Doctor Who fic: Boys' Night Out (1/1)
Title: Boys' Night Out (1/1)
Rating: G
Word Count: 3,287
Characters: Rory, Eleven
Timeline: Post-"The Big Bang".
Summary: Rory and the Doctor try to have an uneventful trip. Of course, nothing goes as planned.
Disclaimer: Everything belongs to the BBC.
A/N: Written for who_contest's "Lack of Understanding" challenge.
The sound of a ringing mobile brought Rory back to the land of the conscious. He wasn't sure what time it was, but he certainly knew that he was still groggy and he wanted to go back to bed. The mobile didn't care about such things and kept trilling like an electronic bird.
With a moan, he rolled over and groped blindly for the offending phone. It should have gone to voicemail by now. If it was the hospital, he could understand, but if it was one of his mates drunkenly calling from the pub he was going to have some choice words for them.
Rory's fingers finally brushed up against a rectangular plastic casing and he seized his hand around it. Right away, he knew it wasn't his phone. Even in the dark, and in his sleepy state, he knew the feel of his mobile and this wasn't it. It was Amy's.
Suddenly, Rory remembered where he was. He was in their bedroom aboard the TARDIS. The TARDIS, which was flying through the Time Vortex. He was very sure they didn't get mobile phone coverage in the limbo between time periods.
He took a peek at the number and recognized it as the Ponds' home phone number. With a sigh, Rory climbed out of the bottom bunk to wake his slumbering wife on the top bunk. The mobile continued to ring in his hand.
"Wake up, Amy. It's probably your mum."
"Jury duty?"
They were both awake now, hair dishevelled and eyes bleary. It felt like the middle of the night to them, but there was no set time zone on the TARDIS. As such, since the time machine kept no set hours, neither did its pilot and Amy and Rory easily found the Doctor doing maintenance in the console room. The Time Lord had taken one look at them, still dressed in their pajamas but now with dressing gowns on, and asked what was wrong. And Amy had answered.
"Jury duty?" the Doctor repeated again, the volume of his voice rising along with his incredulity.
"How do you get mobile phone service out here?" wondered Rory. He hadn't received any calls or texts since they left Leadworth after their wedding reception. He could only imagine the backlog just waiting for him.
"The Doctor did an upgrade," Amy replied. To the Doctor, she added, "It's just a summons." She looked cross, though Rory couldn't tell if it was because he had woken her or that her mother had called to inform her of a waiting civic duty.
"Well, you still have to go back. It's your responsibility as a citizen."
Amy snorted. "Since when do you care about responsibility?"
"I'm responsible!" protested the Doctor. "I just ignore the little things like parking fines and keep out signs. A juror summons is not a little thing."
"Fine," sighed Amy. "Back to Leadworth."
"I don't know how long this will take."
A time machine, reflected Rory, was a handy thing. Amy's mother had phoned near the end of the ten day grace period to return the confirmation for the summons, leaving Amy with little hope of getting it back on time. So the Doctor had helpfully sent them back to the day the letter was received so Amy could post it in the mail.
And now, here they were, the date of the selection when only minutes before, from their perspective, it had been a month earlier.
"Call when you're done. I got an upgrade, too."
"Don't have too much fun without me." Amy kissed Rory on the cheek.
From the doorway of the TARDIS, Rory and the Doctor watched Amy head over to the Gloucester courthouse. Quite a few people were headed in the same direction, all with the same inconvenienced expression.
The Doctor went back to the console, leaving Rory to close the doors. He had imagined waiting for Amy back at their flat in Leadworth, but the Time Lord had shot down the idea of sitting around for hours in one place waiting for the phone to ring. Rory supposed he could have stayed behind and caught up on things while the Doctor flew off to who knows where, but he didn't like the idea of the Doctor travelling on his own. That was a world of trouble just waiting to happen.
So here they were. Rory realized this was the first time they would be going anywhere without Amy. He doubly realized that he didn't spend much time alone with the Doctor. Amy was their common bond.
