A/N: Thank you everyone for your lovely reviews so far. They really make my day, hearing what you guys think about Melody and John. And apparently their official ship name is Melohn now; thanks to RiotousUndead for that. ~madis
Somewhere in Deep Space
She stands just inside the door, bracing herself against the doorframe as the TARDIS rumbles through the Vortex. Once they stop she takes a quick peek out the windows of the door. Stars drift lazily past, all teeny and far away. So it'll be drifting through deep space then. She's glad; it's been a long day. Looking at John standing next to the console, she finds it hard to believe that just this morning they'd bantered over how daft he'd looked. That seems worlds away, now.
"John," she begins, hesitantly, and her voice drops like a stone into the thick hum of the console room. "John, why were you so rude to that boy? Ian, I mean. Because you were very, very rude."
"Boy?" John snorts. "He's not a boy—he's older than you are." He's been standing, hands clenching the console railing, staring down at the parking brake; now he turns towards her in one swift movement, gaze sharp, voice biting. Melody quails just a bit under the weight of John's anger, because it has all the weight of the Oncoming Storm behind it, and the man John is swept thin against it. Then she rallies, because it's John. John, who cares for her hands, who has had a very bad day. John, no matter how much he's acting like the Doctor right now.
"I'm only twenty-three!" she bites back, and as rejoinders go it's a rubbish one, but Melody's never been good at having rows.
John, on the other hand, is all too good at having them. "And I'm nine hundred and ten, but I don't see what that has to do with anything! He's shady, Melody—I don't trust him. Why is he here? Who is he working for? Who sent him? He admitted he was a part of the Time Agency, and we were just almost killed by the Time Agency. They're private contractors. Someone had to have hired them, and we both know who'd sincerely like to see us dead."
"Who? Rose?"
"Yes Rose!" he growls, and if he wasn't so angry Melody would have laughed at the absurdity of it all. "Who else has—but we're not talking about Rose. We're talking about Ian."
"Yes, we were." Melody sighs, walks up the steps to John. He's standing there, arms folded, posture tense. Setting the package down on top of the console, she bends down and picks his jacket up off the floor; she'd noticed it before, but hadn't had the hands to do so, and John had been in too much pain. She folds it over her arm, smoothes out a crease before looking at him. "John, what is this really about? Why are you so angry?"
"I'm not angry," he insists, his brogue coming out thick and fast. "I just don't trust him."
"Well I do. He—He reminds me of River."
At this John's eyebrows shoot all the way up. "River. As in 'Professor River Song, archaeology' River? The one who died? How do you know about her?"
"I—I told you, I dream—"
"No. That's not what I meant, and you know that. You picked—out of all the names you could've picked—you picked that name as a pseudonym. Melody, why? Why does my TARDIS show you my dreams? Why you? Why River? Who is she to you?" He stands there, arms akimbo, staring at her. She can't look at him, smoothes his jacket down over her arm, a repetitive motion that she doesn't even really notice, because she can't feel it happening.
The words are stuck in her, because she's never talked about River before, and she isn't sure how to begin now. Instead of answering him she demands, "And what about you, John? I'll be the first to admit that I haven't told you everything, but you've kept secrets too."
"Like what?"
"Well, your headaches, for one. You probably weren't even going to mention those until you were right in the middle of one. How can I be prepared if I don't know—"
"I told you, I handle those," he snaps.
"Or Rose! Or the Tyler's; they never came to visit me after awhile, not after Rose came back smelling of blue ozone and by that point I was in too much of a drugged stupor to even care. Or—Or what happened with Jack? Why was he here? Why did Rose—and I'm assuming it's Rose—why did she—?"
John flushes purple, roars, "We are not talking about Rose bloody Tyler, Melody!"
"Why not John? Why not? It's healthy to talk about things, and while I know it hasn't been a long time for you, you can't keep things bottled up inside! Why do you think the Doctor—" Melody stutters to a halt.
