Yellow Alert
"Don't look bored—we're on yellow alert!"
"We've been on yellow alert for three weeks."
0.O.0.O.0
"So, whadya think? If the Doctor's really comin' here, where is he?"
0.O.0.O.0
My mother told me that when she held me for the first time, she checked me all over to make sure I was healthy and perfect. She also laughed and added that getting me where she could see me hurt her so much that it was hard to believe it hadn't hurt me. I was only a little girl; so I didn't understand what she meant.
I did now.
I felt like my body was ripping apart. Tears streaked my sweaty face. My back arched, and I pushed—and it hurt—and I screamed—and the contraction passed. I sagged back against the white table, crying.
"Rory," I whimpered, "hold my hand." But he wasn't there to hold it.
Suddenly, I was angry: furious at that eye-patched woman who'd taken me away from my husband when I needed him. No more crying, I ordered myself. I knew without looking up that she was still there, staring down at me as if I were a lab rat finally doing what it was supposed to. She may have stolen me from Rory, but she wasn't going to see my tears. I gritted my teeth and braced for the next contraction.
It came. I couldn't keep my word. I screamed Rory's name, sobbing, pushing, cursing the woman above me. I felt like I was dying. I sucked in air, panted through the pain and screamed as it peaked.
The Doctor would know how to save me. Why was he taking so long? He'd promised to come for me, no matter where I was. Where was he?
"Almost there now," the voice over my head said eagerly. "Push. Push! Push NOW!"
I had no breath for screaming this time. All my energy was centered on the pressure between my legs. I felt my whole body expand: bones shifting, skin stretching. It hurt. It hurt so much. I gasped for air and tasted salt as tears ran into my mouth.
Then—in an instant—the pressure was gone. "Yes!" The woman in the eye-patch exulted. "At last!" And so I knew I couldn't collapse, no matter how tired I felt. The horrible purpose of the chute I'd seen between my legs was suddenly clear, and I struggled to sit up, to reach for my baby.
A figure dressed in white materialized next to me to cut the cord. I couldn't tell if it was human or alien, but either way it was not takingmybaby.
"No—you can't—" I said, fury and panic holding me upright. I tried to shove it away with my shaking hands. Too late. It snipped the cord and disappeared as quickly as it had come. I heard a brief sucking noise, saw my baby for a moment, and then she was gone down that chute; and I had no idea what they would do to her.
A wall appeared from nowhere—as walls have a habit of doing here—and slammed shut over the entrance to the chute. I heard her first cry. Her tiny, scratchy voice wobbled as it figured out how to work. Somehow, I scrambled off the table, slipping on blood and afterbirth, and pressed myself against the wall she'd vanished through.
"They can't keep me from you, Melody," I whispered fiercely, my hands flush against the wall. (I'm not entirely sure where the name came from. It just came out as though my mouth had always called her that.) "We won't let them."
I passed out curled up against the wall. My tears dried on my cheeks.
0.O.0.O.0
When I woke up, I didn't know where I was. I missed the TARDIS hum; Rory squished up against me in one of our bunks, the Doctor puttering about down the hall. Everything around me was silent and white, that sterile shade of white found only in hospitals.
Hospitals. Pain. Melody.
I struggled to my feet, and was startled to find that I was clean and had been lying on a hospital bed of sorts. But Melody was still gone. It was hard not to just panic again and wail for my baby. "No," I told myself sternly. "Think. How do I get out?"
There was only one door, and it was obviously the automatic, open-with-something-futurey kind of door. Forcing it open wouldn't work—I didn't have a weapon anyway. No sonic screwdriver either, I thought with a pang. My other option was a huge window that filled up almost one whole wall, but the ground was too far down, even if I could break it, and the room outside the window was filled with soldiers. So there was no way out. I knew the soldiers should frighten me, but I only had room in my mind for Melody and how I could get to her.
Rory and the Doctor were coming for me, but would they get here in time to save my baby? I tried not to think about what the woman-who-popped-out-of-walls might be doing to her. My legs started moving on their own; I paced the length of my white cell.
How long had I slept? Where was I? How had I suddenly gone from not being pregnant to nine months and in labor? What had the Doctor meant when he'd said I hadn't been on the TARDIS for a very long time? But most importantly: where was Melody?
Just when I was about to pound on the door and yell until someone gave me answers, it opened and two soldiers in uniform entered to stand on either side of it. Eye-patch Lady, flanked by two more soldiers, followed them with my baby—who was crying—in her arms.
I didn't think; I just flew at her. She had my baby. "What have you done to her?" I demanded, twisting in the grip of the soldiers who had stepped forward to hold me back.
