- c h a p t e r   s e v e n -

It hadn't taken the group long to lose track of time in all of their investigations. Melody was getting very antsy as all of the boys tried to figure it out. Connor and Gaston were rather thrilled to be working with the Doctor, as things were getting very interesting very quickly. But Melody had a feeling that something was off.

"Doctor," she said. "Come here."

The Doctor, who had been trying to look behind another enormous set piece, squeezed his way back out from between it and the wall. Melody sounded rather irritated, so he came as fast as he could.

"Give me your pocket watch," she demanded.

"Well then," the Doctor said. He pulled it out and handed it to her. Almost immediately her eyes grew. After a moment of staring at the hands of the small clock, she snapped it shut and started walking away.

"We came here specifically to see the opera," Melody said, her voice filled with determination. "We're not missing it."

"Technically," Connor replied, tearing himself away from his investigations, "only you came here to see the opera. The Doctor and I just tagged along because we had to."

"Are you not enjoying your time here, then?" the Doctor said, disappointed.

"That's not what it is," Connor said. "I was just saying. Right now, everything is quite interesting," he continued, adding in a laugh.

"I must say, I agree with you, Monsieur Giry," Gaston said, joining the conversation. "This is going to be quite a news article if I can get something to make a headline."

"Why, is the opera not enough?" Melody replied, pursing her lips. "Lotte Dupuis's stunning opening night in..." She realized with a start that she had no clue what opera was to be performed, which scared her. "Oh dear. What opera is it, again? Charles, do you know?" she said, turning in desperation over to Connor. She walked over to him and took his arm again, preparing to drag him along with her.

Connor knew even less about the subject than she did, of course. He had just assumed that Melody already had all of the details about the opera sorted out. But she was staring at him, seemingly trying to push him to give an answer.

Now Connor connected gazes with the Doctor, asking with his eyes if he knew the answer. The Doctor just shrugged, he hadn't bothered to pay attention to it. After aliens had entered the picture, he hadn't really paid attention to any of these other details, they were just distractions from the main matter at hand.

"Uh, well, you see," Connor began. Melody had begun to squeeze the upper portion of his arm again, and it was becoming quite painful. He started contorting his face, she was holding on to him so hard. Soon enough she would end up cutting off his circulation.

"I believe they are performing Faust," Gaston said, looking in his notes and then back up at the couple. Connor breathed a sigh of relief as Melody released all of the pressure. She ended up leaning over and whispering in his ear.

"Sorry about that, but if you really want to feel something painfully squeezing you, you should try a corset."

"Over my dead body," Connor replied, still keeping a smile on his face.

"No, I think it'd be on your dead body." Melody ended up making eye contact with the Doctor, who gave her a look. She shook her head, thinking that he was accusing her and Connor of flirting again. Even if they were, they were supposed to be acting as a married couple after all.

But when Melody turned away, she decided that she meant business. Now she was going to take charge and do what she wanted to do. At the very least, she was going to be in charge of Connor. Gaston and the Doctor were a bit of another story.

"We are going to go get our seats for Faust," Melody announced. "At least, Charles and I are going to," she said, sending her biggest and brightest smile towards Connor so that she could convince him to come along without a whole bunch of pulling and tugging.

"I'm going with them," the Doctor said. "I'm supposed to be their companion, after all." Something about that didn't sound exactly right in Connor's ear, so he crinkled up his nose.

"Oh, you don't like the idea of me coming with the two of you?" the Doctor said, letting out a slight laugh.

"Oh, no," Connor said, realizing what he had just done. He quickly straightened out his face and carried on with it all. "We should go. We should all head to our seats for Faust, indeed."

"Well, I feel like all of the trouble in this place seems to follow the three of you around," Gaston said. "I should come with you as well."

With a quick nod to acknowledge that this was okay, the Doctor began leading the group back to the actual front of the opera. This time, they were going to go through with their plan.

On the way there, the "Girys" split up momentarily so that Melody, or rather, "Martine," could ask the Doctor a question.

"Doctor," Melody whispered, "if there really are aliens here, will we be safe in the audience of the opera?"

"Well, I don't know much about these aliens yet," the Doctor said. "We'll just have to wait and see."

Melody shook her head, but she found that the tips of her lips turned up nevertheless. Despite the obvious danger, she was enjoying this. It was just like that aura around the Doctor, the promise of adventure was enough to send Melody shooting forwards.

They made their way outside for yet another time that day. Melody consistently got distracted by the architecture of the Palais Garnier's interior. If Connor had thought her distractions on the tour of London had been bad, he didn't know what to think of this.

But in the end they were able to make it all the way to the entrance of the opera with a bit of time still to spare. The moment they walked through the doorway, Melody split away from Connor's arm and started darting around to see everything there was to be seen.