As he walked over to join the Doctor, Rory wouldn't have said he felt awkward, but he did feel a little unsure. His last memory of a one-on-one conversation with the Doctor was in Cwmtaff and that didn't really count since they had been in the middle of a crisis. What would they talk about when there weren't humanoid reptiles or space fish vampires trying to kill them?
"So, Mr. Pond, what do you want to do? Amy may be stuck doing a boring public service but that doesn't mean we have to be bored, too."
All of time and space at their fingertips. Rory hadn't felt the weight of the infinite possibilities until right that second; they could literally go anywhere. And the Doctor was asking him to decide. Another first.
Rory drew a blank. "Um..." If he had a list of ideal travel spots in the back of his head, he suddenly couldn't remember any of them.
The Doctor paused in his take-off preparations. Rory thought he might laugh, but all he offered with a genial smile. "It doesn't have to be an adventure. A stroll through Paris. Sightseeing in Sydney. A helicopter tour of the Grand Canyon. Ooh, I've always wanted to do that."
"Well..." Rory didn't know why he hesitated or why he felt silly making the suggestion, but he just did. "I always wanted to meet Florence Nightingale."
A voice in the back of his head lamented how boring that sounded. The Doctor was all about excitement and new horizons.
The Doctor's smile broadened. "Ah, the fabled 'The Lady with the Lamp'. I've always wanted to meet her, too." He resumed his scramble around the console, flicking switches and throwing levers with great enthusiasm. "And I know just the time and place. July 9, 1860. London."
Rory's nursing history class came back to him. "When she opened her first training school."
"Top marks, Mr. Pond!"
The TARDIS' engines gave a massive whoosh as the time machine headed back into the Time Vortex. The steady thrum that infused the room always reminded Rory of a heartbeat. The Doctor finished his last course correction with a flourish of the wrist and a spin that was nearly a pirouette.
Rory couldn't help but smile.
It didn’t take long to reach their destination. Rory pictured the TARDIS moving the few hundred miles to London and then letting the world rewind around it.
"You didn't mention why you want to meet Florence," said the Doctor as he led the way out of the doors.
Had he been back in nursing school or out with his friends, Rory would have shrugged off the question, but he sensed that the Doctor truly wanted to know the answer. "She changed the world, paved the way for modern nurses. I probably wouldn't be here if it wasn't for her."
"A luminary."
"Was that meant to be a pun?"
"Rory Pond, you will find that I mean everything I do. I-" Something crunched under the Doctor's foot, interrupting his thought. He stopped and lifted his foot off of the ground.
Rory saw it right away. A battered bayonet half buried in the gravel. The metal shifting against the stone had generated a sound skin to teeth grinding against each other.
"Why is there a bayonet?" asked Rory.
The Doctor looked around. His hands fluttered nervously. "This isn't London."
Rory looked around, too, and even he could see they were in the wrong place. Instead of standing in the middle of Victorian London with buildings all around them, they were in the middle of a sparse valley. Visible tufts of grass were brown and yellow; spring had yet to touch this place.
"Where are we?"
The Doctor had reached into his tweed jacket to pull out his sonic screwdriver when a group of six men appeared at the top of the ridge to their right. This wouldn't have been a bother but the men carried rifles topped with bayonets and they had the weapons pointedly squarely at Rory and the Doctor.
"Take your hand out of your jacket," demanded one of the men as the group slowly descended down the ridge.
The Doctor slowly extracted his hand; the sonic was not in his grip. He used the same hand to wave at the men. "Perhaps you can help us. We got a bit turned around. Do you know which way is London?"
Asking for directions while under gunpoint wouldn't have been Rory's opening move, but he had learned by now that doing the unexpected was the Doctor's way. For his part, Rory tried not to look panicked as he eyed the guns.
"Enemy soldiers. I told you!" hissed the youngest man in the group.
"We're not soldiers," insisted the Doctor but it was all he got to say.
"Quiet!" The man closest to the Doctor drove the butt of his rifle into the Doctor's side. Alien or not, he still felt pain and the Doctor cried out. Rory caught him before he could sway and collapse onto the ground.
