Several hours after Rory had broken the news to Amy that their daughter was the little girl from 1969, he, Amy, Rose and the Doctor stood in the console room. Jenny had gone to rescue Melody using her Vortex Manipulator. They would then meet up at Tony and Trisha's in order to give young Melody a safe place to acclimate to her family.

"Do I look alright?" Amy asked, quietly pulling on the hem of her blouse. She had spent time carefully doing her hair and makeup for this meeting. Less than a week ago she had been holding a baby in her arms. Yesterday she had been hugging her daughter who was technically older than she was and today she would be getting a little girl back. A little girl who had been raised in isolation by monsters.

"You look beautiful," Rory whispered, taking her hand and sending her feelings of love and comfort through their bond. This was difficult for Rory as well and not just for the obvious reasons. Something wasn't sitting right about River just coming out and saying she was their daughter.

Not that he didn't believe her, he absolutely did. But that kind of revelation seemed like it too much foreknowledge to give them. Maybe it had been a clue? A warning? He really had no idea, but it didn't sit right.

The Doctor cleared his throat. "Are we ready?" Amy nodded and everyone began the synchronized routine of piloting the TARDIS to the correct coordinates in time and space. With a soft thump, the ship landed in what they thought was the spare bedroom at Tony's London house. It still amazed the Doctor that the addition of Rose and Rory as pilots tended to make their landings less bumpy.

Hesitantly, Rory and Amy made their way over to the door. Pushing it open, they stepped out... into a cornfield. Rose and the Doctor were only a few paces behind them. "What the... where are we?" Rose asked looking around.

"I know that Dad's a bad driver," Amy joked lightly. "But I figured that with the two of you helping we wouldn't be this lost."

"Where are we?" the Doctor asked, spinning in a slow circle.

Rory snorted. "Outside of Leadworth, in the Miller's corn field. That grove of trees over there..." he pointed into the distance, "is where Amy and I would spend our afternoons growing up. The real question is, why are we here? Why did the old girl bring us here?"

Before anyone could answer, the sound of car engines and distant sirens broke through the quiet countryside. There were no roads close to here, but that engine was definitely getting closer.

Very soon, they saw a sleek, black sports car tearing across the field, the police in close pursuit. Screaming, the four of them scrambled out of the way. Within less than a minute it was only a hundred meters away and on a collision course with the TARDIS. At the very last moment, the car turned and ended up only a few inches from hitting the time ship. The door opened and out slid...

"Mels!" Amy yelled. "What do you think that you're doing?"

Their friend grinned. "Coming to find you, of course. Today's the day."

"The day for what, exactly?" the Doctor asked at the same time Rose spoke.

"Where did you get the car, young lady?" Rose crossed her arms, looking stern.

"Nan!" Mels exclaimed, turning to Rose. The younger woman flinched and brought a hand momentarily to her head. "It's mine... ish."

Amy sighed. "Oh, Mels. Not again."

"I thought that you were passed this." Rose shook her head. "You're gonna end up in prison."

"Nope," Mels replied, popping the p. "Today is the last day that I'm going to be stuck on this stupid rock." With a smirk, she pulled out a revolver. Her hands trembled slightly as she held them at gunpoint.

"Mels!" Amy screamed.

"Put it away," Rose admonished.

Rory sighed, not really in the mood. "For god's sake!"

"I don't understand," the Doctor said, surveying the scene. "Why exactly are you doing this?"

Mels shrugged. "I need out of here now."

Stepping forward, Rose pushed the weapon down. "Sweetie, all you had to do was ask. Anywhere in particular?"

There was a twinkle in her eye as Mels replied. "Well. let's see. You've got a time machine; I've got a gun. What the hell, let's kill Hitler."

Berlin, 1938

The crew of the Teselecta, a shape shifting, time traveling machine, had selected its newest form. Herrick Zimmerman was a loyal member of the Nazi party and guilty of category three hate crimes. He was the perfect form to take in order give justice to one of the most ruthless men of 20th century Earth, Adolf Hitler.

Tesselecta Zimmer stepped into the Führer's private office. "What do you want?" Hitler demanded. "Who let you in here?"

