A Good Man Goes To War

Six months later...

I'm not sure where I've landed, not until I see the soldiers, I start to back away in fear. "Grab her!" Someone orders. I turn to run but someone grabs hold of my arms. I get turnt around to see Madame Kovarian walking towards me.

"Miss Stone. Isn't this a pleasant surprise? Put her in the research laboratory." She orders.

"No! No!! Let me go! Doctor!" I scream in terror.

"The doctor isn't going to save you, he doesn't even know you're here." She smugly says.

Two months later...

I'm sat tied up in the corner of Amy's room, my body hurts so much, I just want to go home.

"I wish I could tell you that you'll be loved, that you'll be safe and cared for and protected. But this isn't a time for lies. What you are going to be, Melody is very, very brave." Amy tells little Melody.

Madame Kovarian steps forward from the line of armed guards. "Two minutes." She warns Amy, I can't help but look at the woman in nothing but hatred.

"But not as brave as they'll have to be. Because there's someone coming. I don't know where he is, or what he's doing, but trust me, he's on his way. There's a man who's never going to let us down, and not even an army can get in the way."

Melody is in a high-tec Moses basket.

"He's the last of his kind. He looks young, but he's lived for hundreds and hundreds of years. And wherever they take you, Melody, however scared you are, I promise you, you will never be alone. Because this man is your father." Amy tells Melody.

Madame Kovarian goes to take the baby.

"Leave her. Just you leave her. Please leave her! Please, leave her!" Amy begs.

"He has a name, but the people of our world know him better as the Last Centurion." She tells Melody as she lays in her cot.

Amy is watching the rally from her window. Lorna enters.

"Sorry. I shouldn't be here. I'm meant to be at the thing. I brought you something. Your child's name in the language of my people. It's a prayer leaf and we believe, if you keep this with you, your child will always come home to you." Lorna tells Amy.

"Can I borrow your gun?" Amy asks her.

"Why?"

"Because I've got a feeling you're going to keep talking." Amy turns back to the window. "They're talking like he's famous. The Doctor isn't famous."

"He meets a lot of people. Some of them remember. He's sort of like a, I don't know, a dark legend."

"Dark? Have you met him?"

"Yeah. But I was just a little girl."

"So was I."

"You've been with him a long time, then."

"No. He came back for me."

"You must be very special."

"Hey. You can wait a long time for the Doctor, but he's worth it, okay? The thing is, he's coming. No question about it. Just you make sure you're on the right side when he gets here. Not for my sake, for yours." Amy takes the prayer leaf. "Thank you."

Before Lorna leaves, she turns to me, "I'm so sorry this has happened to you."

"It's not your fault."

Later on, someone starts hammering at the door. Amy rummages in a drawer and finds what might be an electric toothbrush. "Who's that? Who's there? You watch it, because I'm armed and really dangerous, and cross."

"Yeah, like I don't know that." Rory's voice comes through the door.

"Rory? Rory, is that you?"

"Yeah, it's me. Look, hang on a minute."

It sounds like Rory is trying to sonic his way in.

"They took her. Rory, they took our baby away."

The door opens. Rory is carrying Melody. I can't look at him, not when I know it's not really her.

"Now, Mrs Williams, that is never, ever going to happen."

"Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Where's she been? What have they done to her?"

"She's fine. Amy, she's fine. I checked. She's beautiful. Oh God, I was going to be cool. I wanted to be cool. Look at me." Rory starts crying.

"You're okay. Crying Roman with a baby. Definitely cool. Come here, you."

"Urgh. Kissing and crying. I'll, I'll be back in a bit." I hear the doctor say.

"Oi, you. Get in here, now. My daughter. What do you think?" Rory asks him.

"Hello. Hello, baby." The doctor says to Melody.

"Melody." Amy tells him.

"Melody? Hello, Melody Pond." The doctor doesn't even notice me.

"Melody Williams." Rory argues.

"Is a geography teacher. Melody Pond is a superhero." Amy tells him.

"Well yes, I suppose she does smell nice. Never really sniffed her. Maybe I should give it a go. Amelia Pond, come here." The doctor says to Amy.

"Doctor."