"We will take them back to camp." The man who spoke looked the oldest and in Rory's mind that made him the leader. When no one protested, the thought was further cemented as truth.
"What should we do?" Rory asked the Doctor in a whisper.
The Time Lord drew in a pained breath. "We'll go with them. I might even have a plan by the time we reach their camp."
By the time they reached the soldiers' camp, for it was clear they were soldiers in a war, the Doctor could walk unaided and he had no troubles breathing. He was probably just bruised, but Rory made a mental note to check for cracked ribs when they were safely back in the TARDIS.
With the talk of camp, Rory had envisioned deeply dug trenches and coils of barbed wire, but that was not the case here. This camp had actual tents which dotted the landscape like little white witch hats and horses and cannons instead of jeeps and tanks. They must have been in a time period before the First World War
Their captors took them to one of the larger tents and tossed them inside. The flap was kept open to allow light in, but it was also to show them that a pair of soldiers remained outside the tent to stand guard.
"Who are you?" asked the leader of the small troop that had found them. His navy uniform was dusty and wrinkled and the man's face and beard were streaked with dirt.
Like a magician producing a bouquet of flowers from his sleeve, the Doctor brandished the wallet with the psychic paper with a flick of the wrist. "Don't you recognize your commanding officer?"
The man looked at the scrap of paper but he seemed unimpressed. Rory wondered if the psychic paper could break down. "This is the General's tent-"
"Wonderful, you took us to the right place-"
"-and he is in conference with the other commanding officers right now."
The Doctor lowered his arm. "Oh. This didn't help, did it?"
Rory wasn't sure if the Time Lord was talking to him or the soldier, but Rory still shook his head.
"When we return, I expect a more reasonable response." The solider turned on his heel and exited the tent.
"That usually works." The Doctor tucked the wallet back into his jacket with a slight pout.
"What now?" asked Rory. He glanced to the soldiers positioned outside. There was no way the pair could miss overhearing everything they said.
"We improvise." The Doctor's gaze roved around the tent, taking in all of the objects in the space.
There wasn't much. A cot, a chest, which turned out to be full of clothes, a saddle, and a lantern. Unless they wanted to smother the soldiers with unwashed clothes, Rory couldn't see anything useful.
"Can you tell where we are?"
"Easy. This is the Crimean War. 1854, going off of the uniforms. Our friends outside are part of the Russian forces."
Everyone was speaking English as far as Rory was concerned. He supposed the Doctor had some way to figure out the native language actually being spoken.
"Well... you were close." It was the only thing Rory could think of saying that wasn't an accusation. The Doctor had genuinely tried to take him where he wanted to go and he appreciated the effort. The fact that he, Rory Williams from Leadworth, was travelling anywhere at all was monumental.
The Doctor paused in his search, turning his appraising gaze on Rory. If Rory didn't know any better, he could have sworn that the Time Lord looked genuinely surprised that the comment hadn't been a complaint.
Rory knew that he hadn't always been the most supportive of the Doctor, but it was hard to complain about someone after you watched them reboot the universe to stop the collapse of time.
The moment quickly passed without comment and the Doctor turned back to poking around the tent. "Yes, our Ms. Nightingale is probably out there right now. Obviously not out in the battlefield with a lamp since it's broad daylight, but back with the English forces."
Distant shouting interrupted anything Rory wanted to say. He tried to peek out of the tent but the two soldiers stepped closer together, forming a wall of living fabric.
"Sounds like the General is on his way." The Doctor straightened his bow tie, as if looking presentable could save them from meeting the business end of a rifle.
Rory backed up so he stood next to the Doctor. He would follow the other man's lead. The Doctor had an uncanny knack to escape tight situations just by talking.
They didn't have to wait long before the two soldiers stepped aside and tall, barrel-chested man entered the tent. He removed his pointed helmet as he took in the pair. Sweat plastered his hair brown hair to his skull and his uniform was grimy with dust.
