Centurion: 1977
1977 - A Security Guard
The warehouse wasn't locked. There was a fence for which she'd had to find a hole to crawl through, and quite a number of security cameras to avoid, but the warehouse itself opened with little resistance.
It was still business hours, so it was probably open for the staff to use, but really, they should have had something more protecting it. Off-season exhibits weren't perhaps the usual targets for thieves, but one had to be careful.
It was a good thing for the museum that she wasn't a thief. She pulled out her notepad and pen and looked for a good place to start.
Exhibit pieces, tagged and filed away or covered in sheets filled the building to a nearly claustrophobic extent. It was horribly dusty, and quite poorly lit, with the flickering lights half obscured by the pieces and shelves. She squinted in the darkness as she carefully rummaged through them. She wasn't willing to risk pulling out her torch just yet, for fear of drawing attention should someone come inside.
All of the pieces were fascinating, even scattered away from the rest of their exhibits, but none of them were quite what she was looking for. She gave up on pushing the heavy objects away to file through them and began looking at the tags attached to each: EGYP, no, GREC, probably not, MEDI EUR, no, ROME, possibly? But it didn't look like what she was looking for. Maybe it had its own category.
"I know it's in this warehouse," she murmured to herself. "It simply must be." She sighed and stared out into the dark, seemingly endless room. "Maybe further back."
The trouble was, there wasn't yet an exhibit to look for. That was the whole point of coming here, to see it before anyone else. Who knew how long it would take before they decided to put it all on show? They'd had the darn thing for years already, and were just putting off the public release so they could do more research on it.
She wandered further back, sucking the back of her pen thoughtfully. When she saw something that caught her interest, she would lean over to peer at its tag, only to dismiss it and flounce over to the next one. Her unimpeded journey made her more confident, and she swung her arms as she walked, taking her time to admire the miscellany.
She was digging though a stack of prints and paintings, getting dust all over her arms and clothes, when a beam of light flicked over the shelves.
She froze, her pen in her mouth, and listened. Footsteps.
Silently, she put the paintings down and climbed over them, into the forest of exhibit pieces. Wedged between what felt like two plastic palm trees, she held her breath and watched the light dance across the room.
The light was followed by a lone security guard, waving his torch in an absent, bored sort of way. Just a routine patrol, she thought, and stayed perfectly still as he walked by the paintings she'd been examining. He would carry on, pass her, and double back through one of the other aisles, and she could keep looking. She only hoped he wouldn't lock the door behind him.
Instead, he sighed and came to a stop. "This place is off-limits to visitors," he said in a very bored tone. "Could you please come out? I know you're there."
She stayed perfectly still against the palm tree.
He sighed again. "I can hear you."
He was bluffing. She hadn't so much as twitched and she couldn't hear her own breaths - experience and her basic UNIT training had helped to overcome those sorts of urges. His light was still haphazardly pointed at the paintings, in the opposite direction than her hiding place, and he seemed more interested in adjusting his sleeve cuff than looking.
She took a cautious step backwards, still completely silent.
Another, deeper sigh. "Look, I mean it, I can hear you rustling around in there." He turned to look in her direction. The torchlight illuminated the fake palm trees the museum used for all its 'exotic' exhibits, no matter if they were native to the area of the display. Nobody was there.
She clambered as quietly as she could through the darkness, feeling her way. Maybe if she could make it to the other side of the shelf, she could get into the next aisle and have a clear path to the exit. She didn't want to leave, of course, not without her story, but it wasn't worth getting arrested for again. Maybe she could stake out the entrance and sneak in after the guard came out.
She could hear him walking over to the palm trees, muttering under his breath. She sped up. Her heart raced as she stumbled out into the open. More piles and lines of exhibit props and decorations lay scattered before her. Maybe she could hide?
She dove under one of the dust cloths. She huddled awkwardly in the uneven gaps between the covered objects, trying not to breathe. Her eyes clenched shut.
Footsteps came close and passed by her.
Assured that the guard was far enough away, she cautiously lifted the edge of the sheet to make her way out. She looked to the left and right, as if she were crossing a busy road, before turning to make sure the cloth was back in the right place.
A stone idol stared back at her through its single eyestalk.
She stumbled backwards, a scream ripping involuntarily from her throat. The idol's strange arms seemed to reach out for her, the stone cup on one side straining to grab her face. Something twitched deep within her, a thousand voices ringing in her head.
