Series Title: And Make the World of Colours
Chapter Title: Red: Memory
Fandom: Doctor Who
Rating: G/PG
Characters/Pairing: River/Melody, Rory, Amy
Summary: Melody Pond remembers.
Notes: Spoilers for A Good Man Goes To War. Concrit, please. Also, thank you to everyone who read and reviewed (or didn't review, even) my recent fanfic. The first in a series of colour!fics.
Melody Pond remembers.
They tore her from her mother's arms before she could speak in words to free her from her influence, but Melody Pond remembers.
She never asks them why, because to ask would require her to give her memories up—she's terribly afraid they'd steal them, if they knew, just like they stole everything else, and she thinks perhaps the memories could make a weapon—but she has figured out by now that it was only flesh which they replaced her with. Not a person like the ones she's met, but a ganger, cold and dead except for what she put into it.
She remembers, faintly, words from a man, old and young who smelled like time. He understood her even though her words were meaningless.
She thinks that might be why. The perfect decoy for the perfect trap.
They didn't realize she would know.
She doesn't understand if it is memory or time, but she remembers.
Melody Pond remembers.
She remembers red, and in her mind she calls it blue.
She remembers words about a box, a big, beautiful, blue box.
She's seen the colour blue, and knows now it isn't red.
But she remembers red, and in her mind she calls it blue.
She remembers her mother's hair, orangey red like fire, like the flames which flicker from the candles in the temples.
She remembers her mother's lips, drawing close to press a kiss like strawberries upon her cheek (she's never eaten strawberries, but she has read of them and knows that they are red and sweet. They give her books to read and teach her knowledge is a weapon. It is the Doctor's favorite and will be hers as well).
She remembers pressing her tiny infant face against her father's soft red shirt, and grabbing at his cool dark armor with her tiny hand.
She does not tell them what she remembers, and does not write where they could read. It breaks her heart (with its red, red blood) that she cannot make her memories tangible. She wishes she could write them down or talk until her tongue (her red, red tongue) falls out. But she does not speak, and does not write.
Then they give her a bedroom with paints and crayons, and she draws her memories in colour. She puts down reds in spirals and lines, and makes a shining web of time. She mixes in the one called blue, which her mother told her of, and does not stop until she sees the memories on paper.
They do not look like people or like pictures; that is not how they look in her mind.
She could not tell you the colour of her father's hair, what he looked like or how his voice sounded. She remembers her mother's words, or what they meant, but not the way they sounded. She cannot remember her mother skin, and cannot recall her name.
But Melody Pond remembers.
She does not remember her mother skin, but she can remember her touch.
She does not remember her mother's name, but she remembers the one she was given, and she keeps it like a treasure.
She cannot remember her father's hair, or how his voice sounded, but she remembers how he felt.
Melody Pond remembers.
She remembers in shapes and feelings and lines, and she puts them all on paper and holds them close.
Melody Pond remembers.