- c h a p t e r   t w e n t y   o n e -

Melody couldn't help but think how quickly a week seemed to fly by when she traveled around in the TARDIS. It had been about seven weeks since she had been retrieved from the hospital after she found out she was pregnant.

She had a suspicion that her baby bump was going to appear in the next several weeks - she had been doing some research in the TARDIS library even though the Doctor and Clara fought to keep her in the control room with them. Melody continued to try and convince them that this was necessary as none of them had ever been pregnant before. It was vital for the baby, not just her.

But when all of Melody's researching was over, it was back to the control room to talk to Clara and the Doctor. She did enjoy it, after all. It was just when her mind started to fall out of her control she wanted to be alone. It was just as she had said back when Connor was around: she loved unmitigated solitude.

The Doctor struck up a somewhat random conversation with Clara - which, of course, wasn't random at all for the Time Lord. In Melody's eyes, it was little more than meaningless chatter. At the moment she didn't feel the need to join in with it all. Besides, she was feeling rather down on this particular day. The last thing she wanted to do was pull someone down with her in misery.

Thoughts of Connor floated back into Melody's mind, settling back there as if they had never left. The thoughts of him might have never escaped her, but he certainly had - that was what made thinking about him so painful, every single time. But instead of trying to get some sort of aid from the Doctor or Clara she decided to just stay quiet and avoid being bothersome.

Of course, staying quiet and to herself was a surefire way to allow her thoughts to churn inside of her until she would burst. There was no way for her to just simply "change the subject" in her own mind, not with such pesky thoughts contained inside.

This inner struggle continued with her for several minutes, her feeling ultimately useless against it. It was either stay quiet, or speak up and talk to the Doctor and Clara. They had called her the extraordinary woman, but they were currently engaged in a conversation of their own. She hated being the one to interrupt something.

The last thing she wanted to be was annoying. Then, no matter how extraordinary she might be, they wouldn't want her to tag along. They'd leave her behind on some alien planet, never to return, flying away in their blue box without her in it. Just like Connor, they would abandon her too.

Melody felt her mouth turn dry. This sudden change in her physical status jolted all of the thoughts out of her head. She swallowed several times, trying to wet her mouth with saliva. It did absolutely nothing to help.

Things only ended up getting worse from that point onwards. As her heart began to pound a trickle of sweat began to trail down from her forehead. She didn't know what was going on. It was making her afraid, so very, very afraid.

Her breathing became shallow and she felt nauseous. She leaned against the wall and began to slide down so that she could sit on the floor. Melody's stomach tensed up, and she knew that the baby inside might be in trouble. It only made the feeling of fear worse.

That's what is was. Fear. Everything that was happening to her in that moment was because of fear.

"Melody, what's wrong?" Clara said, immediately rushing over to her. "Melody. Your face is as a white as a ghost. Tell me, what's wrong? I want to help."

"No - no!" Melody cried out, shielding her eyes. Now the Doctor came over to assess the situation, hoping that the TARDIS wouldn't have any problems for while he was gone. Right now, he had to live up to his name and help.

Melody's vision was blurring everything together into an garbled mass. It was all too bright, and it burned her eyes. Noises became echoing and strange around her. It was like Melody was being taken away to another world and it was terrifying her. The atmosphere was swirling around her, like she was the eye of a storm. Everything felt so surreal.

"I'm going mad," she murmured, believing it with every piece of her soul. "I'm going mad, and I'm going to die." She took a moment to think about this, as best as she could think in such a condition, and then said, "I can just feel it. I'm going to die."

The Doctor and Clara were speaking to her but she couldn't hear what they were saying. Their voices echoed in her ears and she couldn't understand a single word coming from them. It only made her feel even more afraid. They could be saying absolutely anything, and she had no idea.

Melody started breathing heavily but quickly, her breath gasping as it went in and out. She wrapped her arms around herself, as if she was trying to protect herself and the baby from some outside force. If she could do nothing else, she would protect the child that was inside of her.

But the truth of the matter was, all of the pain was coming from herself. Her body was overreacting to her dread. She had been thinking about being abandoned again, and it had pinned a deep fear into her soul. It was a sinking, almost empty sort of feeling inside of her as if someone had carved out a piece of her.

"He abandoned me and the baby's going to abandon me as soon as it can then you're just going to abandon me too! I'm going to be alone, all alone, so alone!" The words came out of her mouth without any conscious thought of her wanting to say them.

She wanted Connor, but he was gone. He had abandoned her, which was exactly what she was now afraid was going to happen. The Doctor and Clara would abandon her just like he had. Everyone would leave Melody Birch for whatever reason, and she was terrified of it happening.

She had thought about it too much and let it consume her from the inside. Maybe it had been simple thoughts to begin with, few and far between, but they had all compiled together to create the sheer terror that she was experiencing in this moment.

"I'm dying," she cried out, her chest seizing. The tears on her face felt foreign, as if there was someone else doing the crying. She didn't even feel like she was in her own body entirely anymore.

But she could still feel the gasps of air and the shaking and her heart pounding as sweat rolled down from her forehead. Melody felt so many things, all at once, both emotionally and physically.

Then she was choking, and then an invisible hand was smothering her. It was difficult for her to breathe, so when she did it was too fast to get any real air. It was only a matter of time before the lack of oxygen would get to her.

All at once she felt pain as parts of her burned while other parts froze. She could do absolutely nothing to stop it. Nothing like this had ever happened to her before in her entire life. There were only two thoughts in her head: she feared someone else abandoning her, just like Connor, and she was going to die.

Death was the simplest explanation, and it just made sense to her. Why else would her body be freaking out as much as it was?

She looked up and could just make out the blurry outlines of Clara and the Doctor moving around her, their dark mouths moving in words she could not decipher. Melody just let the tears stream down her face because there was nothing more she could do. She could barely hear the sound of herself crying and sobbing uncontrollably.

