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One knock.
Her breath caught painfully in her throat.
Two.
No.
She squeezed her eyes shut, waiting.
“John!”
Starting in surprise, John nearly drops his book, fumbling hastily with it before it hits the floor, crumpling a page in the process. Scowling deeply in the direction of his closed bedroom door, he settles back into his chair, smoothes the page with long, careful fingers, pushes his reading glasses back up his nose and submerges himself once more in the fantasy of the sexy, brilliant Professor – alien time traveler and hell in high heels.
The third knock reverberated through her skull like a death knell and her smile was hollow as she opened her eyes once more. She’d triumphed over the Master’s dastardly schemes. She’d fallen from a spaceship from thousands of feet in the air. She’d faced the Time Lords and survived. It seemed only fitting that her death be so human by comparison – she had never felt more human than she had in this particular regeneration.
She raised her head, broken, beaten and tired, to find Wilf staring back at her, blue eyes stricken and one withered hand pressed to the glass. The Professor felt a lump of emotion rise to her throat as she looked back, tears welling in her eyes because oh, this brilliant human – this wonderful old man had been like a father she barely remembered having and as hard as she had tried to run from her end, she couldn’t leave him if she wanted to.
The humans had a saying they were fond of, a noble passage from one of their religious texts – there is no greater love than he that lays down his life for his friend. She liked that, she decided. Her final act would be an act of love.
She paused only to apply a fresh coat of lipstick and paste on a brave smile. There was no sense in dying without flair, she reasoned. Pressing a hand to the glass case holding the grandfather of her dearest friend, the Professor ignored Wilf’s tearful protests, focusing instead on what must be done.
“John Smith!”
With a growl, John snatches his glasses from his face, shuts his book and jumps to his feet. Striding for the door, he flings it open and bellows over the second floor landing, “What?”
Melody stands at the foot of the stairs, head tilted to look up at him, eyebrow raised and fingers tapping idly against the banister – clearly unimpressed by his display. “A messenger just arrived to inform you there’s a boy with a fever at the orphanage. I thought you might like to know but by all means, go back to your books, if you’d rather.”
Chastened and not liking it one bit – he’s a grown man for god’s sake and at times, she makes him feel like a child – John turns without a word, stalking back into his room to fetch his hat and his medical bag. Melody stands aside as he descends the stairs and he acknowledges her with a terse, “Don’t wait up, wife.”
He feels her frosty glare on his back. “Wouldn’t dream of it, husband.”
Trotting down the front steps and onto the street, John walks in the direction of the orphanage without looking back once. He never asked to be married, never wanted to be married – would rather spend his days working and reading and whatever else he pleases – and yet here he is, stuck in a marriage arranged by his and Melody’s parents and expected to be home for boring, domestic things like dinner. Thankfully, Melody seems as averse to his company as he is to hers. With any luck at all they’ll be able to carry on this farce of a marriage without having to talk much at all – living separate lives under the same roof. At this point, it’s the best he can hope for.
St. Philip’s Home for Boys and Girls is just a few blocks away so he doesn’t bother with attempting to find a hansom cab at this time in the evening, using the walk to clear his head. Though he hates the thought of one of the children being ill, he can’t deny he looks forward to days when he’s able to visit. His favorite part of his job is the part he isn’t obligated to do but merely something he does because he wants to. The medical care the children receive is nonexistent or rudimentary at best, and having a successful practice means that John can make house calls without charging a fee. It’s the only way he feels he’s making a difference – making children smile is certainly more fulfilling than treating the aches and pains of rich old men.
He meets the caretaker at the door and while the woman ushers him hurriedly in the direction of the bedrooms upstairs, John glances around for familiar young faces. St. Philip’s is well into dinnertime by now, though the meal is little more than a thin-looking porridge that makes John long even for Melody’s attempts at cooking. The moment the children see him, they grin and wave, bouncing in their seats, but John only has time to flash a goofy smile and haphazard wave in reply before the caretaker pushes him up the stairs.
The rooms upstairs are separated into rooms for girls and rooms for boys but on the inside, they look depressingly similar – dark, drafty and bare of anything but small, narrow beds. Some of the children have things from their previous homes – trinkets from mothers or fathers treasured as highly as gold. It makes John’s chest ache every time he ventures inside, part of him wishing he could just take them all home with him, as irrational as it may be. He contemplated at least taking in a few but that was before he married and something tells him his dearly beloved wouldn’t be quite so keen on having orphans roaming about the house.
Pushing aside thoughts of Melody and his inconvenient marriage, John focuses instead on the little boy curled up on his bed at the very end of the room. Victor clutches his thin blanket up to his chin and coughs into the neck of his teddy bear, eyeing John carefully. “’lo, Doctor,” he greets with a sniffle.
John beams at the boy, settling onto the edge of his bed. “Hello, Victor. Feeling under the weather tonight?”
He nods weakly, bleary eyes peering up at him. “George has been keeping me company,” he explains softly.
“Ah, well George is a great friend, isn’t he?” John pats the bear on the head for a job well done. “Did he tell you a story?”
Victor shakes his head with a weary sigh. “George isn’t a very good story-teller. Not like you, Doctor.”
“Well, let’s see to this silly fever…” John pushes the boy’s hair from his forehead and places a gentle hand there. “And then I’ll tell you a story, eh?”
Victor brightens. “About the Professor? Please Doctor?”
John smiles and reaches for his medical bag at his feet. “We’ll see.”
By the time he returns home, the dinner waiting for him on the dining room table is cold and Melody is nowhere to be seen. John leaves the food on the table and barely spares a glance at his wife’s closed bedroom door as he walks past it to his own, falling into bed alone.
-
“Must you read at the table?”
John glances up from the Professor’s latest adventure – after crash-landing her time machine in the back garden of a little girl in Scotland of all places, she’s trying to find something palatable to her still-new taste buds and he can barely keep his giggles in check as she dramatically rejects everything the little girl offers her. His good mood dissipates as he meets his wife’s gaze from across the table.
