CHAPTER 16

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MEETING MELODY

"Melody?" Amy asked in a worried voice as she tried to gently shake River awake.

"Is she going to be alright?" Rory asked with concern.

"She will be," Amy said as her hands began to glow.

"What are you doing? She's not dying, is she?" Rory asked in alarm.

"No, she's very weak though. I'm giving her body a little boost," Amy said.

Both Augustus Pond and Brian Williams looked at Amy in shock as they saw her replenish River's body by touching her with her glowing hands. Even if Tabetha had still been conscious, this would have surely caused her to pass back out again anyway. River's body glowed for a few moments as Amy used a small amount of her regenerative energy to restore some of her strength to her.

River sat up with a frown on her face as she said, "Tell me you didn't just use up a regeneration on me."

"No, I still have the same number that I had before. I just wanted to make sure that you would be alright," Amy said with a smile as she hugged River.

"You shouldn't waste your energy that way," River said as she chastised her.

"It's my energy, and I'll do what I want with it," Amy said as she kissed River on the forehead.

River looked very unhappy at this display of affection and gave Amy an annoyed look. Amy had noticed that she hadn't tried to pull away from her hug though. In fact, she had leaned into it.

"At the risk of getting punched, I'm going to give you a hug too," Rory said as he hugged her next.

"Both of you stop that! Do you want to ruin my image?" River said with a grin.

"Yeah, how terrible of us that we want to show our daughter that we love her," Amy said as she smiled back at River.

Tabetha woke up just in time to see this last exchange of words between them, and she said, "So it's true. You're my granddaughter."

"You finally told them?" River asked in surprise.

"I've told them everything," Amy said.

"I wondered why she was passed out when I woke up. That would explain it alright," River said with a wide grin on her face.

Tabetha hesitantly walked up to River and said, "I'm not quite sure what to say. I've known you all of your life, and yet I've never really known you at all. I just want to say that you're always welcome to come and see your grandfather and me, Melody. We'd like to get to know you better."

River was inwardly touched by her words even as she did her best to hide it as she said with a mad grin on her face, "I'd like that too. You're really going to love me once you get to know me. I'm not as crazy as I used to be as Mels, Gran. I promise. Now I'm even worse."

Tabetha laughed at her as she said, "It doesn't matter to me even if you are. I learned to put up with your behavior a long time ago because I knew that you really loved Amy. Now I finally know just why you loved her so much."

"I want to see more of you too now that I finally know about you, Melody. I can see now why I always liked you so much. Now that I think about it you always were a lot like both Rory and Amy in so many ways. I could see both of them in Mels, but I never made that connection until now," Brian said.

"I always liked you too. You were always very good to me even though you didn't know who I was, and I really appreciated that. You never stopped being nice to me even when I started getting in trouble all of the time. In fact, you just seemed to get nicer. Thank you for that," River said in a rare display of emotion.

"That's because I knew that you had a good heart, Melody. I knew that because you were always there for Rory whenever he had a problem while he was growing up. You and Amy always looked after him," Brian said.

"Oh, now I have a heart. My image is just getting shredded left and right. I'm starting to miss the days when I was just thought of as a troublemaker," River said with a mischievous smile.

"Speaking of being in trouble, what have you been up to lately, Melody? Tangling with vampires apparently," Amy asked with an amused grin on her face.

"It was just one vampire, and she beat me. I'm really suffering major blows to my image today. First I'm beaten by one measly Plasmavore, then I get hugged by my parents in full view of everyone, and last but not least my grandfather thinks that I have a heart. It's mortifying! I'm losing my edge," River said with a chuckle.

"Tell me everything, Melody. Now," Amy said in a stern voice.

"Alright, alright. I was coming here to see you and Dad when I saw several dead bodies just lying out in the street. I quickly followed the trail of bodies to find a woman wandering around in what looked like a daze. She tried to convince me that she was a victim of the same attacker as the others, but I immediately became suspicious of her still being alive when the others were all dead. When she realized that I wasn't buying it, she attacked me. We fought for several minutes as she did her best to add me to her body count. She was half mad and just kept screaming about getting revenge on the Doctor. From her comments, I quickly figured out that she was a Plasmavore whose mother crossed paths with the Doctor years ago and had died. Of course she wanted revenge on the Doctor for that and had come here looking for him. She had decided that she might as well chow down on the local population to keep her going while she looked for him. I was hoping that I could stop her and keep her from killing anyone else, but she was a lot stronger than she looked. She managed to overpower me and knock my gun out of my hand. The next thing that I knew she was feeding off of me. I saw her changing her form to look more and more like mine the longer that she drained me, and I knew that if I didn't stop her soon that she was going to kill me. I used all of my remaining strength and socked her in the jaw as hard as I could. It made her scream out in pain, and then I'm ashamed to say that I ran while she was distracted. I had to though. I was about to pass out at any minute, and then she'd have killed me. I kept running until I found you," River said.

"I'm glad that you ran. Don't be ashamed of that," Amy said.

"I am though, and I have to make up for it. I have to put a stop to her before she kills anyone else now that I'm feeling better. I'll see you later. I have a score to settle. Besides, she took my gun. No one takes my gun!" River said with a laugh.

