AN: I've made several changes to the story in the Library. It's amazing what you can do with this story when you're not trying to give the Doctor a woman he's fated to fall in love with.
The Library. Vashta Nerada. An archaeologist who greeted him like she'd known him her entire life. And now, Donna was gone. Standing in the Library near the edge of the shadows, the Doctor felt his tenuous control of his emotions reaching a breaking point.
He clenched his jaw and dedicated half his brain to figuring out how to find Donna and save the surviving members of the Lux expedition, while using the other half to shamelessly eavesdrop on Professor Melody Pond as she told her associates about him.
There's no way she's a future companion, he thought. I'd never travel with an archaeologist.
"He doesn't act like he trusts you," Anita said astutely.
Professor Pond tucked a strand of straight, brown hair back behind her ear. "Yeah, there's a tiny problem. He hasn't met me yet."
The Doctor heard her footsteps coming toward him, but he was more focused on getting the sonic screwdriver to work. It seemed like something was interfering with it, but… He held it up to his ear and listened. Yep. Definitely interference.
"What's wrong with it?" Professor Pond asked.
The Doctor tapped the screwdriver lightly and tried it again. "There's a signal coming from somewhere, interfering with it."
"Then use the red settings."
His gaze flicked over to her, then he went back to fiddling with his sonic. "It doesn't have a red setting."
"Well, use the dampers," she said as she took her gloves off.
"It doesn't have dampers." Who is this woman and why does she think she knows my sonic screwdriver better than I do?
She pulled the sonic screwdriver she'd used earlier out of her pocket. "Hmmm. I guess mine is better," she said.
The Doctor snatched it from her hands and stood up. "So, some time in the future, I just give you my screwdriver."
She snatched it back. "No. At some point in the future, you give me my own screwdriver."
"Why would I do that?"
"Present when I graduated from uni," she said breezily.
"Professor Pond, I could on one hand the number of people I've given a sonic device to. I didn't even give one to—" He clamped his mouth shut before he mentioned Rose. If Melody Pond was a fraud, as he suspected, it wouldn't do to give her any more personal information to use against him.
Melody shook her head. "Doctor, one day I'm going to be someone that you trust completely, but I can't wait for you to find that out. So I'm going to prove it to you."
The Doctor watched warily as this strange woman leaned in to put her mouth by his ear. Then his hearts stopped when he heard two words:
"Bad Wolf."
Melody Pond dropped back to the floor, but the Doctor ignored her, focused on those two words that always meant Rose was coming back to him. It had been six months since he'd seen her in London, and when the TARDIS still hadn't found another crack, he'd almost given up.
"Are we good?"
He stared at her without really seeing her.
"Doctor, are we good?" she repeated, in the tone you'd use to bring someone out of shock.
The Doctor swallowed. "Yeah, we're good," he told her. Bad Wolf… we're more than good if Rose is coming back.
She had a knowing smile on her face. "Good."
oOoOoOoOo
Escaping from the Vashta Nerada that had taken over the bodies of Dave and Other Dave had been a close call, but the Doctor managed to pull himself back up into the Library and find the few remaining members of his party. When he found them, Melody was talking in a soft, wistful voice.
"You know when you see a photograph of someone you know, but it's from years before you knew them. And it's like… they're not quite finished. They're not done yet. Well, yes, the Doctor's here. He came when I called, just like he always does."
The Doctor raised his eyebrows and filed that piece of information away.
"But not my Doctor," she continued. "Now my Doctor, I've seen whole armies turn and run away. And he'd just swagger off back to his TARDIS and open the doors with a snap of his fingers. The Doctor and Rose Tyler in the TARDIS. Next stop, everywhere."
His hearts leapt when she said Rose's name, and he knew he had to stop her before she gave anything else away. "Spoilers. Nobody can open a TARDIS by snapping their fingers," he said, focusing on the least important thing she'd said. "It doesn't work like that."
When Melody turned around, he could tell by the stricken look on her face that she knew what else he'd heard. "Doctor…"
He waved away her concern. "That's only a minor spoiler, Melody. I know she's trying to get back; I saw her in London six months ago for just a few minutes."