Green eyes fixed on him, she raises a perfectly shaped brow at his book and even he cannot deny she’s extraordinarily beautiful. Those eyes are murky but bright, always twinkling like she’s keeping some sort of secret from him and on any other woman, that strong nose might have been unfortunate but on her, it just seems to suit. Her hair alone is striking – vibrant blonde corkscrew curls piled on top of her head primly – and as he looks back at her, he can’t help wondering what it looks like when it isn’t all pinned up away from her face.
Shaking himself quickly, he averts his gaze back to the page in front of him with a muttered, “Yes, I must.”
His wife may be beautiful with a strangely dangerous smile but he knows beneath the bravado she’s the same as every other woman he’s ever met. They can never think of anything to speak of that doesn’t have to do with fashion or gossip about their neighbors. None of them interest him in the slightest.
“That fascinating, is it?”
She sounds amused and he glances up again with a frown. “I don’t expect you to appreciate the genre considering your gender’s fondness for romance.” He makes his opinion of such tripe quite clear with his wrinkled nose, dropping his gaze back to his book.
As such, he misses the dark look Melody bestows him with over the rim of her delicate teacup. “I can appreciate a science fiction novel just as well as any man, thank you,” she says, her voice hard enough to make him tense and look at her again, startled. “And I never did care for romance. Too predictable.”
He blinks at her in surprise. “You like science fiction?”
She shrugs one shoulder and answers demurely, “It depends on the book.”
Intrigued despite himself, John lifts his book up to show her the cover. “What about this one?”
“Professor Who?” She drops her eyes and bites her lip. “You don’t think it too sentimental?”
He gasps, clutching the book protectively. “Are you mad? It’s perfect – a bloody masterful combination of adventure and friendship and mystery and alien worlds. It’s the best there is!”
Strangely, she flushes and sips hurriedly at her tea, still not quite looking at him. “I suppose I should reconsider my opinion, then.”
He harrumphs and turns back to his book, idly recognizing that he’s ever had such a long conversation with his wife before. Ignoring his breakfast, he immerses himself once more in the world of the delightful and mysterious Professor, setting aside thoughts of Melody’s flushed cheeks and bright eyes. Melody sips her tea and doesn’t ask him again to put away his book.
Before he leaves to walk to his practice, she reminds him at the door, “Don’t forget we’re having dinner with my parents this evening. Try to be on time if you can help it.”
He answers with a dry, “Yes, dear,” and a dismissive wave of his hand, sweeping past her out of the house.
The day turns out to be an eventful one – two cases of smallpox, an elderly gentleman under the delusion that he was the lost heir to the Russian throne, a tot with a fever, and a young man who fell from a ladder and broke his arm. John doesn’t get a time to breathe until half past seven and only realizes he’s late as he walks home leisurely and his stomach growls.
Stopping in his tracks in the middle of the street and remembering Melody’s warning not to be late, he hisses under his breath. “Bugger.”
The maid answers the door when he arrives and sighs at John’s sheepish look, shaking her head as he scuffs his feet guiltily. “They’re in the parlour, sir.”
Nodding his thanks, he slips into the house and takes off his coat and hat, handing both to her before sliding his fingers through his floppy hair and venturing further into the house. They’re all sitting around the fireplace, drinks in hand and talking quietly. It’s a peaceful scene and Melody, who hasn’t noticed him lingering in the doorway, looks more at ease than he’s ever seen her – eyes glittering with laughter, her smile wide and without a trace of the smugness she usually reserves for him. He almost hates to interrupt but after a moment, he finally clears his throat and says, “Sorry I’m late, honey.”
Melody stiffens for only a moment, her fingers curling a little more tightly around her glass, before she sets her drink aside and stands fluidly. Smoothing out her skirts, she fixes a bright smile in place and walks toward him, reaching for his hand to pull him near. “Quite alright,” she says, linking their hands and leaning in to buss his cheek. “We’re just glad you’re here now, sweetie.”
On the settee together, Amy and Rory beam at them.
The Ponds are a delightful family – he adores Amy and Rory, and in turn, they dote on him like he’s actually their son. They’re so happy to have him as a part of their family that John can’t bring himself to be honest with them and he suspects Melody feels the same. Around her parents, they are nothing but cordial to one another and at times, downright infatuated. It makes her parents happy and the one thing John and Melody seem to agree on is that the Ponds’ happiness is worth a few hours of pretending.
Wrapping an arm around her waist, he asks pleasantly, “What did I miss?”
Throughout the remainder of the evening, Melody leans into his side, her curls tickling his cheek as she laughs and holds his hand and calls him pet names. The warmth in her eyes is so convincing he almost believes it himself. He strokes her cheek and touches the small of her back, looks at her with such tenderness he feels it like an ache in his chest. For a few hours, John and Melody are happily married and it’s always so surprising how normal it feels, even just for a little while.
They drop the act the moment they’re bundled away inside their carriage, sitting on opposite sides and looking anywhere but at each other as they travel home over gas-lit cobbled streets. “We’ve been married for six months,” Melody says quietly, staring down at the ring on her finger with a detachment that makes John squirm, glancing away. “And I think I could count on one hand the number of times you’ve been home for dinner on time.”
“I’m not late on purpose,” he says, frowning. “My job requires I make myself available at all hours, Melody. Sickness and broken limbs don’t wait for regular business hours.”
“Before you arrived I invited my parents for dinner with us tomorrow evening and somehow, I doubt you’ll manage to be on time for that either.” Melody crosses her arms over her chest, the movement pushing her breasts higher over the neckline of her dress, and John flushes, looking away. “Not without an incentive, at any rate.”
“Incentive?” If his voice squeaks, she doesn’t mention it.
Nodding slowly, Melody smiles. “Tomorrow is Sunday. Your practice isn’t open.”
He frowns worriedly. “Yes, but I still make house calls if I’m needed.”
“Well, if you happen to be needed, I’m going with you. If you miss dinner, you’ll be forcing me and my parents to miss it as well.” She smiles triumphantly, as if her word is law and the discussion is over.
