- c h a p t e r   t h r e e -

The TARDIS began to make its typical scraping sort of noise - the one that no one could fully describe through words but would know by ear in a heartbeat - as it shook slightly. There was only one thing that could make that noise, and it was the TARDIS with its brakes left on.

The TARDIS violently shook back and forth for a few seconds, causing all of the inhabitants to lose their balance. Somehow all three - Melody, Connor, and the Doctor - had managed to stay on their feet. But then the TARDIS straightened itself out and the engines let out a little puff for good measure.

"Whoa," Melody said. "What was all of that?" There had been lots of shaking and weird noises in the TARDIS for the past couple of minutes, and the Doctor had spent the whole time running around the  control panel.

"That was your first trip in the TARDIS, both of you! And now, here we go!" the Doctor said. "We've landed." Then he rethought his wording for a second. "Actually, we haven't really landed, but...." He just shook his head as he realized that a good explanation wasn't going to come to him. "Just go out and see for yourself."

Melody bit her lip. She was a bit nervous about all of this. Literally anything could be out there, and her trust in the Doctor had significantly decreased when he kissed her.

But Connor wasn't really having anything that would hold him back. He was excited and ready to go. Without another thought, he rushed towards the doors. Connor was about to fling them open to see exactly what was out there, but then he stopped himself.

Melody slowly walked over to the doors, looking over at Connor expectantly. He had seemed rather excited to get over there and find out where the TARDIS had brought them. She realized as she walked forwards that Connor had been waiting for her. That was sort of sweet, in her personal opinion. Like he was some sort of doorman, he smiled and bowed, one hand on the door handle.

Melody decided to play along with him, bowing her head slightly as her lips curled into a smile. He brought the doors open, saying, "Ladies first."

"Thank you," she said to Connor, moving out the door. But then, her smile quickly faded away as she moved forwards and out of the TARDIS.

"Oh, my goodness!" she said, pitching forwards and then pulling herself back.

"What, what is it?" Connor said, worried. He moved over next to Melody and did the same movement as she had. "Oh my goodness is right," he said. Connor's eyes widened as he stared out at everything now in front of him.

"Pretty amazing, isn't it?" the Doctor said, sauntering over to the two new companions. He pushed the doors completely open so that they could see the entire view, causing Melody to let out a gasp of bewilderment.

He got between Connor and Melody and hung an arm around each of them. Melody would have pushed it away if she hadn't been so transfixed on the view out in front of them.

"Don't worry, you won't fall out," the Doctor said. "But I wouldn't test that if I were you."

Neither Melody nor Connor would even think about stepping out of the TARDIS. They were floating in what seemed like the middle of space.

The TARDIS was stable, levitating where there was no gravity. Turning to either side they could see planets with swirls of colors almost like a sunset. Everywhere there seemed to be stars that seemed alive. There were so many of them, all so bright. It was like nothing either of them had seen.

"Light pollution really does make a difference," Melody murmured. As Connor turned to reply to her, the Doctor backed away. He wanted to allow them to focus on the stars and planets as much as possible.

"Light pollution?" Connor said. "I don't understand. How can light be pollution?"

Melody glanced up at Connor for a second but then immediately turned her gaze back down so that she could stare at all of the stars and planets - surreal and hardly possible - below her.

"We have too many electric lights, it's all too bright. There's so much of it that you end up blocking out some of the stars. A lot of the stars, judging by this."

"I didn't think it was even possible for there to be this many stars in the sky at one time," Connor replied.

"Have you lived in London for long?"

"Yeah, almost my entire life."

"That explains it. It's a big city, it has a lot of light pollution. I mean, everywhere does, but back in the suburbs where I live there's slightly less."

"Oh, I see," Connor said. He didn't completely understand the concept, but it didn't really matter. Soon enough he would have plenty of time to think about it more. The fact of the matter was that Connor didn't think as much in words as he did pictures. Words just didn't stick in his head, and so he ended up forgetting them easily. Drawing things helped him remember, that was for sure.

What was out in front of him at that particular moment would definitely have to be drawn out somewhere so that he could look back at it and remember each and every detail. But for now, he just wanted to stand there and watch.

"There's something really amazing about this, past the fact that so few people ever get to see this and that it's just...incredible," Melody breathed.

"Oh?" Connor replied. "What would that be?"

"It's just that looking out over how vast this all is reminds me just how small a person is compared to it, how short everyone's life is compared to the universe."

Connor stared at Melody for a second, unsure of how to take it. That sounded awfully negative and all, not something he had marked her down as.

But then Melody continued onwards, and soon, Connor saw where he was heading. "But the thing is, every last organism and every last cell of any living being is important somehow, you know? Each cell in the entire universe throughout all of time and space has its purpose."

"Oh, yes. Of course," Connor replied, a more eloquent response not coming to his head.

"The universe is made up of all of those cells and where they live and what surrounds them. So, in other words, we couldn't have the vastness of the universe without the tiniest living creature to begin with."

Connor processed this for a second, trying to see if he could read Melody's eyes and get some sort of an answer that made sense to him. But Melody was still transfixed on the view out of the TARDIS. Connor only had one thing to say.

"Wow."

Melody was quiet for a second. Connor's response to everything hadn't left her with anything more to say. Maybe it was just better if they stood there in silence, not speaking a word and instead focusing on what was there in front of them.

Of course, it would never be completely silent because of the whirs and hisses of the TARDIS, but it was close enough. The Doctor didn't add to the noise at all, he was just happy that his two new companions were enjoying it all.

It was just so quiet. There was no sound in space, only what was coming from the TARDIS. Connor and Melody were experiencing the closest thing to silence that either of them had ever known. That in of itself was sort of amazing and beautiful. That's why the two young companions didn't talk to each other even more.

