The Adventures of the Doctor and Rory the Roman: Epilogue
Two thousand years. The boy who waited. Good on you, mate.
When Rory stepped through the doors of the Tardis again he was hit with flashes of many other Tardises. It rocked him for a moment and though he participated in the conversation he pretty much spent the next half hour as they rocketed their way to the Orient Express running through two thousand years worth of memories and trying not to laugh and/or cry.
It wasn’t a bad thing. Everything felt right. This was his Doctor on his Tardis with his wife - Amy was his wife finally - and they were all where they were supposed to be. But it was still so much to sort through. It was a bit of an overload. Because now he had three lives worth of memories and had lived in many timelines and at least two universes. Stories for the grandkids in spades there. The first time he’d had years to get adjusted and now he was just off on a mission for Her Majesty with a madcap alien with eleven different faces and personalities and a feisty redhead who was currently changing out of her wedding dress. He supposed he should change too, but he’d much rather talk to the Doctor and gauge what had happened.
He leaned against the console railing, watching the Doctor do his Tardis dance, holding a lever or pushing a button when instructed.
“I didn’t remember you,” he said suddenly.
The Doctor never stopped.
“Well, no offense, but I skipped the rewind bit with the bits of you in it. Not really because I like Amy better, though if she asks, I definitely do-“ the Doctor paused to wink at him “-but because would you really want to live all two thousand years again in reverse knowing you were going to just cease to exist at the end?”
Rory frowned, trying to follow that.
“Uh, still doesn’t address my point. Like…at all.”
“It was all about your point, Rory,” the Doctor said, bopping him on the head on his way around the console. “I had to send a message to someone and I sent it to Amy. It’s not that I wouldn’t send it to you, after all, you’re more reliable, two thousand years, you! But…the point remains, as I’ve crowed before from the rooftops - though no rooftops were actually involved - that…Amy Pond is no ordinary girl. She has the universe singing in her head, brought you back, brought me back. That’s why it worked so well. And that’s to say that you couldn’t remember me. No fault of yours, just born in the wrong house.”
“I…see, I think,” Rory said. “I guess I just wanted to say that I remember now. Everything.”
The Doctor fixed him with a look that Rory didn’t understand for a minute.
“As do I,” the Doctor said softly. “But I’m suited for that kind of thing, rather made for it.”
“Woven,” Rory corrected.
“I’m going to regret continuing to exist, aren’t I?” the Doctor said.
“Every day,” Rory told him with a smile. “Can’t pull things over my eyes.”
“Yes, I can,” the Doctor said.
Rory sighed.
“Yeah, yeah, you can. But not as much.”
“No, not as much. Still, what I meant before you started a contest again - ridiculously competitive, human males - was that it might hurt for awhile.”
“What?” Rory asked, suddenly alarmed.
All he felt at the moment was euphorically happy and tired and gloriously full and very very human.
“Your brain isn’t equipped to deal with so many lives. It was easier before because you were plastic, but now, now you’re going to get confused and you’re going to feel lost. You’re going to wonder who you are, who I am, even who Amy is. And that might be very hard.”
“Uh, that’s not good,” Rory said. “What do I do?”
“Ah, faithful to the last,” the Doctor said, throwing himself against the railing next to Rory. “Well, I can help there. If you want. You’d probably do fine. I wouldn’t doubt it, but…just picture a door. Take everything from before and stick it behind that door. Concentrate on the here and now. All the hurt and disorientation and shame and whatever you’re confused about, just keep behind that door and only take out what you need.”
“When I open the door, won’t everything fall out?” Rory asked out of his vast experience with Amy’s closet.
The Doctor burst out laughing and kissed Rory on the top of the head which Rory felt vaguely embarrassed about.
“Rory Williams, always so practical. I’m going to enter your mind,” the Doctor said, putting his hands on Rory’s temples, “and I’m going to help you create compartments, all right? We’ll put them all behind the door. And you can find whatever you’re looking for. We’ll label one…oh, embarrassing facts about the Doctor if you like.”
“Okay…” Rory said, feeling utterly apprehensive, but he trusted the Doctor with everything.
And it was the work of a moment really. Rory knew what it was like to experience time in funny ways, but this literally felt like he was watching a tape of himself and the Doctor building a house in fast forward. Very surreal and realistic at the same time, like they were joking as they did it and the Doctor was wearing a hard hat - Rory really hoped there weren’t any in the wardrobe, even as he knew there probably were - and calling it cool.
And then they were done and they were in the console room and the Doctor was flipping levers again and Rory felt…organized. Really, really organized and he could barely believe the genius of that had come from a man who kept everything he’d ever received in a big jumble everywhere. Honestly, everywhere in the Tardis, there were just piles of things - all kinds of things from clothing to medical supplies to toys - in the corridors, simply sitting. Rory had been itching to get his hands on them for months, or two thousand years, whichever.
“The last two thousand years were either the best or worst stag party ever,” he mumbled to himself.
The Doctor laughed and continued to do things to the Tardis which were probably not strictly necessary and simply for the Doctor’s own amusement.
“By the way,” the Doctor said, putting his hand in his pocket and pulling out a Polaroid, “I had a dig through in the cellar. Lookee what I found.”
Rory took it and it was the picture of him that Peri had taken all those years and a whole universe ago.
“How is this here?”
“I had it in my pocket. I think. Or one of my pockets. Or I put it in my temporally-locked safe box in the cellar…”
“You kept it on purpose,” Rory said, tracing the lines of his plastically captured face, the Sixth Doctor’s arm in all its multi-color glory flung around his shoulder.
“Despite what you may think,” the Doctor said rather primly, “I do like my past a little bit. I’ve had far more glorious times than you could ever imagine.”
“I believe you, I believe you,” Rory said. “Can I keep this?”
“That’s why I gave it to you,” the Doctor said, rolling his eyes. “I’ve got a copy.”
“Thank you. For everything.”
“Don’t go getting all sappy on me,” the Doctor said. “I’ll have to start calling Amy to take care of it. I like it much better when I have to call you about her.”
“Shut up, Doctor,” Rory said, smiling at him.
The Doctor smirked back and kept on with the Tardis.
Rory took the time again to feel around his head - so to speak - and remind himself of everything. Which reminded him of something important.
“Doctor,” Rory said, “is Martha still okay?”
The Doctor looked at him and smiled.
“Oh, Rory. My Rory. Yes, Martha is fine. Still married, still fighting, stronger than ever.”
“I did promise to have drinks with her,” Rory reminded him, never doubting that, somehow, Martha would remember him.
“Oh, fine,” the Doctor said, “we’ll go after we help Her Majesty. I can drop you two off and get some work done.”
“You’re coming too,” Rory said firmly.
“Really?” the Doctor asked, frowning. “It’s not that I don’t love Martha, I love Martha, but Mickey will be there; oh, fine-“ he said as if Rory was arguing with him which Rory was most certainly not doing “-I love Mickey too. It’s just…”
“Hard to go back,” Rory finished for him. “But it’s worth it, Doctor. How many times did you come back for me?”
“You’re probably going to get a swelled head about that,” the Doctor said. “Right, I’m going right back to favoring Amy, because this is ridiculous, but…” he said, winking at Rory again and Rory wondered perhaps if this was an alarming new habit of the Doctor’s, “…let’s go see Martha while Amy gets changed - likely be hours yet. One last adventure for the Doctor and Rory the Roman!”
Rory laughed and rolled his eyes and nodded.
The Doctor flipped another switch and they were gone.