Eye-patch Lady smiled. "Nothing at all, dear. She's just a bit hungry. If you would only be reasonable," and she held Melody out to me. I stopped struggling at once, and the soldiers let me go. I couldn't get my baby into my arms fast enough.
"Shhh, it's all right; everything's going to be fine; Mummy's here," I murmured, holding her close. I carried her to the bed and sat down, angled away from Eye-patch Lady and her men, and fed my baby. She stopped crying right away.
I gently slipped my hand into the blanket and felt her fingers and toes (she had ten of each); then stroked her soft head with a finger. "Oh, you're so beautiful," I breathed. In that moment, I put my worries behind me. I needed to be strong for Melody. The Doctor and Rory were coming for us. No matter what happened to our baby, I knew Rory would never give up. Everything was going to be all right.
0.O.0.O.o
I talked to her constantly. I wasn't sure how much time I had, and I wanted to be certain she'd remember me, if only just a little. A cot had been moved into my cell; I'd insisted they put Melody's name on it. Melody Pond. A name strong enough for a superhero. And she would need to be so strong.
I told her stories every day, stories I made up about my Centurion in his two thousand years of protecting me. I told them to her because I knew what it was like to grow up in awe of a man who'd crashed into my life when I was little. I wanted her to grow up thinking that way about her father, the best man in time and space. I wanted her to think about him the way I had about the Doctor, wanted her to think he could do anything, wanted her to make her friends dress up in long red capes and pretend armor.
(If they let her have friends, but I shoved the thought away.)
0.O.0.O.o
And then that day came: the horrible day that I knew would be the last time they let me hold her. They didn't come out and tell me that I wouldn't see her again, but I felt it in the way the Eye-patch Lady looked at me when I touched my daughter's hand. I saw it in the soldiers' eyes.
I breathed deep and focused on my daughter. I was determined to make her last memory of me count.
"I wish I could tell you that you'll be loved," I told her then, "that you'll be safe and cared for and protected; but this isn't the time for lies. What you are gonna be, Melody, is very—very—brave."
Eye-patch Lady stepped forward. "Two minutes," she said coldly.
I was trying to stay calm for my baby, but the anger boiling in my veins made it hard. Both my eyes locked on the other woman's one. "But not as brave as they'll have to be," I continued firmly, "'cause there's someone coming."
I hope you're afraid, I thought, with a fierce kind of happiness, and even if you aren't, you're gonna be.
Then I turned away from them and tried to pretend that I was alone with my daughter, just telling another story, and that we didn't only have two more minutes. "I don't know where he is, or what he's doing; but—trust me—he's on his way. There's a man out there who's never gonna let us down, and not even an army can get in the way."
I thought of my childhood, after the Doctor left. Rory had stayed by me. He'd stuck with me through everything, through my first few boyfriends and my bad days and my insecurities. I swallowed. He hadn't even left me when I was trapped in stone for two thousand years, unable to do anything to hold him to my side.
I turned around then and wished I hadn't. The Eye-patch Lady stepped forward to take her from me. I held Melody tighter. "Leave her; just you leave her," I ordered them; but they kept coming, and my fragile strength broke down as I backed away. "Please, leave her, please," I begged through tears as they tugged her from my arms. Desperation leaked into my voice. I had no pride left; I just wanted my baby safe.
"Please, leave her!" I screamed after them, but the Eye-patch Lady didn't turn, and Melody's cries matched mine.
When they left, I curled up on my bed in the corner and cried myself out. If only my boys would get here before they took her for good, before they had time to hurt her.
They brought her back for her last goodbye only a few hours later. She was bundled up for travel, and I pulled myself together for her. I poured hope into my face and voice, and hoped some of it leaked into her. Then I told one final story about my—our—Centurion.
"He's the last of his kind," I whispered. "He looks young, but he's lived for hundreds and hundreds of years. And wherever they take you Melody, however scared you are," My eyes burned with tears, but I didn't want to miss a moment of my daughter, "I promise you: you will never be alone."
I filled my eyes with her, working to memorize her tiny face. Her skin was so soft when I kissed her. I would've cried again, but talking about Rory bolstered me up. I hurried on. Even if she never met our Centurion, she would know him through me.
"Because this man is your father. He has a name, but the people of our world know him better as the Last Centurion."
And then I looked at her a long moment and walked away. I had already done my crying. There were no tears left in me, only a hard bitter anger at anyone connected with this horrible thing. I crossed my arms over my chest and stared blankly out the window.
I tried not to hear Melody cry as they took her away. When the door closed behind her, I felt empty.
"Oh, Rory," I whispered. "Please come get me. I'm so tired."