"This is amazing!" she said. "Don't you think this amazing?"

"It's a marvelous display of our powers of building, it's true," Gaston replied. "But it also has its secrets as well. Did you know that there is a lake right underneath the floor we are standing on right now?"

"Really?" Connor said. "That's actually pretty cool."

"Cool?" Gaston said, scrunching up his eyebrows. "Actually, I think it's rather warm today..."

The Doctor rushed in to save this bit of time travelling mishaps. "Interesting. It's all very interesting. Now, I think Martine here is getting impatient about getting in to see Faust now."

"Hm?" Melody said, looking over at the mention of her French name. She had been admiring a magnificent angel statue holding a light. It had been very distracting for her, as the details were what drew her in and forced her to stay.

"Come on, Martine, we're going to our seats!" the Doctor said.

"Oh!" Melody exclaimed, making her way over to the group and joining up with Connor again. They could finally move on with what they were doing. The surprising thing was that the girl who had been pushing for them to go to the opera in the first place was now the one holding them back. But that was no longer.

"I'm going to walk up the steps of the Paris Opera House," Melody whispered. "I'm going to walk up the steps of the Paris Opera House, isn't that phenomenal! Oh, this is the material of dreams, this is!"

"You're just so excited about this!" Connor said. "It's just stairs."

"It's just the famed and majestic stairs of the Opera Garnier back in the Victorian era!" she hissed in response. "I love it."

The moment Melody placed a foot onto the stairs, she let out a small gasp despite the fact that nothing in particular was all that special about it. But with this strange sort of adrenaline pumping through her vains, she found herself all but skipping up the stairs. The boys around her all looked at her a bit irritated, as they just wanted to calmly make their way up the stairs.

Melody was just about to burst with excitement, but she also was a bit worried as well.

"Where are our seats?" Connor asked, turning towards the Doctor.

"Er, I think we're in Box Five," the Doctor said.

Melody now went to face the Doctor as well. "You think? You should know."

"Martine, do not worry about it," the Doctor said, finally nailing her false name on the first try. "We'll get there."

All worried thoughts flew away from Melody's head as she walked into the auditorium. Immediately her breath was taken away by the sheer beauty of it all. Everything shined in a mesh of luxurious gold and red.

"In all of my life I never thought I would bask in the full magnificence of anything remotely like this," Melody whispered.

"Bask? Magnificence?" Connor said. "Interesting word choice."

"Oh, that's nothing," Melody said. "Sometimes I try to be audacious in my word choice to avoid the bavardage of the hordes."

"What?" Connor replied.

"People talk too much, and too boring."

The Doctor heard a bit of this conversation, and it put a smile on his face. It was these simple little things that always made the most difference, and despite the memory being small and short, it would stick in his mind for another millenia to come.

"To Box Five, yes?" Gaston said. "I hope you don't mind if I sit with you."

"Oh, of course not!" the Doctor said. As was his way, he swept his arm around Gaston's shoulders and walked along with him like that. It was a bit awkward for Gaston, but the Doctor didn't even seem to notice. Melody pointed this out to Connor and the two of them shared a little laugh as they sat down.

Since the investigations had taken such a long time, there was not much of a wait before the orchestra began to warm up and prepare to play.

"It's beginning!" she squealed. "I can't believe I'm going to see Lotte Dupuis, in Faust!"

"You've said that half a million times already," Connor whispered in response.

"Shut up," Melody responded. She was letting anything any of the boys said ruin her excitement of what was to come next. "Gaston is excited to see Faust, right?"

"Oh, yes, of course. I would have preferred to have found something more on the mystery backstage, but everyone in France loves to hear about the operas."

Gaston was poised and ready to say more, but he was shushed by Melody as the opera truly began with the lush singing voices. Melody was literally on the edge of her seat to listen, despite the fact that the opera singers could easily project their voices throughout the entire auditorium without any sort of help.

After a moment of listening to the music "It's in English," Melody said. She pursed her lips slightly at this. She hadn't thought of how the whole TARDIS translation circuit would cause her to hear everything in English, including the operas. But at least she would be able to tell what was going on, that would be nice.

"Well, yes," the Doctor said. "Sorry about that, I hope you don't mind too much."

"Think of it this way," Connor said. "At least you'll be able to understand what's going on easily."

From that point forward, Melody was completely taken over by the opera. The Doctor and Gaston all enjoyed it in their own way, but not in the way that the girl was. She was obsessed with it, watching it with wide orbs of eyes and a dropped jaw. But once glance to her side caused her to become angry.

"Are you falling asleep?" Melody said in disgust, looking at Connor. "This is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen and heard, and you're sleeping!?"

