-Chapter 4-

"I think that may have cured my cataracts," said Simon, bewildered, looking into his glasses but not through them. "Is that what it's always like? All orange fire coming out of your head and hands?"

"Your what?" Melody asked. She knew what cataracts meant, but she just wasn't listening. She was looking at her hands. They were lighter this time. Also bigger.

"My eyes," Simon said absently. Then, looking at the wreckage they were standing in, "If all that destroyed the fort, why didn't it burn your clothes? Or me, for that matter?"

"That's good, Simon," said Melody. Her new hands went to her new hair. It was barely there. "Oh, no!" Melody shouted, louder than she had intended, "I'm a boy!"

"What?" Simon looked over, "No you're not. Probably." He squinted. "Maybe you should check?" he tried.

As it turned out, Melody was still a girl. Just one with short, chestnut hair.

This did nothing for her mood.

Neither did the stomach pains, unintentional shouting, and cravings for some kind of food she had trouble describing. Orange. With brown parts outside and yellow things. But not, she insisted to Simon several times, chocolate covered caramel carrots.

Finally, she went off to find whatever it was she needed.

"Bring back food!" Simon called after her, already in the process of assembling what remained of his comic book collection from the wreckage of their fort.

"I always bring back food!" Melody called back, cross.

"No pigeons! Food I can eat! Hamburgers! Or carrots!"

"No carrots! Carrots are intolerable," she yelled, an opinion she had not realized she possessed before this moment. Didn't she sort of like carrots? Where were these new opinions coming from?

"Just hamburgers then!" Simon tried again, his voice trailing away.

But Melody was already five rooftops away.

Tea time was over, the Doctor realized, as a Time Lord - or something very much like one - regenerated somewhere in a three mile radius. He concentrated but that was as exact as he could get. His nose started to bleed from the strain.

It wasn't that the signal was faint. Just the opposite. It was too loud. Everywhere.

Spasming under the weight of it all, the Doctor fell out of his park bench, one of his last good teacups shattering on the ground beside him.

It didn't help that the Doctor hadn't felt the presence of a Time Lord, especially not one crying out with that much pain, sadness, desperation, all the while regenerating, since the Time War. And that was centuries ago. Centuries? Well, who could keep track? A long time.

Well, The Master. Well, all of Gallifrey that other time. But still, not this body. And he had been caught unprepared.

Up until this point, he hadn't had an especial need to keep his mental defenses about him, last of the Time Lords and all.

Well, excepting his sharp wit, a keen mind, and grace under pressure.

But still, the Doctor chided himself, he should have begun shielding exercises after that time with the Flesh. Maybe then he would have been able to filter through Melody's pain better. Gotten a better lock.

But then there had been Amy. And the Clerics. And the Headless Monks. And Stuff. There was always Stuff.

He was getting sloppy.

"Old fool," he cursed himself, panting. "Can't be that careless from now on. Not if you're not the last anymore."

And as he spoke it, the thought hit him. It was a thought he hadn't let himself contemplate in a long, long time. It felt wrong, but warming.

Big.

Like something too good to be true. If he hadn't been in so much pain, he might have laughed. Just a little.

"She can regenerate," the Doctor said to no one in particular, blood dripping down his face, square on the concrete, a bewildered smile breaking over his face.

Not alone.

"That wasn't background," Lee exclaimed, almost bouncing with enthusiasm. He took off his sunglasses and studied the dials on the side of the machine.

Canton had to agree. About twenty seconds before, the device had begun to ping rapidly, and, to the dismay of Canton and everyone else who happened to be walking down Crosby, loudly. Very loudly. Just terrible, annoying, ear-shattering stuff.

Agent Lee didn't seem to mind at all.

"Okay," he said, turning a dial which made the pinging slower but did nothing about the volume, "it's -"

He turned around until the pinging sped up. "This way!" He jogged on ahead of Canton, who hesitated, looked annoyed at everything that was in front of him, and followed.

Jogging.

Had languishing really been that bad? Trying to shake of his mood, he admitted that yes, it had been.

But that didn't make this any better.

Appearances aside, Canton could keep a fast pace if he was inclined to do so. Deciding he was indeed inclined, he caught Lee with no trouble. Lee looked to his side, smiling. All the time smiling.

