"What are you doing here, Melody?"

Dante's question sliced through the air, even as his dark gaze continued to bore into the blonde, missing Lily's concerned expression as her eyes darted to him and seeing immediately that he hadn't been expecting the woman. It was – to the witch at least – as though the curly-haired blonde had managed to petrify Dante with only her presence alone; both the man and his cloak were eerily unmoving while Dante's dark blue eyes stared at Melody with a mixture of trepidation... and was that a bit of fear?

"You can't keep hiding away here, Dante," Melody said as she finally met the man's gaze, moving away from the bookshelf that she'd been browsing, "And I know that your sister-"

"What. Are. You. Doing. Here?"

The man's words were now coming out through clenched teeth, and a frown begun to appear on Lily's face when she noticed the way that he had tensed even further at the mention of the raven-haired young woman. She had actually met Raven once or twice during her travels with her husband and Dante, and really felt that she shouldn't have been surprised to hear that Melody knew her as well. Though then again, Lily also knew that Dante held his cards close to his chest and although she knew the man would never bring any harm to herself or her family intentionally, he really didn't speak much about himself.

He really likes to keep his life a mystery... she thought rather fondly, having to hide a smile behind her hand.

Melody turned to one of the lounges and seated herself, raising an eyebrow at Dante when the man just continued to stand there. Though when her gaze shifted to Lily, realisation flashed across her eyes and she offered the younger woman a small, abet regretful smile. "Could you give us a moment?" she asked before adding, "Please," when the witch just raised an eyebrow.

Lily's frown was quick to return at the woman's plea, not wanting to leave Dante alone with someone who she could clearly see unsettled him – having noted that Pitch was still the blackest of blacks – along with the amount of tension she could feel in the air. She wasn't too certain as to what history lay between Dante and Melody, but it was only when the man himself finally looked as though he finally took a breath, his shoulders falling as a hand went up to the clasp that kept his cloak wrapped tightly around him like a second skin before holding the garment out to her did the witch finally relent, knowing what Dante was telling her with just the gesture alone.

"We'll be in the study with Prim," she said as she accepted the cloak without hesitation, pausing before quickly placing a kiss upon his cheek – of which Melody watched in surprise as Dante allow Lily to do so with but the barest of grimaces – and sending the blonde a look that told her not to do anything stupid before she and the cloak that was slowly returning to its normal blue-black left the room; disappearing back through the doorway she had come.

Melody, whether by pure luck or knowing because of plain old history, was wise enough to take the red-headed witch's hint, although she did roll her eyes as Lily left. She knew Dante possibly better than anyone – less the Doctor of course – and getting him angry was the last thing she wanted to do.

Well... not completely, anyways.

Wait! Melody's eyes went wide as they snapped back to Dante, Did she just say Prim?!

The raven-haired man let out a quiet, almost shuddering breath as the warmth of his cloak slowly faded; his hands fisted by his side before he forced himself to relax. And as the same soothing warmth his familiar usually provided physically bathed his mind, the blacket knew that it had been the right thing to do to send the Lethifold off with Lily. If Melody had meant him any harm, Pitch wouldn't have allowed him to undo the clasp and leave willingly with the witch.

They needed each other, and as Dante rubbed his left arm in a self-soothing, subconscious manner, he knew that to bring harm to one would only hurt the other – and any witch or wizard worth their wand knew better than to piss off a Lethifold, less they end up like him.

Or worse...

And although it may have been a naïve, stupid move to leave such a dangerous beast with the young witch, Dante also knew that Pitch would rather throw himself in front of a patronus than bring harm to either Lily or James. Not when Pitch had not only watched James grow, but had also spent many months getting to know Lily while taking them on a few adventures – before the red head had gotten pregnant, of course.

Dante would rather give up his remaining arm than see his sister-in-law – or his unborn nephew for that matter – come to harm.

And then there was Prim to consider, and the raven-haired wizard knew without a doubt that both he and Pitch would rather die than see any harm come to her.

Moving around the coffee table, keeping as much distance between himself and Melody, the raven-haired man finally took a seat, though he was no longer looking at the blonde; his gaze fixed pointedly on the bookshelf just to her right, and his action had Melody sighing, realising that he wasn't going to make it easy for her.