The Doctor glanced around the room and saw something that drove all other thoughts from his mind: Anita had two shadows. "How are you doing?" he asked her, trying not to let on that unless he could find a way out, her time was limited.
"Where's Other Dave?" Melody asked.
"Not coming," he said, keeping his eyes fixed on Anita. "Sorry."
"Well, if they've taken him, why haven't they gotten me yet?" Anita asked.
The Doctor winced; keeping her in the dark was keeping her calm, but it still seemed cruel. "I don't know. Maybe tinting your visor's making a difference."
"It's making a difference all right. No one's ever going to see my face again."
"Can I get you anything?" he asked, ignoring that last statement.
"An old age would be nice," she said, and he could picture her wry smile. "Anything you can do?"
The Doctor nodded slowly and turned around. "I'm all over it."
"Doctor." He turned back to her. "When we first met you, you didn't trust Professor Pond. And then she whispered something in your ear, and you did. My life so far. I could do with a word like that. What did she say? Give a dead girl a break. Your secrets are safe with me."
"Safe." All thoughts of what Melody had said were relegated to a small section of his mind while he focused on the revelation he'd just had.
"What?" Anita asked.
"Safe," the Doctor repeated. "You don't say saved. Nobody says saved. You say safe." He whirled around to Lux and Melody. "The data fragment! What did it say?"
"Four thousand and twenty-two people saved. No survivors," Lux said.
"Doctor?" Melody asked hopefully.
The Doctor crossed the room slowly while his brain quickly worked out what had actually happened that day at the Library. "Nobody says saved. Nutters say saved. You say safe." He spun around, gesturing wildly. "You see, it didn't mean safe. It meant, it literally meant, saved!"
Melody and Mr. Lux looked at him blankly. "Here, I'll show you." He ran to the terminal and pulled up the library archive file. Now that he knew what he was looking for, it was obvious. He rocked back on his heels and gestured at the screen as he explained. "See, there it is, right there. A hundred years ago, massive power surge. All the teleports going at once. Soon as the Vashta Nerada hit their hatching cycle, they attack. Someone hits the alarm. The computer tries to teleport everyone out."
Melody peered at the screen. "It tried to teleport four thousand twenty-two people?"
The Doctor nodded. "It succeeded. Pulled them all out, but then what? Nowhere to send them. Nowhere safe in the whole library. Vashta Nerada growing in every shadow. Four thousand and twenty-two people all beamed up and nowhere to go." He twirled his finger in the air. "They're stuck in the system, waiting to be sent, like emails. So what's a computer to do? What does a computer always do?"
"It saved them," Melody breathed out, eyes wide in relieved comprehension.
He shoved the books on the nearby table aside and pulled a marker from his pocket. "The Library," he said, drawing a large circle right on the table. "A whole world of books, and right at the core," he added another circle inside the smaller circle, "the biggest hard drive in history. The index to everything ever written, backup copies of every single book. The computer saved four thousand and twenty-two people the only way a computer can. It saved them to the hard drive."
They barely had time for the truth to sink in before red lights and an alarm went off.
"What is it?" Lux asked. "What's wrong?"
"Auto destruct enabled in twenty minutes," a recorded voice announced.
They all looked back at the computer terminal, which was flashing two messages: one, the countdown to the auto destruct, and the other, a warning of maximum erasure.
"What's maximum erasure?" Melody asked.
The Doctor stared at the monitor, his mind already trying to find a way around this wrinkle. "In twenty minutes, this planet's going to crack like an egg."
"No," Lux burst out. "No, it's all right. The Doctor Moon will stop it. It's programmed to protect Cal."
As soon as those words left his mouth, the monitor went blank. "No, no, no, no, no, no, no!" the Doctor yelled. He pulled the terminal away from the wall, hoping he use the sonic to turn it back on.
A different automated voice killed that thought. "All library systems are permanently offline. Sorry for any inconvenience. Shortly—"
Mr. Lux hollered over the warnings. "We need to stop this. We've got to save Cal."
That was the second time he'd mentioned Cal. "What is it?" the Doctor asked. "What is Cal?"
