- c h a p t e r   s i x -

The Doctor was running, one companion in each hand. Melody and Connor were very confused, but all thoughts shot out of their headsd as there was a sudden crash behind them. The sound made the floor vibrate. The bang was almost loud enough for Melody to whip her hands up and protect her hearing from being ruined.

A quick glance over the shoulder told the two of them that a set piece that had been being stored backstage had just fallen right over. It could have flattened the three of them like dough if the Doctor hadn't taken their hands and forced them to run.

"Aha!" the Doctor explained, a smile stretching his face to the side. He began slowing them down to a walking speed.

"You're happy that we almost got killed?" Connor replied, looking at just how massive the set piece had been.

"See, I knew that was going to happen," the Doctor said. The group had gotten to a stop. Connor's breathing already starting to get heavier and louder just from that one sprint.

Melody shook her head. The shock he had given her was more irritating than it was helpful. but as she took a moment to clear her mind, she pondered over the Doctor's words.

"Aliens, in the Paris Opera House," Melody said, her voice dry. It was very obvious that she didn't believe a word he was saying.

"Yeah, I have to say I agree with Melody on this one," Connor said. "I know that we're in Victorian Paris after traveling here in some sort of magic police box, but that still seems like a bit of a stretch."

The Doctor shook his head. "I know aliens when I hear about them. It could just be a random prankster following Lotte around, but it's much more likely that the Opera Garnier has some uninvited visitors from another planet."

He looked over to the set piece that had just fallen down and tilted his head slightly to the side. "That set piece crashing over just about proved my suspicions correct."

"So, you're trying to tell me that a rogue alien is roaming around the Paris Opera trying to kill my great great great great grandmother and also the three of us?" Lotte's voice filled with the edge of fear. She had been able to keep it away for a good while, but it had creeped right back in.

"I highly doubt this alien is trying to kill anyone," the Doctor said. "I mean, someone would have died already if that was the case."

"We almost died, right now!" Connor protested. "You saw how big that set piece was, heard how loud of a sound it made when it fell over."

Melody's fears rose up and down with each of the men's words. She wasn't sure which one she trusted more, which one had the better perspective of the scenario. Either way, Melody was not happy. All she had wanted to do was meet Lotte Dupuis and then see her perform in an opera.

"Please," Melody said. "Can we at least have a plan of some sort?"

"A plan," the Doctor said. "Plans are good. Plans work well, if they're good plans."

"I don't know," Connor said. "We haven't had a plan so far, and everything has gone pretty well." But then he corrected himself. "I take that back. We almost got killed and we didn't have a plan. Doctor?"

Now all the pressure was on the Doctor to come up with something brilliant. He had been in situations like this many a time before.

"Well," the Doctor said. "We're looking for an alien. That's the plan."

"I never agreed to that," Melody said, pursing her lips.

"But you want to help Lotte, right?" the Doctor said.

Melody sighed and nodded, looking over to Connor who seemed a bit more excited at this prospect. "So it's like we're going alien hunting," he said.

"Not hunting. No," the Doctor said. "We don't hurt anyone if we don't have to, no matter who and what they are."

"But still," Connor said. "You know what I mean, anyways."

"Plan," Melody butted in again. "Don't forget about the plan."

"We'll start by heading off to the main entrance and go from there," the Doctor decided, in order to settle the matter quickly.

"Sounds like a plan to me," Connor said. Melody joined arms with him again, and the two of them shared a little smile just between them. The Doctor just about rolled his eyes at that.

"Right then!" the Doctor said, purposefully interrupting their little moment. "Let us go off!"

"At least outside there won't be any props to crush us," Melody said, grumbling under her breath.

"But there are trees," Connor said.

With a sigh, the group carried onwards and outside of the Opera Garnier. Melody found her eyes tracking up to the architecture of the exterior, and it was distracting her every bit as much as everything in London had been. Several times Connor felt a tug on his arm as he carried on at the same pace but Melody slowed down to stare.

"Melody," he said. "We're not on a tour here."

"Which is why I have time to stop," she said, staring up and up and up.

"Well, if the Doctor gets too far ahead I can't guide you to where we need to go."

The Doctor listened in to their conversation and joined in. "Well, Jane, you do already seem to know Paris pretty well from all of those maps and such."

"Melody," she grumbled in response, heaving a sigh and immediately regretting it when it came to her corset.

They were only about halfway around their journey to the front of the Opera Garnier when suddenly they were stopped by a man.

