Melody Malone and the Invisible Wife

[songofsong]

PROLOGUE

It was another dark and dangerous night on the streets of New York. Well, it was always one of those. And that was just the way I liked it.

After all, that was my profession. As a detective, those streets were what kept me alive, and for as long as the people of New York kept giving into their paranoia and fear, I would be in business. It seemed people would pay a high price to feel safe in their beds at night, and I too slept a little easier, knowing I had the villains caught and money in my pocket.

And what villains they were indeed. For I didn't deal with wanted criminals or the occasional ruffian the police failed to catch; my customers were of a more particular variety, and too were their problems. I could say it was because these particular clients paid me rather handsomely, or that I felt some kind of noble responsibility to keep New York safe - but none of that was true.

The reason I did it, was because I loved it.

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[songofsong]

The sound of the door snaps Melody's head up from her desk. It's late, too late for clients, and the faded sign on her door clearly marks her as closed. But then, she's never truly closed, and even now, with the clock drawing ever closer to midnight, she's in her office, working on a case that's all her own. Closing the private contents of file, she stands up from the desk, a loosely tied dressing gown the only thing offering her modesty in the sanctity of her tiny office.

She moves on bare feet towards the door, seeing the dark silhouette on the other side of the mottled glass. The lamp light outside casts a sinister glow over the name that arches over the glass, marking the shadow across her face as she quietly approaches. She recognises the figure of a man, and with the hour late as it is, she reaches to check her safety pistol is stored just above the door.

Unlocking the clasp, she pulls it open a short way, looking out to the shadow that lingers on her doorstep.

"It's out of office hours, honey. Come back in the morning."

[bowtimeandspace]

For a moment the Doctor thinks she's not there, that's she's not going to answer, even if he can see the vague warmth of a light within. He's about to turn aside, back into the dark night, when the door cracks open.

He's soaked through, and he stands arms crossed in front of him, desperately pulling his jacket closed across his chest as he shivers, cold from the rain. His hair is plastered against his face, and his bowtie barely recognisable around his neck.

"Melody Malone?" he asks as she opens the door a crack. "Please. I need your help."

Because for once, it's the Doctor that needs help, and if anybody can, it'd be her.

[songofsong]

When he speaks, she recognises the voice. The voice of the man who'd interrupted her investigation a few weeks ago near Times Square. She hadn't expected to see him so soon, and not drenched on her doorstep in the middle of the night, but she can recognise a lost soul, and with words like that, well, that's exactly what she's here for.

Looking him over, she considers him head to toe before she nods her head, pushing the door open fully so he could step inside.

"Come on in," she offers, waiting til he was inside before she closed the door behind him, hearing it lock. "I knew it'd only be a matter of time before I saw you again, Doctor." She remarks, leaning against the side of the door as she watches him drip pitifully on her floor.

[bowtimeandspace]

Upon her instruction, he steps inside, his shivering almost more pronounced when he's within her warm walls. Water drips from his sodden clothes, and he glances towards her, still looking perfect, not a hair out of place, and lit again with a light that doesn't even quite seem present in the space around them.

"I'm sorry if it's late. Is it late? I think it's late. I wasn't quite sure where to go. And you gave me your card."

[songofsong]

"Yeah, it's late," she confirms, but she rolls a casual shrug that has one shoulder spilling out of her silken gown. "But that's alright. Come on, we'll go sit in my office. It's warmer in there." Her eyes stay on him for a moment longer than they need to as she walks on past him, leading him up the couple of steps to her tiny office.

It looks more like an entrance, than an office, with a desk backed against a window obscured by a closed blind, through which the thrashing rain can still be heard. The desk is covered in papers and files, with a poorly lit lamp struggling to illuminate that corner alone. There's an ashtray holding a still smoking cigarette, and a half finished glass of scotch leaving ring marks on a newspaper.

The place is a mess, but it all seems to make sense to her, as she squeezes past the numerous filing cabinets that line her walls, and goes to pick up the crystal glass, taking a mouthful before she perches on the corner of her desk, offering him the one lone chair that takes up the last remaining space in the room.

"Well, go ahead, sweetie. I'm all ears," she tells him straightforwardly, expecting him to come out with some emotional story about what had led him here and what he needed her for.