“I can’t take my wife to work with me!” He gapes at her, horrified. “I’ll look ridiculous.”
Hiding a smile, Melody smoothes her gloved hands over the bodice of her dress and says, “So no different than usual, then?”
He scowls. Technically, he has the authority as her husband to forbid her from accompanying him but he has a feeling trying such a thing would only make Melody laugh in his face. He doesn’t know much about his wife but he certainly knows she isn’t quite the honor and obey type.
And that’s how John finds himself standing outside of St. Philip’s Home for Boys and Girls with his wife at his side, smirking at him and looking terribly pleased with herself. He’d spent the better part of the morning praying no one would fall ill and he wouldn’t need to venture out with her tagging along, but even before noon a messenger had come from the orphanage, asking for his assistance.
He rings the bell and fidgets while they wait. “Just please, try to stay quiet and out of the way.”
“Out of the way of what?” She snorts. “Are you performing surgery?”
He glowers at her but Melody only hums in amusement as the door swings open and the caretaker welcomes them with relief. “Mrs. Anderson,” he greets, shifting uneasily when the old woman’s gaze slides questioningly to Melody. “What seems to be the trouble today?”
Opening the door to allow them entry, she says, “The older children brought in a little girl they found living under the bridge – poor thing is positively blue.”
John swears under his breath, hurrying the caretaker along up the stairs, and he hears Melody’s footsteps quicken and her skirts rustle in her haste to follow. He barely spares her a glance but she keeps up admirably, bursting into the room just steps behind him and Mrs. Anderson. The little girl curled up on a narrow bed doesn’t even look up as they approach, dressed in dry clothes and wrapped in a thin blanket. She shivers violently, her lips and skin tinted blue and her hair still wet and hanging in her face.
Striding quickly to the bed, John stoops and places a hand on her shoulder, drawing in a sharp breath at how cold she is to the touch. The little girl stares up at him with wide eyes, bottom lip trembling. “Hello there,” he says gently. “I’m Doctor Smith but all the children here just call me the Doctor. What would you like me to call you?”
“A-anna.”
“Ah, lovely name. Hello, Anna.” He smiles, ruffling her wet hair. “I’m here to help you. Will you let me help you, Anna?” After a tense moment, she nods once and his smile widens. “Excellent. I’m going to move you downstairs where there’s a nice warm fire. Is that alright with you?” Anna nods again and doesn’t protest when he reaches out and gathers her carefully into his arms, scooping her up blanket and all. “We need more blankets, Mrs. Anderson.”
Nodding quickly, the caretaker flees the room to search for more and John carries Anna with him down the hall and to the staircase, Melody following at his heels. Depositing Anna on the floor by the fire in Mrs. Anderson’s private parlour, he turns to his medical bag and begins rummaging through it in a frantic search for his thermometer, muttering irritably to himself.
“What can I do John?”
He glances up and sees Melody hovering in the doorway, clearing heeding his warning to stay out of his way, and watches her dart worried glances to the little girl shivering on the floor. Swallowing hard, he answers, “Keep her awake for me.”
Instantly, Melody is at the child’s side, sitting on her knees on the floor in her fine dress. For a moment, John can’t help but watch her stroke her fingers through Anna’s hair and smile kindly, introducing herself in a soft voice as John’s wife and assistant for the day, earning a shy smile from the little girl. Green eyes dart briefly to his and caught staring, he flushes and looks away, clearing his throat grumpily as he returns his attention to his bag.
“What were you doing under the bridge all by yourself, Anna?”
Anna shrugs. “Sleeping, ma’am.”
“My, how polite you are.” Melody smiles. “But would you mind calling me Melody? Ma’am makes me feel terribly old.”
Somehow, Anna manages a giggle and John relaxes a little at the sound, finally locating his thermometer with a noise of triumph. “Here we are. Can you open up for me, Anna?”
Obediently, the girl opens her mouth and he sticks the thermometer under her tongue, smiling faintly when Melody taps her chin with a finger and says, “Close now, love. Don’t want it to fall out, do we?”
Anna giggles again and they all look up as Mrs. Anderson scurries into the room, arms loaded down with blankets and her face harried. Dumping them all onto John’s lap, she says, “I can’t stay – there was an altercation with two of the children. I’ll return as soon as I can.” Without waiting for a reply, she leaves again, moving as fast as she can in her heavy skirts.
Frowning after her, John shakes his head and begins shoving all the blankets in Melody’s direction. “Wrap those around her. I’m going to make tea – that should bring some color back to those pretty cheeks.” He winks at her and Anna ducks her head, smiling. He leaves them both sitting on the floor, Melody busily wrapping the child in blankets, and heads in search of the kitchen and tea.
It takes a little longer on his own but he manages well enough and by the time he returns with a steaming cup for the girl – and on a whim, one for Melody too – he finds Anna bundled up in his wife’s lap, their heads bent together as Melody murmurs to her quietly. Anna looks enraptured with whatever she’s saying, brown eyes wide and a little color already returning to her face. She’s still shivering a little but her brown hair is beginning to dry in loose ringlets around her face. Melody hasn’t noticed him yet and he pauses in the doorway, straining to hear what she’s saying.
By the tone of her voice, animated but reverently hushed, he can only deduce that she’s telling Anna some sort of bedtime story but he can’t hear the particulars. She looks perfectly at ease, her skirts billowing around her on the floor and a child in her arms.
“And then what did the Professor do, Mrs. Melody?”
Starting at Anna’s fascinated little voice, John blinks away his musings and enters the room with a cheerful, “Found the tea!”
Melody jumps at the sound of his voice, turning startled green eyes on him. “Honestly, John Smith. Where are you manners – sneaking up on two ladies like that?”
Anna curls a little tighter around her, head on Melody’s shoulder as she joins her in watching him reprovingly. Unable to help a smile at the picture they make, he ducks his head and murmurs, “My apologies, ladies. I don’t know what came over me.”