"Do not call for help," the Tesselecta said calmly. "This room has been sound screened. You have been found guilty. Justice mode activating." A beam of light shot out of the open mouth of Zimmerman, trapping Hitler. The man's body convulsed in pain.

Inside the machine, the captain leaned forward in his seat. "Hang on. This is 1938. We're too early. We need to go later in his time stream."

"Something else," a woman at the console interjected. "We've got incoming."

Thick, billowy clouds of smoke filled the console room. The fumes were noxious and burned at the back of Mels' throat. She worried for her mum and Nan since neither one of them had respiratory bypass.

"You shot it!" the Doctor exclaimed, bustling around the controls. "You shot my TARDIS! You shot the console!"

"It's your fault!" Mels yelled indignantly and heard a tinkling laugh in the back of her mind. Looking all around, she couldn't find the source of the laughter, but it soothed the pounding headache she had.

"How is it my fault?" the Doctor demanded.

"She didn't do it on purpose," Rose defended. "Something's off here. This isn't like you, Mels."

The throbbing in her head increased. Her mental shields had been weakened by the attack by Kovarian and now her mind was battling itself. Part of her was wanting, needing to complete the task that had been implanted in her head. Another part felt such an intense loyalty to a family that didn't even know who she was that she didn't think that she could do it.

The only thing that she could do right now was argue. "You said guns didn't work in this place. You said we're in a state of temporal grace."

"He was lying," Rory replied, half laughing over the ridiculousness of the situation.

The Doctor was indignant now. "Oh yes, I was lying and that was a clever lie, you idiot! Anyone could tell that was a clever lie!"

"Don't worry, my love. I'll be perfectly alright," a voice in her head said and filled her mind with a haunting yet familiar melody.

Mels stared at the time rotor in awe. She had heard that song before, or at least a similar one. It had comforted her when she had been sad and lonely growing up in Leadworth. It had been the strongest those times she had been at Pops and Nan's house and now she knew what it had to be their TARDIS. And now she could hear her voice.

"Everything happens for a reason," the ship said enigmatically.

"And what's that supposed to mean?" Mels thought back but the ship simply went back to singing.

Unfortunately, the TARDIS' voice wasn't the only voice in her head today. The other was a near constant thrumming. Several words repeated over and over again. 'The time is now. Time to bring them to their knees. They are stronger together. Kill one, weaken the other. Kill, Kill.' The harder Melody pushed these thoughts away the more her head throbbed.

Every time she opened her mouth to tell her family what was happening, her head throbbed again and no words came out. It was as if someone else had taken over her mind and body. She had some level of influence, but ultimately she wasn't the one calling the shots.

With a heavy thud, the ship landed.

"Out! Out! Out!" Rose screamed, ushering everyone towards the doors.

The Doctor placed a hand at the small of Rose's back and pushed her in the direction of the exit. "Everybody out! Don't need to be smoked to death. Get out!"

Once outside the door, Mels took in lungs full of clean air.

"Where are we?" Amy asked.

"When are we?" Rose asked, turning on a slow circle, stopping when her eyes fell upon a red banner emblazoned with a Nazi swastika. "Oh no," she whispered.

Mels felt something palpable in the air. This must be something that her time senses were picking up. She'd read so much about these types of things but had yet to experience anything like this. It was heavy and unmovable and part of her wanted to run away from it. Instinctively, she made a move towards the TARDIS door.

The Doctor turned in her direction. "Mels, don't go in there. Bad smoke, don't breathe the bad, bad smoke. Bad deadly smoke. Because somebody shot my TARDIS!"

Rory leaned over someone who Mels thought looked like Henrick Zimmerman. Mels had an eidetic memory, and they had studied World War Two. Well, she had a photographic memory for almost everything that had happened post her first regeneration.

"Mum, this guy. I think he's hurt," Rory said, checking for a pulse.

Coming closer to her son, Rose tugged on his arm. "Rory, just leave him alone. We need to get out of here."

Across the room a man stood up from behind the desk. The Doctor turned to greet him, not yet realizing where they were "Oo! Hello. Sorry. Is this your office? Had a sort of collision with my... vehicle. Fault's on both sides, let's say no more about—" His face fell as he realized just whose office they were in. "… it," he finished lamely.

"No way," Amy breathed.