"I'm sorry we were so long."

"It's okay. I knew you were coming. Both of you. My boys. We both did."

"Both?"

She nods her head towards me with a small smile on her face. He turns to me. "Doctor." I say with a half smile.

He turns really angry and I can't help but feel confused. "You! How could you?! This is all happening because of you! You are dead to me. You're nothing to me." He tells me, I've never seen him so angry. I can't help but burst into tears. He turns away from me in disgust and it makes me sob harder.

"Doctor!" Amy shouts.

"No Amy. She should have done something but she chose not to and I can't forgive that."

"Do you even know how old she is?"

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"Look at her! Just Look!" She shouts and he looks at me. A look of realisation comes over him. "She's a little girl! She hasn't done anything wrong! The last time she saw us was at the byzantium!"

"Oh Izzy." He whispers.

"I just want to go home." I sob.

"They did things to her doctor. Terrible things." Amy tells him.

His head snaps over to her. "What do you mean? What things?"

"She needs to show you."

He comes over to me and I can't help but flinch. "Don't hurt me."

"No Izzy, I would never hurt you."

"Everyone hurts me."

"Izzy, I'm so sorry, please forgive me."

I nod my head and he unties me, I get up and knowing what he wants to see, I lift up my top revealing my stomach, along with the scars covering it. He covers his mouth with his hand as tears fill his eyes.

"Izzy, my Izzy, I'm so sorry." he tells me.

"I'm fine, it doesnt hurt anymore." I tell him.

"Anymore? Did they do this to you when you were awake?"

"Yeah, they did."

I can see the anger in his eyes. "How long have you been here?"

"Two months."

"I'm so sorry, but I promise you they will pay."

"No. Don't doctor. I don't want you to seek revenge. Please."

"Fine. But they will do their time."

He then turns back to Melody. "It's okay. She's still all yours. And really, you should call her mummy, not big milk thing."

"Okay, what are you doing?" Amy asks him.

"I speak Baby."

"No, you don't."

"I speak everything, don't I, Melody Pond. No, it's not. it's cool."

"Doctor? Take a look. They're leaving. Demon's Run is ours without a drop of blood spilled. My friend, you have never risen higher." Vastra tells the doctor as she walks into the room.

Later on...

Amy carried Melody out of the Tardis. Rory walks up to her and asks "Hey, what's wrong?".

"She doesn't like the Tardis noise. I asked him to turn something off, but it was all, but I don't want to punch a hole in the space-time continuum. Shush." Amy complains.

"Rory! The Judoon have escorted the Clerics out of the quadrant. Spitfires have returned to their own time. Captain Avery and his men are going. Is she all right?" Jenny asks the two of them.

"Yes, she's just crying."

"Give her to me, human fool. She needs changing." Strax insists.

"I just changed her. I think she might need a feed."

"A feed, of course. I'll take care of everything."

"Not gonna happen!" I tell him.

"I have gene-spliced myself for all nursing duties. I can produce magnificent quantities of lactic fluid."

"I don't care!"

The Doctor comes out of the Tardis with a wooden cot that has an orrary dangling over it. "She's not hungry, she's tired. Sorry, Melody, they're just not listening." He says to baby Melody.

"What's this?" Amy asks him.

"Very pretty, according to your daughter."

"It's a, it's a cot." Rory says in surprise, or maybe it's shock.

"No flies on the Roman. Give her here."

"Hey, there we go." Amy says.

"But where would you get a cot?" Rory asks the doctor.

"It's old. Really old. Doctor, er, do you have children?"

"No." The doctor tells her quietly.

"Have you ever had children?"

"No, it's real. It's my hair."

"Who slept in here?"

"Doctor, we need you in the main control room." We hear Vastra's voice say over the speaker system.

"Be right there! Things to do. I've still got to work out what this base is for. We can't leave till we know." The doctor says.

"But this is where I was? The whole time I thought I was on the Tardis, I was really here?" Amy asks him.

"Er, Centurian, permission to hug?"

"Be aware, I do have a sword." Rory tells him.

"At all times. You were on the Tardis, too. Your heart, your mind, your soul. But physically, yes, you were still in this place."

