-Chapter 2-

One thing Melody hated was the rain. You couldn't outrun it. You couldn't trick it by being clever. You couldn't beat it up. You just got all wet. And cross.

The worst part was that it didn't always take Melody by surprise. Sometimes, she knew it was going to rain, just how she knew something bad was going to happen to someone around her mere moments before it did. The problem was that knowing about the rain didn't change that Melody had nowhere to go to stay dry. Normally.

Oh, sure, there were alleyways, cardboard boxes, newspaper blankets, but when it was raining were the times you really had to look out for people. New York was always crowded, yes, but it was also big. During the normal times, even the night times, no one would really ever bother you. But when it was raining, when even the grimiest dumpster was an escape from the soaking wet, bound to attract all sorts… Needless to say, it was best to avoid confrontation in close quarters. That was a lesson you learned quickly.

Thus, rather than risk the fleeting safety of an alley, Melody took to the rooftops, wondering exactly how soaked she would get before making it to her secret hiding spot.

Forty-two blocks later, the answer appeared to be "very, very" as Melody completed her latest amazing feat, a jump not over a mere alleyway, but Broadway itself, all that separated her from her super special secret hiding spot. And Simon.

But the real amazing feat was that she made the jump, caught an unlucky pigeon in mid-flight, and touched down softly as bird, her bare feet sticking the landing instead of coming out from under her as they sometimes did when the rooftops were slicked by rain. Snapping the bird's neck and tiptoeing softly across the rooftop, Melody rounded the fortress of aluminum siding she and Simon had stolen off of a passing scrap truck two weeks back. Well, Melody had stolen it, but it had been Simon's idea. It had been Melody's idea to paint it blue, but the paint hadn't been very good and it was already chipping away in some places, running off in others to expose the metal underneath. Grinning at the hilarity sure to ensue, Melody jumped through the window of the fort.

"Kablammo!" Melody shouted.

Simon jumped out of his pants. Well, his glasses, more accurately. Simone was twelve and on the streets too. He didn't talk about what had happened for him to end up there, but he must have had a family at some point, Melody thought. Someone had to have bought him those glasses. You can't steal those kinds of things. Melody knew. And even if you could, Simon couldn't. He was a walking disaster, not just slow, but small and cowardly. But he didn't care that Melody was different, even that she died occasionally. And he always shared his comics.

"Mel!" He exclaimed, "Don't do that! I was reading."

"Pigeon?" she tried, holding it out.

"No thank you", Simon said. With attitude. "I happen to like birds cooked."

"Baby," Melody stuck her tongue out as she sat sown cross legged and started wringing out her hair. Why was it so long this time?

"I'm not a baby!" insisted Simon, indignantly. "You're supposed to cook birds. You don't just go munching on them, heads first."

"Why not?" Melody had heard this argument before but remained unconvinced.

"Well, diseases. Or something," Simon tried.

"I don't worry about diseases," Melody said, adding in some attitude of her own as she chomped down on the pigeon's head. It wasn't great, but she made a show of relishing some indescribable taste just to be contrary. Besides, she knew she would be long dead by the time anything that other children talked about, fevers, clear poop, vomiting, overtook her. That was what happened when little girls were out of their suits. Not sickness. Death. And when she died, she just started over.

Pigeons, while not as yummy as they used to be, were still better than the half-eaten burgers that Simon scrounged out the trash. The burgers tasted… wrong in a way that Melody had never been able to properly explain.

"Anyhow," Simon ventured, trying not to look as Melody bit down into more feathery parts of the carcass then discarded it. "Spider-man or X-men?"

"Oh X-men, definitely," Melody said, brightening immediately and spitting out feathers. "I don't like Spider-man."

"What's wrong with Spider-man?" Simon was indignant again. Melody stood up, her head only a few inches from the aluminum sealing, still pinging with the metallic sound of raindrops.

"Spider-man is all 'Oh, no, I'm so sad. I only have one parent and a home. Woe is me!'" Melody completed this impression, arms flailing in despair to her sides, by falling into Simon's lap.

She giggled. He giggled. It made her feel warm despite how soaked she was.

"Besides," she said, with great authority, "I don't know what's so great about jumping real high and climbing on things. I can do that." She snatched the X-men comic, only missing its cover and first few pages, out of Simon's hand.

"Well the rest of us can't," Simon said, more defensively than Melody had expected. Then. "Did you … change again?" He squinted through the half light that the aluminum siding let in.

Melody harrumphed.

"Yes! It's rubbish, isn't it?" She looked down at her arms. Was it just her or did they have more hair on them than normal? Bodies, she thought.

"You look," Simon tried to find the right words, "more like me?"

Melody hadn't really considered it. But the black hair, the height, the darker, tan complexion. Yes, she did indeed look more like Simon than she had when they has met two months ago. Strange.

"Don't be flattered," Melody snapped at her companion, not knowing what to make of it, but not prepared to wonder aloud,

"It's not like I can very well control what happens when I die." Simon would hate that. He made a point of calling what Melody did "changing" instead of dying. But Melody knew all the same.

"Well," Simon said, not taking Melody's bait, just getting sad, "I guess I'll just read Spider-man."