"Ah, you look like an interesting bunch. You would be quite good for interviews, I think," a man said, a pen perched in his right hand along with a pad of paper in the other. He took another step closer to the group, who just stared at him for a moment.

"Who are you?" Melody said, scrunching up her nose. The man was rather strange looking, not the skinniest person around. He had a very well groomed mustache underneath his nose, and perched on top of this same nose was a pair of circular glasses. His somewhat scruffy beard matched his hair. Melody clutched on to Connor just a little harder.

She didn't think this man had any ill intentions, necessarily, but she was a bit on edge after her incident with the Doctor. That, and the fact that she had learned of the existance of aliens for the first time.

"I'm a reporter," the man said. "All you need to know for now is that my name is Gaston. I've been sent out to cover the opening night here at the Palais Garnier, with Lotte Dupuis as the headliner. But I've been uncovering some strange things going on around here."

The Doctor, who had been standing a very short distance behind Melody and Connor, suddenly was interested. He pushed around them so that he could be in front and talk to this Gaston fellow.

"What sort of strange things?" The Doctor sensed that there might be some sort of a connection between what Gaston had seen and what Lotte had been experiencing. Maybe Gaston could help lead him to the aliens he had his mind set on.

"Well, I've only heard rumors about them, but the sort of thing like sudden theivery in the blink of an eye, set pieces falling over and only nearly missing some of the performers and crew members, that sort of thing."

The Doctor's eyes widened, he had been right about there being a connection between what Lotte had been talking about and now what Gaston had said. "Anything else?" he pressed, wondering how much he could get out of the reporter.

"The people who talk about it and believe it's more than pure coincidence think it's a ghost," Gaston said, his lips curling into a slight smile. As much as he enjoyed working on this story, he enjoyed the Doctor's enthusiasm even more. "The Opera Ghost. I could imagine all sorts of stories being passed down throught time about the Opera Ghost, who haunted the Palais Garnier."

Connor felt Melody suddenly tighten her grip on him yet again. When he turned to see what was the matter, he saw a look on her face that surprised him. He had been expecting the blonde's face to be creased in fear or confusion, something negative.

But instead, Melody wore a face of pure wonder and fascination, her eyes the size of baseballs. Something that Gaston had said had made quite an effect on her. He would have to remember to ask her about it later, when they actually had time to speak.

"Has anyone seen this Opera Ghost?" Melody asked, her voice very high and thin. Now the Doctor was interested in what was going through her head.

"Unfortunately, no," Gaston replied.

"That's convienient," Connor said, his eyes flicking over to Melody. But she still seemed rather off, lost in the depths of her own head. "Mel-" he began, but then he manually switched to her French name. "Martine, is anything wrong?"

"No, Charles," Melody responded, still staring off into space. There was a strange smile on her face, like she had just fallen into a dream and was walking around without a care in the world. "I'm just thinking, you know?"

"Care to share it with a reporter?" Gaston said. "It appears to be related to the matter at hand, after all."

"Huh?" Melody said, finally snapping herself out. "Oh!" she said, finally understanding and comprehending what was going on in the real world. "I'm just thinking, fantasies...fan..." Just as soon as she had cracked herself out of a daze, she had fallen right back into it.

"Doctor?" Connor said. "You're a doctor. What's wrong with her?"

The Doctor found himself smiling despite the fact that Connor was being rather serious about Melody's behavior. "Oh, she'll be fine soon enough. Just wait for it. She's wearing a corset, after all, it's not letting enough oxygen get to her head."

"Is everyone talking about me?" Melody said, shaking her head and finally once and for all pulling herself back into reality.

"Don't let it go to your head," the Doctor said. "Unless 'it' is oxygen."

Connor and Gaston nodded in agreement. Now the entire group was ready to go ahead and set off again.

"Alright, then, Gaston! Jane, Connor!" the Doctor said, forgetting to use their fake French names. Quickly, without missing a beat, he regrouped himself and tried to patch up his mistake. "I mean, the Girys! Martine, Charles."

Melody, in spite of herself, did a face palm. She rolled her eyes, thinking of how the Doctor still wasn't able to call her Melody. She didn't understand why he wanted to call her Jane so badly. Already she had spent a good portion of her thought trying to decipher this strange behavior. Perhaps it wasn't worth it.

"Wait," Gaston said. "Your names, again?" he said, looking to Melody and Connor.