Eyes twinkling and lips curled into a smile, Melody manages a disapproving sniff. “The tea, if you please, sir.”
He serves Anna hers first, but when he hands Melody her cup, their fingers brush and he hears her quiet intake of breath. He lifts his gaze to her face and finds her strangely flushed. Uncharacteristically concerned for her, he asks, “Alright, wife?”
He says it without his usual rancor and if anything, the color in her cheeks only deepens. “Fine,” she manages faintly. “Thank you, sweetie.”
Smothering a grin, John turns his head quickly and checks Anna’s temperature again, pressing his hand to her forehead. After a moment of intense concentration and avoidance of Melody’s eyes, he sighs with relief. “Much better. Just keep drinking that tea, hmm?”
No longer shivering, Anna snuggles further into her blankets and Melody’s embrace, little hands curled tightly around her cup of tea. “Okay, Doctor.”
He taps her nose. “Good girl.”
They spend another hour with Anna, making sure she’s going to be just fine and keeping her company, telling her stories and making her laugh. John has never seen Melody quite so warm and gentle with anyone as she is with the little orphan girl and Anna seems just as taken with her. It’s impossible to continue looking at his wife in the same light of constant annoyance and resentment, not with her humming a lullaby next to him on the settee, brushing gentle fingers through Anna’s hair. He’s almost… glad she’d insisted on coming with him today. Anna had needed her.
It’s with a new perspective that he takes the sleeping child from her arms and carries her to one of the beds upstairs, tucking her in under a pile of warm blankets. Pressing a fond, grateful kiss to her forehead, he murmurs, “Sleep well, Anna.” Together, he and Melody leave St. Philip’s in plenty of time for dinner with his in-laws.
Melody is quiet on the carriage ride home, staring out the window contemplatively, and he doesn’t attempt to make conversation with her, too wrapped up in his own thoughts. When his parents had informed him he would marry Melody, he’d hoped for nothing but a wife who would leave him alone and not be a bother – he wanted to go on living as he had before, with the addition of another person sitting across from him at teatime. Instead, he’d gotten a wife who refuses to listen to him, who insists on being a part of his life even while he works, and demands his presence at dinner every night. After today, he should be positively miserable and ready to excuse himself from her company at the closest opportunity. Instead, he finds himself looking forward to dinner, glad that for once, he’ll be home in time.
“What will happen to her?”
Jumping at the sudden sound of Melody’s voice, John stops frowning at his hands to look at her. She watches him hopefully, obviously wanting him to give her an answer that he cannot. Before today, he wouldn’t have tried to spare her feelings, giving her the facts and leaving her to deal with them on her own but now, he finds himself fumbling for a gentler explanation, which baffles him even as he says, “Well, she was living under a bridge so clearly her parents aren’t looking for her. She’ll stay at St. Philip’s until someone adopts her.”
“Will they?”
“I don’t know,” he answers honestly. “Most couples tend to want to adopt babies and Anna is about five, I’d imagine.”
Melody purses her lips, glancing away. “And if no one adopts her?”
“She’ll remain at St. Philip’s until she’s old enough to go out on her own, learn a trade, work.” He swallows, a sudden tightness in his throat. “Either way, she’ll be fine.”
Melody raises her eyes to his, gaze piercing, and he knows she’s aware she has just been given the fairy tale version of what might happen to a child in an overcrowded orphanage in the middle of London proper. She shakes her head slowly, her smile sad and thin. “Don’t lie to me, John.”
“I’m not lying.”
“No, but you’re not telling me everything, are you?”
He drops his eyes in acknowledgement. “For my sake as well as yours.”
She sighs, twisting her hands in her lap, and after a long moment, he watches her push away those serious thoughts, her smile strained but her eyes sincere as she looks at him. “You were a little bit amazing today, you know.”
John flushes, fiddling with his cravat. “So were you. I didn’t realize you were so good with children.”
“I’m sure there’s a lot you haven’t realized about me, husband.”
She raises an eyebrow and John instantly feels like an enormous tosspot. The only reason he knows next to nothing about his wife is because of his own childish refusal to get to know her, petulantly barreling on with his life as if his marriage hadn’t changed anything, as if she’s nothing but a bothersome roommate. Fidgeting guiltily, he clears his throat. “What story were you telling her?”
“Nothing,” she says a little too quickly. “Just something I made up.”
“I heard Anna say something about a Professor,” he prompts, unable to stifle his smirk. It seems someone likes his favorite science fiction novels more than she’s willing to admit. “Sound familiar?”
Cheeks red, Melody glares at him and lifts her chin haughtily. “It’s a good name for a character.”
“It is,” he admits, and grins.
-
Dinner with Melody’s parents passes in relative amiability and John finds that after spending the entire day in his wife’s company and actually speaking to her, it’s easier to pretend in front of Amy and Rory than it has ever been before. His arm around Melody’s waist feels natural, affectionate terms of endearment slip from his tongue without thought, and his smile when he looks at her is anything but affected.
The sudden change leaves him rattled, jumping whenever her hand brushes his, flushing when she calls him sweetie and stuttering over his words when her bright grin is directed at him. He spends the evening feeling like an infatuated pillock, tugging at his cravat anxiously and drinking far too much brandy in hopes that Amy and Rory will attribute his shaking hands to the alcohol.
After dinner, Amy and Melody retreat to the parlour and leave John and Rory to their own devices in the drawing room. Rory sits in his favorite chair under the reading lamp, cigar in his mouth and glass of brandy at his side. “You’ll check on Anna, won’t you?” He asks, looking troubled. “Melody seemed so attached.”
Nodding slowly, John pours himself another glass from the decanter on the table and sinks onto the settee opposite his father-in-law. Melody had regaled her parents with the tale of their trip to the orphanage throughout dinner and while he’d distracted her parents with praise of her assistance, he supposes they hadn’t missed the sadness in her eyes either. “Of course I will. And she’s more than welcome to come with me.”
