AN ~ This one's kinda short. It follows directly time-wise from Chapter 1. Again, suggestions and everything very much welcome. Only 2 weeks til Christmas! And til the fall of the Eleventh :( But also the introduction of Twelve! I have so many emotions about this. One of which is that I hope River is in it *cross fingers*

Anyway, enjoy! More coming because I have no job which means no money which means no life…

Chapter Three: Nothing is Ever Forgotten

As they stepped through the doors, Melody's jaw dropped. Her arms loosened around Amy until the doll nearly fell as she cast her gaze around the enormous room. Shelves and shelves of books reached up towards an impossibly high ceiling; three, four, five times taller than she was. Maybe more. Silver-blue moonlight, from the windows and the glass dome in the roof, cast strange, magical shadows around the room.

"What do you think?" Aunt Kay asked, a teasing smile on her lips as she watched Melody take it all in.

The little girl forgot to breath as she turned slowly on the spot, feeling as though her whole body and mind had to stretch to fit in this new aspect of her world. It was so big that 'big' did not describe it. She realised as she tried to absorb it all that it was for moments like these that 'huge,' 'enormous', and 'colossal' had been created. Those were powerful words. All words were powerful. And she had never seen so many words in one place in all her life. Words were His weapons, and they entranced her.

"It's beautiful," she breathed.

"It is knowledge," Aunt Kay said. It was difficult to tell if she was agreeing with Melody, or correcting her. The girl thought little about it though, scampering off instead to find a book, Amy bouncing after her.

Kovarian took a seat at a large oaken table down one of the corridors of shelves. She closed her weary eyes for a moment and listened to the pattering of Melody's little feet. Her excited murmurs when she found something particularly interesting and no doubt too big for most children her age to carry. A little, victorious grunt as she hauled it off her shelf and pattered off again. Kovarian opened her eyes and smiled once more, glistening with curiosity as Melody pushed a hefty armful of book onto the table and then, dragging Amy after her, clambered into the chair opposite her Aunt Kay.

Melody's selection was a book of myths and legends, Kovarian noted as she watched her young student pore through the pages. Earth ones – naturally, given that interplanetary relations were inconceivable to 1950s Earth. But Kovarian couldn't help wondering whether Melody might have picked an Earth book in a different library. She had made the doll, Amy, herself. It was a shockingly accurate picture, insofar as a small child's doll could represent a real person. Then of course the name itself: Kovarian had called it 'Amelia' once and Melody had corrected her, saying the name was too fairytale. At first Kovarian had thought this was an expression of Melody's inevitable realisation that her life was not as idealistic as it was sometimes made out to be, but having watched the real Amy through her pregnancy, Kovarian wondered whether there was more to this than coincidence.

As Melody turned the page to reveal the next story – The Lone Centurion – Kovarian felt a shudder run down her spine, immediately recognising the illustrated figure. For a moment she thought that, like Amy, this was proof of some strange ability of Melody's, perhaps due to the influence of the living time machine, already trying to twist Melody's mind to the Doctor's path. She felt an instinct to rip the book away from Melody's grasp. A moment later, however, the little girl looked up and scattered Kovarian's thought pattern.

Melody frowned. Aunt Kay looked strange. Her posture was unnatural - not just stiff but uncomfortable, under pressure. Her pulse had quickened, her face flushed slightly. She seemed to realise the lapse in her façade, and settled quickly back into it. Melody said nothing: sometimes her Aunt Kay did strange things like that. Sometimes she explained herself, sometimes she did not, but who was Melody to question?

Melody turned the page, and continued reading.