-Chapter 7-

"Canton!" The Doctor yelled, stepping out his blue box and back into Canton's life. His arms were outstretched and, for all appearances, he was thrilled, "I was hoping I would run into you." He looked towards the source of the incessant pinging.

"Oh look, you've found my Timey-Wimey Detector!" The Doctor was excited and then puzzled. "What were you doing in London?" Canton opened his mouth.

"Ah, nevermind. Time for that later – oh, you appear to have shot someone – we need to find Melody. She's run off. Glowing and – what do you have in your jacket?" The Doctor's smile faded in an instant as if he already knew. The Doctor's face turned into something hard and distant as he saw the mess that was Melody Pond, burned and bleeding all down her left side, most of what had been short, brown hair burned away. Despite appearances, she was alive.

"Pigeon," croaked Melody, "The lunchbox."

"My Timey-Wimey detector," The Doctor said, to no one present. "Of course, leave it to humanity to weaponize street birds." He looked at Canton severely.

"Did you have a part in this? Don't lie. I'll know," Canton had seen the Doctor sit, chained to a chair, for three months. To trick an unseen enemy.

This was the face of a man who would do something like that.

"Quite a large part," Canton didn't lie. He felt like throwing up, "I'm part of an agency called Torchwood now. They sent me and the corpse out to find an alien who looked like a girl. Eating people they said-"

"But he wasn't who he said he was," The Doctor preempted Canton with what his exact words were going to be. "No, I'm not surprised," The Doctor sniffed towards Agent Lee's body, "Complicated Space-Time Event. Not that complicated, only a little more than you, but more than you would expect to find here. Is that Dalek Corridor technology stinking off him?"

"I don't know what a 'Dalek' is, but he mentioned some kind of corridor, yes," Canton confirmed, distantly. "Said he was from the 52ndCentury. Anglican. Name was Lee. I don't know if that's his first or his last name. Familiar?"

"Never seen him before in my lives," The Doctor contemplated the body. Then disregarded it and turned back to Melody.

"Melody?" The Doctor said. Canton felt the girl turn in his arms to face The Doctor. She didn't say anything.

"Melody, you're going to be alright. Lee hurt you, but he didn't kill you. You're going to be alright. Do you hear me?"

"He said he wanted to kill me so I didn't do horrible things," Melody said, finally, her voice was raspy and she was wheezing wetly. Canton had heard the noise before and knew it meant she was bleeding into her lungs.

"Well, then he's a fool. You can't undo time with a gun or an exploding pigeon," The Doctor whispered. Canton noticed that the Doctor hadn't denied the possibility of this little girl doing horrible things. He just hoped that Melody hadn't noticed. He turned to the weeping boy but noticed he had run away. Poor kid, he thought to himself, wrapped up in other people's stories. Canton empathized. Then he remembered something.

"This is Amy's dau-" Canton began.

"I'm not dead, you know," A voice interrupted from the vicinity of Agent Lee's corpse. Then one with the bullet through it's neck. Canton looked over, slower he guessed, than one usually turned to watch the body of the man he had just killed get up and brush itself off, but then it had been that kind of day.

"Kevlar reinforced larynx," Lee pulled a bullet out of his throat, frowned at it, and then tossed it aside. "Standard issue bionics. Sloppy work, Canton. I thought for a second you'd go for the kill."

"I was trying to shut you up," Canton was still holding Melody, but now he did it with a protective instinct that replaced his earlier guilt.

"Don't like a talker, Canton?" The Doctor said, nonchalantly, and he picked himself up and strolled towards the not-dead Agent Lee, "I'll keep that in mind."

"Do I know you?" Agent Lee looked up from the bundled Melody in Canton's arm and at the approaching Doctor. A spark of realization came to Lee's glowing, red eyes, he smiled, "You."

"Me," The Doctor stood a few feet from Lee.

"You should be helping me," Lee said, matter-of-factly.

"Perhaps you should tell me exactly what your intentions are," The Doctor started, "Kill and innocent girl? Stop something nasty from your past? You know you can't. That's not how causality works, even in non-fixed events."

"Causality isn't the name of the game anymore, Doctor," Lee smiled and a gun appeared suddenly in his left hand, "Haven't you heard? Gallifrey falls."

"No," shouted Canton, seeing the gun, cursing himself in the microsecond before he reacted for not searching Lee's then-corpse. He reached for his own firearm.

But Melody was faster.

–

Melody ignored the debilitating pain of her left side and went blank. Time almost stopped for her as she burst out of Canton's arms and raced towards Lee. Passing the Doctor, she bull-rushed Lee and slammed her ruined left hand into his face. Hard. She felt twisted bones crack against something that was much harder than a human head had any right being. She wondered absently, breaking from the clarity of the moment, just how she would know that.

She was sitting on top of Lee's chest, slamming her continually breaking left hand into Agent Lee's face. Stay in the moment, a voice in the back of her head repeated coldly. Never relent. She didn't.

"Don't. Hurt. My. Friends!" She screamed as new blood began to well out of her broken hand. Lee's face was distorting, the red of his eyes glowing brighter. His right hand grabbed the back of her shirt and flung her, forcefully, into the Tardis. She lay there for a moment. Stunned. She barely registered the Doctor standing pensively to the side. Observing.

"Killed my brother!" Lee snarled as he got up, gun still in hand.

"Killed my daughter!" Lee grimaced as he sprinted to where Melody lay. His gun was aimed straight at her chest. Point blank. An un-asked for series of feints, counters, attacks, and locks ran through Melody's weary head. None of them could prevent what was about to happen next.

"Killed my world!" Lee yelled, and shot Melody in the chest.

A moment of silence, broken by Canton's cries and shots at Agent Lee, and Melody died.

She got up. Burning bright. Pushing her rage and pain into the fires erupting from her head and arms. At the center of the inferno was Melody, she smiled at the awestruck Lee, who dropped his gun and fell to his knees. He was bleeding from the side, where Canton's shots had hit, but he didn't seem to notice.

"You're a Ti -" Lee began.

"I'm a Super Hero," Melody finished for him, grabbing him by the chest and holding him close as she burned brighter than she ever had before. She poured herself, everything she had, the loneliness, the pain, the fear, the rage, into her death.

And Agent Lee's.

And then it was over.