He crouched down so their eyes were level and tried again.
"Look, I just need your hand. If you're a Time Lord, I'll be able to tell." He held out his own hand, palm up.
Melody hesitated. They locked eyes for a second, then she slowly placed her small, soot-smeared hand in his slightly larger one.
The Master quickly felt her pulse, then looked up at her face. "Only one?"
"Only one what?" she asked.
"Heart," he said, "You've got one heart. Which means..." he sniffed again, lightly. The dusty sweetness was still there, but buried under the other scent. "You're... part human, part Time Lord." he said it as if it were the most sickening thing in the universe.
"What does that mean? What's a Time Lord?" Melody frowned.
The Master let go of her hand and slid down into a sitting position on the tarmac. "The Time Lords were an ancient and powerful species. They- we lived on another planet, very far away. We live for hundreds and hundreds of years."
"Don't you die?" Melody's eyes were wide and glowed like moons in the evening light.
"Oh, yes. But we can stop ourselves from staying dead," he squinted at her through the gloom. "You should be able to, as well. It's easy."
Melody nodded slowly in understanding.
The Master turned his head and gazed at her for a few seconds. How could she even exist? She wasn't half Time Lord, her human scent was too strong.
"Who are your parents, Melody?"
"I don't know," she answered, "I'm looking for them."
The Master raised his eyebrows in surprise, as Melody told him about the orphanage she'd escaped, the people she couldn't remember, and the spaceman suit that came to eat her. Sometimes, she said, a strange lady with a metal eye came and talked to her about her parents, or her 'fate'.
The Master nodded. None of it really surprised him - there were weird, extraterrestrial things going on all the time. Even during peaceful times on Earth, some alien or other wanted to invade the planet, or study humans, or, in this case it seemed, abduct children. But none of this explained why the girl had Time Lord DNA. Perhaps the Doctor had something to do with it - the Master wouldn't put it past him to be interfering with the human gene pools.
"The thing is," Melody sighed, "I don't know where to start. My parents could be anywhere."
"They could," the Master mused. "What are their names?" he asked out of curiosity.
"Amy and Rory Pond, I think," Melody said.
The Master hummed in thought and reached into his hoodie's front pocket. He brought out the vortex manipulator, strapped it to his wrist and started keying commands into the small screen. Even unfinished as it was, it was still a better version than that Jack Harkness's one - it had a small computer with a database, a TV function, and a built-in communicator which he was yet to finish installing.
"What's that?" Melody asked.
"It's called a vortex manipulator," the Master said, still pressing buttons on the tiny keyboard, "It's for travelling - it can teleport you just about anywhere. It's also got files on a few universally known places, objects and people."
"My parents?"
"Maybe." the Master doubted it somehow, but he entered the names all the same.
No matches came up for 'Rory Pond', but when he typed 'Amy Pond', the screen lit up with a small picture of a redheaded woman.
"That's her!" Melody had been looking over his shoulder, and she pointed excitedly at the woman, "That's my mother! There was a picture of her in my room."
The Master scrolled down, scanning the information on the woman and wondering why there would be an ordinary human in the universal database.
He soon found out why. The moment he read the words, 'Companion of notorious time traveller, 'The Doctor',' the Master switched the screen off with a laugh. "I should have known he'd be involved," he chuckled, too quietly for Melody to hear. He snapped the cover over the screen and unbuckled the vortex manipulator from his wrist.
"Here," he said, holding it out to the child, "You take it. It's locked onto your mother - use it to find her."
"I don't know how it works," she protested.
The Master grinned. "You're part Time lord. Using complex technology comes naturally to you. Trust me, you'll work it out."
Melody silently reached out a hand and let the Master fasten the thick leather strap onto her wrist.
"Right then!" he said, springing to his feet and sparking off a nearby streetlamp, "I'd better be going - and I dare say you'd better be going as well."
"But don't you need it?" Melody asked, holding up her hand with the vortex manipulator on it.
"Of course I do. But I can build another one. And..." The Master tilted his head in a distinctly feline manner. "You need it more. Go on, find your parents," And find the Doctor, he added mentally. "And when you do," without warning, he moved so fast it was nearly impossible to see. For a split second, he was pressing their foreheads together and whispering three words into her mind. Damage the TARDIS.
Then they broke apart and Melody blinked. She nodded, her eyes unfocussed, and the Master smiled. She would never remember what he just did - but she would remember those words, embedded in her mind. Suddenly, she groaned and collapsed onto the ground, nearly hitting her head on the hard tarmac before the Master caught her.
"Goodbye, Melody Pond," he whispered in her ear, then laid her down and turned around, disappearing into a dark alleyway as a streetlight bulb crackled and burnt out.
Screaming was the first thing the Master heard when he dropped out of the time vortex and materialised in 1938 Berlin. A long, piercing wail was coming from a figure in the middle of the room, who had her arms spread out and was emitting golden-yellow smoke.
That was Melody, he guessed. The Master quickly scanned the room for the Doctor, and saw that he was emptying the cartridges of a gun, and had his back turned.
Apart from a man lying on the floor, there were only two other people in the room. One of them he recognised as Amy Pond, and the other he assumed was Rory. They were both so intent on hiding from the blinding light of Melody's regeneration, they didn't even see him skirt around the side of the blue phone box, open the door and slip in.
Inside the TARDIS, smoke was pouring out of the console, making the Master choke. Melody did a good job, he thought, trying not to breathe much, Better not stay for too long, though.
Working quickly, he installed his device into the underside of the console and concealed it with a metal panel. The TARDIS was still flashing warnings and alarms, and didn't even register his presence - just as he'd planned. His latest scheme for taking over the world was going to require a lot of preparations - popping in and out of the Doctor's life for a bit, setting up traps while the other Time Lord wasn't looking, to activate them all when he least expected it. It was all part of the Master Plan.
Just then, the doors opened and a voice coughed, "Extractor fans on!"
Something at the top of the console room whirred into life and the smoke started to clear.
The Master quickly set co-ordinates on his new Manipulator, glanced over at the Doctor and flashed him a grin, before disappearing into the vortex.
"Oh, that worked!" The Doctor blinked, somewhat surprised, and coughed the smoke out of his lungs. He frowned. He could have sworn he just saw... perhaps not - the poison was probably playing tricks on his mind. The Master was dead and gone, and there were more pressing things to deal with.
Still, though, he did wonder...