"Canton! You made it!" Lee wasn't even sweating. "This is - literally - the best that things could have gone. I am having the best day. Now, what did I tell you about Melody Pond?"

"Little girl, alien, raised by the government, broke out, killing people on the streets?" Canton said between pants. It had been a while.

"Exactly! Possibly eating them too. You know how these creepy aliens can be."

Canton felt a creeping sensation at the back of his neck. Did he know? For a moment, he felt he did.

The pinging was speeding up as Lee ran down a particularly rank alleyway.

The pinging slowed. Then stopped.

Lee stopped, looked at the device, looked at the dial. Then he hit it. Hard. Nothing happened.

Lee sat down cross-legged and put his hands over his head. Furtively, he sniffed the air.

"Smell anything, Canton?" he said, a desperate air coming out in his voice.

"Piss?" Canton tried.

"Urine, yes," Lee agreed, rocking back and forth a little, the device still in his left hand, his knuckles going white at the handle.

"Do you know what that means?" Lee said, too loud.

"That this alley is disgusting?" Canton said, looking around. It was.

"Yes!" Lee said. A sob almost about audible around the edges of his raised voice. "And she's winning!"

Canton decided, in the wake of the grown man having a tantrum sitting down in an alley, that he wouldn't inquire as to that last bit. Instead, he changed the subject.

"Agent Lee?" Canton started. Trying to keep it professional despite the circumstances.

Agent Lee nodded but didn't say anything.

"Why would we use a device that tracks time anomalies to track an alien girl?" Canton had been thinking over it earlier before his train of thought had been shattered by pinging. And running.

Lee stopped rocking. He didn't say anything first. Then a smile creeped back onto his face and he rose from his sitting position with a grace that Canton had never before seen in a man wearing pants that tight. He took off his sunglasses. It was the first time that Canton had ever seen Agent Lee's eyes.

He told himself that the red about them was just because Lee had been crying. But he didn't believe it. Those eyes were, well, hungry.

"Oh, you're sharp," Lee said, his eyes making his smile all the more terrifying, "No flies on you. But I suppose that's my fault. I over-explain. It's a crutch. I'm aware." He rolled his eyes along with his head.

It was actually the first time Canton had encountered someone being both intimidating and self-deprecatory simultaneously. It wouldn't be the last.

"I was just wondering," Canton said, acutely aware all of a sudden just how much taller Agent Lee was than him. Quite a bit taller.

"Well, of course you were!" Lee said, somewhere between glee and rage, "How could you n-"

"Just hamburgers then!" a small voice, the voice of a child, sounded from above.

Agent Lee stopped. Eyes going wide, Lee's rage-smile faded. Slowly, Lee turned the machine in his left hand upwards.

It began to ping.

"Oh," said Agent Lee, a calm that masked a tempest of excitement, "This is the best day."

Melody felt like being alone.

As much as she liked Simon - she did like him, didn't she? - being with people, especially people her own age, felt wholly unnatural at times.

Not all the time. Sometimes it was good. Sometimes she laughed and built forts and read comics, as children were supposed to do. She had decided this in the months since meeting Simon, who liked nothing more than laughing and building forts and reading comics.

But there were other times, especially when she had just died. Or when she had had the dream when she was back in the suit again. Or in the white room. Or the one with her mother. Not the good dream, the bad one when she shot her. Or the one at the lake. Especially the one at the Lake.

Those were the times when she had to be alone again. Sometimes for weeks.

She had been alone all her life. What she could remember of her life which, she admitted to herself, wasn't too terribly much. Was that just what she was?

If her mom and dad were there would she still feel like this? Would she not be able to bring herself to be around them for more than once every few days except by sheer force of will? Was she that wretched?

Would she still die?

"Am I that broken?" Melody asked herself, gasping out a puff of orange. She had been crying. "Broken and alone."

"No," said a voice behind her.

Melody started an turned. Behind her, where he couldn't have been before, was a young, thin man with huge hair and a huge chin. He wore a brown coat and a red bow tie. He sat cross-legged, his hands clasped in front of him. He wasn't smiling, but looking at her with concern. His eyes were old eyes.

Melody felt she should say something. But she just stared.

"You're not broken. And you're not alone," the man said. "I promise."

Melody walked towards the man and sat down facing him.

"But you do need help," he continued, and smiled, his eyes brightening, "Luckily, I'm the Doctor." The Doctor held out his hand.