"Sleeping?" Connor said. He blinked several times, clearing the water from his eyes. "I dunno what you're talking about."

"I saw you, Connor," she replied. "Now wake up and listen to Lotte sing. I think she's just about to start her big ballad now," Melody said. "Then the aria should be soon after." She was right about this, as Lotte made her way to the front of the stage and sat down, preparing to lament about the King of Thule.

The song began sweetly and slowly, with a melancholy feel to it. Melody was entra

"She is singing tonight to bring the chandelier down!" Gaston said, his eyes widening as the massive structure of crystals and light began to shake back and forth.

"You can't be serious," Connor said. "A voice, even an opera singing one, can't bring down a chandelier by itself."

"No, it can't," the Doctor replied. "But an alien can," he said, making sure his voice was only loud enough to be heard by Melody and Connor. Besides, Gaston was too lost in thought as he stared at the chandelier and started scribbling down notes. The lines of writing ended up all over the paper, as he didn't keep any attention on what he was doing on there.

"We have to go, now," Melody said, looking towards the Doctor who wasn't moving. "Aren't you listening? The chandelier is going to fall. People are going to get hurt. We're going to get hurt, we need to go!"

"Ah, but this is fascinating!" the Doctor said, staring at it. "Exciting, yes, very exciting!"

Melody was somewhat horrified to find the Doctor with a childlike gleam of wonder in his eyes as he was unable to tear his gaze away from the quivering chandelier. He began wringing his hands in all of his glee.

"Doctor, Doctor Smith!" Connor said, joining Melody's effort. Even though he did find the whole thing rather interesting, he wasn't exactly about to go ahead and let himself be crushed by a dropping chandelier.

As the world seemed to turn to slow motion, the chandelier began to collapse to the ground. Luckily, this was enough to snap both Gaston and the Doctor out of their dazes. The Doctor made his way to his companions and grabbed their hands.

Despite all of the screams, the Doctor's voice still rung out clear.

"Run!"

Gaston trailed after the group of three, holding all of his papers against his chest. He wasn't sacrificing a story like this, not at all. After all, he had finally gotten his headline: Chandelier crashes down on unspecting audience of opera. It would be sensational.

Melody kept one hand trying to hold up her long skirt enough so that she could run, but it wasn't enough. She found her boots catching on the emerald fabric and causing her to stumble every few steps. This was enough to slow down the entire group significantly, but it didn't matter as much as there was already much traffic. Almost everyone in the auditorium had begun to flee, shrieking and screaming.

Connor threw one last glance over his shoulder as the group escaped the main auditorium area, seeing the chandelier collapsed on the ground. This was a moment that he would need to sketch down on a piece of paper, the shattered crystals reflecting light every which way making it almost blinding. It was a beautiful, in a very strange sort of way.

"What do we do?" he called out. "We have do to something, don't we?"

"Of course!" the Doctor replied. "But we have to figure out what it is we need to do first!"

"And that requires getting out of the auditorium," Melody added in.

"Let's go, then!"

It took quite a while, but the four of them were able to escape and find a place to regroup. The Doctor had already begun his thinking process. A single glance at him was enough to tell that every cog in his head was turning. Connor and Melody stood anxiously awaiting what the Doctor had to say as he paced back and forth. Gaston's pen was ready to fly the moment that "Doctor John Smith" spoke.

"Aliens, music. Music, aliens," the Doctor said. "They're tricksters, all right, but it has something to do with music!"

"Aliens?" Gaston said, sounding shocked. He nearly dropped his pen on the ground at this. "What do you mean, aliens?"

"It's a long story," Connor began to say.

"Jane!" the Doctor exclaimed, turning around as Melody's eyes popped open at the mention of her former name and his sudden action. "Sorry, Martine!" he said, correcting himself. Melody still didn't look very pleased with him.

"I'm not singing for you again, if that's what you want," she said, pursing her lips.

"No, but Lotte will sing for us," the Doctor said, rubbing his hands together. "You know her best, now, come on!" There was no time to lose. They dashed back into the auditorium and made their way to the stage to find the golden haired opera singer.

A/N This chapter was difficult to put together. Why? It was pretty much done, but then I decided to rearrange cuts and things over the next several chapters, so I had to replace about 750 words of this chapter. But I did it. Over on the side we have a lovely picture of the chandelier from the Paris Opera House. I'm proud to say that I've actually been there, which was probably my favorite part of going to Paris in general. I also really liked the Musee d'Orsay. But the Paris Opera House beats everything, even the Mona Lisa at the Louvre. It was so beautiful and I was just fangirling my entire way through. I've also included the song that Lotte was singing at the time of the chandelier fall. Well. Thanks for reading, please vote and comment!