"Who are you?" he snapped.
"Not spies, if that's what you're thinking. I'm the Doctor and this is Rory-"
"A doctor? Of what?" The General's gruff demeanour didn't change, but he seemed eager to know the answer.
A sudden notion seized Rory and he spoke before he could dismiss the idea. "He's a medical doctor. And I'm a nurse."
The General put his helmet aside and within a few steps, his imposing air was replaced with a hopeful expression. With the release of some of the tension in his body, the man appeared smaller to Rory. "Are you a medical convoy?"
"We were. We got separated." The lie didn't sit well with Rory, but he couldn't think of anything else to say.
"If you were to treat my men, I would consider releasing you..."
Rory looked over at the Doctor, but it was a redundant gesture. The Doctor was already silently imploring him to agree.
"Yeah, we can do that."
Rory never had the unique pleasure of working out in a field hospital before and he immediately saw why the General was so eager for someone to examine his men. The conditions were intolerable. Flies climbed over what should have been sterile surgical tools and the tent housing the injured soldiers was ripped and sagging. What medical supplies they did have were stored in a pile out in the weak sun.
He had set to work without another word and it wasn't until some hours later that he realized he was issuing orders to the Doctor. Even more surprising, the Doctor carried them out without question. By the time night had fallen, the Doctor had also repaired the holes in the tent and shored up the supports; devised a way to get fresh water to the camp from a nearby stream; and increased the efficiency of their gas lamps by fifteen percent.
"We lost our doctor," the General admitted when Rory informed him that he had seen to all of the patients. "I became concerned when my men with minor wounds began to die."
Germs. It was amazing how something that was invisible to the naked eye was so deadly.
"I've taught your medic a few things that will help." Rory hadn't gone into great detail, but he had stressed the importance of proper hygiene and sterilization. Hopefully, it was enough to get the injured through until a replacement doctor arrived.
"Thank you." And the General truly meant it. He reached for a signed letter sitting on his desk and handed it to Rory. "This will ensure you safe passage back to your convoy."
Rory shoved the letter into his back pocket and offered his thanks.
He found the Doctor offering some last minute advice to the medic. The young man was reluctant to see them go, but he didn't try to stand in their way. He handed Rory a lantern and said good-bye.
Rory glanced back at the camp as they headed back to the TARDIS. "Will they be all right?"
"The Crimean War doesn't end well for the Russians-"
"No, I mean the injured soldiers." It was a thought Rory had been mulling over since it dawned on him a few hours ago. "Did we just change history? What if some of those men were meant to die?"
"Rory Williams." He saw the Doctor smile and it lit up those ancient eyes. "You shouldn't let history stop you from saving a man's life. You wanted to help today and you did. That should always be your first instinct."
Rory knew right then that any differences he had had with the Doctor were now in the past.
With the Doctor leading the way, they easily found the TARDIS in the dark. While the Doctor unlocked the door, Rory pulled out his mobile to check for messages. "I missed a call from Amy." He dialled her number and thumbed on the speakerphone.
There were a couple of rings before Amy picked up. "Hey, how are my boys?" It sounded like she was outside. The muted noise of car traffic filtered through the phone's speakers.
"We're fine. What about you?" Rory looked around the TARDIS for a place to put down the lantern, but he couldn't decide on a suitable spot.
"Ugh. I got selected."
The Doctor laughed but he quickly silenced himself. He took the lantern from Rory and headed up to the console. "Congratulations, citizen," was his only parting remark. Rory had to stifle a laugh of his own.
"Do you want us to come back?" He shut the doors to the TARDIS, enabling the Doctor to take-off. "We're not doing anything."
"Don't worry about it. The trial starts on Monday but it shouldn't last that long." The TARDIS engines huffed and groaned loudly, nearly drowning out Amy. "Have an adventure for me, Mr. Pond."
Rory looked up to the console where the Doctor was doing his maniac dance around the controls. A few hours ago he might have balked at the thought of spending even more time with the Time Lord without Amy around. Now it was an enticing prospect. "We can do that."
