- c h a p t e r   t w o -

Melody took another step into the box. It couldn't really be called a box anymore, not when it looked like that on the inside. She bit her lip for a second, wondering if it was all just an elaborate illusion.

Simply put, this TARDIS was far bigger on the inside. She walked around just make sure it was all real, and it was. It wasn't just some picture of a room hung up and mirrors reflecting each other to make it look as if it was big. The room itself was massive, far larger than the exterior.

"Connor, how about you step inside now?" Melody heard the Doctor's voice from outside and was tempted to turn around, but she was too stunned to do much of anything.

When she heard a sudden gasp, she realized that Connor had stepped into the TARDIS after her. He was just as amazed by it as she was. The first thing that caught Connor's eye was something that looked almost like controls sitting in the middle of the room. He recognized the shape, almost circular but with straight lines instead of curved ones, but he couldn't remember the name of it.

There were levers and buttons and meters, along with quite a few other things that didn't quite make sense being on a control panel, however it still stuck out to him as being the main controls. It  was fastened to a thick pole, which lead up to the ceiling.

Surrounding it were sections inscribed with strange circular writing. It was like some other world's symbols were decorating it. Melody and Connor gawked around the room, which radiated with a bluish illumination that appeared to be making some kind of grinding noise.

Up on the walls were some glowing lights that looked almost like targets. It was so amazing, so wonderful, that both Connor and Melody were rendered speechless. The inside of the TARDIS was like something from a dream.

"I told you she was impressive," the Doctor said, coming into the TARDIS with an enormous grin. He nearly laughed at the wide eyes of the two new inhabitants of his foreign vehicle. They were both absolutely dumbfounded by it, just as he wanted them to be.

"Welcome to the TARDIS," the Doctor said. "It stands for Time And Relative Dimensions In Space."

"T-A-R-D-I-S," Melody muttered quietly, thinking out loud.

"That's right, Jane," the Doctor replied.

"Melody," she recited, not even thinking about it. She looked over at the Doctor with her eyebrows slightly scrunched, but it ended up snapping her out of her little daze. Now they just had to pull Connor back into reality.

"So, Connor," the Doctor said, walking over towards him "What do you think of the TARDIS?"

"It's big," was all Connor could say at first. Then he realized just how vapid he sounded and was able to think clearly again. "It's magical. It's not possible, not really."

"Well, how about you two go outside and check?"

Connor and Melody looked at one another, not fully comprehending.

"You can run outside the sides of the police box and see that this is all actually inside of it," the Doctor explained, wringing his hands excitedly.

Melody was given the chance to run again, so she snatched it. She dashed outside and ran her hand along the sides of the blue box. All the way across she was laughing, filled with an energy and a buzz unlike any she had ever encountered before.

Sadly enough, the closest she had ever come to feeling something like it prior was when she was on an airplane. But the feeling of flying thousands of feet up into the air wasn't the same as getting ready for an adventure and witnessing the obviously impossible becoming possible.

Everything was so insane, preposterous, mad, but Melody loved it.

She bolted back inside the TARDIS, unable to control her own body for a moment. She came barreling in and collided with both of the men who were standing there waiting for her to return. Since there were two of them as a buffer, instead of her knocking them over and falling on top of them, Melody ended up causing everyone to lose their balance and pretty soon all three of them were on the floor.

For a moment, Melody thought that the Doctor and Connor were angry at her. But then they burst into laughter and started getting up, brushing themselves off. Their smiles were infectious and soon Melody was laughing as well. In fact, she was laughing so hard that she couldn't get herself grounded. She reached both of her arms into the air for them to pull her up.

At first they didn't seem to understand, and that made Melody a bit irritated. She shook her hands, feeling the blood rush away from her fingertips. The look on her face only made Connor laugh harder, until finally he grabbed both her forearms and began to lift her off from the floor.

Melody was feeling a bit lazy even after the adrenaline rush that had come over her, so she made absolutely no effort to help Connor pull her up. It was difficult doing that, and Connor was more successful in pulling Melody around the room a little bit rather than getting her up.

The Doctor watched the two young people together, amused. When Connor had finally pulled hard enough to get Melody on her feet, she ended up running into Connor yet again as she shot up. But this time it was just Connor, and Melody fell right into his arms and into his front. She immediately pulled away and blushed just the tiniest bit.