"And when I saw that face looking through the hatch, that woman looking at me." Amy says.

"Reality bleeding through. They must have taken you quite a while back. Just before America."

"That's probably enough hugging now. So her Flesh avatar was with us all that time. But that means they were projecting a control signal right into the Tardis wherever we were in time and space." Rory says.

"Yeah, they're very clever."

"Who are?" Amy asks him in confusion.

"Whoever wants our baby." Rory tells her.

"But why do they want her?"

"Exactly." The doctor says.

"Is there anything you're not telling us? You knew Amy wasn't real. You never said." Rory says.

"Well, I couldn't be sure they weren't listening."

"But you always hold out on us. Please, not this time. Doctor, it's our baby. Tell us something. One little thing." Amy begs him.

"It's mine."

"What is?" Rory asks him.

"The cot. It's my cot. I slept in there." Before he leaves he turns to me. "Is there anything you're not telling me?"

"I can't tell you." I tell him. A look of anger crosses his fave and he storms out and I can't help but feel that I let him down.

"Oh, my God. It's the Doctor's first stars." Amy says.

Amy wipes Melody's dribble with the prayer leaf.

"Drop your weapons. State your rank and intent. I found it listening at the door." Strax says.

It's that girl.

"I heard her talking. This is a trap. Why would I lie to you?" she says.

"Well, you might want to take a look at your uniform." Rory tells her.

"The only reason I joined the Clerics was so I could meet the Doctor again."

"You wanted to meet him, so you joined an army to fight him?" Jenny asks her in disbelief.

"Well, how else do you meet a great warrior?"

"He's not a warrior." Amy tells her.

"Then why is he called the Doctor?" The lights go out. "It's starting. Please, listen to me."

"Confirmed. No life forms registering on this base, except us and the Silurians."

"The Headless Monks aren't alive. They don't register as life forms."

A white light cone appears around the Tardis.

"What's that?" Amy asks.

"A force field." Vastra tells her.

"And those are the doors locking." Lorna tells us.

"Apparently we're not leaving." Vastra says.

"Is that the Monks?" Rory asks.

"Oh, dear God. That's the attack prayer." Dorium says.

"Quick, come with me."

"Commander Strax!" Vastra shouts.

"I'm trying to seal off this area of the lighting grid." he tells her.

"This is where we'll make our stand. Clear lines of sight on all approaches."

Rory hides Amy and Melody behind some boxes. "Izzy! You two! The doctor would never forgive me if something happened to you" He says to me. I run over to the three of them.

"Rory, no offence to the others, but you let them all die first, okay?" Amy tells him.

"You're so Scottish." Rory tells her.

"Centurian, you're needed!" Vastra calls out.

We don't anything until we hear Vastra shout out "Mister Maldovar, get back here!", and I remember what's about to happen to him.

"Arm yourself, fool!" Strax shouts out.

Then we hear Rory shout "Dorium!".

A moment later, we hear the sounding of metal swinging through the air. I can't help but squeeze my eyes shut.

"Mister Maldovar?" Vastra calls out.

"Dorium?" We hear Rory question.

It's quiet until we hear vastra shout "The child. At all costs, protect the child!", I look at Amy in worry, I wish I could tell her, she's always been so nice to me, I hate this! I wish I never came here! All I'm doing is helping ruin Amy and Rory's lifes! Tears run down my cheeks.

Baby melody disappears into that white goop. Amy (of course she does.) starts to panic.

"Rory! Rory!" she ends up screaming.

The Doctor runs in. Everything is quiet.

"Amy! Amy." The doctor says in realisation as we walk towards him.

"Yeah, we know." Rory tells him.

Strax is dying, I would feel guilty except I know he gets brought back to life.

The Doctor walks over to where we are, Jenny is comforting Amy.

"So they took her anyway. All this was for nothing." Amy says in misery.

"I am so sorry." The doctor tells her as he reaches for her but she flinches back.

"Amy, it's not his fault." Jenny says.

"I know. I know." Amy says.

The doctor looks at me and a look of anger comes across his face. "What about her? She knew it was going to happen! I know you did! I was right about you!" He ends up screaming at me.