Melody found herself gasping and sighing as she continued to look out. There was always something just out of her gaze that if she moved far enough she would be able to see and be shocked by. Space was so calm, and yet Melody found a sort of chaos in her stomach as she stared across it.

Maybe it was because of the danger of potentially falling out, or the thoughts of how small she really was compared to all of this.

Or, of course, it could just be because of the sheer beauty of what was standing in front of her.

Melody leaned over slightly to get a bigger spectrum of all the galaxy spread out in front of her. But just as she had been trying to avoid, she nearly fell right out of the TARDIS and into the void of space. Luckily, Connor snapped to action and caught her hand, pulling her back in. Her reaction was delayed, she let out a shriek the moment she was just about safe.

Connor didn't let go of her hand once she was back in the TARDIS. The moment he thought about it and loosened his grip slightly, Melody had squeezed his hand, and he decided to continue holding hers. It was nice, anyways.

Melody found a smile growing across her face. She didn't know where it came from, but it was able to come out without a thought of her own. Connor's hand was warm in hers, like she was holding a mug of something.

Tea, because he was British. But Melody preferred hot chocolate. Her smile stretched even farther as she thought of this, about how silly it was compared to the things that she had been speaking about in the past.

Connor was nearly glad that Melody had nearly fallen out of the TARDIS. Not only did he seem to save her by grabbing her hand, he had been able to find a way to hold her hand without all of the awkward trial and error before that point. Now he just got to feel Melody's hand within his, and it didn't seem like she was going to let go any time soon. The two of them had only known one another for a matter of hours, but already they felt themselves connecting to one another.

As happy as the Doctor was that his two new companions were getting along quite well and that they were enjoying themselves, he was beginning to get a little bored. Melody and Connor were just standing there without making a sound.

While they were able to look out at something that was simply unbelievable and yet spread out in truth in front of them, the Doctor just saw the back of their heads and a slight glimpse of the stars. Before long, he was probably going to have to pull them away from the doors of the TARDIS.

The Doctor stared at them for a bit longer. Absolutely nothing happened. They just continued to stand there, holding hands. Yes, the view was amazing, but was it still so breathtaking now that they had stared at it for an hour or more on end? They were human, they didn't have very much of an attention span.

Before the Doctor could hold himself back, he found himself clearing his throat rather loudly. Suddenly, the couple broke away from one another and turned around, walking over to him. At first it was still quiet, but then Melody decided to speak up.

"So, Doctor, how did we get here? How does this work?" Melody asked, putting her elbows on the TARDIS console and leaning over.

"Jane, don't do that. You might accidentally press something and cause the TARDIS to crash," the Doctor said.

Melody leaned back as she rolled her eyes, mostly because the Doctor had called her Jane yet again. He did have a legitimate point about the TARDIS crashing, though. She sighed a little bit and repeated the question.

"How does the TARDIS work, exactly?"

"Well," the Doctor said, "it's a bit complicated. Humans from the 21st century typically don't understand the concepts -"

"I'm ready for it, Doctor. Don't worry," Melody said. Connor decided that he might listen, but figured that probably none of it would make sense to him. All in all, it didn't really matter to him. He could just move along and nothing would change.

"In essence, the TARDIS goes through the time vortex and uses that to put itself in any place in time, because the time vortex -"

"Is a dimension outside of typical, linear time and space that contains all points throughout time and space concentrated together and you can use the TARDIS to exploit that to your needs," Melody said, her eyes flicking upwards as if she was thinking about it.

Connor just shook his head and walked to the other side of the control room. He obviously didn't have a part in this conversation. The Doctor stared at Melody, stunned. "How did you know all that?"

Melody was so lost in thought at first that she didn't respond. "Oh, what?" she said, blinking and pulling herself down to reality.

"Sorry," she said. "I'm a physics major in college, I've dabbled with quantum physics and the like," Melody said with a smile. She walked around the console of the TARDIS, examining it as if it could give her a better clue as to what was going on.

As amazing as the TARDIS was, there was definitely science behind it and she wanted to know what that would be. Connor, on the other hand, was content with the Doctor's explanation. As long as it was all somehow reality, it didn't matter to him.

Connor was fairly sure that he wasn't dreaming. Of course, there were a few times when he had to question it. But everything felt so real, sounded so real, looked so real. How could it possibly not be real, when every last one of his senses were telling him that it was?

This whole "time vortex" thing sort of made sense, in a strange sort of way. "I think I get this time vortex thing, sort of," Connor said. "I mean, my head hurts when I think about it, but I think I get it," he continued.

"Stop thinking about it," the Doctor said, suddenly very serious.

"What, why?" Connor replied. Melody tilted her head as she looked towards the Doctor, wanting to know what this was all about.

"Your head might literally explode," the Doctor said. At first Connor laughed, but he saw Melody and the Doctor's face and his smile faded quickly.

"I think he's serious, Connor."

"Oh. Oh, wow. But what about you?" Connor said, looking towards Melody. "You've been thinking about it and your head still seems to be fine."

"It's because Jane here is a physics major," the Doctor said.

She shook her head. "Melody. It's Melody."

The Doctor just simply ignored her. "Anyways, we have places to go, creatures to see! Anywhere and anytime throughout the entire existence of the universe, and we can go there."

The Doctor presented himself by holding out his arms and walking towards the TARDIS controls. "There's only one question left for the moment: Where do you want to start?"

A/N Ah, is it bad that I enjoy this chapter so much? It sets up a lot of things for the future, I can tell you that much. The smallest detail could pop up again, just remember that. It also characterizes Melody and Connor in more depth. There we go. So, if you read this and enjoyed it, please go ahead and vote and comment, every bit means so much to me!