"Thank you, Connor," she said. "Now, how about you go outside and see the amazing miracle that is the TARDIS which is...bigger on the inside!" Melody said happily.

The Doctor shook his head with a smile on his face. "Plain old bigger on the inside," he murmured. "It never gets old, not when new people are always saying it."

Connor looked over at the Doctor for a moment. "Did you say something, Doctor?"

"No, nothing," he replied, a bit too quickly. "You should do what Jane said, go outside and see that the TARDIS is indeed bigger on the inside." Connor nodded dutifully and then excitedly made his way outside the TARDIS so that he could experience the bigger-on-the-inside phenomenon himself.

"Melody," Melody murmured, realizing that the Doctor had called her Jane again. Melody had changed her way for a reason, and she wanted everyone to respect it. She looked over to the side, and then glanced upwards. Her voice was more solid and clear this time around. "It's Melody, Doctor, not Jane."

"Whatever you say, Jane."

"Melody!" she stammered, a lot more forcefully this time around.

"Why are you so adamant on being called Melody?" the Doctor questioned, turning around to fully face Melody. She was glad that Connor was outside, and not watching all of this.

"I changed my name to Melody because I thought it made me more interesting. It's a kind of symbolic thing, ya' know?"

"Are you sure that's why you did it?"

"Completely sure," Melody replied, sighing.

"There is absolutely no other reason why you stopped calling yourself Jane."

"There is absolutely no other reason why I stopped calling myself Jane," Melody repeated after him. Then she took a breath and began to ramble a little more. "Now that I've told you that, how about you explain what's going on here? The TARDIS and everything."

"She's a time machine," the Doctor said. "The TARDIS is dimensionally transcedental, which is how all of this can fit inside the tiny police box."

"Because it's not actually in the tiny police box," Melody said, thinking out loud. "It's like a whole 'nother dimension that you just walk straight into."

"You're a clever one, Jane Birch," the Doctor said with a smile.

"Melody," she grumbled again. Then she carried on. Connor sure was taking a long time out there, although she knew  it was rather fascinating. Maybe he was taking his time instead of running around. "But how did you get your hands on a dimensonally transcendental time machine?" Melody let out a melodramatic gasp. "Are you from...the future?"

The Doctor chuckled a little bit and then shook his head. Melody smirked, trying to keep eye contact with him. But it was difficult, especially because the bowtie was such a bright, bold color. Her eyes would always just drift over to it without a thought in her head.

"No, I'm not from the future. Not exactly. It's more that I'm from another world."

"So..." Melody said, stepping forward. Her eyes drifted upwards as if she was calculating something in her head. "You're an alien."

"Yes. Well, technically, you're the aliens, but yes," the Doctor said. "I'm a thousand year old man from Gallifrey. I'm a Time Lord."

"But," Melody said, "you don't look alien." She awkwardly reached out and touched his shoulder. "You don't feel alien."

"Well," the Doctor replied, "that's because humans look Time Lord."

"Shouldn't it be 'Time Lords look human'?" Melody asked, tilting her head.

The Doctor shook his head in response. "The Time Lords came first."

"But I thought you said you were from the future...?"

"It's complicated," the Doctor finally said. "Complicated time-space concepts that probably wouldn't make sense to a linear mind like yours."

"Hey," Melody said. "I object to that. It sounds like an insult."

"It's not an insult," the Doctor replied, now aware that Melody was getting a bit on edge. "It's just simply a statement. Maybe you'll understand all of these timey wimey concepts, I don't know yet."

"We'll just have to wait and see," Melody said with a breath, finishing off what the Doctor was saying. But the Doctor still had another side to this conversation to bring up.

"Now," the Doctor said, clapping his hands together. "I want you to be completely honest with me," he continued, taking a step closer to Melody. "Do you have any romantic feelings for me."

Was this some sort a Time Lord joke, or something along those lines? Maybe it was just a good old-fashioned human sort of joke. That's what she hoped. With an awkward smile, Melody said, "Uh, no."

"Are you sure?" the Doctor said, his voice completely serious and his face even more so. It didn't suit him the way that his goofy smile did.

"Yes," Melody said, letting out a strange giggle and looking up to the side, "I'm sure."

The Doctor put his hands around Melody's face, stepping even closer to her. She was startled but didn't pull away.

