- c h a p t e r   t h i r t y -

"Wedding planning," the Doctor sighed. "I've never really been involved with it before, and I can honestly say that it is the least enjoyable part of weddings."

"You're hardly even playing a role in the planning!" Connor said, calling the Doctor out. "Clara and Melody are doing most of the work."

"Why is Clara working on it?" the Doctor asked. He then turned to his companion and said, "Clara, why are you working on it?"

"You could help as well, if you want," she replied, shrugging her shoulders.

"You didn't answer my question," the Doctor said, starting to contort his face into a melodramatic scowl.

"Because I want to," Clara finally said. "You know, it's actually pretty fun. I used to help some of my friends plan their weddings before I got so wrapped up in traveling around in the TARDIS ... then again, I do seem to get bombarded by requests for help whenever I go back ...."

"Bombarded," Melody noted. "Nice word choice, Clara."

"Thank you, Melody."

"You're welcome," she said, smiling. In her arms, Oliver began to wriggle around. She ended up letting out a sigh, but just quickly adjusted her way to make him more comfortable before he started crying.

"Are we just going to spend all of our time planning the wedding instead of going to do something?" the Doctor asked. "I've been working awfully hard in order to pilot this time machine, and I wouldn't appreciate if you're too busy planning out your wedding to go out with me."

"I'm not working on the wedding planning," Connor said, jumping into the conversation.

"You should be," Clara replied, reaching out to grab his arm. "First order of business is to find the venue. You should have a say in it. You are the groom, after all."

"But the bride always has the final say," Melody clarified. "Besides, the bride is also a mother with limited time and energy. The sooner we can get more of this done, the better."

"I think this book has some interesting places we might want to check out," Clara said, showing a book to Melody. The bride-to-be couldn't take it in her hands with a baby in the way, but it certainly did look promising.

"A fiftieth century tourist book," Melody said, nodding. "Sounds interesting to me."

"I know," Clara replied with a smile. "Some of the places seem a bit out there, but there are certainly some that could work for a wedding. I could take Oliver for a few minutes if you wanted to look through it."

"No, I'll be fine carrying Oliver all by myself," Melody said, shaking her head. "Thank you for the offer, though."

Clara gave a nod, watching as Melody went over at her husband-to-be, trying to balance her baby and the book all together as she slowly walked along. She tried to hold out the book carefully, nearly sighing with relief with Connor plucked the book from her hands and started to look through the page it was turned to. She moved to the side in order to readjust her grip on Oliver as he was doing so.

"What do you think?" she said.

"Looks lovely," Connor replied.

"Did you even look at it, really?"

"Of course I did!" Connor said, a hint of a whine coming into his voice. Melody smiled and came over to him again, leaning over to kiss him on the cheek.

"I was just teasing you. So, do you think it could work?" Melody smiled down at her son, who had begun the faint hints of crying. She rocked him gently to get him to stay calm. No one liked it when Oliver would cry, all for different reasons.

"Definitely."

"Then it looks like I'm going to be married at the Singing Towers of Darillium!" Melody cried out happily. She glanced over his arms to look at some of the details of the area, now starting to think on a deeper level about the venue for her wedding.

"It says it uses the same sort of technology as Obbligato!" Melody gasped, gently rocking Oliver all the while. "Oh, Connor, you never got to see Obbligato!"

"I remember that," Clara replied with a smile. "That was a pretty good day overall, wasn't it?"

"I nearly collapsed and then I found out I was pregnant," Melody said. "I mean - um - I have mixed feelings about it."

"I still don't know what Obbligato is," Connor said blankly.

"It's a musical city," Clara explained. "The wind pushes through the buildings and ends up creating pitches."

"So the same sort of thing happens at the Singing Towers?" Connor asked. "They sing when the wind blows through them. Huh. That's pretty interesting, I have to admit."

"It'd be nice for Oliver here, that's for sure," Melody said, looking down at her son. "There'd be a constant lullaby around him. Maybe he wouldn't end up sobbing in the middle of a ceremony."

"Doctor, what do you think?" Connor asked. "I mean, I want your opinion on this ...."