[bowtimeandspace]

The Doctor glances around the small room as they step into it. He notices it, notices everything about it, and catalogues every minute detail away into the back of his mind. But the thing that rings true above everything, the thing that feels almost more concerning than anything? This place is lived in. This place has years of being lived in.

Somehow, this woman, this is actually Melody Malone.

He continues to frown, eyes falling over the desk and the still smoking cigarette, but it's her words that pull him back. One word in particular. Another knife in his hearts.

For a moment he just looks at her, wonders exactly what to say. How much of the woman he knows remains in this woman before him now. His gaze again lingers, maybe longer than it should, eyes falling against her bared shoulder. A moment more and he moves, taking the empty seat, pulling his damp coat about himself in a way that only seems to make him colder.

"I'm not quite sure how I got here," he admits. "But I just woke up here. Earlier today. Or not even woke up. I just was here. And it doesn't make any sense. Sound like a case for you, Miss Malone?"

[songofsong]

An eyebrow quirks slowly at the intriguing start. "It most certainly does," she agrees, picking up the cigarette that burns away in the ashtray, neatly setting it to the corner of her lips as she contemplates what he told her. "But.. it also sounds like a classic case of amnesia to me, honey. The hospital's five blocks that way," she points at the wall, giving him a look before she sets her glass back down on the table. She doesn't want her time wasted by a man who can't tell a doctor from a detective.

[bowtimeandspace]

There's a brief moment and an almost distasteful look as he sees her set the cigarette to her lips. He feels the almost urge to stand and pull it from between her lips, but no, he can't really do that.

"I don't have amnesia," he tells her with an empty laugh, and a silent but maybe you do thought after it. He frowns and shakes his head.

"I don't know what I have. But I know something has happened to me. I shouldn't be here. I really can't be here." He should be getting away, really far away, but then he knows something else too, and he sighs slightly. "I have nowhere to go. And earlier you gave me your card and I..." he shakes his head, a little water dropping from his hair in the process.

[songofsong]

Melody narrows her eyes thoughtfully as she studies this rather strange man. He's troubled, certainly, and most definitely in need of help. Just not hers.

"Sorry, honey. Do I look like a charity?" she asks, sighing to herself slightly as she slides off the edge of her desk, going to walk back behind it, to give off the impression that she had better things to do. But as she slides off the desk, she disturbs the file she'd quickly closed a moment before, and a photograph of Grayle's mansion slips out of the papers.

[bowtimeandspace]

The Doctor isn't entirely sure what he'd been expecting. She isn't River, for as much as she might look like her, breathe like her, make his hearts ache like her. She isn't her.

His head drops a moment, he knows a gentle 'get out' when he sees one (even if he's not usually too good at listening to them). But it's then that he sees the corner of a faded photograph as it slips free and falls to the floor. He reaches down and picks it up. He recognises it, Grayle, the collector.

"What's this?" he asks, presses. He knows. But that's not the point.

[songofsong]

She stops quickly when he questions her, glancing back to see him holding a photograph of that place. Grayle's. Something overcomes her as she quickly steps forward, tugging it out of his hand before he can look too long.

"Just a case I'm working on," she dismisses quietly, turning her back to him as she slides it back into the file, slipping it under a paperclip next to a photograph of a man. She touches the picture for a lingering moment before she clears her throat and quickly closes the files, going to snatch up her glass of scotch and finishing it in one mouthful.

[bowtimeandspace]

"That's Grayle's place," The Doctor speaks up, even as she snatches the picture away. He doesn't know how all this works, that story, that time, it can't happen for her, can't have happened, or at least not the way it really did. But then why would she have that picture?

"Don't go there," he tells her quickly. "You shouldn't go there. It's dangerous."

[songofsong]

The fact he recognises the house makes her slowly look back, a surreptitious glance over her shoulder, and the volumes of curls that tumble there. "What do you know about it?" she asks quietly, warningly. This isn't business, this is personal, and it's told by the way her voice changes.

[bowtimeandspace]

"I know it's not somewhere you want to go," he tells her, implores. "Grayle, he's a collector. All sorts of things, and not any of them good. If anybody asks you to go there, you stay away. Just stay away."

She has no reason to listen to him, of course, no reason at all, but even if she isn't River, he won't lose her again.