"Are you completely sure?"

"Yes! My goodness!" Melody replied, completely staring the Doctor right in the eyes.

The Doctor sighed. For some reason, he just didn't believe her. So he dove over and smashed his lips together with hers. He was kissing her rather forcefully. That was when Melody started to resist. She pulled back, but the Doctor held her there. It was not enjoyable, not for either one of them. But it didn't exactly look that way.

"Um, am I interrupting something?" The two of them heard Connor's voice as he walked back into the TARDIS, laying eyes on the two of them. Thankfully the Doctor pulled away from Melody. She snapped out of his hold with a sharp step back.

"As far as I'm aware, no," Melody said. "Took you long enough, Connor!"

"I'm sorry," Connor said. "I was taking my time, this is incredible."

Melody heaved a sigh and closed her eyes. A bit melodramatically, she said, "Maybe I shouldn't be in here. Two male strangers, and now that just happened." She shook her head. "I know you're an alien but that was still weird," she said, addressing the Doctor with this.

"Look, I'm sorry, I just had to be sure!"

"He's an alien?" Connor said, still a bit lost after missing everything.

Melody rolled her eyes. "We stared at each other, right in the eyes, and I told you without a shake in my voice that I didn't have feelings for you."

"But you hesitated!"

"Because I was a bit shocked by the whole ordeal, of course!"

The Doctor sighed. "It's just that when you time travel you meet a lot of people. And a lot of people tend to fall for me."

"Time travel?" Connor said. He had really missed something important.

Melody decided that she would help out Connor in this situation. "The TARDIS is a time machine and the Doctor is a Time Lord, an alien from the planet..." She hesitated as she tried to remember the name, "...Gallifrey?"

"Yes, Jane," the Doctor said, rather impressed by her retaining all of that information so quickly.

"Melody," she said with a sigh. She had been hoping that after everything the Doctor had just done, he would start using her new name.

"Anyways!" the Doctor said. "People throughout history, left and right, past and future, all fall in love with me. Well, not all of them, but you get the idea."

After Connor had gotten over the intial shock of what was going on, he turned to Melody and they shared an amused look.

"You? Really?" Connor asked.

The Doctor gave him a look as Melody giggled. "Yes, really. I married Queen Elizabeth. The first."

"That doesn't mean I'll fall in love with you," Melody said with hands on her hips.

"I wouldn't be so sure about that, Jane."

"Melody." The Doctor just shook his head and went to go fly the TARDIS. Melody walked over to Connor and began to explain. "That's how we got into that whole conversation. He always calls me Jane. He refuses to call me Melody and he won't explain the reasons. But when I kept insisting he call me Melody over Jane he started asking if I had feelings for him. I mean, seriously!"

Connor smiled. Even though it was a bit of a serious matter, he found it pretty amusing. But Melody was not happy about it. "I'll call you Melody. That way it'll be two against one."

Melody smiled and nodded. "Thank you, Connor. That is your name, right? I mean, I'm pretty sure, but, ya' know."

He returned the smile and nod, and for a moment their eyes met and locked. The Doctor watched them staring at one another and could tell immediately that they were becoming friends and perhaps a bit more.

It was kind of funny, really, being that the two of them had only just met one another that very day. Maybe Melody didn't have feelings for the Doctor, but Connor was more than debatable.

"Doctor," Melody said, snapping herself out of the gaze. "What are you doing?"

"Flying the TARDIS, of course."

"Does that mean that we're going anywhere in time and space?" Connor said.

"Yes, indeed," the Doctor replied. Connor and Melody shared a glance that showed one another just how excited they were. Butterflies in their stomach and adrenaline pumping through their hearts, Connor and Melody smiled as the TARDIS made its signature grinding sound.

They were in flight in the TARDIS for the first time, going anywhere in the infinite reaches of time and space.

Now this, Melody thought, wascertainly not ordinary.

A/N Okay, reading through this to quickly edit I saw that there were parts of this that I consider quite good. I'm surprised by myself, actually! But, anyways, it doesn't matter if I like it, only if you like it! If you do, votes and comments are ever so appreciated. Over on the side we have a picture of Connor Dale, who is portrayed by Freddie Highmore (who was Charlie in the new Charlie and the Chocolate Factory movie, so cute!). Well, thank you!