A/N: I'd apologize for the six month hiatus, but life simply happens and sweeps you up with it. (Oh, and Happy 50th!) Hope you enjoy this chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it. Hopefully I'll get the next one up soon! -madis

Previously:

Because Melody understands now, understands everything. The flowers crammed in the back of her throat. River's announcement. It all depends on perspective, right? Ian, with his easy grin and his father's face. His mother's brown eyes. He's been so kind to her, always, always, she who would cause him nothing but grief and, if she had her way, nonexistence.

Safe as houses, right? Melody's going to end up the only one unhappy.

Ian takes her to the control room in Central Sector V before heading out in search of his father, where Melody can get a change of clothes, a gun, and the swivel chair with the two dozen split screen monitors showing the entirety of the honeycombed maze of Sector V on a continuous loop between corridor, corridor, isolation tank after isolation tank. Melody changes clothes in the small bathroom closeted in the corner next to an empty weapon's rack. She supposes she won't be seeing her pistol again. Perhaps that's why she picks up the cricket bat in the future. The bathroom's slick and incomprehensible to her, the toilet even more so, filled with strange knobs and dials. She doesn't bother with it, busying herself with swatting away the stray nanogenes swimming into her field of vision rather than looking in the mirror.

She's had enough of double Melodies today.

While she's changing, Ian finds two earpod communicators in a side room among the pockets of the two maintenance workers he'd packed away earlier. Melody chances upon the workers as she's walking the short hallway from bathroom to control room, stops to stare at the mottled grey arch of their foreheads, scales pebbled around their eyes and mouth, the strange tattoos marbled into the pale silver-blue of their non-scaled flesh. While unbound, they sag against one another and the bed dominating most of the side room, unconscious. Melody feels sorry for them; they were, after all, only doing their job taking care of the thousands of inhabitants in this—what? Hospital, mausoleum? This holding place, for the sick and the dying, the sleepers too ill to get well.

Melody hurries past them, catches Ian as he fries one of the communicators to bits with a too-high frequency on the sonic. He drops the metal sparks with a yelp, sucking on his burnt fingers. "I got one working," he says, "and then I broke it to bits. So we only have one communicator now, which will make reconnaissance difficult."

He takes it on assumption that she's staying here.

Ignoring his assumption, Melody sails past him to the supply cupboard in the corner, where she finds the futuristic version of a torch, two oxygen masks, two metal batons for hitting intruders, and what she can only assume are utility belts. She puts on the utility belt, adding one of the batons and the torch to the straps of the belt proper. "Take this," Melody says, handing Ian the other baton. "We may need it."

"We?"

"Don't be stupid Ian. I'm coming with you." She stops his protests with raised eyebrows. "Look, young man, I'm just as worried about your father as you are, so take the stupid baton and find a map. We'll end up needing both." She makes her voice strong, hides the trembling flowers in her voice behind doors and windows all locked.

Stupid flowers. Stupid, stupid Melody.

She knows how hopeless those flowers are, attempts to kill them dead because John is not hers, will never be hers.

He's Ian's more than anything. She just has to keep on reminding herself of that.

Ian's, who flushes at the mention of his father, then pales, but does as she asks. Melody checks in on the maintenance workers one last time, makes sure that they're able to get out once she and Ian are gone.

She heads back out to him. He's fiddling with a slim black pad similar to the LUX tablets she's used to back on earth, only slimmer. "Transport map," he explains, not looking at her. "We each hold onto one end, and it transports us to the nearest transport-beam we select on the map. It's how they get around such a gigantic ship as this. Very nifty, albeit a bit useless, since we don't know where John is."

"Why didn't you have it before?" Melody asks him, taking the other end of the transport map.

"Didn't have time to look for it, did I?" he reminds her sharply. "You were dying. I only had enough time to try and find one of you, and—" He stops abruptly, still refuses to look at her as he sonics the map open to try and find any red-alarmed disturbances created by waking sleepers.

Through the orange light of the holo-map that's sprung up from the transporter proper, Melody looks at Ian wonderingly. "You could have gone for John?"

"Yes."

"But you chose me?"

"Obviously."

"Why?" She doesn't understand. Compared to John, she's nothing to Ian. Why rescue his father's home-wrecking girlfriend when he could have rescued his father himself?

The flowers tremble through doors and windows, threaten to tumble down the wall in Melody's throat that wants to ask him all the spoilers in the world.

"Spoilers," Ian sighs.

"Here," he says, pointing at the small red dot on the map that signifies John's interrupted sleep pattern. "Right here."

The entire corridor is a wall of nanogenes, buzzing low and angry. Melody's heart's in her throat. Somewhere in there, John's fighting. He must be. Otherwise the automatic system would have shutdown now, its job done.