"The Doctor?" John says. And when she won't even look at him: "Melody, the Doctor what."
"Why do you think the Doctor died alone?" she whispers, all the fight going out of her.
"That is a lie," John snarls.
"I don't lie, John. He ended up dying alone because he let everyone go—he let everyone leave him, and refused to go to any of his friends, and he died alone. He was scared, John, he was scared, and there wasn't anything I could do, all I could do was dream, and do you know how horrible it is to stand there and do nothing?"
She knows that is exactly the wrong thing to say the minute she says it. John takes a half a step towards her, sways back as though shot. His voice, when it comes, is calm and dry as a casket. "Melody. Shut up. I wouldn't do that. I swore to myself I wouldn't go through that again, not like with Gallifrey."
"Well you did, and you were scared."
John lets out an angry burst of air, almost a growl, and paces away from Melody, his footfalls clacking on the glass floor. Melody stares down at her shoes, and smoothes smoothes smoothes his jacket over her arm. He turns back to her, a violent twist, and spits, "They died. The Tyler's died."
"W-What?"
"They died. That's why they never came to visit you."
"Oh," she says. Pete and Jackie and baby Tony, who had loved stars even at such a young age: all dead? "Is that why Rose—is that why she snapped?" Immediately Melody wishes she hadn't said it. John's face drains of all color, and he strides towards her, his long legs making short work of it, eating the ground. He gets right up into her face, whispers, "Don't you ever talk about her to me again. Don't you dare. You don't have the right."
"The right? The right? She was my friend too, John. I refuse to be—I refuse to be one of your companions who you never tell anything to, who you keep in the dark. I need to be your friend, John, not—not your hamster."
"My hamster?" he repeats, incredulous.
"Yes, your hamster. I'll be willing to tell you anything and everything only if you're willing to do the same for me. It's called respect."
Then she puts the jacket down on the railing next to her, steps around John, and sails up the stairs, head held high. (Trying ever so desperately not to cry.)
As Melody disappears around the curve of the stairwell, John considers going after her, decides against it, and swears viciously. He kicks the stair railing with his foot, hops up and down, grabbing his foot, because kicking things hurt, definitely not kicking things when angry again. He adds that to his rule list right alongside "Do Not Punch the Wall When Angry, The Wall Will Win" and "Count to Three," the latter of which he had learned during his therapy sessions.
"I'm so stupid," he grumbles to himself, cramming his hands into his hair, making a spectacular mess of it all. "Stupid, stupid, stupid John."
Once the few tears she did allow had dried into her pillow, Melody considers her options. She's yelled at him, really, properly yelled at him. While a part of her is a little bit horrified, most of her is still too angry to feel much shame. John had been acting completely ridiculous.
And he can kick me out if he wants, Melody decides, rebellious. I'll just refuse to leave, is all. He needs someone, and right now I'm all he's got. She isn't sure why, exactly, he needs her; it's different from Ian Chesterton, or Donna or Rory. John doesn't need a morality chain.
But a friend—maybe.
If he still wants to be my friend, she things, morosely, hugging her pillow to her chest, curling around its soft lumpy pillow-y-ness like an old, familiar friend.
Of course my John still wants Melody Williams to be his friend. Don't be stupid. Melody Williams has been my John's best friend for life.
A moment's pause, as it registers.
"Braveheart!" Melody exclaims, forgetting to think the message in her excitement. "You're okay!"
Of course I am safe-making. I was speaking with Ian N—with Ian. Delightful company, he is. Same as Melody Williams. Both wonderful.
"You can talk to him. I thought that was just me, because I was connected with the original TARDIS. Which is something I still don't really understand, by the by."
Not just you. Ian too. Wonderful company, Ian is. He made me feel better.
Melody's brow creases in concern for her friend. "Feel better? You were sad?"
