The Adventures of the Doctor and Rory the Roman: Six
1000 AD
Rory slipped back into the shadows while the men were examining the Pandorica. He’d managed to incarcerate himself with the box in its latest prison/storage. He didn’t really know what city they were in. He was even a little bit off as to the date. Long ago he had discovered that there was some sort of internal clock in his brain, because he was never that far off. But he’d been getting a bit fuzzy as of late and was worried that he might be running down. Running down with half of the time still left. It would not do, so he was trying to avoid contact with people, or exerting himself, or - especially - having to defend the box bodily.
So long as these fellows were simply examining it and copying the sigils down for later study - also having spirited arguments about the existence of the centurion who supposedly guarded the box - he wasn’t really worried. He could feel there were worse times ahead.
The men finally grew tired and left and Rory came out from his hiding place. He was about to settle in for a long night and go over all the arteries in the body as he was at that part in his mental revision timetable. But there was a loud banging noise and he melted back into the shadows, hand on his sword. It wasn’t quite as nice as the one he’d lost back when the Doctor had saved him from the Muslim army. This one made him feel less like a Roman, which - sometimes - felt like a good thing. But his sword wasn’t as plastic as the rest of him and wouldn’t have lasted forever in any case. So he’d replaced it and spent years getting as used to it as the old one.
The doors flung open and a large assortment of people marched into the room. It looked like the governor of the city - or whatever the term was for the office held, it was all melting together in his head - and his guards. Accompanying them was a man with a shocking head of curly blonde hair and the ugliest multi-color, multi-fabric, multi-everything, coat Rory had ever seen. There was also a petite girl with short brunette hair and an impatient look on her face.
“Thank you, Hildegard,” the man said, waving his hand dismissively.
“His Honor’s name is-“ one of the guards tried to say.
“I’ve decided this suits him better,” the man said, interrupting him. “Now I wish to be alone. Oh, and Peri can stay. The rest of you must leave my presence.”
“As Your Excellency wishes,” Hildegard - for lack of a better name - replied, bowing low. “Let us know how we can further assist you.”
“I shall, I shall.”
The rest of the group left and the doors shut with a loud bang. Rory held his position in silence, waiting to see what the stranger would do.
“Rory!” yelled the man. “Rory the Roman, I demand you to show yourself at once.”
Rory didn’t move.
“Doctor,” the woman said, pulling on his arm, “maybe he isn’t here.”
Rory relaxed.
“Nonsense,” the Doctor cried. “Don’t be ridiculous, Peri. If the Pandorica is here, Rory is here. It’s that simple. Now come out,” he shouted again. “Don’t waste my time even if you have all the time in the world.”
Rory raised his eyebrow and took off his helmet, coming out of the shadows behind them.
“I guess only you would be idiot enough to try to pull off that coat,” he said quietly, enjoying watching them jump in the air.
“Rory!” the Doctor roared and pulled him into a big hug. Rory returned it somewhat hesitantly. This Doctor was quite…different. “Happy anniversary!”
“Anniversary?”
The Doctor pulled back and grinned broadly at him.
“Yes, your anniversary! Your time is half way up! Aren’t you glad?”
“Um, you’re off a couple of decades,” Rory said.
“Nonsense,” the Doctor said again. “You’re off, you plastic man.”
“Maybe by a couple of years since I don’t technically really know the date of my anniversary and neither do you. But if we’re going by what I’m going to tell you in three bodies then it’s not for about fifty years. So, sorry, Mr. Timelord.”
“I told you not to bother with your hair, Peri,” the Doctor said, looking disgruntled and turning on the woman beside him.
“Don’t you dare blame me, Doctor,” she snapped. “I’m not the one who took fifty minutes deciding which way he wanted his cat pin to look on his lapel.”
“Yes, well, that’s beside the point,” the Doctor said, putting his arm around her. “Rory, this is Peri. She travels with me now.”
“I wouldn’t have guessed,” Rory said, shaking her hand. “Nice to meet you, Peri.”
“Is it true that you really are made out of plastic and have been waiting for your true love to wake up for two thousand years?” she asked.
“Uh, sort of. But it’s not really like that,” he said, feeling embarrassed. “I’m only halfway through. Yes, I guess, but…I wouldn’t put it like that.”
“I would,” she said.
“Thanks…”
The Doctor strode around, looking at everything, pulling a velvet robe off a suit of armor and draping it around Rory’s shoulders.
“Early or not, we’re here to celebrate.”
“You broke into a high security vault and impersonated royalty to celebrate my anniversary?” Rory asked, highly confused.
“Naturally,” the Doctor said, grinning at him. “We needed a bit of a party and I knew exactly where to go. Oddly enough the Tardis seemed to agree as here we are.”
“Why didn’t you forget me?” Rory asked pointedly.
The Doctor shifted a bit uncomfortably.
“Well, it’s all a bit relative, time streams and all that, and I was in a hurry. Oh, what does it matter, we’re here to have a party.”
He smiled as if his logic was impenetrable.
“Doctor, I don’t eat.”
“We do,” the Doctor said, pointing to himself and Peri.
“Lovely party when the celebrant can’t even participate,” Rory said, though he was starting to feel strangely happy.