Adolf Hitler straightened his uniform. "Thank you. Whoever you are. I think you have just saved my life."

The Doctor swallowed and sounded slightly disappointed. "Believe me. It was an accident."

"Oh shit," Rose said a little too loudly and Mels snickered. She'd rarely heard her Nan curse. Rory shot her a reprimanding look and she clapped a hand over her mouth. It really was a little funny.

Her head throbbed again, and she only just managed to keep herself from doubling over in pain. It was getting harder to fight the urges that were bubbling up from within.

"What did he mean, we just saved his life?" Amy's eyes darted between Rory and Hitler. "We could not have just saved Hitler."

Letting out a low growl, the Doctor turned towards Melody. "You see? Time travel. It never goes to plan."

There was an anger in his eyes that Mels had never seen before. Certainly, Pops had never looked at her this angrily before. Well, he'd been angry with her plenty of times, but Mels had never messed with timelines before.

"This box, what is it?" Hitler asked, laying a hand on the TARDIS. Everyone in the room shuddered.

Smirking, the Doctor said, "It's a police telephone box from London, England. That's right, Adolf. The British are coming."

Behind the Doctor, Zimmerman stood up. Hitler drew his service revolver and fired. The Doctor barely managed to avoid being hit. Zimmerman took two of the three bullets fired. The other found a different mark.

The searing pain in her abdomen was the first indication the bullet had struck her. The second was the growing stain of blood on her blouse. Damn, this was not how today was supposed to go. It was supposed to be 'hi, Mum and Dad, I'm your long lost daughter'. No, instead it was 'let's have monsters implant things in your head to try and make you do things you don't want to do'. And now, 'oh look, I get shot as payback for what I did to the TARDIS and now I may have to regenerate.' Mels could feel that the bullet had done some major damage.

Looking up, she saw her father punch Hitler and disarm him.

"He was trying to kill me," the German explained, holding up his hands.

Rory pulled back the hammer on the gun. "Shut up, Hitler."

"Take Hitler and put him in the closet," the Doctor said, waving his hand in the direction of a cupboard.

"Come on, here you go." Rory roughly pulled the man to his feet and pushed him into the small space. The Furher protested but Rory wasn't listening. Slamming the door shut, Rory pulled out his sonic and secured the door. Mels smiled despite the pain. Her dad, the hero.

Zimmerman was caught as he fell by Amy. "Oi, mate, are you alright?"

"Oh, yes," the Tesselecta replied.

Inside the Teselecta, the woman, Anita turned to the captain. "Sir, what do we do now?"

Another man, Jim, raised his hand. "Suggestion. We should go into surveillance mode."

"Agreed." Carter, the captain, nodded. "Let's faint." And the Tessalecta fainted dead away.

While Rory, Rose and the Doctor were discussing their fainting friend, Mels took in a large gurgling, rattling breath.

Amy turned to her friend, full of concern. "Mels?"

Somehow, Mels was managing to keep herself upright. With the pounding words in her head and the searing pain in her abdomen, this was not turning out to be an ideal day. "Hitler," she managed to whisper.

"What about him, love?" Rose asked, coming closer to her.

Mels lifted her hand to reveal the bloodstain. "Lousy shot." Falling backwards, she collapsed onto the remains of a broken table.

Back inside the Teselecta, Jim studied his screen. "Sir, that blue box. I've got a match. If we're trying to bag war criminals, we've got the biggest one ever right under our noses. Forget Hitler. We take this one down, the Justice Department will give us the rest of the year off."

Carter came up behind him to study the information. "You sure?"

Nodding, Jim replied. "There's no question. It's her."

Rory and Amy each took one of Mels' hands while the Doctor applied pressure to her wound. Rose gently stroked her hair. "This isn't how today was supposed to go, Nan."

"How was it supposed to go, sweetheart?" Rose asked softly.

Mels tightened her grip on each of her parent's hands . "It was supposed to be a happy family reunion." She grimaced in pain. The TARDIS song was louder in her head. Not loud enough to drown out the other, more sinister voice.

"Why do we need a reunion, Melody?" Rose continued to stroke her hair. "We are family. We have always been family, blood related or not."

"Oh, Nan," Mels sighed. "None of you ever figured it out. My brilliant grandmother, my genius grandfather and my clever father never put together the pieces."