"Melody, wait!" Amy said as River started to leave.

"You're not going to talk me out of this," River said.

"I wouldn't think of it. I just wanted to tell you to be careful," Amy said as she hugged her again.

"Twice in one day? Stop that! Pretty soon everyone will stop being afraid of me," River said.

"Well, we can't have that. Go show everyone that you've still got it, Melody. Go stomp that Plasmavore into the ground!" Amy said.

River looked at her in shock as she said, "I never thought I'd see the day when you'd actually encourage me to get in a fight."

"Yeah, well. This time it's for a good cause. Watch out for yourself, Melody," Amy said.

"It's the Plasmavore you should be worried about. She's going to need a new head once I get through with her. I'll have to steam clean my gun after that thing's had her dirty little hands all over it," River said with a disgusted look on her face.

She then quickly left as she went after the Plasmavore. She would soon find more trouble than she bargained for as she found not only the Plasmavore but a whole TARDIS full of enemies for her to fight alongside the Bad Wolves. In other words, River was about to reestablish her bad girl image in spades!

Back inside of the TARDIS, Karen found Oisin lying on the bed staring blankly ahead at the ceiling inside of his new room that Amy had given to him when he became a Time Lord again. He looked so lost and upset that her heart immediately went out to him. She had changed her mind and decided to give him an answer a lot sooner than in a few days because she felt that she owed him that.

"Oisin," Karen said in a soft voice in order to alert him to her presence.

Oisin began to break out into a huge smile as soon as he saw her, and Karen knew immediately that she had come to the right decision. She knew what she had to do now.

"Oisin, I decided to give you a chance. I'll go out with you," Karen said.

"Thank you! You won't regret it," Oisin said as he went to get up off of the bed.

He immediately tripped and fell flat on his face in front of her. Karen couldn't help it. She tried not to, but she couldn't keep it in. She immediately started laughing her head off. He had really reminded her of Rory at that moment.

Oisin looked so embarrassed that she could tell that he felt like he had just ruined his chances with her. She immediately put a stop to that idea by not only helping him up off of the floor but by also kissing him on the cheek once he had finished.

"Don't worry about it. I imagine walking around in a Time Lord body again takes some getting used to after spending so long trapped as a Cyberman," Karen said as she smiled at him.

"Thanks," Oisin said as he looked away from her in embarrassment.

Karen suddenly became serious for a moment then as she asked him, "Are you sure that it's really me that you want?"

"What do you mean?" Oisin asked.

"Are you sure that the only reason that you're not interested in me is because I'm a part of her? I feel like the only reason that you're even talking to me is because you can't have her anymore," Karen said.

"That's not true. I have to admit that was what first attracted me to you was that you're part of Cliodna, but now I'm starting to like you for who you are. I want to find out more about you and see what makes you different from Cliodna. That's why I want to date you, Karen. I want to see if there might be a future between us," Oisin said.

Karen smiled at that answer as she said, "Alright then. I'd like that. How about the next place that Amy goes we find a nice secluded place there and spend some time alone together?"

"Alright. That sounds good to me. I'll try to practice walking in the meantime," Oisin joked.

Karen left Oisin's room certain that she had done the right thing. She had a feeling that she owed it to both herself and Oisin to try anyway.

Standing down the corridor from Oisin's room and hidden from Karen's sight, Selene and Julia silently gave each other a high five and grinned as they saw her leaving Oisin's room. Mission accomplished.

Amy meanwhile suddenly started to receive an emergency transmission from Gallifrey. Her TARDIS began projecting a holographic image of Lord President Heldrin to the shock of her family. This just brought home even more to them how much Amy's life had changed. Amy immediately wondered what was so important that the Lord President would be calling her personally like this.

"Cliodna, I need to talk to you immediately. You must come back to Gallifrey at once," Heldrin said.

"What is this about if I might ask, Lord President?" Amy asked.

"We've found Sirona's TARDIS at last. Once we found out from Sirona herself the exact location where she was attacked by her TARDIS, it was only a matter of time before we located it. We found it lying abandoned and buried under several hundred feet of dirt and rock. Apparently, someone attempted to destroy it and then get rid of it so that it would never be found," Heldrin said.

Sirona came out of the TARDIS after she overheard this and looked at her mother in shock.

"Do you mean that someone had the TARDIS attack Sirona on purpose and then tried to cover it up?" Amy asked in anger even as she put a comforting arm around the visibly upset Sirona.

"I believe that Sirona was never its intended victim, Cliodna. It was your TARDIS that she used to go to Earth in. I believe that the TARDIS was sabotaged to attack you the next time that you went to Earth! Someone wanted you out of the way forever for some reason. I need you to come back to Gallifrey so that we can find out who did it and why," Heldrin said.

"I'd like to know that too, Lord President. Whoever they are, they're going to regret that it wasn't me that their little trap was sprung on. They took my daughter from me and caused me centuries of misery as a result. I'm going to make whoever did that pay," Amy said in a cold voice.

Next: Amy returns to Gallifrey as the full story of what happened to Sirona and why is revealed at last along with the identity of the saboteur. What connection does this whole incident have to what happened to Arkytior, Koschei, and Ushas as shown in Tales of Gallifrey?