[songofsong]

She turns to face him, one hand splayed on top of the file as though it might accidentally come open and reveal more than she wanted. "Your warnings are too late," she tells him, levelling him with a grim look that says she regrets ever setting foot in there. "I've been there. I known exactly how dangerous it is."

Because that was how she lost him.

[bowtimeandspace]

He can't quite piece how all this works. She's been there, but it can't be what really happened, not even what's in that book, a written recount of what truly happened. But what about all those other stories? Amy's other books. Was there something there? Something written in there?

"The Angels?" he asks her, two simple words, but oh he's interesting now, isn't he, Melody?

[songofsong]

She becomes very still at the mention of those creatures, looking at him for a long time, so long, it was almost as if she was seeing something else. But then, she suddenly moves again, a twist of motion that has her crossing the room, and from out of nowhere, a loaded gun, cocked and pointed directly at his forehead.

Yes, he's most definitely interesting now.

"What do you know of the Weeping Angels?"

[bowtimeandspace]

He sits there, dripping wet like a drowned rat, nothing to his name but a sopping wet bow tie, and oh great, a gun pointed at him again. Both of his hands raise, and he looks at her with an almost nervous gaze.

"You're making quite the habit of this pointing a gun at me, aren't you?"

He's aware that doesn't answer her question, but strangely enough guns don't tend to make him chatty.

[songofsong]

"You're making quite the habit of earning it," she replies without hesitation, not taking her eyes off him, nor her weapon. Disrupting her investigation is one thing, but having information that might help her, is another. "You know something about them. I know you do. I can see it in your eyes. And whatever it is you know, you'd better tell me right now."

[bowtimeandspace]

He looks at her, just looks at her, looks at the way she holds the gun, unwavering as its levelled against him.

"Oh I know about them," he says quietly. Finally. "I know all about them. And I know if you lose someone to a Weeping Angel you can't ever get them back." There's pain in his voice as he says that, it still hurts, it will always hurt.

"A Weeping Angel isn't gentle, a Weeping Angel isn't caring, it just wants every day you never had."

[songofsong]

She listens to him closely as he speaks, eyes not daring to move from him. She's never met another person who knew about the Weeping Angels, who knew what horrifying creatures they were.

When she hears that pain in his voice, it triggers something in her and she tightly swallows the lump in her throat, adjusting her hand nervously on the gun before she quickly drops it. It had been an overreaction, she knows that, but anything that came close to this case, and it set her off.

"I've seen many things, in my line of work," she tells him quietly, dropping her gaze for a moment. "But I've never seen anything quite like them."

[bowtimeandspace]

"Are you the praying type, Melody?" he asks her, continuing without truly waiting for an answer. "Then pray you never will."

The Doctor has seen many things, terrible things, but the Weeping Angels are some of the worst. A Dalek he can handle, something full of evil and hate. But the Weeping Angels are something else entirely, and they ripped his family from him.

"Melody," he says her name again then. "Please help me work out what's happened to me."

[songofsong]

Her eyes remain downcast as he speaks, lost to the thoughts that had plagued her since this whole mystery began. It weighs heavy on her heart, and when he asks for her help, she slowly looks up, that heaviness seen in her eyes. She looks him over, the pitiful state he's in and somehow, it works.

"Alright," she then says quietly, before steeling her voice, hiding that vulnerability. She lifts her head, lips drawn into a determined line. "I'll help you, if you can help me."

[bowtimeandspace]

There's an almost palpable relief when she agrees, and he nods a little, thankful. He doesn't know what she could possibly want help with, but help is sort of his thing, so he can at least try.

"Of course. Yeah. Of course. What can I do?"

[songofsong]

At his question, Melody glances back towards the file, touching it briefly before she closes up again. “Well, first of all, you can stop making a mess on my floor,” she says, eyes flicking pointedly to the small pond forming underneath the chair. With that, she pushes away from the desk, stepping through another door into the next room. She very quickly returns with a towel, suggesting the next room along is just as small, and she drops it in her lap as she walks past him, going to fetch her cigarette from the tray.

Leaning back against her desk again, she holds it out in front of her, one arm folded, watching him through the steady wisp of smoke that joined the ceiling, forming her very own set of clouds to match the storm outside.

“So, you really don’t remember anything since we last met?” she asks casually, setting the cigarette in her mouth, pinched between two scarlet fingernails.