There was a resigned set to Lux's shoulders, and the Doctor had a feeling he was about to find out what the man had been so determined to protect. "We need to get to the main computer. I'll show you."
The Doctor's eyebrows rose. "It's at the core of the planet."
Melody smirked and pulled out her screwdriver. "Well, then. Let's go." She ran to the middle of the room and pointed it at the library logo. The large compass rose opened and a blue stream of light flowed up. "Gravity platform," she said simply.
The Doctor put his screwdriver back in his pocket and joined her. "I bet I like you," he said, admiring her cleverness.
She grinned. "Oh, you do."
The stepped onto the gravity platform and called for Anita. When they were all on board, Melody activated the command to transport them to the centre of the planet.
They had fifteen minutes left in the auto destruct countdown when they reached the data core. The Doctor ran in the direction of an orangish light, and soon he was staring in awe at a massive ball of energy. "The data core. Over four thousand living minds trapped inside it."
"Yeah, well, they won't be living much longer," Melody pointed out bluntly. "We're running out of time."
The Doctor bit back the retort on the tip of his tongue—Honestly, did she think he didn't know, down to the second, exactly how much time they had left?—and darted around the room, looking for a terminal. He'd barely begun his attempt to get it to work when he was interrupted by the plaintive call of a young girl.
"Help me. Please, help me."
They all looked around for the source of the voice, save Anita who could only ask. "What's that?"
"Was that a child?" Melody asked.
The Doctor was still working with the terminal, but he couldn't get it to wake up. "The computer's in sleep mode." He tapped at the keyboard, but nothing worked. "I can't wake it up. I'm trying."
Then he noticed something happening. Every time he hit a key, the screensaver on the terminal pulsed. It was almost like it was integrating everything he did into its reality, but how could that be?
Melody saw it too. "Doctor, these readings."
"I know. You'd think it was dreaming."
"It is dreaming," Mr. Lux said as he pulled off his gloves, "of a normal life, and a lovely dad, and of every book ever written."
"Computers don't dream," Anita pointed out.
"Help me. Please help me," the girl continued to beg.
"No, but little girls do." Mr. Lux pulled a lever in the control panel and a door opened on the opposite side of the room.
The group ran into a room filled with computer processors and terminals, and the Doctor watched in astonishment as a courtesy node turned around to reveal the face of the same little girl they'd seen on the monitor upstairs.
"Please help me. Please help me."
"Oh, my God," Melody whispered.
"It's the little girl," Anita said. "The girl we saw in the computer."
"She's not in the computer," Mr. Lux said quietly. "In a way, she is the computer. The main command node. This is Cal."
And there it was, the secret he was trying to protect. The Doctor looked at him in disgust. "Cal is a child? A child hooked up to a mainframe? Why didn't you tell me this? I needed to know this!"
"Because she's family!" Mr. Lux shouted. His voice softened as he explained. "CAL. Charlotte Abigail Lux. My grandfather's youngest daughter. She was dying, so he built her a library and put her living mind inside, with a moon to watch over her, and all of human history to pass the time. Any era to live in, any book to read. She loved books more than anything, and he gave her them all. He asked only that she be left in peace. A secret, not a freak show."
The Doctor looked at command node CAL. "So you weren't protecting a patent, you were protecting her."
Mr. Lux walked up to her and touched her face lightly. "This is only half a life, of course. But it's forever."
"And then the shadows came," the Doctor said, the pieces of the story falling into place.
"The shadows," CAL said, "I have to… I have to save. Have to save."
"And she saved them." The Doctor stared up, toward the planet's surface. "She saved everyone in the library. Folded them into her dreams and kept them safe."
"Then why didn't she tell us?" Anita asked.
The Doctor looked over at her and his hearts dropped when he saw only one shadow. Oh, Anita.
But this wasn't the moment to confront the swarm pretending to be the young archaeologist. "Because she's forgotten," he explained. "She's got over four thousand living minds chatting away inside her head. It must be like being, well, me," he concluded, without any modesty.
"So what do we do?" Melody asked matter-of-factly.