“Really?” Rory eyes him skeptically. “I can’t say I’d want Amy tagging along when I visit patients.” His eyes widen and he raises a quelling hand. “Please, don’t tell her I said that.”
John laughs quietly, shaking his head. “Perhaps not all the time, but certainly when I visit St. Philip’s. I have a feeling the children would adore her.” And that’s all there is to it, honestly. It has nothing to do with John’s own feelings about Melody tagging along and spending more time with him. It’s about the children. Of course it is.
Looking pleased, Rory takes the cigar from his mouth and exhales a plume of smoke, reaching languidly for the book lying on the table beside him. It’s the eleventh in the series about the enigmatic Professor and the one John tends to reread the most often. Rory flips through the pages with a fond smile.
John watches him with interest. “You read them?”
“Religiously.” Rory beams. “I didn’t realize you did.”
“Of course I do. They’re brilliant.” John gestures with his glass incredulously. “Wildly imaginative, gorgeously written. What admirer of the genre wouldn’t read them?”
Rory laughs softly. “Melody would be pleased to hear such praise.”
“Why?” John frowns. “She doesn’t even like them.”
Rory blinks at him. “Er, right. My mistake.” He clears his throat, shutting the book and setting it gently aside. “She likes romances, of course.”
John’s frown deepens, his brow furrowed. “What are you talking about? She says romances are too predictable.”
Clearly flustered, Rory sips quickly at his brandy and looks away. “Right. I was just testing you.” He smiles brightly. “Excellent job, mate. You do know your wife.”
Unconvinced, John eyes him warily. “Are you feeling alright?”
“Fine.” Rory nods a bit too quickly and rises from his chair. “Would you mind fetching Amy for me while I search for her damnable cloak? We should really be going. I have appointments very early tomorrow.”
“Right, of course.” John bestows his father-in-law with one last curious glance before retreating from the room, striding on long legs in the direction of the parlour. Oddly, he can’t hear the usual sounds of Amy and Melody giggling together but instead the low murmur of solemn voices. For reasons he cannot fathom, the sound of Melody’s voice strained and tired is enough to stop him in his tracks and he finds himself hovering outside the entrance to the parlour, reluctant to step inside. Here, he’s hidden from view but able to see Melody where she sits next to her mother on the settee.
“I still can’t believe he let you go with him today.” Resting a hand on her daughter’s knee, Amy beams. “I knew your father and I had found a good match for you in him. He’s more like an equal -”
Melody offers a weak smile.
Pausing, Amy frowns. “What?”
“Nothing.”
Eyes narrowed, Amy studies her daughter carefully. “You haven’t told him, have you?”
Melody scowls, crossing her arms over her chest and looking less like the woman who orders him about and makes him skittish with a brush of her hand, and more like a little girl being scolded. “Of course I haven’t.”
“Why on earth not?” Amy shakes her head incredulously. “Mels, you’re -”
“I’m just not ready,” Melody interrupts firmly, dropping her eyes to her fidgeting hands. “It’s not time.”
“Will it ever be time? Or will you just go on keeping it a secret forever?” When Melody doesn’t reply, Amy sighs and takes her hand gently. “You don’t need to be afraid. I can see how much John loves you.”
From his vantage point across the room, John is the only one to see Melody flinch.
-
The conversation he’d overheard between Melody and her mother haunts him for days. What is his wife’s secret and why does she feel she has to hide it from him? Trying to figure it out drives him close to madness. As far as he knows, Melody doesn’t go anywhere or do anything that he isn’t aware of – she stays home and oversees the servants, sews and writes letters, or goes out to visit friends and her parents, none of which require such secrecy.
Before that day at the orphanage, he’d thought there wasn’t a part of her life that remained a mystery to him. He thought he knew everything there was to know about Melody – and as ashamed as he is to admit it, he’d thought knowing everything about Melody was the same as knowing everything about any other woman. They were all the same to him. He realizes now how wrong he’d been. In a sea of identical dainty housewives, Melody sticks out like a sore thumb.
She is obstinate, infuriating, and refuses to adhere to any of the qualities he thought all women possessed – like a love of romance novels, an infinite supply of patience, perfectly clean gloves at all times, a willingness to overlook her husband’s faults. Quietly and only to himself, John has to admit that he rather likes that she fits not even one of those traits. Melody is not at all what he expected to find in a wife and he relishes the unexpected.
Try as he might, there is no forgetting the conversation he’d overheard between Amy and Melody. The words John loves you and Melody’s reaction to them tell him all he needs to know – if he waits for his wife to come clean, he’ll be waiting a long time. She doesn’t trust him with her secrets – with good reason – and he wonders if she ever will.
Meanwhile, oblivious to his musings, Melody inspects a porcelain doll, lips pursed thoughtfully, before holding it up for him to see. “What do you think?”
She’d insisted he accompany her to the open-air market this afternoon and John has been finding it increasingly difficult to deny her anything. He shrugs, squinting at the doll, with its painted red lips and green eyes. It has curly blonde hair, arranged artfully around her pale face and shoulders. “It looks like you,” he comments, shrugging. It reminds him of someone else too but for the life of him, he cannot think of whom. “Why?”
Straightening the hem of the doll’s elegant dress, Melody explains lightly, “I thought Anna might like it. Little girls like dolls, don’t they?”
“I suppose so,” he says, and though he has no firsthand experience, he thinks of all the little girls at the orphanage who have something to hold on to – a teddy bear, a doll, a piece of cloth from their mother’s dress. Anna has nothing. Warmth fills him as he realizes Melody must know it too and is doing the only thing she can to fix it. Gently taking the doll from her hands, he brushes a thumb over the porcelain face and smiles softly, glancing up to meet her eyes. “I think Anna would love it.”
Instead of having it delivered, they visit St. Philip’s that afternoon and give the doll to Anna personally. She’s alone when they find her, curled up on her bed upstairs while the other children play outside. Her little face breaks into a delighted grin at the sight of them in the doorway.
