- c h a p t e r   e l e v e n -

"Run, run! Keep running!" the Doctor yelled out. He only glanced behind to see if his companions were trailing behind, but he also caught a glimpse of the Dumarian Efan, who was chasing them. He had been hoping that the alien from Karus would have been too confused to get up and follow after them, but of course this was not the case.

They had no idea where they were going. In a moment of panic, they had not had the sense to actually go towards the TARDIS but rather turned away from it. Going back to the time machine would require running right past Efan and right into danger. For now they were better off moving in the other direction.

"We're going to get lost in here, aren't we?" Melody said, between panting breaths. She looked over to see Connor starting to falter and wheeze a little bit. She bit her lip. What was there to do? They couldn't stop running or else they'd be caught. She just had to hope that Connor's adrenaline would be enough to keep him from having an asthma attack.

"We need to stop!" she announced the Doctor.

"What? Stop? I thought you liked running!"

"I do, but...Connor!" she said. He couldn't even respond as the breathing was so laborious for him. The Doctor knew that his companion was right. They had to do something or else he would end up on the ground. 

Luckily, they found a room with a door that could be barred shut. It wasn't the strongest defense, but it would give them a few moments of peace before they had to head out again. Connor immediately plopped down on the floor, not wasting a second of rest. 

"We can't stay here for long," the Doctor said, wringing his wrists a bit. "Karus has technology that can easily get through iron doors and the like. Of course, Dumarians are also rather strong-" He was interrupted by a sudden bang on the door that made Melody let out a shriek. 

"Connor, can you run?" the Doctor said. When the young man nodded, the Time Lord reached out a hand to him to help pull him up. 

"Jane, what about you? Are you ready to go?" When another bang echoed through the room, he didn't wait for her response. There wasn't any time to lose. Connor and the Doctor started making their way off again. But they realized that the girl in their group wasn't coming along with them. She was just standing there, fuming slightly.

"Come on, Jane!"

"It's Melody!" she yelled, stomping her foot. She crossed her arms and refused to move. When the two men made a start towards her she quickly clutched a ridge on the door so that she would be difficult to move.

"Jane, please, we really don't have time for this." The Doctor reached out his hand, offering it to her. 

Conner looked over at her with a bit of despair in his eyes. "Look, Melody, I know you want him to call you Melody but you can talk about this later. If you don't come now you're going to die and no one wants that."

"He's right, Jane," the Doctor said, nodding his head. 

"Damn it, Doctor! My name is Melody! It has been since the first time we met even if I was Jane beforehand, and I am not moving from this spot until you call me by my name."

The Doctor just shook his head. There had to be something he could do, but at the moment he was slightly blanking. Another bang on the door rippled sound waves through the room and pitched Melody forwards, loosening her grip slightly. She quickly tried to reattach herself, but she wasn't holding on as strongly as before.

"I'm not letting her die here," Connor murmured. He ran over to her and pried her off of the door. It was difficult with her iron grip, but he had chosen a good moment where it had been weakened. Then he carried her off and back to the Doctor. She resisted and struggled but in the end went along with it, knowing that too much movement would end up with her on the ground.

As the three of them were now together, Melody in Connor's arms, the Doctor spoke again.

"You're just like her," he said, meeting Melody's eyes for a moment, starting to pick up his pace. "So stubborn, both of you." 

"Wait, what?" Melody was so shocked by his mention of someone else that she fell out of Connor's arms and hit the ground with a thump. There wasn't any time to waste, however. They only slowed down a little bit for her because she quickly got up and got back to their pace again. 

"That's why I can't call you Melody," the Doctor said, this time looking straight ahead.

Melody really wanted to stop and just talk about this, but she knew that she had already wasted a lot of time when she had stopped earlier. They were in great peril from the Dumarians and it was all her fault now. Connor watched on quietly. This wasn't exactly his conversation to be a part of.

"Who is she, though? Who is this? Another Melody?"

"Professor River Song," he exclaimed.

"But then her name's-"

"Her birth name was Melody Pond," he said, cutting her off. Melody nodded, interested to hear what this story was going to be. "She was my wife."