Rating: G
Word Count: 3,287
Characters: Rory, Eleven
Timeline: Post-"The Big Bang".
Summary: Rory and the Doctor try to have an uneventful trip. Of course, nothing goes as planned.
Disclaimer: Everything belongs to the BBC.
A/N: Written for who_contest's "Lack of Understanding" challenge.
The sound of a ringing mobile brought Rory back to the land of the conscious. He wasn't sure what time it was, but he certainly knew that he was still groggy and he wanted to go back to bed. The mobile didn't care about such things and kept trilling like an electronic bird.
With a moan, he rolled over and groped blindly for the offending phone. It should have gone to voicemail by now. If it was the hospital, he could understand, but if it was one of his mates drunkenly calling from the pub he was going to have some choice words for them.
Rory's fingers finally brushed up against a rectangular plastic casing and he seized his hand around it. Right away, he knew it wasn't his phone. Even in the dark, and in his sleepy state, he knew the feel of his mobile and this wasn't it. It was Amy's.
Suddenly, Rory remembered where he was. He was in their bedroom aboard the TARDIS. The TARDIS, which was flying through the Time Vortex. He was very sure they didn't get mobile phone coverage in the limbo between time periods.
He took a peek at the number and recognized it as the Ponds' home phone number. With a sigh, Rory climbed out of the bottom bunk to wake his slumbering wife on the top bunk. The mobile continued to ring in his hand.
"Wake up, Amy. It's probably your mum."
"Jury duty?"
They were both awake now, hair dishevelled and eyes bleary. It felt like the middle of the night to them, but there was no set time zone on the TARDIS. As such, since the time machine kept no set hours, neither did its pilot and Amy and Rory easily found the Doctor doing maintenance in the console room. The Time Lord had taken one look at them, still dressed in their pajamas but now with dressing gowns on, and asked what was wrong. And Amy had answered.
"Jury duty?" the Doctor repeated again, the volume of his voice rising along with his incredulity.
"How do you get mobile phone service out here?" wondered Rory. He hadn't received any calls or texts since they left Leadworth after their wedding reception. He could only imagine the backlog just waiting for him.
"The Doctor did an upgrade," Amy replied. To the Doctor, she added, "It's just a summons." She looked cross, though Rory couldn't tell if it was because he had woken her or that her mother had called to inform her of a waiting civic duty.
"Well, you still have to go back. It's your responsibility as a citizen."
Amy snorted. "Since when do you care about responsibility?"
"I'm responsible!" protested the Doctor. "I just ignore the little things like parking fines and keep out signs. A juror summons is not a little thing."
"Fine," sighed Amy. "Back to Leadworth."
"I don't know how long this will take."
A time machine, reflected Rory, was a handy thing. Amy's mother had phoned near the end of the ten day grace period to return the confirmation for the summons, leaving Amy with little hope of getting it back on time. So the Doctor had helpfully sent them back to the day the letter was received so Amy could post it in the mail.
And now, here they were, the date of the selection when only minutes before, from their perspective, it had been a month earlier.
"Call when you're done. I got an upgrade, too."
"Don't have too much fun without me." Amy kissed Rory on the cheek.
From the doorway of the TARDIS, Rory and the Doctor watched Amy head over to the Gloucester courthouse. Quite a few people were headed in the same direction, all with the same inconvenienced expression.
The Doctor went back to the console, leaving Rory to close the doors. He had imagined waiting for Amy back at their flat in Leadworth, but the Time Lord had shot down the idea of sitting around for hours in one place waiting for the phone to ring. Rory supposed he could have stayed behind and caught up on things while the Doctor flew off to who knows where, but he didn't like the idea of the Doctor travelling on his own. That was a world of trouble just waiting to happen.
So here they were. Rory realized this was the first time they would be going anywhere without Amy. He doubly realized that he didn't spend much time alone with the Doctor. Amy was their common bond.