“Doctor!” She scrambles to sit up, straightening her scratchy, starched dress over her knees and blushing as she mumbles, “Hello, Mrs. Melody.”
“Hello, darling.” Melody crosses the room slowly, the doll hidden under the folds of her cloak, and he wonders how neither of them seems to realize how the other adores them. “How are you?”
Anna shrugs, fiddling shyly with the thin blanket on her bed. “I’m well, thank you.”
John leans against the doorway, idly spinning his top hat between his hands. “Why aren’t you outside with the other children?”
The girl shrugs again, pursing her lips and drooping a little.
Settling on the edge of the bed with her, Melody reaches out a hand and smoothes her fingers over the braid falling down Anna’s back. “Well, we brought you someone to keep you company.”
Eyes lifting from her lap, Anna eyes her warily. “You did?”
Melody nods, lifting the doll out from her cloak and presenting it for Anna’s inspection. The little girl gasps quietly, brown eyes wide with surprise as she gazes down at her gift. She doesn’t even seem to be breathing and John wonders if she’s ever received a present in her short little life. “Go on, darling,” Melody prompts gently. “Take her.”
With one last cautious glance between John and Melody, Anna reaches for the doll with trembling hands, taking it from Melody with hushed reverence. She stares at it for a long moment, barely even blinking, before tucking it securely under her arm and scrambling into Melody’s lap, hugging her around the neck fiercely enough to startle John and Melody both.
“Thank you, Mrs. Melody,” she whispers, her little voice shaking.
Melody shuts her eyes and holds the girl tightly, stroking a hand up and down her back. “You’re welcome, darling.”
Looking at them from across the room, John feels a lump form in his throat and has to glance away, struggling to control the urge to wrap them both up tight. Faintly, he hears Anna whispers, “I’m going to call her Professor. She looks like the Professor, doesn’t she?”
Melody laughs quietly, pressing a kiss to the top of Anna’s head. “Yes, I think she does.”
John blinks hard, realizing that is exactly who else the doll had reminded him of – Melody and the Professor.
Well, he thinks with amusement. What a coincidence.
-
As the days go on, John spends more and more time with his wife, paying more and more attention to her. At first, he finds himself intrigued by her mischievous grins, the way she sits across from him at the breakfast table some mornings with dark circles under her eyes, as if she’d been up all night. Gradually, however, he starts paying less attention to the mystery of his wife and more attention to just her – her company and her laughter and her unending generosity, the way she lights up when they visit Anna, all the little things that make her Melody.
More and more often, he arrives home in time for dinner; he doesn’t spend his meals with his nose in a book but lost in conversation with her. She’s a delightful conversationalist and he’s surprised to find that she makes him laugh – usually by saying something scandalous without a hint of a smile. After dinner, he doesn’t retreat to his private study but to the parlour, where he reads aloud the latest adventures of the Professor and Melody pretends she isn’t interested even when he can tell she’s listening. They become almost like… friends.
He tells himself that it’s enough and that he doesn’t wish for anything else – he doesn’t want to share her secrets or stroke his hand over her soft cheek, and at night when they part ways, he doesn’t enter his room, stare at his empty bed, and want her with him.
Flushing, John pushes away thoughts of his cold bed and averts his eyes from the sight of his wife sitting in front of the fire, scrawling with a quill in the blue notebook she always has tucked into the folds of her dress. He used to think she wrote down her lists of chores and errands for the day in there but now, he can’t begin to imagine what goes on in that head of hers.
He clears his throat and tugs at his cravat, forcing his attention back to the page in front of him. Another few minutes pass in strained silence – on his part, anyway, Melody seems perfectly at ease – before he hears the sound of her notebook snapping shut and finally allows himself to look in her direction again.
Standing quietly, Melody tucks her book under her arm and smoothes a small hand over her bodice. “I think I’ll turn in early tonight.”
He frowns, all too familiar with his wife’s late night tendencies. “Are you ill?”
She pauses, turning her head to stare at him for a moment before her expression softens and her lips curve into a warm smile. “Worried about me, husband?”
He affects an incredulous snort and drops his eyes hurriedly back to his book. “Why should I worry?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea.” She sighs and presses a warm hand to his shoulder, squeezing softly. John stiffens, his breath catching in his throat and his heart pounding in his ears until she releases her grip and steps away with a murmured, “Goodnight, sweetie.”
Even through layers of clothing, his shoulder tingles long after Melody disappears up the stairs. John gives up all pretences of reading, pushing away his book and slouching in his chair, his head still swimming. He stares into the fire, listening to it crackle until his eyes begin to droop and he drifts off to sleep.
He jerks awake again an indeterminate amount of time later with a stiff neck and an aching back. The fire burns low in the grate now and he sits up slowly, stretching with a wide yawn. As he prepares himself to get up and drag his tired body upstairs to bed, he hears a creak on the stairs and realizes that noise is what woke him in the first place.
His first thought is that Melody could not sleep and she’d come downstairs for a cup of tea but as he slowly turns to face the doorway of the parlour and the staircase beyond, he realizes the figure on the stairs is not wearing a nightgown and carrying a candle to light the way through the darkened house. The figure is dressed in dark trousers and a heavy coat and the word intruder comes to mind instantly. He stiffens, his heart leaping into his throat. The man has already been upstairs and John finds he can only think of Melody, praying she’s still asleep and safe in her bed.
If he’d harmed her in any way –
The rest of his enraged diatribe fizzles into nothing as the figure steps off the staircase and into the moonlight filtering in through the windows. Squinting, John realizes the figure isn’t a man at all and he stares, dumbfounded, as Melody stuffs her wild, untamable curls – as glorious as he’d imagined they’d be, he thinks distantly – under a boy’s cap to hide them from sight.
She glances around furtively and John sinks into the back of his chair, hoping the shadows in the parlour will make him impossible to spot. Apparently satisfied, Melody walks quickly into the foyer and he hears the sound of the front door opening. For a long moment, John can only sit in shocked silence, staring at the spot where she’d been. What on earth is his wife doing sneaking out in the middle of the night dressed as a man?