"Mels? What do you mean, figure it out?" Amy sounded almost desperate.

"Oh, Mum," Mels squeezed Amy's hand, delighted at being able to say it, to call Amy her mum. "Penny in the air." The TARDIS's voice echoed in her head. "Let go. Give into the warmth. Give into the light."

Four sets of eyes widened in shock, disbelief and just a little sadness. "Penny drops." Mels began to shimmer with a faint but unmistakable golden glow.

"What going on?" Amy asked in disbelief.

"Back, back, back!" the Doctor yelled. "Get back!" Everyone scrambled backwards.

"I'm running through these rather quickly." Mels painfully hauled herself to her feet. The pain was already starting to dissipate. Regeneration energy had started to heal the wound. It burned deep within her. She held up a hand and watched the glow starting to grow brighter. "I don't even remember the first time in happened."

"Melody," Amy sobbed. "You're Melody Rose, our Melody." Mels nodded. "I named my daughter after you." Amy made a sound that was half laugh, half sob.

"You named your daughter after your daughter," the Doctor said, sounding slightly bemused and more than a little horrified.

Mels smiled. "I had to wait years until I could be placed in a foster home near you. I'm so glad I did. There, you see? It all worked out in the end, didn't it? You got to raise me after all. And I got to know Pops. How many people can do that, eh? Get to get to know a grandfather who died before they were even born."

"Time travelers," Rose said softly. "I got to meet my dad, and he died when I was a baby."

"Exactly, Nan." Mels nodded. "And how wonderful that must have been."

"You're Melody," Amy repeated lamely.

Rory looked back and forth between his parents, his wife and his daughter. "But if she's Melody, that means that she's also—"

"Oh shut up, Dad. I'm focusing on a dress size." She burst into golden flames and burned. Her features bubbled and reformed.

"Well, I guess this effectively ends the debate over whether I can regenerate or not," she heard her father say through the roaring noise in her ears. Almost as soon as it had started, it was over.

It felt, well, it felt weird. New teeth, new legs, new everything, oh, she needed to find a mirror. The voice in her head was louder now, urging her to do what she did not want to do. So she distracted everyone, including herself. "Look at this hair," she exclaimed, looking into a mirror over a fireplace.

"There's just so much of it, and it's so curly. Look at these curves!" She actually squealed. "I'm all sort of... mature." She clicked her teeth together. A manic sort of energy coursed through her veins. She only wished it would still the pounding in her head. "The teeth. The teeth! The teeth! Oh. look at them!"

Time to act. Time to kill. Echoed around in her head. Turning around, she faced them. "Excuse me, you lot. I need to weigh myself." She ran out of the room, waiting just on the other side of the door.

"Wow, I just… after everything, I just can't believe it." Rose's voice came through the open door.

"That's Melody." Amy sighed.

"That's River Song." The Doctor sounded flummoxed.

"That's our daughter," Rory replied and Mels could swear that she could hear more than a hint of pride in his voice.

Wait, what had granddad just referred to her as? Mels poked her head around the corner. "Who's River Song?"

"Spoilers," Rose said, trying hard not to giggle.

Something about hearing her Nan's voice was both comforting and grating. It made her simultaneously want to give in to to those urges implanted into her brain and to push them away. "Spoilers? What's spoilers?" Mels tilted her head to the side as a raging tidal wave of pain overtook her. "Hang on, just something I have to check."

Once around the corner, she leaned heavily into the wall. With trembling fingers, she retrieved a small pouch from around her neck. She was fighting a losing battle as she removed what looked like a large thorn and positioned it between her fingers.

Please no! She wanted to scream. But she couldn't, although she could hear and feel the orders of that evil woman burning through her brain, she was helpless against them. If she could verbalize what was going on she would. And then Mum, Dad, Nan and Granddad could save her and they could stop what was inevitably about to happen.

The Captain of the Teselecta drummed his fingers. That's her all right. Melody Tyler-Pond, the woman who kills the Doctor and the Bad Wolf.

Once the poisoned thorn was in place, Mels (she wasn't sure that name fit any more) continued to fight an internal battle. Mentally she felt drained and she closed her eyes for just one second and the battle was lost. The commands that Kovarian's henchmen had implanted took over and wouldn't let go until the job was done.