As he walked over to join the Doctor, Rory wouldn't have said he felt awkward, but he did feel a little unsure. His last memory of a one-on-one conversation with the Doctor was in Cwmtaff and that didn't really count since they had been in the middle of a crisis. What would they talk about when there weren't humanoid reptiles or space fish vampires trying to kill them?
"So, Mr. Pond, what do you want to do? Amy may be stuck doing a boring public service but that doesn't mean we have to be bored, too."
All of time and space at their fingertips. Rory hadn't felt the weight of the infinite possibilities until right that second; they could literally go anywhere. And the Doctor was asking him to decide. Another first.
Rory drew a blank. "Um..." If he had a list of ideal travel spots in the back of his head, he suddenly couldn't remember any of them.
The Doctor paused in his take-off preparations. Rory thought he might laugh, but all he offered with a genial smile. "It doesn't have to be an adventure. A stroll through Paris. Sightseeing in Sydney. A helicopter tour of the Grand Canyon. Ooh, I've always wanted to do that."
"Well..." Rory didn't know why he hesitated or why he felt silly making the suggestion, but he just did. "I always wanted to meet Florence Nightingale."
A voice in the back of his head lamented how boring that sounded. The Doctor was all about excitement and new horizons.
The Doctor's smile broadened. "Ah, the fabled 'The Lady with the Lamp'. I've always wanted to meet her, too." He resumed his scramble around the console, flicking switches and throwing levers with great enthusiasm. "And I know just the time and place. July 9, 1860. London."
Rory's nursing history class came back to him. "When she opened her first training school."
"Top marks, Mr. Pond!"
The TARDIS' engines gave a massive whoosh as the time machine headed back into the Time Vortex. The steady thrum that infused the room always reminded Rory of a heartbeat. The Doctor finished his last course correction with a flourish of the wrist and a spin that was nearly a pirouette.
Rory couldn't help but smile.
It didn’t take long to reach their destination. Rory pictured the TARDIS moving the few hundred miles to London and then letting the world rewind around it.
"You didn't mention why you want to meet Florence," said the Doctor as he led the way out of the doors.
Had he been back in nursing school or out with his friends, Rory would have shrugged off the question, but he sensed that the Doctor truly wanted to know the answer. "She changed the world, paved the way for modern nurses. I probably wouldn't be here if it wasn't for her."
"A luminary."
"Was that meant to be a pun?"
"Rory Pond, you will find that I mean everything I do. I-" Something crunched under the Doctor's foot, interrupting his thought. He stopped and lifted his foot off of the ground.
Rory saw it right away. A battered bayonet half buried in the gravel. The metal shifting against the stone had generated a sound skin to teeth grinding against each other.
"Why is there a bayonet?" asked Rory.
The Doctor looked around. His hands fluttered nervously. "This isn't London."
Rory looked around, too, and even he could see they were in the wrong place. Instead of standing in the middle of Victorian London with buildings all around them, they were in the middle of a sparse valley. Visible tufts of grass were brown and yellow; spring had yet to touch this place.
"Where are we?"
The Doctor had reached into his tweed jacket to pull out his sonic screwdriver when a group of six men appeared at the top of the ridge to their right. This wouldn't have been a bother but the men carried rifles topped with bayonets and they had the weapons pointedly squarely at Rory and the Doctor.
"Take your hand out of your jacket," demanded one of the men as the group slowly descended down the ridge.
The Doctor slowly extracted his hand; the sonic was not in his grip. He used the same hand to wave at the men. "Perhaps you can help us. We got a bit turned around. Do you know which way is London?"
Asking for directions while under gunpoint wouldn't have been Rory's opening move, but he had learned by now that doing the unexpected was the Doctor's way. For his part, Rory tried not to look panicked as he eyed the guns.
"Enemy soldiers. I told you!" hissed the youngest man in the group.
"We're not soldiers," insisted the Doctor but it was all he got to say.
"Quiet!" The man closest to the Doctor drove the butt of his rifle into the Doctor's side. Alien or not, he still felt pain and the Doctor cried out. Rory caught him before he could sway and collapse onto the ground.