"Dante," she said quietly, her questions regarding one white-haired babe falling to the wayside as she realised that there was still such a vast rift between them. The man only raised an eyebrow, letting her know that he was listening though his gaze never left the books that filled the shelves. "You know that I had no idea that Ra-"

"I know?" The wizard cut her off with a scoff. "Out of everything I knew - I did. Out of all the things that I lived and died for..." his right hand once more moved to rub his left arm in a self-soothing manner as his dark gaze finally shifted away from the books and pinned the blonde with an expression that had her wincing. "It always came back to you, didn't it?"

Melody didn't say anything.

What could she say to him?

"Though... I guess that it doesn't really matter now, does it?" Dante sighed, turning his gaze to another bookshelf even as his hand balled into a fist on the armrest at his side. He missed the blonde's eyebrows furrow in confusion as she observed his body language. She had always found the wizard to read, but at that particular moment, his movements and actions were telling her one thing while his words and tone spoke of something completely different. And at that moment, Melody found that she didn't know which was telling her the truth and which wasn't.

When silence was all Dante was met with, his gaze returned to Melody and he couldn't stop the sneer from appearing on his lips at the expression that was on the woman's face. His eyes darkened; something shifting in front of his iris' as he spat, "You just couldn't help yourself, could you?" Dante's jaw clenched, his teeth grinding together before he suddenly shook his head; the sneer that was on his lips morphing into a hollow, dark chuckle. "You knew what was going to happen, and yet you still decided to tell her th-"

The blacket's hands balled into fists as he cut himself off. He didn't even register the moment the nails of his right hand bit into his palm.

"You know full well that that timeline couldn't be changed, Dante," Melody defended, "How can you sit there and still blame me for that after all this time?"

"Blame you?!" Dante's eyes narrowed until they were slits. "You let Raleigh walk to her fucking death! You left an innocent child without her mother!" His voice was all but a hiss, and the change had the blonde's gaze darting to the arched doorway that led to the rest of Dante's home; almost as if she were expecting someone - or something - to appear. And when Dante noticed where her gaze had gone, the man let out a dark chuckle that had Melody's head snapping back to him.

"It has been a very long time since Pitch has felt the need to come to my defence, Melody Pond," he told the woman, raising his left hand before whispering 'Finite Incantatem' under his breath. The glamour that hid what his arm truly looked like fell away and the lighting of the room bounced of the dark, metallic surface that made up what was his arm, even as it seemed to pulse with an unknown energy from within.

"You know that I didn't have a choice," Melody told him, deciding to ignore his comment as she managed to tear her gaze away from his arm and back to his face. She knew full well how he'd lost the limb, but the curly-haired blonde also knew that Dante wouldn't have changed the day he'd met Pitch for anything. "You knew that I couldn't just-"

"Just what, Melody? Walk away? Leave it up to fate? There were so many things you could have done, but no. You just had to go and lead her to her death!" Dante shouted, and the vase that was sitting atop the side table nearby shattered.

Dante's outburst only had Melody raising an eyebrow as she realised just what was going on in that vast and sometimes quite troublesome brain of his. It wasn't hard - for Melody at least - to realise that Dante still hadn't forgiven himself for what had happened all those years ago. And the blonde knew that his anger wasn't even remotely directed at her, understanding that Dante was more likely to disappear that actually take his temper out on her.

It's what he'd continuously done in the past after losing not only his life, but his wife's as well, and Melody knew that the knee-jerk reaction wouldn't be disappearing anytime soon.

She could sympathise with the blacket however. She knew that he still hadn't gotten over Raleigh's death. And knowing that it had been a fixed point in time... it had only made it that much harder for Dante to accept.

He always liked to try and keep things under his control, the blonde thought somewhat fondly, having to fight down the small smile that threatened to appear on her lips. Such an expression would only have Dante's mind diving back into that vast pool of rage she knew simmered just under his skin, and that would only hinder what little progress they'd made.

"You know that there we couldn't stop him, Dante," Melody stated calmly as she reached forwards and picked up a small trinket from some far off planet from the coffee table. It looked to be some kind of blue serpent that had opal eyes, and her eyebrows creased as she gave it a once over, realising that instead of scales, the sculpture looked to have fur.

Dante scowled as he looked away from the blonde and to the vase, and a spark of victory appeared in her eyes when he tried to shift the topic away. "Why are you here?" he asked as he made a gesture with his left hand at the ruined vase. The mess vanished with a pulse of magic, though Dante was now frowning as he turned back to Melody, running his other hand through his hair as he waited for a reply.