"Was?" Melody said. 

"She's gone now," the Doctor said with a sigh. "It's a complicated matter, you see, very intrictate and tangled up, but our timelines were rather messed up. I saw her die, I saw her grown up, I saw her as a baby, I saw her as a child, everything n that order."

"You saw your own wife as a baby after you saw her grown up?" Connor said. "That must have been a bit strange." 

"Time travel is more than a bit strange," the Doctor said. "I've been doing it for over a thousand years, I think I know that much."

"Tell me more about her," Melody urged. She was confident that the silver door had been barred strongly enough to buy them some time. 

"Well, she had curly hair."

"Is that all?"

"It's one of the things I remember most," he said. The Doctor felt his hearts aching more than a little at this conversation. But Melody was grasping for more information, and he knew he didn't have a way out. 

"She was brash, bold-"

"And beautiful, I'm guessing," Connor said.

"Exactly," the Doctor said. "Our timelines were all out of order for one another, but we still managed to care for one another through all that. She was also my friends' daughter...that made everything a bit strange."

"You're going to have to tell me everything about her," Melody said, her eyes wide. 

"I'd rather not," the Doctor said, the sadness being a bit too much for him. "But I will call you Melody from now on. Sound good, Melody?"

"Sounds wonderful," Melody responded. 

"Are you ready to run again?" Connor asked. His heart had been beating rapidly throughout this entire conversation simply because they had resorted to speed walking in order to be able to keep talking. 

Melody took in a deep breath and said, "Of course."

There was nothing left to hold them back now. "Geronimo!" the Doctor bellowed. With that, the trio was off and running again.

Now the group was a blur of all sorts of colors. Melody's blonde hair whipped around near the top. The Doctor's purple coat made quite a strange effect in the middle. Connor's dark jeans made the bottom part of the group look almost like the dark sky color as seen above.

As they ran, they heard an enormous crashing sound. Connor glanced behind for a moment, leaving himself just enough time to spot Efan breaking through the door and coming in pursuit after them. This also caused him to trip over his own feet a little bit. He spit out a quick curse word under his breath and carried on.

"Langauge, Connor!" the Doctor said, his voice vibrating slightly as he ran. Connor just shook his head and kept on running, a smile on his face. Even if they were in mortal danger, this was rather fun. But it didn't take long before they ended up running into another problem.

The three were making good time, the Dumarian still lagging behind them so that they wouldn't have any sort of trouble with him. At this point, it was more of a game of tag than anything else.

Suddenly, the blonde girl stumbled slightly and then let out an enormous gasp of pain. "Oh no!" Melody said, shrieking out. "I think I twisted my ankle or something. I can't run, I can't-" Her voice faded away into a small cry.

"Oh dear," the Doctor said. Immediately he and Connor went over to go help support her. Suddenly, their lead against the Dumarian was diminishing. They could look over and see their time running out. 

"We have to go back to the TARDIS," Melody murmured as she tried to avoid looking behind her, a whimper going into her voice.

"We can't head back that way," the Doctor said. "Efan is there, and who knows if he called for more backup?"

"Doctor," Connor said, "I agree with her. We have to get back otherwise we'll be stuck here with Melody and her messed up ankle."

There was a brief moment of silence. They couldn't afford to waste much more of any more time.

"Er, plan! I have a plan!" the Doctor announced.

"Is it an actual plan, or is it just another one word idea like before?" Melody said, she said, biting her lip.

"An actual plan!" the Doctor countered, sounding a bit offended. "Just hear me out, will you?"

"Explain," Connor said, his voice rather sped up. He didn't want to waste a moment of time. 

The Doctor cleared his throat slightly, straightening his bowtie. "Here's what we can do," he began. "It's very simply, actually. I make a distraction, you two run out and back to the TARDIS, and then I'll come and join you."

"How do you plan to make a distraction big enough to allow us to get through?" Melody said, more than a bit worried about the finer details of this plan.

"Well, I'm me, first of all," the Doctor said. "And being me, I have a sonic screwdriver."