The Doctor remained silent for a moment. He was almost motionless as well, providing a stark contrast to what the inhabitants of the TARDIS were used to. He wasn't bouncing around, jumping this way and that.

"It'll be fine," the Doctor said, his voice quiet. "Just fine."

"I thought you liked weddings ..." Connor began.

Everyone became quiet for several moments. Even Connor didn't make a sound in this time, despite being a child with all sorts of problems that came along with being young.

"I'm going to go take Oliver to bed so that he can have a nap," Melody announced, breaking the silence.

Connor glanced over to her and quickly decided that he was going to go along with her. They were practically inseparable, despite the fact that they never discussed it with one another. Their marriage really wouldn't be much more than a fancy ceremony to make their connection official.

"Doctor, what's wrong with the Singing Towers?" Clara asked now that the couple was gone. "It sounds absolutely lovely in my opinion."

"It is," he said. "It's a lovely place, really."

"Is that all?"

But the Doctor didn't respond before Melody and Connor entered the room yet again. There was an air surrounding them that showed they had something important to say - or at least, she had something to say.

"We're going to stay," Melody said softly. Connor looked over at her, attempting to get close so that he could hear precisely what she was saying. No one seemed to be able to make out what words were coming out of her mouth, so he was trying to see if he could find out by getting closer to her.

"What was that, Melody?"

"We're going to stay," she said, a bit louder.

"We're going to stay?" Connor repeated.

"Yes. We're going to stay here in the TARDIS. Oliver is going to grow up here. I can't leave it all behind."

"Oh," Connor replied, his voice now becoming softer. Melody had been making up all of these decisions by herself and hadn't really talked to him about any of it. He wasn't sure if he should feel offended by this or not. He decided that for the moment, he might just be better off listening.

"I mean, what I've really been thinking about is how much of a hypocrite I was being," Melody said. She closed her eyes, allowing herself to remain calm as she continued speaking. "I was always so worried about everyone leaving me, deserting me ... but I was missing the point."

Everyone was silent, waiting to hear precisely what she was going to say next. Even Connor was unsure what was going to be coming. The two had shared many conversations as of late, but few of them had been focused around these sorts of situations.

"I always considered myself to be a very bright girl, and yet now that I'm actually thinking over it all I've found that I've been so foolish lately."

"If it means anything, I think you're very bright," Connor said, his voice little more than a whisper. He was still listening out for what she said to say.

"I've always been so terrified that everyone was going to leave me that I wanted to just escape from all of that. Part of me believed that if I settled down somewhere with Connor and Oliver, I wouldn't have to worry about being abandoned."

All the eyes in the TARDIS focused in on Melody's face as she spoke. She hardly ever spilled out so much about her life, and almost never so freely. Besides, the matter was of extreme importance - at least by the way that it was being presented.

"I mean, think about it - if I was standing around thinking that everyone was going to desert me and then I decided to desert them, it wouldn't make much sense. I thought about trying to avoid being left by leaving myself. That would make me a definition hypocrite, for certain."

Melody looked down to her hands - she was twisting around her fingers, twiddling them in such a way that she could release any sort of stress from it all. These were thoughts that had never escaped her lips for so long, everything that had been forced back in her mind and finally coming out at once.

"Besides, my family is here," Melody said. "Not just Oliver, not just Connor. I mean you, Clara and the Doctor. When I thought I had no one, you were still there for me. Even though I locked myself away and wouldn't come out for weeks on end, you were still there for me. I ended up pregnant and filled to the brim with panic attacks, and you were still there for me."

She glanced around to everyone, saying, "I can't stop thanking all of you enough for making my life so much more than what it would've been, all of course. I didn't want anything ordinary ... and that's certainly not what I got."

She stood there, the Extraordinary Woman, smiling softly. No, she was sure she had made the correct decision by deciding to stay. There were all sorts of other ways her life could've gone.

It all came down to those moments in London where the Doctor came along. Maybe it was fate that brought all sorts of events to coincide - he had literally appeared just minutes after she had changed her name to Melody. Perhaps the universe just knew that she needed something to happen now that she was no longer Jane Birch.