Amy turns to me. "Izzy, did you know?" she asks me.

"Yeah, but there's a reason I didn't tell you." I tell her.

"What reason?" She asks as tears fill her eyes.

"Because if I had said something, then anything could happen, I could have caused your death. Or worse! Baby Melody's! And I'm sorry, but that's something I couldn't have lived with. That would have destroyed me. I'm only a little girl, I kept it the same as the TV series because then I know everything will turn out fine." By the end of that, I'm sobbing.

"Oh, Izzy, I don't blame you, you're a child. This should never have been up to you." Amy tells me.

"What?" The doctor says.

"Doctor, you're the one in the wrong. You're blaming a little girl for picking the best option she could. She's always helped you, she's spent hundreds of years of your life helping you and saving you. She's your best friend! She's the only one that has never left you!" Amy tells him.

The doctor's face drops. "You're right. What am I doing? Blaming a child? Is that what I've become?", Then he turns to me, "Izzy, I'm so sorry, Amy's right, I've blamed you twice today and it hasn't been your fault. You're still a little girl and I should never have put these things on you because you should never have to be the one who decides any of these things." The doctor tells me.

"Thank you." I tell him.

"Doctor, there's someone who wants to speak to you. Her name is Lorna. She came to warn us." Vastra tells the doctor.

Lorna is also dying.

A few minutss later, Vastra says "So, what now? They'd almost certainly have taken her to Earth. Raise her in the correct environment."

"Yes, they did. And it's already too late. The doctor tells her.

"You're giving up? You never do that."

"Yeah, and don't you sometimes wish I did?"

There is a flash of lightning.

"Well then, soldier. How goes the day?" River asks him.

"Where the hell have you been? Every time you've asked, I have been there. Where the hell were you today?" The doctor asks as he storms over to her.

"I couldn't have prevented this."

"You could have tried!"

"And so, my love, could you. I know you're not all right. But hold tight, Amy, because you're going to be."

"You think I wanted this? I didn't do this. This, this wasn't me!"

"This was exactly you. All this. All of it. You make them so afraid. When you began, all those years ago, sailing off to see the universe, did you ever think you'd become this? The man who can turn an army around at the mention of his name. Doctor. The word for healer and wise man throughout the universe. We get that word from you, you know. But if you carry on the way you are, what might that word come to mean? To the people of the Gamma Forests, the word Doctor means mighty warrior. How far you've come. And now they've taken a child, the child of your best friends, and they're going to turn her into a weapon just to bring you down. And all this, my love, in fear of you."

"Who are you?"

"Oh look, your cot. Haven't seen that in a very long while."

"No, no, you tell me. Tell me who you are."

"I am telling you. Can't you read?"

He lokks down, then back up a moment later. "Hello."

"Hello."

"But but that means"

"I'm afraid it does."

"Ooo. But you and I, we, we, we, er", he makes kissing sounds.

"Yes."

The Doctor is getting all excited with anticipation.

"How do I look?" He asks.

"Amazing."

"I'd better be."

"Yes, you'd better be."

"Vastra and Jenny, till the next time. Rory and Amy, I know where to find your daughter, and on my life, she will be safe. River, get them all home."

"Doctor!" Rory shouts.

"No! Where are you going?" Amy asks.

The Doctor takes down the forcefield around the Tardis and goes inside.

"No!" Amy shouts.

The Tardis dematerialises.

"Where's he going and what did you tell him?" Amy asks River.

"Amy, you have to stay calm." River tells her.

Amy picks up a gun. "Tell me what you told the Doctor."

"Amy, no. Stop it!" Rory insists.

'It's okay, Rory. She's fine. She's good. It's the Tardis translation matrix. It takes a while to kick in with the written word. You have to concentrate." River tells them.

"I still can't read it." Amy says.

"It's because it's Gallifreyan and doesn't translate. But this will." She gives Amy the prayer leaf. "It's your daughter's name in the language of the Forest."

"I know my daughter's name."

"Except they don't have a word for Pond, because the only water in the forest is the River. The Doctor will find your daughter, and he will care for her whatever it takes. And I know that. It's me. I'm Melody. I'm your daughter."