There were only ten minutes left on the countdown, and that wasn't enough time to think of a clever plan. "Easy!" He ran back to the terminal and opened a command line. "We beam all the people out of the data core. The computer will reset and stop the countdown." The information he was getting from the computer wasn't promising. "Difficult. Charlotte doesn't have enough memory space left to make the transfer." He ran his hands through his hair, not liking the obvious answer to that. "Easy!" He whirled around and yanked a panel open so he could pull the wires out. "I'll hook myself up to the computer. She can borrow my memory space."
Melody grabbed his shoulder and tried to pull him away. "Difficult. It'll kill you stone dead."
He kept working on the wires. "Yeah, it's easy to criticise."
"It'll burn out both your hearts and don't think you'll regenerate."
The Doctor's eyebrows flew up to his hairline. Whoever Melody Pond was, she clearly knew him very, very well. He stepped back from the wiring and looked at her. "Do you have an alternative in mind?"
She looked at her employer first. "Mr. Lux, go back to the surface. If we do this right, you'll soon have four thousand people who need to be sent home."
After he left, she turned to the Doctor. "As for having a better idea—yes, I do." She pulled off the gloves to her suit. "Go get the TARDIS while I get everything ready to wire into her."
The Doctor gawped at her. "That is… you're… why didn't I think of that?"
"Maybe because you're a daft idiot with a habit of choosing wildly dangerous plans," Melody said sweetly.
"Oh, now I know you know Rose," the Doctor griped. He glanced at the panel. "And you know how to do this?"
"You taught me yourself. Said it would come in handy someday—I guess someday is today." She looked at him pointedly. "But none of my fancy computer and electronic skills will matter if you don't get the TARDIS here in time."
The Doctor started for the gravity platform, but Anita's voice stopped him. "What about the Vashta Nerada?"
"Melody, keep working." She glanced at him, then Anita's single shadow, and nodded slightly.
"These are their forests." The Doctor crossed his arms over his chest. "We're going to seal Charlotte inside her little world, take everybody else away. The shadows can swarm to their hearts' content."
"So you think they're just going to let us go?"
The Doctor heard the condescension in their voice and set his jaw. "Best offer they're going to get."
The Vashta Nerada tilted Anita's helmet slightly. "You're going to make 'em an offer?"
Melody's tall, willowy figure moved gracefully around the room, opening panels and using the terminals to access CAL's memories while the Doctor dealt with the Vashta Nerada. He spared a moment for the fleeting thought that he would evidently teach her very well, then he made his offer.
"They'd better take it, because right now, I'm finding it very hard to make any kind of offer at all." He looked them up and down, barely restraining his temper. "You know what? I really liked Anita. She was brave, even when she was crying. And she never gave in. And you ate her." The Doctor pointed the screwdriver at the visor of her helmet, and only a skull was visible. "But I'm going to let that pass, just as long as you let them pass."
The voice deepened, gaining an dangerous edge Anita had never used. "How long have you known?"
He walked past Melody to look Anita's skull in the face. "I counted the shadows. You only have one now." Anita's neural relay flashed. "She's nearly gone. Be kind."
"These are our forests," they said coldly. "We are not kind."
"I'm giving you back your forests, but you are giving me them. You are letting them go." The Doctor turned away from the swarm to go back to the gravity platform. A clock was ticking down in the Doctor's mind, and he willed the Vashta Nerada to accept his offer quickly.
"These are our forests. They are our meat."
The threat was obvious. The Doctor spun back around and drew in a sharp breath when he saw the shadow stretching out toward Melody. "Don't play games with me," he warned. "You just killed someone I liked. That is not a safe place to stand." He remembered what Melody had said about armies turning and running away, rather than facing him. "I'm the Doctor, and you're in the biggest library in the universe. Look me up."
The pause while they assimilated the information surrounding them was interminable, then the shadows receded. "You have one day," they told him.
As soon as the spacesuit collapsed, the Doctor ran for the gravity platform. "I'll be back before you even notice I'm gone, Melody!" he shouted as he ascended back to the main level of the Library.
