Yowzah Oneshot Collection (3)

47(G)

Wasted Moments

EllianaDunla

There is one very important thing that her training has never covered, Melody Pond realises when she has been trapped in some invisible contraption conjured up by a robot wearing her mother's face. There is one very important thing they have never told her about the Doctor. They have told her that he is dangerous, they have told her that he is intelligent, they have told her that he is resourceful. What they haven't told her is that, for a Time Lord, he has a habit of wasting an awful lot of it.

This latest conclusion she is reaching herself, unable to move, only capable of watching as the dying Doctor swaggers about in a suit and with a fashionable walking stick - which he needs - engaging the robot in conversation as if he has all the time in the world while in truth he has less than five minutes left to live. Melody knows what poison she used and she knows that it is lethal. But here he is, wasting his last minutes of life being completely and utterly ridiculous, because having a scheduled nap for his left leg, really? He can't be fooling anyone with that.

And then his time runs out as he collapses and Melody thinks that yes, this is it for her too. They'll kill her, make sure that she won't survive the Doctor by much more than a minute or two. They've hardly made a secret of it that her life is the price she'll have to pay for fulfilling her life's purpose. But then the robot malfunctions, she is released from her invisible prison and all she can think of is how badly she wants to get out of this place right now.

'Never run when you're scared, rule seven.' The Doctor is dying, lying on the ground, too weak to even crawl, but apparently he still finds the time to tell her how to live her life. Given the fact that his own is far from a shiny example to light the way for the rest of them, Melody knows that she owes him nothing and she does not want to take risks on his behalf.

And yes, she is scared, more so than she has ever been. It is not the same sort of scared that she was when she was very little and there were monsters whispering in her ears. She could never remember them, but their words lingered, at least the gist of what they had been saying. Nothing could ever frighten her like that. But this does. It is a different way of scared, but yes, Melody Pond is absolutely terrified.

The Doctor may be too weak to crawl, but it certainly does not stop him from trying to crawl back to his police box, only now remembering to try and save his friends, when he should have done that first before he did anything else. Wasting time indeed.

But he won't make it and so he calls for River instead. She'd heard that name before, but doesn't know who it is. Clearly he's having hallucinations. Melody is feeling a surge of undefined and irrational jealousy. It doesn't change the fact that he has wasted precious moments he would have better spent saving her parents. Only now that there is no more time does he remember his companions.

She goes and saves them herself and keeps repeating to herself that she does it because they are her mother and father. The Doctor's broken 'help me' does not have a single thing to do with it. But she is finding it harder and harder to keep her nerves under control, because the TARDIS sort of talks to her and tells her how to fly her - the presence in her head is decidedly female - and how is that even possible? But she retrieves her parents - who now look younger than she does and this won't ever not be weird - and brings them back to the Doctor as they request.

He's only barely alive when they make it back, but instead of spending his final moments with his friends, he insists on talking to her. Melody knows she shouldn't be so scared of talking to a dying man who can't hurt her, but it is painful all the same. This is the man she murdered - is murdering, will murder? - and he has saved her. Well, he had her parents do it, but it sort of amounts to the same thing. To her surprise, she is starting to feel guilty over what she did.