Tissue and chocolate ice cream may be needed after this chapter. Don't say I didn't warn you.
Where the hell are they? Amy kept asking herself. She'd watched as Trisha and Tony take Manton away and watched the big rhino aliens cart off the rest of the lot. But they hadn't come for her yet. Okay, it had only been about 10 minutes since Dad had appeared.
Just as Amy was about to tear down the door herself to find her husband, she heard a series of bangs and scratches in the bulkhead. In a panic, she backed away and searched for something that she could use as a weapon. Her fingers wrapped around a long spoon looking instrument. Blunt, but she could still whack someone with it, really hard. "Who's there? You watch it, because I am armed and really dangerous, and... cross."
The most beautiful voice came from the other side of the door. "Yeah, like I don't know that."
Her heart stopped. He was here, just like she knew that he would be, because he would never let her down. But what about Melody? "They took her, Rory." Tears started to fall from her eyes at that confession. "They took our baby away."
The door opened with a hiss, and Rory adjusted his hold on the tiny baby in his arms in order to tuck his sonic screwdriver in his jacket pocket. "Now, Mrs. Tyler-Pond, that is never ever going to happen." He rushed over to his wife's side.
Amy cringed at him calling her Pond; it reminded her too much of that horrible woman. Pushing those thoughts aside, she focused on the two most important people in her life. "Oh my god," she cooed over her daughter. "Where has she been? What have they done to her?"
"She's fine, Amy, she's fine." He kissed his wife on the temple. "I gave her a quick once over physically and mentally. I'll do a more thorough one later, but she's fine. She's beautiful." He beamed down at his daughter again. "What's her name?"
Stroking her fingers down her little girl's face, Amy grinned. "Melody, Melody Rose Tyler-Pond."
His eyes shot up to meet hers. "It's perfect. Hello, Melody Rose. You are so beautiful, just like your mother." He kissed her the crown of his daughter's head, and a tear slipped from his eye. "Oh god, I was going to be cool. I wanted to be cool. Look at me."
Amy rubbed a hand up his leather clad back. "You're okay. Crying Time Lord with a baby: definitely cool. I love the jacket by the way, you should keep this."
Holding their little girl carefully between them, Rory leaned over and kissed his wife. Tears gently fell down both of their cheeks, and they celebrated being reunited.
"But Rose, they're kissing. We really should give them a few minutes alone," the Doctor stage whispered from near the door.
"Yeah, let's give them a 'mo," Rose replied softly.
Breaking away from the kiss, Rory turned to his parents. "Oi! You two! Get in here. Now."
Tentatively, Rose and the Doctor made their way down the stairs. Both were eager to see Amy and the baby but wanted to give the new family their space. Rory gently handed his daughter over to his mum while the Doctor fiercely hugged Amy.
Rory rocked on his heels almost nervously. "So, your newest granddaughter. What do you think?"
"Oh, sweetheart," Rose gushed. "She's so pretty. Does she have a name?"
"Melody Rose Tyler-Pond," Amy excitedly replied, happy to tell her mum that she'd named the baby after her.
Gently, Rose handed the baby over to the Doctor and enveloped Amy in a tight hug. "I'm so honored, my love, and I am so glad to have the two of you safely back."
The Doctor was concentrating on the little girl in his arms. "Hello, Melody, I'm your…" He trailed off, not quite sure what Rory and Amy would want their child to call him.
"Granddad," Rory cut in. "Melody, this is your granddad. He means well, but he will probably muck lots of things up and drive you batty trying to teach you all sorts of Time Lord things. Try and cut him some slack, yeah?"
The Doctor looked indignant and Melody cooed, blowing little bubbles of spittle. "Conspiring against me so soon? Well, you will fit into this family like a glove. And I heard that. Stop making fun of my bow tie. It's cool."
"Ah, so he thinks he can speak baby, too," Amy teased, remembering James talking to EJ after she was born.
The Doctor shot her a withering look and continued to speak to Melody. "I'm sure as soon as you can walk you'll be wandering off. You are probably going to be just as jeopardy friendly as your gran. Although your mum comes in a very close second in that." The Doctor kissed his granddaughter's head and passed her back to her mum.
He rubbed his hands together and wrapped an arm around Rose's waist. "Now, how about we get out of this sterile room and introduce this little beauty to all the eagerly awaiting members of her family."
Surreptitiously, Amy picked up a framed photo of her and Melody. She had no desire to leave a picture of her daughter behind.
"And of course they are eager to see you too, Amy," Rose added as they left the room.
Amy smiled a bright, genuine smile that was so wide it almost hurt. "Of course they want to see me. I'm amazing and they love me."
The four of them bantered as they made their way down to the main bay. It felt so normal, so much like being home, making their way through an enemy spacecraft, laughing and joking the entire time.