The Doctor marked the time when he reached the reading room; those were the coordinates he'd navigate the TARDIS back to. The Library was still bathed in shadows, but he had to trust they were the natural shadows that occurred in a dimly lit room.
The TARDIS hummed encouragingly when he ran inside and tossed his coat over the strut. "Are you ready to save four thousand and twenty-two people, old girl? I can't do it without you."
He took them into the vortex to give himself extra time to get things ready on his end. The TARDIS helped as much as she could, letting him access the memory of her internal computer without fighting. Once that was accomplished, he dug around in the storage cupboards until he found the cables he needed and hooked them up to the console, ready to be wired into the Library's mainframe.
Then he carefully—very carefully—set the coordinates for his return to the Library. Help me out, Dear, he asked his ship, then pulled the lever.
Melody barely looked up from what she was doing when he stepped out of the TARDIS, cables in tow. "How long did it take you?" she asked.
"About twenty minutes," he told her, not bothering to ask how she knew he'd been gone longer than the thirty seconds it had been since he'd left her side.
They worked side by side in silence, accessing the memory boards of the Library's mainframe and wiring the necessary components together. The Doctor discovered an unexpected advantage of having taught Melody himself—she knew exactly how he worked, and knew how to complement that.
"I'm starting to think I should go into the future and train all my companions before I meet them," he said as he pulled the connection from the TARDIS over to the Library's motherboard.
Melody laughed. "Oh, I'm not a companion." She brought the cable they'd spliced together over to the motherboard.
"Who are you then?" the Doctor asked as she expertly spliced it in.
Her eyes danced. "Spoilers, Doctor." She bit her lip and bent over her work. "I'm getting everything finished except the last connector. I'll do that at the end of the countdown," she explained. "There'll be a blip in the command flow. That way it should improve our chances of a clean download."
She spliced one last set of wires together as the computer warned them they only had two minutes left until the autodestruct. An awkward silence fell over the room after she stepped back; there was only one question the Doctor wanted to ask, and there was no way he'd taught Melody advanced electronics but failed to train her in how to maintain time streams.
Finally though he couldn't resist. The worst she could do was refuse to answer. "Do you know when Rose is coming back?"
She looked at him and raised her eyebrows. "Very subtle, Doctor."
He tugged at his ear. "It's been a long four years," he said, by way of explanation. "I miss her."
Melody's eyes softened. "I know you do. You don't talk about it much, but sometimes, you get this look in your eye and we all know you're remembering what it was like to be without her."
The Doctor frowned at her; there was something different about her voice… "You're Scottish!" he realised, pinning down the hint of an accent that had slipped through.
"Autodesctruct in one minute."
Melody shifted her gaze away from him. "No, but my mum is. I guess I still have a hint of an accent."
The Doctor recognised the mannerisms of someone who was avoiding a topic to maintain the time streams, but he couldn't see why knowing Melody's mother was Scottish could have any impact. Shrugging his shoulders, he let it go.
They were silent again, then Melody asked, "Doctor, why do you think you didn't warn me that the first time you met me was before Rose came back?"
A faint smile crossed his face. "You have no idea how much the few spoilers you've let slip have encouraged me," he told her. "I was really about ready to give up on the idea of ever seeing Rose again, but you're proof that I will. I needed that today. My future self won't take that from me."
The computer started the final countdown and Melody took the two cables in hand. "My gloves should protect me from the sparks," she told the Doctor.
"If they don't, I happen to know of an excellent infirmary nearby."
She shook her head, and he got the distinct impression she was rolling her eyes at him. Then she contacted the two cables in a flurry of sparks.
The autodestruct countdown froze on one second; that was the only sign the Doctor and Melody had that their crazy plan had worked. "Shall we go upstairs and see all the people?" the Doctor asked, gesturing toward the gravity platform.
oOoOoOoOo
Upstairs, the formerly silent Library buzzed with voices as four thousand twenty-two people tried to understand what had happened to them. Mr. Lux rushed over to the Doctor and Melody and hugged them both.
"You did it!" he said, wonder in his voice. "You actually did it!"
The Doctor broke away. "I need to find Donna," he said, scanning the room.