But no. John had to go be the hero.

"Melody," Ian says, "stay here." He disappears into the thick wall of nanogenes, immediately swallowed. Melody stands there, clenching the front of her shirt in her hands, staring. The wall hums, writhes, pulses in time with sleep.

She opens her mouth. The flowers threaten to rush in. She pushes them back down, waits. A minute passes. Then another. She breathes in, and out, and she's always doing this, she's always waiting. For the Doctor, for John, for Ian. The truth is, she doesn't mind too much. She's not Amelia Amy Williams little Pond, waiting all night in her garden until she got tired of waiting and found herself a Roman instead. Nor is she River, charging after the Doctor through history and fairy tales until she found him again on top of that pyramid and spilled her hearts out of her throat.

No.

Melody would have waited for the Doctor forever.

In a way, she thinks, I'm still waiting. I'm waiting right now, for John, and isn't he as much the Doctor as the Doctor himself?

"Some interesting self-loathing," Melody mutters, the dream-Doctor's words coming back to her. Her lips twitch.

River understands that too.

She understands. Melody understands all too well.

The nanogenes pulse, pulse. Power down, power down, tap dancing down her spine, the command drilled into her brain through eight months of wires and tubes.

Power down, power down.

Melody takes a step forward. Ian was taking too long; he should have been back by now.

"Ian," she says, her voice thin against the pulsing golden drum. "Ian," she calls again, louder. "Iaaan."

Nothing.

He has the sonic, Melody reminds herself. He'll be fine, John'll be fine, they'll be out in a moment and we can go have fish and chips. Family outing sort of thing, right?

But it's been too long. Have the nanogenes shut down Ian, too?

Her own personal accompaniment swarms up around her, in tune with her anxiety. They coat her hands, her hair, her throat, until she feels as golden as a queen. Impatiently, Melody shakes them off, setting her teeth against the sound they make against her spine.

No, she thinks. No more of that. No more waiting or hiding and allowing other people to make the decision for her.

John needs her. Ian needs her. And because she loves them, she'll do what it takes to keep them safe. To bring them back to Rose.

To bring Rose back to them.

Melody nearly chokes of the flowers twined around her heart, they're so tight inside of her. Because Casanova had been right after all.

You love him, he'd told her. Your Jonathan.

John, she'd corrected him, but she hadn't been able to deny his accusation, hadn't wanted to even think about it. Had almost forgotten it in her hatred for Jack Harkness, splattering plasma burst green along his ribs. It's her fault, she reasons, why Jack was forced into retirement and taken up residence in that garden. In a roundabout way she'd killed him after all, is glad of it even as she pushes back tears.

With all her heart she loves John. And Ian, too, since he's John's. But Melody can't lie to herself anymore, had quit lying to herself when she'd crammed flowers back down into the drawer and informed the dreamer that she was, in fact, still dreaming.

Because she knows better. No matter how much she may want to, neither John nor Ian are hers to love. Especially John.

Especially John.

"So stupid," she mutters. "All of this is just so stupid."

Melody plunges into the parent cloud of nanogenes. Immediately she loses her bearings, but she continues on, sporadically calling for John, for Ian, for anybody at all. She can't see, and it's dense, like too much butter and jam. Her nanogenes pulse around her in time with the parent cloud. Thick, and hard to breathe.

Swallowing the gold turgidity into her lungs, Melody yells "John?!" Everything's a blank gold buzzing wall. She feels her way forward, hands outstretched. Even though she can't feel anything with them, she still notices the bone-rattling thud when she knocks into something.

Blind, Melody instinctively tries to feel the mystery object by touch. Glass, dry and slick, meets her seeking fingers.

Must be an isolation tank, she realizes, then stills.

Glass. Under her hands.

She'd felt the glass, how smooth the factory-molded container was.

They worked.

Her hands worked.

Melody draws them back, bumping them against her chest. She rubs them together. Fingers, hands, all of it there. She runs her hands over her face, her hair, touches the tip of her tongue to her finger just to feel the wetness of it.

When had it—why—she hadn't even noticed?

Melody whirls around, excitement bubbling in her, panic forgotten. "John—my hands. My hands. They work. God."

There's no response. She draws in a shaky breath, presses her hands to her lips to still her breathing. Her lips are chapped; she runs her hands over them, her index finger catching on the ridges of skin. "John," she whispers. She has to tell John. He'd be thrilled.

She imagines his smile, brilliant in the curve of his face, beaming down at her as he drawls, "That's just great, darling! Brilliant, fantastic. Molto bené!" Then he'd rattle on about some adventure he hadn't dared suggest before, because of her hands.

Maybe Ian could come too.

