Dates in Time: Interlude #2
Interlude #2: Four Times the 8th Doctor was there instead of the 11th and One time he was
1
Melody heard the crash, and she scrambled to get the passport that was tucked between the pages of her diary.
She heard her mum yell as soon as she had it within her grasp, and she opened it and closed her eyes shut wishing for the Doctor.
As soon as she heard the noise that was customary with the Tardis she rushed over to the corner where it was materializing and that told her that it wasn’t the Doctor who took her to the moon, but the one who took her dancing on her birthday.
The doors opened and she ran inside and into his arms and gasped when she heard another crash and her mum’s voice rising in volume.
“Please, please, just make it go away,” she cried into his chest wrapping her arms tighter around his waist.
He hugged her tight and lifted her off her feet walking them over to the counsel.
He set her down on one of the seats and crouched down to look into her face. He gently wiped her tears and smiled sadly at her.
“Where do you want to go?”
Her bottom lip trembled, “Anywhere other than here.”
He nodded his head and went over to the controls.
She leaned back and closed her eyes finally relaxing.
2
She hadn’t asked for him this time, but she had been pondering about calling out for him because she was a little bored and the other Doctor was busy waltzing her parents around the universe for their anniversary.
He had smiled at her and kissed the back of her hand, before acting really awkward around her parents. She had just pushed him over to them and had walked out of the house.
So she had been thinking about him when the car crashed into her.
When she came to she really didn’t expect to find him there pointing the sonic screwdriver at her and exclaiming, “You’re half Time Lord! How can that be?”
She sat up quickly and looked around herself. She was in her bedroom and there was the Tardis parked in its customary corner.
She looked at the Doctor who was still looking at her in shock and she said, “Oh! Um the way my mum explained it apparently I was conceived in the Tardis. That’s why I have Time Lord DNA. I don’t really understand it myself.”
“Of course,” he exclaimed standing up and heading over to the Tardis.
She watched it as it left with a half smile on her face, “Thanks for saving me.”
3
Melody was feeling kind of lonely.
It was the third day after her parents had left to go on their honeymoon, and she had just realized how bad it was to have a Time Lord as your only friend. Her mum had the Time Lord but she also had a Rory.
Melody sighed and leaned her head against the glass, where was her Rory?
She turned at the noise and smiled when the Tardis began to appear in the corner of her bedroom.
The doors opened as she stepped up to them and she saw the Doctor behind the counsel. His eyes lit up and his hair pulled back from his face and wrapped with a rubber band at his neck.
“I have a surprise for you,” he said motioning her up the stairs.
“What?” she asked going up and standing right beside him.
He handed her a pair of goggles, and grinned sort of maniacally. It was a grinned that seemed sort of out of place on his face, but right at home on her bow tied Doctor.
“I’m going to teach you how to fly the Tardis.”
4
She sat on the window sill and wrung out her hand. The gauze around her knuckles felt a bit too tight, but she figured she deserved it.
Her dad had been furious when he had patched her up.
She had after all gotten into a fight in school, and her dad didn’t like her explanation. He had walked out of the room after bandaging her hand. Her mum had just patted her cheek and swept back her bangs before leaving to go after her dad.
She heard the familiar noise of the Tardis, but she didn’t turn around. She waited until he stepped out and put a hand on her shoulder. She looked at it and saw a gaudy gold ring and fat fingers and deflated. Still not the right Doctor.
She had phoned him, and he had said he’d be here. But she knew that he probably had landed ahead and was with a future version of herself having grand adventures.
“They said you weren’t real,” she whispered. “They don’t like that I don’t have any friends. It makes me sort of a loser or something. So they make fun of me, but I told them that I do have one. One singular friend who means the world to me. They laughed and told me to stop talking about my imaginary friend. So I snapped and took down four of them without even breaking a sweat.”
She turned to look at him tears in her eyes, “I could’ve killed them if I wanted to. They suspended me for two weeks. And all because of you.”
He hugged her and she rested her head against his chest, “Will we ever be like this? Me and the future you?”
He sighed, “I couldn’t possibly tell you. I don’t understand why the Tardis keeps intercepting your messages and bringing me here when I’ve told her to take me to the eighteenth century, but I don’t regret that she does it. I’ve met you years before I was even suppose to. Maybe what the Tardis is doing, is giving you and me a past in my memories. Might make it easier for me to understand.”
“Understand what exactly?” she asked her voice muffled by his shirt.
“Why you’re becoming so very important to me so fast.”
She just shook her head and sighed again, “I wish we could meet in the right order.”
He just hugged her tighter and whispered, “So do I.”
5
Melody was leaning back against her seat on the train, her eyes closed and ear buds in place drowning out the incessant chatter of her class mates.
She didn’t notice the commotion until her ear buds were pulled out of her ears. She looked over to see the top of a fez.
“Doctor?” she asked sitting up.
He stood up straight and straightening his bow tie smiled at her, “Miss Melody Pond. How wonderful it is to see you again. Sorry about the mix ups! I promise to try harder.”
She just smiled brightly at him, “Not to worry Doctor you’ve been keeping me plenty company. I’ve hardly ever been lonely.”
He sat down next to her, “Ah yes about that, I am sorry.”
“Sorry about what Doctor?”
“I promised you that I wouldn’t change a single word, and look here we are with memories that never happened, making more that never did.”
She turned to look at him and cocked her head to the side, “How are you so sure? Have you ever read the diary? How do you know that what I kept in there isn’t what I’m writing now? And either way you’ve never made me that promise so it can hardly count right now, can it?”
He just looked at her his eyes turned sad, and he lifted his hand and placed it on her cheek, “Oh River, it counts more now than anything.”
Chapter 3