Except now she and Rory had a baby, a perfect, beautiful baby girl. They may have to slow down for a few years, raise her with weekend adventures the same way that Mum and Dad had raised Rory, Tony and Sabrina. She might miss some of the running but it would be worth it to show Melody the stars in relative safety.
Fifteen minutes later, Rose leaned against the side of the TARDIS. She watched as Sabrina, Tony and Trisha came back from scouring the base, making sure that everyone had been shipped off to the Judoon. They joined Rory who was studying a wall monitor, trying to shut down the nonessential systems before they left the base.
This had seemed too easy. Honestly, she had expected more of a fight. These people had kidnapped her daughter and granddaughter, not an easy feat, and yet they had simply held up their hands in surrender. Something didn't sit right with her.
"I don't like it," Jenny said without preamble as she came to stand next to her mum. "It was too…"
"Simple," Rose agreed.
"We need to talk to Dad." Jenny bit her lip. "It doesn't feel right. They left without a single drop of blood being spilt."
Rose snorted. "Unless you count the bloody nose Brina ended up giving that guard who mouthed off."
"Yeah, well they should have known better than to mess with my sister," Jenny chuckled but turned serious again. "This feels like a trap."
Rose nodded. "We should have everyone leave while we can." Before Jenny could agree, Amy came out of the purplish TARDIS holding a screaming Melody.
Qu
ickly, Rory moved to his wife's side. "Hey, what's wrong?"
"She doesn't like the TARDIS noise." Amy made a soothing shhing sound as she rubbed Melody's back. "I asked Dad to turn something off, but he was all, 'But I don't want to punch a hole in the space-time continuum'. Git."
"He has a point," Rory replied without considering Amy's reaction, but he shrank back when she gave him a steely glare. "Maybe she's hungry?"
"I just fed her," Amy replied, shaking her head. "And can't you just ask her? What is the point of having a telepathic, part Time Lord husband if I still have to guess what's wrong with the baby." She winked at him and handed her to her dad.
Rose stepped forward. "She's tired. See the way she's scrunching her nose? Rory used to do that when he was tired. So did Tony and Jamie for that matter. EJ would rub her eyes."
"Aww," Amy cooed. "She is just like her daddy."
The Doctor burst out of his TARDIS holding an old wooden cot with Gallifreyan writing. With a flourish he set it down in front of Rory and Amy.
"What's this?" Amy asked, examining the stars on the mobile.
"Very pretty, according to my granddaughter," he preened. His obviously pride at having another grandchild was radiating off of him. For a man who had lost his entire family once, his new one was rapidly expanding and he couldn't be happier. "Give her here." He held out his arms expectantly and Rory handed Melody to him.
"It's a cot, an old one," Rory said, studying the inscriptions. The corners of his mouth twitched into a smile. "This was your cot."
"Yes, it was, a very long time ago." The Doctor grinned down at the baby. "Ah, I think she likes it." He raised a hand to his head. "No, it's real. It's my hair."
Rose giggled. "Sounds a bit rude, this one. She'll fit in around here."
"She's beautiful," Tony said, coming up and wrapping Amy in a hug. "Good thing she got your nose and not his."
"Oi," Rory protested. "You stupid ape."
"Oh, shut up, Cub." Tony grinned. "I guess I can't call you baby Time Lord anymore."
Trisha made a shushing noise and pointed to the now sleeping baby. "You don't want to wake her, do you?"
Quietly Sabrina and Jenny made their way over too. Both hugged Amy in turn but Sabrina kept an arm looped around the red head's waist. Their heads were tilted towards one another in such a way that their foreheads touched.
"Dad," Amy said quietly. "I still don't understand. I was here the entire time, but I remember being with you, all of you, traveling, or back in London. How…" Her voice cracked slightly. "How is that possible?"
The Doctor walked over and took her hand. "You were on the TARDIS too—your heart, mind and soul. But physically, yes, you were still in this place."
"And when I saw that face looking through the hatch?" Amy asked, already knowing the answer. "That woman, Kovarian, looking at me?"
"Reality bleeding through." He kissed her temple. "We figure that they must have taken you quite awhile back. Just before America."
"Your Flesh avatar was with us all that time," Rose said, coming up to Rory's side and taking her son's hand. "They were clever enough to project the control signal through the TARDIS to wherever you went in time and space. Dad and I figured it out but we couldn't say anything. We couldn't be sure they weren't listening."
"And we didn't tell Rory either," the Doctor added, squeezing Amy's hand. "Not until the very end. We couldn't let him keep this kind of secret. I'm sorry that this happened and that we couldn't find you sooner."
Amy swallowed a lump in her throat and nodded. "But what did they want? With me and with Melody?"