He blinks, shaking his head quickly as the front door shuts. He listens to her light footsteps trotting down the steps and onto the pavement. Well, only one way to find out. Leaping to his feet, he pauses only to snatch up his hat and coat before slipping out the front door, stumbling down the steps in his haste and nearly falling on his face on the pavement. He catches himself just in time, wincing even as he glances around wildly, hoping he hasn’t lost her.
There.
The swish of a coat around the corner of a building makes him grin and stumble to his feet, hurrying after his wife down the street and around the corner. What is she doing out this late? Doesn’t she realize that only criminals and thugs are out at this ungodly hour? And any one of them would love to get their hands on Melody and her curves and hair and – John clenches his fists and grits his teeth at the thought, shaking his head violently. As soon as he finds out where she’s going, he’s going to strangle her for being so reckless.
He follows her at a distance for almost twenty minutes, winding through narrow streets and shady back alleys, all the while wondering if this is what Amy had been referring to weeks ago. Is she participating in illicit gambling? Does she fight crime in her spare time? It only occurs to him when Melody’s rapid pace begins to slow as they approach a dark, rundown warehouse just on the outskirts of London that maybe he doesn’t really want to know where she’s going or what she’s going to do when she gets there.
She could have a lover, his mind whispers treacherously. The mere idea leaves him with a strange, churning feeling in his gut – like the supper he’d had hours before wants to rebel and come back up again. He hasn’t so much as kissed his wife since their wedding day but he thought they’d been getting along. He’d thought they’d been happy enough. Perhaps that had been foolish.
Melody pauses outside the warehouse to glance around once more and John darts into the shadows, peeking out from around the corner just in time to see her slip inside and disappear. He swallows hard and finds that he cannot tolerate the prospect of Melody with another man. He doesn’t know what he’ll do if she’s walking right into her lover’s arms but he knows that he won’t be able to rest until he finds out.
Though dilapidated and uninviting on the outside, the inside of the warehouse is vast, warm, furnished and rather fascinating. John walks slowly, eyes wide as he takes everything in. It looks more like a laboratory or a mad inventor’s paradise – strange, futuristic gadgets and spare parts scattered on every available surface. The sight of it all makes his science fiction fevered brain giddy and he quickly stuffs his hands into his pockets to keep from reaching out and touching anything. Now is not the time to explore.
Quickly glancing around for Melody, he ventures further into the cavernous space, letting an odd sizzling noise lead him along. His eyes are drawn instantly toward the center of the room, where a huge workbench is situated. Melody stands at the bench, cap off but wild hair pulled back from her face, goggles on and brow furrowed as she welds a small piece of metal onto the intricate device lying in front of her. John gapes openly. His wife – Melody with bouncing curls and delicate hands – is welding.
For a moment, his brain short circuits as it tries desperately to make sense of the scene in front of him and as he grasps to right his world with logic, he doesn’t notice the small table holding an array of nuts and bolts in his path until he trips right over it, creating a catastrophic clamor the likes of which Melody hears even over the din she’s making.
The noise of her tools dropping to the table echoes in the room as John winces, freezing in place with a whispered, “Oops.” He glances up worriedly and finds Melody staring at him in shock, goggles perched on top of her head and cheeks drained of color. “Hello. Fancy meeting you here.”
She shakes her head quickly, snapping her mouth shut. “John… what are you doing here?”
“Well, I -” He starts to take a step toward her and trips again, grumbling under his breath as he extricates himself from the table leg and steps pointedly around the nuts and bolts scattered across the floor. Straightening his coat and touching his fingertips primly to his cravat in an attempt to regain his dignity, he squares his shoulders and begins again. “I followed you, of course.” He smirks. “You’ve been a very naughty girl, Melody – sneaking off in the middle of the night.”
She flinches, glancing away, but John ignores her for the moment, approaching her workbench and circling it with his hands behind his back, inspecting everything with barely repressed fascination. “How did you know I left?”
He bends over the table to study a sketch of the outline of a woman, her arms thrown out and head bent back as a strange golden light seems to explode around her from within. “I was still in the parlour when you crept down the stairs in that getup.” He glances from the paper to meet her eyes, finding them wide and panicked. “I almost didn’t recognize you. Those clothes hide your shape remarkably well.”
Melody swallows audibly; setting her jaw with the same stubbornness he used to see every morning when she told him to stop reading at the table. He barely pays her any mind, returning his attention back to the sketches and scribbled calculations scattered across the papers littering her workspace. Some of them are labeled – Jack, TARDIS, squareness gun, sonic blaster, vortex manipulator…
Each and every one of them are things or people found in the fictional world of the Professor. John looks up questioningly, but his gaze is drawn to the device on the table Melody had been laboring over before he interrupted her. It’s a long, slender stick that would fit in the palm of his hand, and though he’s never seen it before in his life, John recognizes it instantly. Entranced, he reaches for it, barely breathing until his fingers close around it.
Gripping tightly and feeling a bit like a hero in a book, he presses the button located on the side of the tool. It extends instantly, the top springing open to reveal a bit of domed green glass. Anther press of a button and it whirrs to life, the green top flaring with light like a beacon. Eyes shining with delight, he looks at Melody with a grin. “You made this?”
Biting her lip, arms wrapped around her middle, Melody nods.
“Incredible,” he breathes. Turning it over to inspect the craftsmanship more closely, he almost giggles. “You made this. And you said you didn’t like the books.”
Melody takes a deep breath and says quickly, “I wrote the books, John.”
He blinks at her. “You what?”
Attempting a tentative smile, she twirls a loose ringlet of her hair around her finger and explains, “I’m the author of the Professor Who novels.”
John’s mind races as he stares at her, the world around him slowing to a crawl and turning on its axis. It would explain so much – the constant scribbling in her blue book, the late nights, the secret Amy had been so adamant Melody tell him, why his wife resembles the description of the Professor so closely – but he refuses to believe he has missed something so important, that he overlooked the most significant detail of Melody’s life. “You didn’t write those books!” He manages to choke out over the constant stream of stupid, stupid thick Doctor in his head. “R. Song wrote them!”