There's a wriggling twist from the TARDIS, a considering of dodging away from the subject. Then: I killed him. The wrong one. The one who hurt you. I—I didn't know what else to do. Her tone is that of a frightened child, lost in the supermarket. I didn't know what to—my John would have been much sadder, and Melody Williams might have left if I didn't do something, and the wrong one was going to hurt everything.
"Oh braveheart. Oh dear, brave one." Turning, the sheets tangling around her legs, Melody presses herself against the wall, arms flat against it, as far as she can reach. As close to a hug as she can get.
There's a curling, as the TARDIS wraps herself around Melody's mind, a tug as she hugs back. They stay like that for a while, the TARDIS buried down deep inside the moment, all her halls and corridors slightly more unmanned than they would have been otherwise.
"I'm not going to leave him," Melody promises fiercely. "I'm not going to leave John. I promise. I promise."
They pull away from each other after a while, Melody moving back to the center of her bed, the TARDIS further back into her many, many rooms. With a start Melody realizes that she is crying, and she swipes at the tears with the backs of her fingers. She hadn't cried since her father's funeral, and twice in one day?
You're waking your heart up. With my John and me, the TARDIS explains. It's a right wonderful thing to see.
"Yeah. I suppose you're right," Melody says. Then, because she is curious, she asks, "How do you know Ian?"
Oh. Ian. Ian. Ian Noble. I've known him always, just as I've known Melody Williams always.
Melody blinks. "Ian Noble?"
And while it is true that there are presumably many people with the surname of Noble in the universe, the coincidence is too great.
"Braveheart, tell me who he is," Melody demands. "Tell me who he is to John."
This time there is no hesitation on the TARDIS's part, no spoilers, because, well, Melody Williams already knows in the future perfect, so why not bother telling her in the past-present-now?
Ian Noble is the son of my John, the TARDIS says, lightly, easily. And a bad, bad wolf ate his mother.
Rose. It always comes down to Rose.
She remembers when she met Rose properly. Properly, because the first time had been Rose snatching Melody's Doctor-doodled napkin from the cafeteria table, and right after that Melody Williams' father had died. So no, it wasn't a proper meeting, but it was what brought Melody to Rose's attention.
And that's how it all had started, Melody and Rose. Why everything had started.
When they've gotten her cleaned up (because a week of complete and total apathetic depression tends to do that to a person), they leave her to wait in an office on the top floor. There's a window replacing one of the walls; its letting in tons of sunlight, almost too bright. She can see the whole of the city from this vantage point; everything looks small and far away, like a dream fading away between that moment of awake and asleep. There's a potted fern in the corner, and its because of the pink pencil holder on the desk that Melody isn't surprised that the person who finally walks into the office is wearing jeans, a leather jacket, and sneakers.
She sits on the other side of the desk, her back to the window. She and Melody eye one another. She's Peroxide blonde, and in some circles can be considered pretty. Melody isn't sure what this woman sees in her, but after a moment she smiles.
"Hello Miss Williams," she says. "My name is Rose Tyler. Welcome to Torchwood."
And somehow they became friends after that. Melody still isn't sure how.
And then Rose came back crackling blue radiation, for that last time, and everything fell apart.
Melody still isn't sure how.
"It's only been four days, two recuperating from almost dying, and two awake with John," Melody whispers out into the stillness of the room. "Only four days since we've known one another. It shouldn't—it shouldn't hurt so badly. That Ian's their son. Rose and John. He's their son. It shouldn't hurt." She rolls over, burying her face into her pillow, effectively trapping her arms underneath her. "I don't know what to do," she groans into her pillow. "I don't even know why I'm sad."
Perhaps Melody Williams can make my John tea? the TARDIS suggests. My John loves tea.
"Tea as an apology?" Melody croaks, her voice still a bit froglike from her earlier cry. She sits up, rubs at her eyes. "Will that work?"
My John loves tea, the TARDIS repeats, insistent.
"Well," Melody sighs, "it's worth a shot." She gets out of bed, tugging down her shirt and slipping on the sky-blue slippers John had found for her in the wardrobe.
Time to go make apology tea.