"That is what we still need to figure out." The Doctor squeezed her hand again, stepped back and turned to another one of his daughters. "Jenny, take everyone back to London. Your mum and I have some things to take care of here, but I want all of you away from here as soon as possible."
"No dawdling," Rose lightly chastised her son. "The Doctor and I won't be long and it will be nice to have all of my children and grandchildren under one roof."
Amy shuddered. "Trust me. I have no desire to stay here any longer than necessary."
"Right." The Doctor clapped his hands together. "Things to do. Rose and I still gotta work out what this base is for. We will see you all soon." He squeezed Rory's shoulder before taking Rose's hand.
The pair slipped away swiftly, not wanting to spend any more time here than they needed to. When they were halfway back to the main control room, Rose told the Doctor of her suspicions. "They gave up without a real fight. Why go to all this trouble and the elaborate hoax of the Flesh avatar just to hold up their hands in surrender. I have a bad feeling about this."
"I know what you mean. The sooner they get off the base and we figure this out the better." He smiled wolfishly down at her. "Run!"
Rose couldn't help but giggle as they reached their destination. "Right, so what exactly are we looking for?" she asked, heading to a nearby workstation. Over the years, she'd learned a lot about alien computers but she was nowhere near as good as Trisha, let alone Rory or the Doctor.
"We need to know what they did to Amy and Melody." The Doctor sat down at one of the terminals and his fingers flew over the keys. "Remind me later to run a full medical diagnostic on both of them."
Her heart sank. "You don't think that they ran experiments on either of them, do you?" She knew that the answer was most likely a yes and the only response that she got from the Doctor was a very slight nod of the head.
Uneasily she shifted from one foot to the other as she scanned the least encrypted files in the system. She was surprised to find that so many files had a low level of protection. Just as she was going to mention this the Doctor made a whooping noise. Rose was by his side in a heartbeat.
"I'm in." He looked delighted as he opened several files. "And I think I know what they were looking at." His face fell slightly.
"What?" She asked biting her lip.
"Melody's TNA, specifically her TARDIS genetics. Maybe a little bit of the part of her that's Time Lord. Nevertheless, it's what I feared; they want the part of her that can tap into the Bad Wolf." He roughly pushed his chair back and started pacing.
"But why? What do they think they can use the Bad Wolf for?" Rose turned back to the monitor and let him think out loud.
"Idris said that Bad Wolf only came out through an act of love," the Doctor mumbled. "Yet they couldn't know that."
"What if they meant to turn her into a weapon," Rose pondered. "If they've seen what Rory and I can do...they might think that Melody would be capable of it too."
The Doctor stopped and turned to face her. "A child is not a weapon!"
Her eyes softened. After all the things that he had seen, he still hated the mistreatment of the innocent. He hated people twisting and bending others to their will. After all this time, he knew what people were capable of and still was hesitant to believe it until they forced him to.
Behind them a screen flickered into life, and it was filled with the unmistakable face of Madame Kovarian. "I see you accessed our files. Do you understand yet? Oh, don't worry. I'm a long way away. But I like to keep tabs on what files are accessed, especially when it comes to the child. What do you think?"
"What did you want her for?" Rose ground out.
"She is our hope. Hope in this endless, bitter war." Kovarian smiled.
The Doctor looked confused. "What war? Against who?"
The evil woman sneered. "Against the two of you. Against the Doctor and his Bad Wolf."
"Melody is not some pawn in your chess game," the Doctor yelled.
Madame Kovarian sneered. "Oh, give us time. She will become our greatest asset."
"Except you don't have her anymore," Rose growled, the tiniest flecks of gold glowing in her eyes. "And we will never let you near her again."
"Oh, the two of you are so trusting." Kovarian laughed. "Fooling you once was a joy. But fooling you twice the same way? It's a privilege."
The screen cut out and the Doctor turned to Rose. His eyes were wild and she knew that he was putting it all together. She knew the moment he put all the pieces together because she felt the panic rise in him. "Flesh! No, no, no, no." He grabbed her hand and pulled her from the room.
A locked door stood in their way and both pulled out their sonic screwdrivers and set to work on the door. Both were yelling that it was a trap, reaching out with their minds to Rory, to let him know that Melody wasn't Melody.
But they could feel the sorrow emanating off their son and knew it was already too late.
Demons run when a good man goes to war
Night will fall and drown the sun
When a good man goes to war
Friendship dies and true love lies
Night will fall and the dark will rise
When a good man goes to war
Demon's Run, but count the cost
The battle's won but the child is lost
A chill ran deep through Rory's veins as he surveyed the carnage. It had all happened so fast. One minute they were happy and about to head into the TARDIS to go back to London. The next minute, they were under attack by the Headless Monks.