"Yes, of course. We'll get the teleports online shortly and start sending people home."
The Doctor nodded absently as he walked away, looking for a flash of red hair in the crowd.
When he found her, she was scanning the lines of people queuing up to be teleported out of the Library. "Are you ready to go?"
Donna shook her head without looking at him. "I need to find Lee. I promised him I'd find him when we got back."
The Doctor frowned, but after a moment, the furrow in his brow cleared. Donna had met someone while she was in CAL's dreamscape.
"Right. I'll just be…" The Doctor pointed back in the general direction of the shop. She nodded absently, and taking in the look on her face, he hoped she found whoever it was she was looking for.
It didn't surprise the Doctor at all when he skirted the last of the crowd and saw Melody leaning against the wall by the shop. He stuck his hands in his pockets and looked at this strange woman who knew so much of his future.
"Who are you, Melody Pond?"
She smiled enigmatically, and the Doctor said the word with her. "Spoilers."
"Exactly, Doctor. I'd ask you to stay and help us get everyone home, but I know you don't like to hang around for the cleanup. So, I suppose… I'll see you later."
"To the future, Professor Pond. I look forward to meeting you." She smiled and walked away.
While the Doctor waited for Donna, he turned the mystery of Melody over and over in his mind. There was something in the story she'd told… "Sometimes, you get this look in your eye and we all know you're remembering…" There was a familiarity in those words that had made him think for a moment that she was his daughter, but he'd discounted the notion almost immediately. He'd have known if she were his much earlier—almost instantly, in fact.
But still, there were other things she'd mentioned—the sonic being a graduation present, for one. She'd said she wasn't a companion; he knew she was family. Somehow.
He saw Donna turning around in circles, a searching look on her face. "Any luck?" he asked when she joined him.
She leaned against the wall. "There wasn't even anyone called Lee in the library that day. I suppose he could have had a different name out here, but, let's be honest, he wasn't real, was he?"
"Maybe not."
"I made up the perfect man. Gorgeous, adores me, and hardly able to speak a word. What's that say about me?"
"Everything." The Doctor's brain caught up with his mouth three seconds too late, and he looked at Donna, who looked like she wanted to slap him. "By which I mean, you're used to having people not listen to you, so your perfect man was someone who would."
She nodded, and they looked back out at the crowd of people teleporting home after being missing for 100 years. "What about you?" Donna asked. "Are you all right?"
The Doctor didn't know how to answer that. He knew Rose was coming back; he was more than all right. But looking at Donna's face, it didn't seem fair to rub her nose in what he was so close to finding, when she'd lost something just as dear.
"Yeah, I'm all right," he said finally.
"Is all right special Time Lord code for really not all right at all?"
The Doctor smiled slightly. Memories of Rose didn't hurt now that he knew she was coming back.
"Why?"
Donna's smile didn't reach her eyes. "Because I'm all right, too."
He held her gaze for a moment, quickly taking in how much this adventure had taken out of her. "Come on." He took her hand and led her back toward the gravity platform.
"Where are we going?"
"I had to move the TARDIS while you were gone," he told her.
Donna took one last look at the crowd as they passed through. "Doctor, when Professor Pond first greeted you, she expected to see Rose, didn't she?"
The Doctor nodded.
"Even though I was here."
He looked at his best friend again, seeing the insecurity lurking in her eyes for the first time. "Donna, you don't think I'll kick you out of the TARDIS when Rose comes back, do you?" They reached the gravity platform, and he used the sonic to take them to the planet's core.
"Donna?" he probed when they reached the bottom and she still hadn't answered.
She flashed him a pale imitation of her usual sassy smile. "Nah, you won't be able to get rid of me that easily, Spaceman," she promised. "Mind, I might give the two of you some time alone to get reacquainted."
The Doctor felt his face heat up at the implication, and Donna laughed with genuine amusement. "Oh, sure, that's how it is," the Doctor said grumpily. "I try to be nice and you make fun of me."
Donna was still laughing when they reached the TARDIS. The Doctor started to pull his key out of his pocket, but then he remembered what Melody had said. He eyed his ship critically for a moment, then snapped his fingers.