"It's Martine and Charles Giry," Melody explained. "Doctor Smith here got us confused with his friends back in England."

"Ah, I see," Gaston said, although he did not look fully convinced. Perhaps all of the journalism he had done had taught him to see through lies. This immediately made Melody's stomach churn. She didn't entirely trust Gaston, for some reason. There was something suspicious about him that only she noticed, but she couldn't decipher it.

The Doctor noticed this sudden tension in the air and decided to get rid of it by saying, "Back to backstage we go!" It seemed far more likely that an alien would be hiding in the darker, danker areas of the opera house.

Connor shared a look with Melody. The two of them were nervous to return after nearly being crushed by the enormous set piece. It had just barely missed them, and it seemed like a similar thing could happen again.

But despite this, the Doctor was adamant on returning backstage and now he had the reporter Gaston to support him. The two companions, or perhaps they should be called the Girys, had no choice but to go along with it.

When they opened the door to backstage again, they found themselves stepping into almost complete darkness. The light from outside had made it difficult to see inside. The moment they were inside, they felt the temperature drop several degrees.

"Alright, everybody," the Doctor said. "Girys. Gaston. Just spread out and investigate."

Everyone nodded and did as the Doctor said. Of course, Melody and Connor were a little bit more hesitant to do so. They finally just went off together, still arm in arm like a married couple in the Victorian era would be.

Melody started humming, partially because she had music stuck in her head and partially because she was trying to keep her secrets up. Other than Lotte, she was the only female that she knew of backstage and she felt sort of alone. Besides, Lotte wasn't a part of the current group.

But as she was humming, suddenly she spotted something out of the corner of her eye that caused her to shriek. The men immediately snapped around to look at her, worried.

"What was that?" Melody said, her voice suddenly shrill with fear.

"It was reacting to Martine's humming," Gaston noted. "Please, start humming again."

Melody shook her head rapidly, as she began to squeeze Connor's arm.

"Ow!" Connor yelled out. Melody quickly released all of the pressure, bowing her head in guilt.

"Please, Martine," the Doctor said, getting a glint in his eye as he used Melody's fake French name. "Stay calm, we're only trying to figure out what is occurring here."

"Oh," Melody said. "Fine, fine. I'll hum again." With a deep and trembling breath, she prepared to carry out a phrase. She hummed a different tune this time around, this one lighter and bouncier. Melody found herself lost within the music after only a few bars. Suddenly her mouth was open and she was singing.

"Something we don't see a lot in Winston-Salem!

That's the land of courdoroys." As she continued to sing on, letting go of Connor's arm, a smile came to all three of the men's faces. Melody was stuck in her melody, and it was like nothing could pull her out.

"I'm just a someone in an old museum,

Far away from home as someone can go.

And the beauty is I still meet people I know.

Hello!" But as Melody held out the last "o," she cut herself out by letting out a tremendous scream. She stared into the darkness with a look of utter horror in her eyes. But when the men followed her gaze, they couldn't see anything where she was staring.

"It was there, I swear. I know it was there!"

"So it worked!" the Doctor said.

Melody's voice dropped into a whisper. "He's coming to get me, I know he is."

"I, personally, just think he likes your voice and that's why he came along," Gaston said. "Although, why do you say that it's a 'he?'"

Connor blinked a few times, surprised by how clever this Gaston fellow was. "I didn't even think of that."

"Well, I did," the Doctor said, trying to show off. Suddenly Gaston was getting too much of the attention for his taste, and all in good spirits the Doctor was trying to get it back.

"The way it moved, its shoulders were broad...I don't know, it just looked like a he!" Melody squeaked out. She was close to tears, but in order to avoid embarrassment she wanted to contain it.

Connor shook his head, feeling slightly guilty for pushing Melody into doing what she didn't want to do and then she suffered because of it. Before his impulse faded, he moved forwards and brought Melody into his arms.

"Oh, would you look at the time?" Gaston said. "It's very nearly time for the opera to begin."

"You're kidding," Melody said, her voice muffled by her proximity to Connor's chest.

"No, he's right," the Doctor said. "Shall we head out to get our seats, then?"

"Well," Connor said, looking down to Melody still shaking slightly in his arms. "The show must go on, as they say."

A/N So there we go. I will warn you, I am starting to fall behind on writing these because of how busy I've been, but I'm doing my best to get it all out! I love writing this but sometimes it just gets difficult. Oh well. If you enjoyed, please vote and comment, every little bit counts!