Overall, they were lucky. Sabrina had narrowly missed a swipe of one of the Headless Monk's blades. But Lorna Bucket, the brave woman who came to warn them that this wasn't over, was going to pay for her kindness with her life.
Tony was attending to her. Normally, Rory would be helping but right now he felt completely numb. It had been a set up, and as grateful as he was that Amy was safe, their daughter was still out there somewhere. The worst of it, though, was that he knew when and where they would find her and that made bile rise in his throat.
The sound of running footsteps caused him to look up. His mum and dad looked around in horror. "We know," Rory said in a resigned tone. He looked towards his wife, and the Doctor and Rose's gaze followed his.
Amy was perched on a box. Jenny sat behind her, rubbing circles on her back. "So they took her anyway. All this was for nothing."
Rose took a step towards Amy. "I am so sorry." The younger woman stood abruptly and skittered away.
"Amy," Jenny said softly, "it's not her fault."
"I know," Amy quietly replied, tears streaming down her face. "I know." Turning on her heel, she ran over to Rory and let him hold her.
"Mum, Dad," Tony called from the other side of the room. "There's someone who wants to speak to you. Her name is Lorna. She came to warn us, saved our lives."
Rose bent down and took Lorna's cool, pale hand. "Hello."
"The Doctor and Rose Tyler." Lorna gave a weak smile.
Taking her other hand, the Doctor said, "You helped our family. Thank you."
Lorna's breath rattled in her chest. "I met you both once. In the Gamma Forests." Her fingers tightened on theirs with as much strength as she could muster. "You don't remember me."
"Oh Lorna, 'course we remember." Rose brushed a free hand over the dying woman's brow.
"We remember everyone." The Doctor smiled encouragingly. "Hey, we ran, you, me and Rose. Didn't we run, Lorna?"
Shakily, Lorna nodded. "Yes, we did." The brave young woman took one last painful breath and stopped clinging to life. Leaning down, Rose closed Lorna's eyes and placed a gentle kiss on her forehead.
"Who was she?" Tony asked respectfully.
"Don't know. We haven't met her yet," the Doctor said, helping Rose to her feet.
"She was very brave," Tony told his parents.
"They're always brave, Tony." He clapped his son on the shoulder. "They're always brave."
"So what do we do now?" Rose sent her thoughts to the Doctor. "She could be anywhere in time and space."
The Doctor shook his head sadly. "No, they took her to Earth and it's already too late."
"What?" Rose was confused. "You're giving up? You never do that."
"1969, Rose. The little girl in the space suit."
"No!" She brought a hand up to cover her mouth. "It can't..." she whispered as the tears started to fall. The Doctor enveloped her in his arms and whispered empty promises that everything would be alright.
A flash of light alerted everyone that they had a new arrival.
"Well then," River Song said lightly as if she didn't know exactly what had happened here. "How goes the day?"
"Where the hell have you been?" Rose thundered. "After everything that we have been through. Everything that we will be through, you couldn't have warned us! Damn the laws of time, you should have told us."
River smiled sadly. "I couldn't have prevented this."
"You could have tried," the Doctor lashed out at her. "You could have stopped this from happening."
"No, she couldn't have." Rory pulled away from Amy and came to stand directly in front of River. "She couldn't have told us because she couldn't change her own past. No matter how much she wanted to."
Raising a hand, Rory cupped River's cheek. "You're Melody. Our Melody."
No one said a word. No one understood how River could Melody or how Rory could have possibly known.
"Yes, I am Melody." River wiped away an errant tear. "I am your daughter. Dad…"
Rory pulled her tightly to him. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry for what you've been through." Dropping his mental shields, he sent wave after wave of love and acceptance to his daughter.
"How?" Amy asked, confusion and disbelief filling her voice. "No, you're River. How could you possibly be Melody?"
Turning towards her mother, River took Amy's hand. It took a tremendous amount of effort for Amy to stop herself from flinching.
"The prayer leaf? Do you still have it?" River asked softly.
Amy reached a hand into her pocket and pulled out Lorna's gift. "My daughter's name, but I can't read it. The TARDIS hasn't translated it."
"The old girls have been hiding it from you," River calmly explained. "They'll translate it now. You have to concentrate."
Breaking her gaze away from River, Amy stared at the embroidered name.
"In the Forest, children take their mother's name and this in the language of the Forest." River continued. "Except, they don't have a word for pond, because the only water in the forest is the river."
Before Amy's eyes, the words changed. One side read River and the other read Song. River Song, Melody Pond… Melody Song… Pond River. Amy gasped. "Melody?"
River nodded. "Yes, Mum."
"Oh my God," Amy cried, dropping the prayer leaf and enfolding her daughter in her. "Melody, my Melody." Rory wrapped his arms around his girls.
"Come on," the Doctor said, motioning for everyone to follow him. "Let's give them some time alone."