"Not the sonic again," Connor said with a slight groan.

"Yes, the sonic again," the Doctor said. "Now...let's go!" Knowing that there was no more time to lose, the Time Lord threw his companions straight into the plan. Melody was already rather off balance from putting her weight all in one ankle, so she pretty much fell into Connor.

Luckily, Connor had been preparing to carry her anyways. In a decidedly graceful move, he swooped her up into a bridal style sort of carrying.

"This is the second time I've had to hold you and carry you around," Connor said, adjusting so he could support her weight better.

"Sorry," Melody responded, closing her eyes. 

"No time for apologies," the Doctor said. The whole group turned to face Efan, who was almost right on them. Melody squeezed her eyes tighter together, afraid of what was going to happen next.

"Three..." the Doctor began. Connor prepared to begin running back along.

"Two..." Melody pulled herself closer to Connor's chest. She didn't want to fall out, and she didn't want to see what was going to occur.

"One!" A sudden whirring sound from the sonic screwdriver made Connor jump. But he recovered quickly and starting running despite Melody weighing him down. Up on the ceiling, the lights that were meant to look like stars began to flash. It did exactly as it was needed to do: it got Efan's attention away from the companions so that they could run past-which is precisely what they did.

"Everything is going just fine," Connor said, reassuring the girl carried in his arms. "We're going to passing this alien soon, but everything is fine."

After a moment, she turned her head around and looked up at what the Doctor had done. "Well, would you look at that. Twinkle, twinkle, little star. Or all of the stars."

"I didn't think of that," Connor said, quickly slowing down slightly to reposition her. Melody winced slightly as her ankle panged, but kept her mouth shut. "That's good, though."

"We can talk about it later," Melody replied. "Just get me to the TARDIS first!"

- - - - -

"I can't focus on anything," Melody said. She was sitting down on the ground, her legs stretched out in front of her. Her injured ankle was elevated slightly using a large book, as Connor had been too afraid to venture into the TARDIS alone to find a pillow or something of the sort. "What do you think is taking the Doctor so long?"

"He'll be fine," Connor said. "He did a fine job getting us out, I'm sure he can do the same for himself."

Just as he said those words, there was a rattle at the door. Melody let out a yelp and instinctively tried to move away, but of course only succeeded in causing pain to run through her leg again. She didn't know what could be trying to get into the TARDIS. 

"Ah, there we go!" The Doctor made his way in through the door, his feet nearly tangling together as they struggled to slow down. Upon seeing that the intruder was really no intruder at all, Melody and Connor felt like they could breathe again. He went ahead to go shut the doors, breathing heavily.

"I keep on forgetting that I can just snap my fingers to open up the doors." He did this to demonstrate and the doors flew open, revealing Efan rushing towards it. This time, Melody let out an enormous scream. If the Dumarian got into the TARDIS, she wouldn't be able to move. Connor made his way over to the girl, preparing to pick her up and run again for the third time that hour.

"Oh dear," the Doctor said as he realized what he had done. But instead of closing the doors to eliminate the threat, the Time Lord peered out and called out to the Dumarian as Connor and Melody were too shocked to speak.

"Sorry you can't come in the TARDIS this time!" he said, his voice carrying. "Maybe some other day I'll take you along, preferably when you're not trying to kill us! See you around, Efan! I might take these two to Karus, who knows?" 

Finally, right as the alien was about to make impact, the bowtied man slammed the doors shut. 

"Well, that was exciting," he said, rubbing his hands together. "To Karus now, you think?"

Connor and Melody's response was unanimous. In unison they replied with a big "no." Both of them had experienced far too much of the Dumarians for a single day, and going along to their planet would put it all over the edge.

But neither of them had felt as if they were worn out in terms of adventuring. That was almost an impossible concept.

A/N Sorry if this was shorter than usual...you see, it was really long but I cut part of it to be in the next chapter. Let's just say, the plot is going to continue lurching forwards dramatically, heh. Well, if you're enjoying this, express it with a vote and a nice comment! Every last bit counts.