My Daughter

"It's her, Rory, it's Melody! I watched her regenerate with my own eyes!"

Rory knelt down beside the small child. She looked, well, she looked Chinese. He leaned into her face until their noses bumped and the girl giggled. "Melody?"

Melody curled her thin arms around Rory's neck and pressed a kiss to his cheek. He could feel the energy tingle in his skin, but unlike the Nazi soldiers in Berlin, it wasn't a painful experience. He pulled his daughter to his chest and fell backwards, not even caring as pain thrummed through his skull when he landed headfirst on the floor.

Amy squatted down beside them, tears in her eyes. "We finally get to raise her," she whispered. "Properly."

Just then, the front door burst open and Anthony stumbled inside clutching a manila folder in one hand and his apartment key in the other. He was hacking and cherry faced. "I met her!" he exclaimed. "I met Melody!"

Rory, still on his back, rolled his eyes back as far as he could to try and get a view of his son.

Anthony suddenly stopped, only just noticing the child seated on his father's chest. "Who's she?"

Amy and Rory looked carefully at one another and said together: "Melody."

Anthony's lower jaw unhinged. "But – but –" He shook his head and the manila folder fell from his hand and papers fluttered across the floor.

"What do you mean," Rory began.

"You met Melody?" Amy finished.

"Uh…" Anthony pushed the door shut with his hip and dropped to the floor, scraping together the haphazard papers even though his eyes were focused on his parents and the little girl they claimed was Melody. But, surely, not the Melody… "Do you remember last year, July, I called really late one night?" He looked to his mother. "You asked me what was wrong?"

Amy nodded slowly. "Mother's intuition…"

"I didn't know who she was at first. She showed up in one of my classes, said she was substituting for my core humanities professor, called herself Professor Zucker. Strange woman, with tick marks on her hands." He shook his head. "The next thing I know she wants to speak with me after class and I think I'm really in for it because I was goofing off with a buddy at the back of class, but instead she hands me this" he held up the folder "and said to tell you she was sorry she couldn't bring it to you herself. She asked me if I knew who she was and that's when I realized it." He thumped his palm to his forehead. "She was a dead ringer for Melody Malone! I couldn't quite bring myself to believe it was her at first—you know how your fans are—but then she shows me this photo from her diary, of you two on your wedding day, and I knew she was telling the truth. But she said I couldn't give you this until tonight; I couldn't even tell you I even spoke with her until tonight. She said–"

"Spoilers."

Anthony nodded. His eyes lingered on the child. "You called her 'Melody,' why?"

"Well," Rory said softly, "we did tell you about regeneration."

"But–"

"It's her," Amy interjected. "It's your sister." She suddenly noticed a paper sticking out from Anthony's folder and plucked it from him. Silently, she handed it to Rory.

"What?" Anthony asked. "What does it say?"

"It's an adoption certificate. A forged adoption certificate from China," Rory said. He held up the paperwork proclaiming the child at his side as—at least as far as 1970 New York City was concerned—Melody Williams.