"You know," the Doctor said from behind her, "Jane is pretty extraordinary too."

"I wouldn't know," Clara replied. "I never really met her."

"Well, you're not going to," Melody said, turning around and allowing her smile to grow. "Melody is here to stay in the TARDIS for a long while. But that's not to say that there'll never be a Jane Dale ...."

She glanced over to Connor, trying to see if he understood what he was trying to say. He seemed to be somewhat clueless at the moment, so she just shook her head and looked away.

It was almost certain that she wouldn't be spending the rest of her life within the TARDIS, but it was almost certain that she wouldn't be willingly leaving any time soon. The halls of the time machine had been a place of solace for her throughout one of the most difficult points of her life. She didn't see how much she had attached herself to it until she imagined herself somewhere else permanently.

"Maybe one day, there will be a Jane Dale," Melody said once again. "I think we're good with just having the three of us for now, however."

Connor finally seemed to understand the message that Melody was sending out. He looked over to her with wide eyes, but she just shook her head with a slight giggle.

"One baby in the TARDIS is enough for the meanwhile," Clara said. "But, like I've said, if you ever need a nanny I'm here for the two of you. We can do this."

"Thank you, Clara. But Melody, what is this going to be like?" Connor asked. "I mean, we lived in the TARDIS for a good amount of time before, but now we have a baby, and we're going to be married ...."

"It's going to be like living in the TARDIS along with a baby, and we'll be married," Melody replied, shaking her head. "It's not going to be anything extraordinarily different -"

"But it will be extraordinary!" the Doctor interrupted, rushing over to the couple. "It has to be, for the Extraordinary Woman and her family."

"Is that what we're going to start calling her now?" Clara said with a slight smirk. "I mean, I know that we named Melody that a while ago, but ... it's a bit long, don't you think?"

"Clara," the Doctor began, wondering how he should respond to this. He found himself lost in his thoughts. Many things had been happening at once, and his mind struggled to keep track of it all. "Clara, no - we won't be calling her that all the time."

"It was a joke, Doctor," Clara said, letting out a sigh. "I can see you've gotten your head all clogged up with everything. Just shake it all out for a minute. You're thinking too much. I've been able to see that it's never too good for you. Being stuck in a room with hardly anything more than my thoughts for so long showed me that."

"I know precisely what you mean," Connor added in solemnly. "I mean, I tended to draw things when I was in the room, but there always seemed to be heaps of extra time when it came to thinking. At least, that's how I remember it. It's all a bit foggy."

"That's not surprising," the Doctor replied. "The whole point of that room was to make your experience within it seem like you always had just enough time to do everything and still too much - you wouldn't want to feel stressed."

"It's just ... strange ... I can't truly remember it ...."

"Did you have your asthma medication?" Melody asked. "I mean, it would've been horrible to have an asthma attack in the middle of your time there."

"No ... but I was fine. Which reminds me: we need to go get some of my asthma medicine from home. That is, we will be going back home sometimes, right?" Connor asked. "I mean, that's what Clara does ...."

"What do you mean?" Melody replied, answering his question with a question.

"Well, if we're always in the TARDIS, are we never going to stop by to see our families and check in?"

"Of course we're going to stop by and see our families," Melody said. "I mean, my family is desperate to check up on Oliver. And your family hasn't even met me, and we're about to get married! But I don't think that's what you asked. You asked if we'd be going home?"

"Yes."

"We are home, Connor."

A/N And thus we conclude our adventures with Melody, Connor, and little Oliver. At least for now. Really, I am overall quite happy with how this turned out. You'll have to let me explain, though, and the way to explain begins with me saying this chapter is dedicated to my editor Rasa (ameliasraggedydoctor) for a reason.

If I were to say one single person allowed this story to keep its spark, it would have to be you! When you came along offering to help me out, I was in a spot where this story was just barely scraping by in terms of me writing it. I didn't have the heart to stop it - and you came just in time. By helping me out, you allowed me to regain the light at the heart of the story. While this is far from my masterpiece, you made it something that could be wonderful just by supporting me. For that, I can hardly thank you enough.