"John?" she calls out, raising her voice to a shout. Then, "Ian? My hands—my hands are—"

No, focus, Melody thinks. It's just so hard, with the buzzing of the nanogenes. Makes it hard to think.

"Ian? Ian, if you're okay, yell. Really loudly." There's no answer.

Melody's throat closes up, and the buzzing—

She staggers forward, a little thrill of panic snaking through her gut. "John, I swear if you're dead I'm going to kill you!" Which would be counterproductive, but Melody ignores this. She keeps on walking.

During Christmastime when she was a girl, Melody and her father would take a zeppelin ride through London. The outing was half apology that Rory had to work through Christmas Eve into the morning of Christmas itself, so Melody always woke up alone. But she'd wait until he got home to open the handful of presents they had for each other, then after they'd drive into London and sail, via the pre-purchased tickets, up into the sky. Zeppelin rides were expensive, but Rory saved up enough each year so they could go. They could afford it especially because it was just the two of them. They'd always get a mug of hot chocolate to share, then stand in line waiting for the boarding pass, shivering in the chill of winter, collectively warming their fingers around the mug. (After Rory died Melody couldn't stand chocolate, too bitter and sad a taste to swallow).

Melody would race out the glass doors of the view bay to the edge of the deck, heedless of the slick ice underneath her wellies. Ponderous as a whale, the zeppelin drifted through London's skyline. The Doctor is just there, she'd think, placing him just to her left. Rory was behind her, draining the dregs of the chocolate, his hand in her hair, legs broad as tree trunks. She felt safe trapped between them. The whole of London was beneath her feet.

Dad was the Doctor's favoritest companion ever, and the stars gusted around them in a sudden sharp wind, rattling the edges of Rory's jacket against her face, her hair bright red streamers tangling around the icy railings. The stars caught in her eyelashes, the ice of them melting onto her cheeks. She shivered from cold and delight, the farther stars of London below them, caught in the netting that was Dad's ordinary life, and the beer bottles sometimes stashed in the back cabinet where he'd thought Melody wouldn't think to look, and Dad being away for Christmas.

Dad is the Doctor's favoritest companion ever, she'd think again, firmly, placing him just behind her. And when the Doctor came for her—because of course he'd come for her, the Doctor always came—she'd beg him to take Dad along, too, and they'd visit the space whales and float through stars and planets, ships and ceiling wax, cabbages and kings.

Melody feels that way now, wading through the nanogenes. So high, the ice slick underneath her feet. So certain the Doctor will come—no, that John will come for her. She can't see the floor for the nanogenes, and something about this is wrong, but she can't think about that now. John needs her.

"John," she says. "John." But there's no answer.

She begins to wonder if she's whispering his name (can't tell over the buzz of the nanogenes) but she keeps of calling for him and Ian. She daren't stop. He needs to answer her. She needs to know he's okay.

A long time, short while later, Melody stops walking. Her voice is cracked through, dry from calling the same one-word syllable over and over. The golden swarm around her has yet to fade away, but that's okay. The corridor stretched on forever. She'd find John eventually.

God—Melody can almost imagine she's back on that zeppelin, the whole world at her feet. All I'd need is a star whale, she thinks, and hiccups back a laugh.

She takes another step.

"Clara. Clara, listen to me. You're caught in their telepathic field—they're feeding on your thoughts. Stop thinking about them. Clara, do you hear me?"

"I'm not Clara," Melody informs the Doctor. She's not at all surprised to find him beside her, that depressingly tattered top hat on top of his head, tie in lieu of the more typical bow tie around his throat.

The Doctor always came.

"Of course you're not," the Doctor adds on her right side. "You dafty. She's much too tall to be Clara."

"Hm, oh I'd suppose so. Clara is only middling high, after all." He raises a hand to show how tall middling high actually is.

"Who's Clara?" Melody continues, turning to the Doctor on her right.

His beak-of-a-nose lined face peers back at her, the white shock of his hair rattling in the sudden gust of wind from the zeppelin as it banked a corner. He doesn't bother answering her.

Her own hair whaps red streamers in his face; he brushes them away with an impatient hand, says, "I said present tense, darling, not past. Waking, not awake. Not quite yet."

"But I woke up," Melody whispers. "Ian got me. He saved me from drowning."

"Bollocks," the Doctor bites, all cinnamon and vinegar. "Rubbish. Your mind's careening along the inside of the computer system, circling and circling, trying to wake up but lost among the firewalls and labyrinth circuitry." He gestures around him, a brief flip in the air, at where the snow fell bright gold around them, burning as the zeppelin charted its course past Big Ben. The clock face cast his own into shadow. His eyes glint as he tilts his head to appraise her. "Calm down Melody," he advises, smooth. "Breathe properly. In and out."