"We will take them back to camp." The man who spoke looked the oldest and in Rory's mind that made him the leader. When no one protested, the thought was further cemented as truth.
"What should we do?" Rory asked the Doctor in a whisper.
The Time Lord drew in a pained breath. "We'll go with them. I might even have a plan by the time we reach their camp."
By the time they reached the soldiers' camp, for it was clear they were soldiers in a war, the Doctor could walk unaided and he had no troubles breathing. He was probably just bruised, but Rory made a mental note to check for cracked ribs when they were safely back in the TARDIS.
With the talk of camp, Rory had envisioned deeply dug trenches and coils of barbed wire, but that was not the case here. This camp had actual tents which dotted the landscape like little white witch hats and horses and cannons instead of jeeps and tanks. They must have been in a time period before the First World War
Their captors took them to one of the larger tents and tossed them inside. The flap was kept open to allow light in, but it was also to show them that a pair of soldiers remained outside the tent to stand guard.
"Who are you?" asked the leader of the small troop that had found them. His navy uniform was dusty and wrinkled and the man's face and beard were streaked with dirt.
Like a magician producing a bouquet of flowers from his sleeve, the Doctor brandished the wallet with the psychic paper with a flick of the wrist. "Don't you recognize your commanding officer?"
The man looked at the scrap of paper but he seemed unimpressed. Rory wondered if the psychic paper could break down. "This is the General's tent-"
"Wonderful, you took us to the right place-"
"-and he is in conference with the other commanding officers right now."
The Doctor lowered his arm. "Oh. This didn't help, did it?"
Rory wasn't sure if the Time Lord was talking to him or the soldier, but Rory still shook his head.
"When we return, I expect a more reasonable response." The solider turned on his heel and exited the tent.
"That usually works." The Doctor tucked the wallet back into his jacket with a slight pout.
"What now?" asked Rory. He glanced to the soldiers positioned outside. There was no way the pair could miss overhearing everything they said.
"We improvise." The Doctor's gaze roved around the tent, taking in all of the objects in the space.
There wasn't much. A cot, a chest, which turned out to be full of clothes, a saddle, and a lantern. Unless they wanted to smother the soldiers with unwashed clothes, Rory couldn't see anything useful.
"Can you tell where we are?"
"Easy. This is the Crimean War. 1854, going off of the uniforms. Our friends outside are part of the Russian forces."
Everyone was speaking English as far as Rory was concerned. He supposed the Doctor had some way to figure out the native language actually being spoken.
"Well... you were close." It was the only thing Rory could think of saying that wasn't an accusation. The Doctor had genuinely tried to take him where he wanted to go and he appreciated the effort. The fact that he, Rory Williams from Leadworth, was travelling anywhere at all was monumental.
The Doctor paused in his search, turning his appraising gaze on Rory. If Rory didn't know any better, he could have sworn that the Time Lord looked genuinely surprised that the comment hadn't been a complaint.
Rory knew that he hadn't always been the most supportive of the Doctor, but it was hard to complain about someone after you watched them reboot the universe to stop the collapse of time.
The moment quickly passed without comment and the Doctor turned back to poking around the tent. "Yes, our Ms. Nightingale is probably out there right now. Obviously not out in the battlefield with a lamp since it's broad daylight, but back with the English forces."
Distant shouting interrupted anything Rory wanted to say. He tried to peek out of the tent but the two soldiers stepped closer together, forming a wall of living fabric.
"Sounds like the General is on his way." The Doctor straightened his bow tie, as if looking presentable could save them from meeting the business end of a rifle.
Rory backed up so he stood next to the Doctor. He would follow the other man's lead. The Doctor had an uncanny knack to escape tight situations just by talking.
They didn't have to wait long before the two soldiers stepped aside and tall, barrel-chested man entered the tent. He removed his pointed helmet as he took in the pair. Sweat plastered his hair brown hair to his skull and his uniform was grimy with dust.
"Who are you?" he snapped.