"I need help," the blonde replied with a shrug as she placed the statue back down onto the coffee table, allowing the change in topic. It was why she had appeared in his home to begin with, and knew that Dante's state of mind wasn't in the best of shape for such a deep, personal conversation at that point in time. It was far too soon after he'd lost the Doctor, and after everything she knew the pair had been through, Melody understood that despite the man's outer appearance, Dante was struggling to stay afloat.

He was going after the Hallows', for god's sake!

The Doctor had always been the one that had managed to pull Dante back from the lure of the Darkness that he'd been courting since the loss of his wife at the hands of his own murderer. Though not before Dante had paid the consequences. And now the one person that had always been his rock had up and vanished, and Melody had thought that despite not actually truly knowing the woman, Jenny was the only one who'd been keeping him from sinking back into the dark pit he'd once dug with his own two hands.

Though hearing that Prim was with him, along with the red head whom Dante seemed far closer to than he'd seen with anyone...

"Why don't you just go and hunt down your boyfriend," the man in question quipped and broke Melody from her thoughts. Though a line did appear between his brows as he stared at the blonde, feeling curious as to why she hadn't just gone and done that. Dante felt his heartrate threaten to pick up when a thought flickered across his mind, but he was quick to stomp it out and banish it as he took a deep breath.

"Well, that's the problem," Melody explained rather slowly, watching Dante closely as the line between his eyebrows only deepened. She watched as he rubbed his arm once more in a manner that had her heart aching; wanting to pull him into a hug and tell him that no matter what he thought now, everything would work out. But she didn't. And Melody knew that the habit was unconscious on Dante's part; a habit she'd first found endearing... until she'd learnt the reason why it had formed in the first place.

It had been a habit forged long before Dante became the man that was seated across from her.

Before he became what he was.

"What happened?"

Dante found the words escaping him before he could stop them, and it had a small smile appearing on Melody's face, knowing that however much he tried to hide it, the truth of his feelings towards those he cared about managed to find a way to show themselves.

Like letting someone kiss him on the cheek...

"No, it's nothing bad," Melody was quick to assure, mentally giving her a head a shake. Whoever the red head was, it wasn't any of her business. Though the blonde did feel that she should know who the young witch was. "But, it's just that... You probably don't know, but..." She trailed off when Dante shot her a dark look, though found herself suddenly floundering at how she was supposed to word what she needed to tell him without the man blowing up on her. And Melody knew that what she had to tell him... it was probably what was going to decide whether what little friendship remained, or was destroyed completely.

"Just spit it out, River," Dante snapped, and his outburst had the curly-haired blonde sighing.

"I wanted to do something for you after everything that happened, and with a certain friend of ours' birthday coming up and not knowing you're st-"

"Get her a card," the blacket cut in as he stood up and begun to walk away, no longer interested in the conversation. His posture was tense and Dante wasn't too sure as to how much longer he could actually keep himself under control around the blonde.

"He is at Asgard waiting for you, Dante," Melody corrected with a smirk, watching the moment her words registered in the blacket's mind and he froze. Slowly Dante turned back to face her, and when his gaze finally met hers, Melody was rather glad that she'd decided not to tell him everything at the expression that was on his face. "I told him that you wanted to... talk."

"Why in Merlin's name would you tell him that?!" Dante exploded, glaring at the blonde as if his very will alone would strike her down... though he did have enough restraint to not actually let his magic do what his mind was picturing, not actually wishing Melody dead.

Despite being on the receiving end of Dante's temper, Melody did note that the man was looking quite a few shades paler than he had moments before. Still scared, then, she mused as she slowly got out of her seat and approached him. "You can't keep running from him, Dante," she told him quietly as she came to a stop just out of the man's reach. She knew what she was about to do wasn't going to be easy, but Melody knew that she needed to be close.

"I am not running," Dante scowled, though his gaze shifted away from the blonde, almost believing his own words.

The key word there being almost.

"Yes... and stealing a part of his ship and hiding away on Earth while you plot the end of one war while trying to stop another?" Melody countered with a raised eyebrow. Her tone was ladened with sarcasm. "Yes, you're definitely not running Dante. What do you think the Doctor will do when he realises what you've done?"

"I didn't steal anything..." Dante's eyebrows furrowed as confusion flickered across his dark, shifting gaze. Though his head snapped back to Melody not a second later, his eyes narrowed. "What do you mean, the Doct-"

He was cut off however, when Melody struck like a viper; moving just close enough to grasp his left forearm before they both disappeared in a flash of blinding white light.