"I'm what?" Melody squeaks. "I'm—I—asleep?!" Panic bubbles inside her, hot with metal and oil.

"Yes," the Doctor says on her other side. His forehead wrinkles as he takes in her panic. He cups his hands around her shoulders, cradling the nape of her neck. His palms are wide, fingers long and thin. Melody feels completely swallowed.

"You are, Melody Williams, completely and utterly sleeping." He places the winkles of his forehead against hers, the hazel of his eyes pleading with her to understand, to stay calm, even if just for a minute. "But you'll be alright, eh?" He gives her a little shake. "We'll get you out. Me, myself, and I." He shoots a wry glance at his older self, who makes a wry face back at him.

"We shall try," he amends himself, crossing his arms.

"But you're all inside my head," Melody reminds the Doctor still cradling her shoulders. She steps back from him, straightening her spine and swallowing back the panic. (she's going to hate sleeping after this, even more than she already had) "You, Doctor. A virus implanted by the TARDIS my subconscious wouldn't think to kick, so the computer wouldn't notice when you tried to wake me up. The TARDIS herself said so."

"Good girl," the Doctor says, smiling into her eyes. "Brave heart, Melody, that's the way of things." He lets go of her entirely to straighten his bow tie, pleased with himself.

"Old habits," his older half murmurs, eyeing him.

"What my younger self fails to articulate, however," he continues, turning a wicked gaze on her. "Was that, too, a dream? The TARDIS, coming to you, the computer creating a scenario for you to believe in, to wake up to only to fall asleep again?"

He loves the devil's advocate, does Twelve.

"Shut up," Melody tells him. "I know it's her. I know—"

"Good," he interrupts. "Best to be sure of yourself. We may be in your head, darling, a virus for you to fall back on as you dream, but our metacrisis self is not."

John, Melody thinks. Of course. She hadn't forgotten about him, of course she hadn't. He was just so separate from the Doctor of her dreams, from the man twice standing before her now, that she often forgot that he is the Doctor, too, where it counts.

At the thought of him, the icy wind of her childhood is gone, replaced by the cool ice of the lemonade in her hands. In a minute, the Sontarans will invade the view bay and threaten to blow up the Hindenburg, but this is Melody's dream so that never has to happen. "He never would look at the view," she murmurs, with a small smile thinking of John twitching around his chair and muttering about spies.

The Doctor's angled on either side of her; they, too, hold lemonades. The twelfth sips at his thoughtfully, grimacing at the sweetness.

"A definite improvement," his eleventh self says, simultaneously looking around him and downing his lemonade.

"Thank you," the twelfth purrs. "I rather do think so myself."

"Shaddap," the eleventh counters, slouching down in his deck chair. "River likes me like this."

"River likes all of us." The Doctor waggles his eyebrows.

He grins. "Oh, she does."

"I can't just wait for John to wake me up," Melody says aloud with a frown, ignoring their bickering. "I have to do something."

"And miss spending quality time with me?" the Doctor says, placing a hand to his hearts.

"I'm crushed," the Doctor agrees, amused.

Melody scowls at them both.

The Doctor sobers, exchanging looks with his younger counterpart. "Although . . ." he says, trailing off.

"Although," the Doctor agrees, his brow knitting in a thick grey line of mussed eyebrows.

"Although what?" Melody asks, voice cracking in alarm.

"We're not really in your head. We're part of your subconscious, yes, but a part of your subconscious inserted by the TARDIS. So . . ." The Doctor rises, pacing to the glass window of the view bay. He stands there a moment, silhouetted by the watercolor blur of the landscape below him, the way landscapes are in dreams. The broad tweed of his shoulders jerks a bit at a sudden thought. "Exactly," he decides, clapping his hands and pacing back to them.

Wagging a finger in Melody's face, then himself, he enthuses, "Don't you see? Oooh, our girl is smart. I think we've found you a loophole, Melody."

"You might want to explain," the Doctor drawls, lounging back in his deck chair and crossing his arms over his head. His trouser legs ride up to reveal bright pink socks with ducks on them.

"Yes, right. Ahm. Loophole. Melody, loophole. Loophole, Melody. We've found one for you. Well, our girlie here did, by putting us in years and years ago for you linearly, but such a short time for herself and her mother."

"We'll keep you when the time comes, darling," his older self assures her. "Your memories, your thoughts."

Melody frowns at them. "A loophole? For what? How does that help me now?"

"It doesn't," his eleventh self says at the same time his twelfth adds, "To keep you from dying permanently."

"You've got—" the Doctor says.

"Melody," John's brogue is thick in her ear, thick and annoyed and tinged with worry. "Melody. Melodyy, darling, I know you're faking, blast you. Wake up for the love of God wake up."

Melody wakes up.