"Not spies, if that's what you're thinking. I'm the Doctor and this is Rory-"
"A doctor? Of what?" The General's gruff demeanour didn't change, but he seemed eager to know the answer.
A sudden notion seized Rory and he spoke before he could dismiss the idea. "He's a medical doctor. And I'm a nurse."
The General put his helmet aside and within a few steps, his imposing air was replaced with a hopeful expression. With the release of some of the tension in his body, the man appeared smaller to Rory. "Are you a medical convoy?"
"We were. We got separated." The lie didn't sit well with Rory, but he couldn't think of anything else to say.
"If you were to treat my men, I would consider releasing you..."
Rory looked over at the Doctor, but it was a redundant gesture. The Doctor was already silently imploring him to agree.
"Yeah, we can do that."
Rory never had the unique pleasure of working out in a field hospital before and he immediately saw why the General was so eager for someone to examine his men. The conditions were intolerable. Flies climbed over what should have been sterile surgical tools and the tent housing the injured soldiers was ripped and sagging. What medical supplies they did have were stored in a pile out in the weak sun.
He had set to work without another word and it wasn't until some hours later that he realized he was issuing orders to the Doctor. Even more surprising, the Doctor carried them out without question. By the time night had fallen, the Doctor had also repaired the holes in the tent and shored up the supports; devised a way to get fresh water to the camp from a nearby stream; and increased the efficiency of their gas lamps by fifteen percent.
"We lost our doctor," the General admitted when Rory informed him that he had seen to all of the patients. "I became concerned when my men with minor wounds began to die."
Germs. It was amazing how something that was invisible to the naked eye was so deadly.
"I've taught your medic a few things that will help." Rory hadn't gone into great detail, but he had stressed the importance of proper hygiene and sterilization. Hopefully, it was enough to get the injured through until a replacement doctor arrived.
"Thank you." And the General truly meant it. He reached for a signed letter sitting on his desk and handed it to Rory. "This will ensure you safe passage back to your convoy."
Rory shoved the letter into his back pocket and offered his thanks.
He found the Doctor offering some last minute advice to the medic. The young man was reluctant to see them go, but he didn't try to stand in their way. He handed Rory a lantern and said good-bye.
Rory glanced back at the camp as they headed back to the TARDIS. "Will they be all right?"
"The Crimean War doesn't end well for the Russians-"
"No, I mean the injured soldiers." It was a thought Rory had been mulling over since it dawned on him a few hours ago. "Did we just change history? What if some of those men were meant to die?"
"Rory Williams." He saw the Doctor smile and it lit up those ancient eyes. "You shouldn't let history stop you from saving a man's life. You wanted to help today and you did. That should always be your first instinct."
Rory knew right then that any differences he had had with the Doctor were now in the past.
With the Doctor leading the way, they easily found the TARDIS in the dark. While the Doctor unlocked the door, Rory pulled out his mobile to check for messages. "I missed a call from Amy." He dialled her number and thumbed on the speakerphone.
There were a couple of rings before Amy picked up. "Hey, how are my boys?" It sounded like she was outside. The muted noise of car traffic filtered through the phone's speakers.
"We're fine. What about you?" Rory looked around the TARDIS for a place to put down the lantern, but he couldn't decide on a suitable spot.
"Ugh. I got selected."
The Doctor laughed but he quickly silenced himself. He took the lantern from Rory and headed up to the console. "Congratulations, citizen," was his only parting remark. Rory had to stifle a laugh of his own.
"Do you want us to come back?" He shut the doors to the TARDIS, enabling the Doctor to take-off. "We're not doing anything."
"Don't worry about it. The trial starts on Monday but it shouldn't last that long." The TARDIS engines huffed and groaned loudly, nearly drowning out Amy. "Have an adventure for me, Mr. Pond."
Rory looked up to the console where the Doctor was doing his maniac dance around the controls. A few hours ago he might have balked at the thought of spending even more time with the Time Lord without Amy around. Now it was an enticing prospect. "We can do that."