“We’ve accounted for that,” the Doctor said and pulled a genuine Christmas cracker out of his pockets. “Go on, pull.”
Rory hadn’t seen one of those for two lifetimes and about eight hundred years. It made him feel like a little boy at Christmas time. He grabbed hold and pulled. It popped with an amazing crack and he grinned. Inside was a ridiculous paper hat and he popped it on in place of his helmet.
Peri held up a…disposable camera and took a picture. It was all too ridiculous for words, but Rory didn’t want to change a thing unless Amy could really be there as well.
They all settled down with a blanket on the floor - and the Doctor had produced it out of his pockets so maybe there really was something to the hideous coat after all - and kept their backs to the Pandorica.
There were little sweets and things that Peri and the Doctor munched on and Rory had the robe on and his hat and it was altogether the strangest repast he’d ever partaken - or, actually, not partaken - in. Peri asked him all about Amy and he told her about growing up in Leadworth and meeting the Doctor and traveling. He enjoyed being able to talk about - and made the Doctor triple-swear he’d forget it all this time - all the things he’d done and people he’d met and the people he’d loved. The Doctor laughed a lot and called them names and tried to outdo Rory on every story he told. It was marvelous.
There were at it for several hours - Rory found out this was the Doctor’s sixth body - and they were interrupted a few times by banging on the door, but the Doctor always went over and poked his head out and yelled at whoever wanted to come in. But in the end, it couldn’t last forever, and they had to say goodbye.
“I am worried that I’m a bit off,” Rory said. “I don’t seem to remember things quite as well and I’m…almost tired. Do you think I’m shutting down?”
The Doctor pulled out his sonic and scanned Rory until he felt like his head was buzzing with the sound.
“Yes, I dare say you are,” the Doctor said. “You really shouldn’t be at all, you know. I’m not quite sure why you aren’t. It doesn’t make sense.”
“Neither do your sentences, Doctor,” Peri told him, rolling her eyes.
Rory had a brief thought that rolling one’s eyes seemed to be a companion of the Doctor’s main function.
“I’m supposed to be operated by a signal, right?” Rory said. “But the signal has been cut off for years. Why is it happening now?”
“Time always catches up to itself,” the Doctor said. “You’re just a step ahead is all. But we can fix that. Patch a fake signal through; make you even better than before.”
“I’ll still remember everything, right?” Rory asked, suddenly nervous. “I won’t go all Auton or anything? I won’t forget Amy or how to use my sword or anything else I’ve learned?”
“No, you won’t feel a thing,” the Doctor said, putting the sonic to work again.
Only Rory did feel a thing, he felt a lot of things. It felt like five years’ worth of workouts at the same time, like what he imagined a colonoscopy felt like, like he was melting into himself.
“Ow, ow, ow, ow,” he said tightly, trying not to scream.
“I am sorry,” the Doctor said. “Only it can’t be helped.”
“I didn’t feel a thing,” Rory said, rolling his own eyes. “The screwdriver worked wonders, thanks.”
“It’s not a screwdriver,” the Doctor said, looking wounded. “I haven’t had one of those in years. This is a sonic lance, you dimwitted Auton!”
“Right…uh, sorry.”
“You are forgiven. Now you’ll last much longer,” the Doctor said, putting his ‘lance’ away with a flourish. “I can’t say for sure how long. Time is persistent. But, so are you, I gather,” he said, smiling at Rory.
“Thank you, Doctor,” Rory said and turned to Peri. “Thank you so much for this, it’s been…amazing. I can’t even tell you what it means to me.”
“You’re my hero,” Peri said.
“Excuse me,” the Doctor said, sounding a bit outraged. “What am I, smashed Rodenarian beetles?”
“A person can admire more than one person, Doctor,” Peri said.
“Not as much,” the Doctor grumbled.
“Rory is a hero,” Peri said.
“Of course he is,” the Doctor spluttered. “But you travel with me.”
“Come on,” Peri said long-sufferingly, “let’s go and you can take me somewhere fabulous that will dazzle me into thinking you’re the best thing since they reversed the green house effect.”
“They did what?” Rory asked.
“Long story,” the Doctor said. “I wasn’t there, no matter what anyone else may tell you on the matter.”
“Okay, Doctor,” Rory said.
Peri gave him a hug which he accepted gladly and then the Doctor gave him one as well.
“Happy anniversary, Rory the Roman,” the Doctor said, taking Rory’s party hat off. “Sorry, have to take this with me. Gotta keep up the timelines, you know.”
Which was rather ridiculous since everything was so completely messed up anyway and it was a paper hat. But what would be the point of arguing with a Timelord, especially one as cantankerous as this version of the Doctor seemed to be?
“Speaking of which, do not refuse to forget me this time. I mean it.”
“Fine, fine, fine,” the Doctor said, brushing the matter off.
“I’ll remind him,” Peri said.
“Thank you.”
Rory went back into the shadows while the Doctor banged on the door and demanded to be let out. It was a fairly short time before he was, causing Rory to think people had been hanging out in the hallway, afraid to go anywhere less they incur ‘His Excellency’s’ wrath. He smiled and sat down against the Pandorica.
“He’s quite a man, the Doctor,” he said softly, and then leaned his head back against Amy’s prison. “Happy anniversary, Amy.”