"Don't throw out that bird," Melody said, not looking up from her X-men. "I want it for later."

Mike sold umbrellas when it was raining. When it wasn't raining, he didn't do much of anything, which wasn't to say he didn't still sell umbrellas, just that no one ever wanted to buy them.

See, the problem was people. People always needed an umbrella but never realized it until they were being rained down upon and it was far too late. He had tried to explain it to many a passerby on the street, but mostly they just looked at him as if he was mentally deranged.

Which, Mike had to admit, was understandable. The man who had realized the importance of a good umbrella was the man who had elevated himself far above the normal social concerns of any population of people. It was only right that they might perceive his mental prowess as madness.

So was the way of these things.

Thus, with no less than twenty umbrellas adorning his person, as they always were, just waiting for the occasion to shine, Mike shouted.

"Umbrellas! One for a dollar! Two for three dollars!"

"Hello," said an amiable if sudden voice from behind Mike. Mike turned.

"Um," said Mike. The passerby was soaking, his hair plastered to his skull, his professor's coat a deep, wet brown instead of the tan it might have been normally. He was smiling, his eyes bright and invasive.

"I was wondering if you might have seen a little girl around here? Well, I think it might be a little girl. She could be a largish girl or not a girl at all." The man paused for a moment at this thought. "Come to think of it, I should have probably asked River a little something about the sequence of events, spoilers be damned. But you know how it is, Mike? It's Mike, right?" He didn't seem out of breath, but paused a moment, his eyes prompting Mike to answer.

"Um, Yes?" Mike tried, his voice hoarse, only partially from a morning of shouting at people.

"Good, love a Mike," The man smiled as if he was trying to assure Mike of the absolute verity of this while straightening his red, drenched bow tie.

"Now, anyhow. Where was I? Oh right, the girl. Yes, there's this girl. Probably small. Probably a girl. Could be a big or could be a boy. Or a horse, now that I think of it. Do you think that's likely? No, probably not a horse. Unless she really wanted to be a horse. River would have probably told me if she was a horse. Well, there was this one Time L -" The man stopped suddenly, looking at Mike as if Mike has broached a subject this man was offended by. Shaking his finger and looking at Mike as if he wasn't about to play Mike's games whatever those may be, the man continued.

"So have you seen her? Red hair? Or not? If you've seen anyone walking around in an Apollo Space Suit, that's probably her, but that doesn't seem likely what with the sequence of events." A pause as Mike gulped and the soaked man waited, hands behind his back.

"Um, no," started Mike eventually. "No little girls around here. Well, except that one who jumps across the rooftops on Thursdays. Not that anyone believes me about that."

It was true, no one believed Mike about the little girl who bounded over his alley any more than they did the merits of umbrellas when rain was nowhere to be seen.

"Thursdays?" repeated the man, his brow furrowing upon the idea, hands resting upon his pronounced chin in an exaggerated display of thoughtfulness. "How odd."

And then just as suddenly, "No, that doesn't seem very likely. But you tried, Mike. You lot always try. Admirable, really." And with that, the man turned on his heels and walked South, the exact direction, Mike would reflect later, that the little girl always seemed to run on Thursdays.

And then, as he was walking away, "Hey mister, do you want an umbrella? Only a dollar."

"No thanks, got one," said the man, turning back and producing a patched, worn umbrella which Mike would have sworn was not there a moment ago. Its handle was styled into a distinct, red question mark. He leaned on it, regarding Mike with a sudden curiosity.

"Why ever do you ask?"

"Well," began Mike before gesturing one, umbrella-laden arm to the ensuing downpour. The man glanced around before noticing the rain. He laughed aloud and pointed at Mike as if to say 'Ah, right you are. Good on you.' Then he turned back around and walked, soaked, through the rain, his umbrella swinging at his side, question mark hooked into his coat pocket.

"Well," said Mike to himself, as the man disappeared down Lafayette, "Can't blame a man for trying."

The Doctor laughed to himself as he speed-sauntered down the crowded street, careful to spare the feelings of pedestrians as he expertly wove in and out and around them in an array of movements which, he supposed, to the outside observer, would resemble the frantic dancing of a drunk.

"And who says I can't dance?" The Doctor chuckled to himself, sidestepping an old lady carrying groceries who was so startled by his sudden proximity that she dropped her burden.

The Doctor would have stayed to help pick up her things or at the very least felt slightly bad. But really, he thought to himself, it's better she not run across that squirrel she would have two blocks away and break her ankle, isn't it? Yes, that seemed best.

Anyway, River - Melody - was out there somewhere. Southwards. Running. He laughed again, rain streamed down his face. From here it would just be Amy and Melody and Rory in Tardis. Or in Leadworth. Or in the Tardis… yes, hopefully in the Tardis.

And from there it would be all whizzing about and sexy space vampires and shenanigans again. Yes, that's the stuff, he thought as he jumped over an unhappy Scottish terrier whose owner had decided the rain offered the unique opportunity of a walk and a bath.

The Doctor hurried on, counted his eggs, and hoped he was the only one looking.

Wrongly.