A wild, possessed gleam now shone from River's eyes. With a flourish, she whipped around the corner and back into Hitler's office in time to hear the end of one of the Doctor's speeches.

"This isn't the River Song we know yet. This is her right at the start. She doesn't even know her name."

"Well, enough of all that." Mels smirked. "Down to business."

"Yes, exactly," Rory replied. "Do you mind telling us how you ended up as a child in Leadworth?"

Mels shrugged. "I don't know many of the details. Honestly, I don't remember a thing before my first regeneration. May want to ask Hannah; she always seemed to be the one with the answers, when I was growing up. I only know what was in the file and that one book."

"Hannah?" Amy's eyes narrowed. "Trisha's mum?"

"One and the same, Mother. Gold star." Mels made her way closer to the group.

"Alright, another mystery to solve," Rory said, shaking his head.

Rose stepped forward and looked Mels straight in the eye. "What I don't understand is why you felt the need to point a gun at us in order to get into the TARDIS. Or why you felt the need to steal a car."

"Oh, Nan." Mels raised the hand with the thorn to Rose's arm. She brushed it lightly across her Nan's skin. It barely broke the skin, but it was enough to seal her fate. "I did it because they made me."

The pressure in her head dissipated slightly. She dropped the thorn to the ground and crushed it beneath her heel. "I'm sorry," Mels sobbed, clutching her head. "I didn't want to, please believe me. They made me. I'm sorry, but it's too late." She dropped to her knees.

Amy rushed over and wrapped her arms around her daughter. "What is she talking about? Who made her do what?"

The pressure on her head eased slightly but was replaced by a maniacal laughter.

"What she's programmed to," the Doctor said sadly. "Demon's Run. Remember? This is what they were building. A weapon."

"But she hasn't done anything yet." Rory looked frantic. "Well, she has at Lake Silencio, to Dad, but we're going to stop that."

"What are you talking about?" Rose asked, taking an unsteady step.

"I don't have time to explain that right now," Rory said a little harshly. "River, I mean Mels, please, what do you mean it's already too late?"

"I wouldn't have done it if they hadn't made me. It hurts, my head, what they did." Mels buried her head in her mother's shoulder. "It's done, and I've killed her."

Rory was next to his daughter in an instant; his fingers went to her temples. "Oh sweetheart, what did they do to you?"

Mels felt him inside her head. She knew he'd never harm her, knew that he was there to help but after the earlier invasion she wanted to get away. A wolf howled somewhere in the deepest recess of her mind.

It was all too much. With all of her might she pushed away from her parents. She had to escape. She had just brought about her grandmother's death. Nan meant so much to her and with the slightest graze of a thorn, she had done the unthinkable.

Mels was at the window the TARDIS had crashed through in a flash. "I'm sorry. I waited so many years for today. To tell you who I am and to rejoin the family. It just couldn't work out like that. I am never going to get a happy ending. All I have done today is ruin the family. Mum, Dad, don't follow me. I'm dangerous."

"Well, I don't care if you think you're dangerous. You are still a member of this family, always have been." Rose replied, taking a step forward and losing her balance.

The Doctor barely caught her before she fell to the ground. "River, what did you do?"

"I'm not River. I don't know who River is, and I'm not even sure who I am anymore." Mels turned and bolted out the open window.

"Mum, what's wrong with you? What has she done to you?" Rory knelt down beside Rose.

"I think she was poisoned," the Doctor replied, examining Rose's arm. "River, Mels scratched her with something. See?" He turned her arm so Amy and Rory could see the scratch that was now blistered and bright red.

"Why would she do that?" Amy asked, a tear escaping from her eye.

"Because someone brainwashed her," Rory answered quickly. "They broke through her mental defenses and they made her do this. I was in her head; they did some damage. Nothing that can't be repaired but they hurt her."

"And she's your daughter," the Doctor said softly. "Go after her. I'll take care of Rose. Your mum will be fine. Go get your daughter."

"Yeah," Rory agreed, standing and pulling Amy to her feet. "We'll be back. Keep her safe, Dad." Rose made a gasping sound and all eyes turned to her.

"On my life," the Doctor promised.