Melody sighs patiently. “Yes, sweetie. It’s called a pseudonym. River Song, Melody Pond – well, Smith now, I suppose, but I started writing them before we were married and -”
“You’re R. Song,” he whispers, silencing her instantly. “My wife is R. Song.”
She waggles her fingers. “Hello.”
He makes a strangled noise in his throat, gesturing wildly at her for a moment before finally managing to yelp, “You – you’re – amazing!”
Incredulous, Melody flushes, clearly caught between being astonished or pleased. “Really? I mean, I know I am but – you think so?”
Laughing, John reaches for her hand before she can protest, drawing her into his arms and lifting her off her feet, embracing her tightly as he whirls her in a little circle, her skirts flaring out around them. Startled, she yelps and giggles, clinging to him. John shuts his eyes tightly, wondering why he waited so long to feel her against him and in his arms. She fits him so perfectly. “You are brilliant, Melody Smith.”
She’s beaming when he reluctantly releases her, stumbling back a step and catching herself on the edge of her workbench. The stack of papers under her hand skids off the table and flutters to the floor, and John lunges to rescue them, still grinning like an idiot. Gathering them all into his arms, he shuffles them neatly and moves to return them to the table but the sketch on top catches his attention.
It’s a drawing of a tall, thin young man dressed in a purple coat and a battered old top hat, his cravat slightly askew and a wide, silly grin on his face. Breath catching in his throat, he raises his eyes to Melody and finds her watching him cautiously. “What -”
“He’s going to be a character in the next novel,” she explains softly, green eyes searching his face. “I call him the Doctor.”
John swallows around the lump in his throat, blinking hard at the image of himself so lovingly drawn. “A new companion?”
Melody hesitates. “I thought he might be something a little different… perhaps it’s time for the Professor to find love.” He strokes his fingers reverently over the drawing and nods once, not trusting himself to speak. “The Professor has been alone far too long – the only solace she’ll find is in her equal.”
Chest aching, he rasps, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Gently, Melody takes the papers from him and places them back on the table, avoiding his eyes. “Well, at first we barely even spoke -”
He flinches guiltily, thinking of months wasted. “And now?”
“I wanted to,” she admits quietly. “I was just… afraid. We were getting along so well, I didn’t want to ruin it. And I wasn’t sure you’d like the books so much once you found out I was the one writing them.”
At the beginning of their marriage, she might have been right. It’s only too easy for him to imagine tossing the books away and refusing to ever read science fiction again just out of spite. But now… “Well, you were wrong.” He grins brightly. “Oh, I like the sound of that. Hang on, let me say it again -” He clears his throat importantly. “Melody, you were wrong.”
She rolls her eyes but her wide grin gives her away.
Unable to resist, John reaches for her again, cupping her soft cheek in his hand and speaking over the wild pounding of his heart. “I love them all the more now.”
Melody’s eyes light up, as if she knows he isn’t talking about the books at all.
Lost days on his mind, John refuses to waste another second, dragging her mouth toward his and bending his head. Melody’s lips are warm and soft, and she melts into his chest with a little sigh, her small hands curling around his ears. John wraps his arm around her waist, tasting tea, the tang of metal and all the words of their story still to come.
-
“Ready, dear?”
Melody beams up at him, linking her arm through his and reaching up with her free hand to fondly straighten his cravat. “Yes, sweetie.”
Together and with anxious, eager hearts, they clamber up the steps to St. Philip’s Home For Boys and Girls. John knocks once, quickly drawing his hand back to pat his wife’s fingers, curled tightly around his arm. “You’re going to be brilliant – as always.”
She rests her head briefly on his shoulder, allowing him a moment to brush his lips over her head. “You already are. She adores you.”
“Well, that’s because I’m funny and charming and dashingly handsome.”
She giggles a bit too loudly for his liking.
“Oi!”
“I’m sorry, sweetie.” She nuzzles her nose against his jaw and breathes, “You know I find you irresistible.”
He shivers, growling softly, but before he can give in to the urge to close the distance between them and press his lips to hers, the door swings open. He’d almost forgotten he’d knocked. They both turn from each other to face the caretaker standing in the doorway, matching smiles of guilt on their besotted faces.
“Doctor and Mrs. Smith,” the caretaker beams. “Right this way.”
Melody looks nervous all over again but John leads her inside with a reassuring squeeze of her hand. Most of the children are outside playing at this time in the afternoon, but one little girl is waiting in the foyer, bouncing in her seat, a little suitcase at her side and a porcelain doll gripped tightly in her hands. The moment she sees them, her whole face lights up and John feels the tension drain from Melody’s frame at the bright grin directed their way.
Leaping from her seat, chestnut curls flying behind her, the little girl launches herself into their arms with a squeal of delight. Chuckling, John wraps his arms around his wife and the girl snuggling into their embrace. He meets Melody’s eyes over the girl’s shoulder, and they beam at each other.
With a wink, he says, “Come along, Anna. It’s time to go home.”
-
“Are you married, Doctor?”
He grinned back at her, strapping his vortex manipulator on his wrist without even looking, his ridiculous hair flopping into his eyes. “Are you asking?”
“Yes.”
Of course, she was asking. Why else would she have –
“Yes.”
Oh, wait.
“Hang on, I didn’t mean – I wasn’t asking asking. I was only asking.”
“Well, that clears things up, Professor.”
He smirked at her, infuriating man.
The Professor huffed. “Are you married or aren’t you?”
He tutted reprovingly. “Spoilers, dear.”
He disappeared in a flash of smoke before she could retort and the Professor stared at the place where he’d been for a long moment, a fond, exasperated smile curling her mouth despite herself. Yes to both, she thought, startled to find that the thought of marriage to the strange man who kept popping in and out of her life was not as terrifying as it used to be.
Yes to both.