Her mind was somewhere else, her body was somewhere else, and her soul was still there and shattered. If Melody had died in that very second, she would have been pleased to end it all. But she was still very much alive.

Although it felt like it had been an eternity, Melody found the pain subsiding. Her breathing slowly became regular once again. But that was about the only thing that felt regular to her now that it was over.

"What the hell just happened?" Melody said, a small sob escaping her.

"You had a - er - you just had a panic attack, I think."

Clara immediately made her way over to comfort Melody. She had been at a loss of what to do before, as Melody had gotten into quite a state very quickly. It had gone on for rather a while, and for a moment Clara thought her suffering might never end.

"A panic attack?" Melody blubbered out. "What do you mean, a panic attack?"

"No need to panic," the Doctor said. After a moment of thinking over what he had just said, he shook his head and tried to alter the subject slightly. "No need to worry, you're going to be fine."

"I don't believe you," Melody whimpered. "I have to know what just happened to me, that's not supposed to happen...."

"Melody," Clara said softly, attempting to comfort her in any way she could think of. "You're fine now, aren't you?"

"No, I'm not," Melody protested. "I'm scared half to death over what just happened. Someone needs to explain it to me now."

"I already sort of have," the Doctor said with a sigh. "I'm fairly sure you had a panic attack, Melody. It doesn't cause any physical harm by itself, but - it's far from harmless."

"No, no, that doesn't tell me anything. You can tell me that it's a panic attack all that you want, but that doesn't tell me anything about it. Tell me what happened to me. Explain it to me. Help it make sense."

"I think I might be able to help," Clara said, swallowing back a round of tears. "I had a friend in school who had panic attacks. I was just too surprised when it started happening to you. Besides, I never really experienced her having one first hand. I just heard about it."

"We can use any help we can get," the Doctor replied, nodding towards his companion.

"Well, she told me that it felt like she was just escaping from her body, like she was about to - about to die. It's caused by anxiety triggers, extreme fear, I think. It's been such a long time...."

"That makes sense," Melody confirmed. "It sounds exactly like what was happening to me. I guess it was caused by fear then."

The Doctor bit his lip, unsure of how she would react to his next question. But it was something that he felt was necessary to be asked. "What exactly was your fear? I want to know...that way we can get rid of it. We can prevent it from happening again. That sounds good, doesn't it?"

"It does," Melody murmured. "I - I don't know. Wait - I do know, I know exactly what it was."

"What was it?" urged the Doctor.

"Abandonment," Melody said, her voice barely more than a whisper. "I'm afraid of people abandoning me."

"Abandonment?" Clara echoed, her lips frowning uncontrollably. "Why - why were you thinking about that?"

Melody glanced over to the Doctor, and then set her sights on Clara.

"I think you're smart enough to figure that much out by yourself, Clara."

Clara nodded slightly, trying to think this through. Nevertheless, memories from the panic attack she had just witnesses continued to loop in her head. If she had been scarred by the experience, she could only imagine what it must have been like for Melody who had actually gone through it.

The Doctor tried to deliberate through the circumstance, but he felt unable to come up with a lasting solution. The only thing that really popped up was not abandoning Melody - and he certainly didn't plan on doing such a thing any time soon. He thought that had been crystal clear, that he had made that plainly known. Now he wasn't so sure that it had been enough.

"We won't abandon you," Clara tried to explain. Her mind had gone through a similar process to the Doctor's, but she was at just as much of a loss of what to do as he was.

"I'm going to the library," Melody exclaimed. She saw the Doctor and Clara simultaneously open their mouths to protest, but she held up a hand and interrupted them before a word could come out.

"I'm going to the library, and neither of you can stop me. I won't have another panic attack or anything. I don't know anything about them, but I have a feeling that letting myself is going to be more helpful than dwelling all over my fears. That would be antithetical, don't you think?"

The Time Lord just nodded, understanding that this was not a battle worth fighting. He wasn't going to stop her, and she could just do whatever she thought was best. As she disappeared into the depths of the TARDIS halls, he turned to face Clara.

"You don't think the baby had anything to do with it, do you?" Clara asked.

"No, I don't think so," the Doctor replied. "It would certainly make Melody more emotional, but it wouldn't push her to have a panic attack. That just seems...wrong."

"She's almost like a ghost," Clara murmured, her voice now hushed. "Melody haunts the TARDIS - always just barely there - suffering forever and ever."

"I know what you mean," the Doctor agreed. "The library ghost, mostly."

Silently, the Doctor couldn't help but make the connections with the other Melody who had played such a major part in his life. She had ended up as a library ghost as well, even though he wouldn't categorise her in the same area with Melody Birch.

"Doctor, is something wrong?" Clara asked, whipping the Doctor out of his own thoughts.

"Hm - wrong? Wrong, why would anything be wrong?" he said, letting out a slight laugh to cover himself up.

"You were frowning and being all silent," Clara replied. "You might not be human, but your facial expressions still read like one. Go on. You can tell me. Especially if it's something about Melody."

"No, no," the Doctor said. Clara truly wished to know what was wrong, but his tone of voice made it clear that he wasn't going to divulge a thing.

The Doctor dove back into thought almost immediately after Clara had ceased her push to know what had been on his mind. It traveled back towards the Melodys: Melody Pond and Melody Birch. He had been unable to save Melody Pond - his River Song. It was hardly something in his control, but he still felt enormous guilt over it.

He wouldn't, couldn't let the same thing happen to Melody Birch.

A/N And thus, another chapter. And thus, I am ahead on my writing. That almost never happens...but it's happening now, which is so pleasing to me. Especially with the musical on its way. I don't really like this chapter title...but oh well.