EXTERMINATE EXTERMINATE EXTERMINATE EXTERMINATE
She found herself huddled against the shelf, her arms over her head. The security guard was leaning over her, trying to gently coax her out.
"Are you alright?" he asked.
"I -" she stuttered, "I was... it was going to...!"
"It can't hurt you," he said, glancing over his shoulder. The stone idol stood in its place, unmoving, the sheet caught on one of the semi-spheres of its lower body. "It's just an old relic."
"It's not -" she began to protest, but the thought was fleeting, and she stopped herself. "Thank you," she said instead. "I'm sorry, it just... frightened me."
"It's alright," he said, and offered her a hand. She accepted, embarrassed, and he pulled her up. "You're really not supposed to be in here," he added.
"Oh," she said, "right. You aren't going to turn me in, are you?"
"What were you doing in here?"
"I'm not a thief," she said firmly. "My name is Sarah Jane Smith. I'm a reporter."
The guard glanced around the dark warehouse. "And you thought you'd find a story here?"
"There is a story here," Sarah Jane insisted. "I can feel it. Reporter's instincts, you know." She dusted off her trousers, which were quite covered with dust, and walked confidently past the guard. "You see, I'd heard about how they've recently gotten possession of the Pandorica. I just had to come see it for myself. Who knows how long it'll be before they actually put it on display, if ever? I've always been rubbish at resisting mysteries, and the Pandorica is one of the greatest ones in all of history."
"What do you want with it?"
Sarah Jane looked at him in surprise. His face had darkened, a deep frown peeking out from the shadow of his cap.
"I... I just want to see it, I suppose," she confessed. "See if I can find anything about it to write about. But it's mostly just curiosity. I've always liked strange things. I even joined the Star Cult for a little while, just to see what it was all about. Didn't even end up writing a real story, but, well, I just think there's so much strange and wonderful in the world and I want to know about it."
The security guard was still looking at her strangely.
"You see, I used to travel a lot," she rambled, not quite able to stop herself. "All over. I saw so much history and so many exotic places and I -" She stopped. "Never mind," she said quietly. "It's not important."
"Who did you travel with?" the guard asked her. He stepped forward to join her, and brushed her arm gently, leading her further into the warehouse.
"Nobody. I mean, I didn't travel. Not much."
"Why did you say you did?"
"I don't know," Sarah Jane said, frustrated. "I just did. I do that sometimes. I think I mix up my dreams with my memories quite a bit. And I have a terrible memory. Do you know, I used to be an unofficial member of UNIT, and I honestly can't think why?"
"It's not that strange," the guard said. "I've heard that sort of thing a lot."
He stopped at what must have been the very back of the warehouse. Sarah Jane could hardly see in the darkness, but he let go of her arm and strolled out of sight easily.
"I can see pretty well in the dark," his voice called back to her, "So I usually don't bother turning the lights on back here. Hang on a moment."
"Alright," Sarah Jane said, confused. She had thought he must have been leading her to an exit or an office, somewhere where he could chastise her for sneaking in and escort her away, but here she was, standing in the dark, telling him about her silly dreams. She wondered if she should make a run for it.
The lights flickered into life and the thoughts ran out of her mind like startled cockroaches.
The Pandorica was gorgeous, even covered with dust and in the terrible light. It loomed over her, grey walls with fantastical etchings and carvings, huge and mysterious and more than she had ever imagined.
"Oh wow," she whispered and took a step towards it.
"Don't touch it," the security guard warned, stepping out from somewhere behind the box. "I can't risk it opening too early."
"I won't," said Sarah Jane, circling the Pandorica slowly. Then she stopped as his words caught up with her. "What do you mean, you can't risk it opening? Has that happened?"
When she turned to look at him, he was staring up at the Pandorica with a sort of sadness Sarah Jane had never seen before. His cap was held loosely in his hand, finally giving her a clear look at his face.
The stack of paintings flashed back into her mind, the first of the promising artifacts she'd seen; a man wearing armor and a cape pulling a box through a wall of fire; a tag on the side that read PAND - LOND 1941. The painting hadn't been clear, and really, the man looked like just an average sort of person, somewhere in his twenties, taking the job to pay the bills and because of a vague interest in history, but something in his eyes told her that was wrong.
The research she'd read before coming had told her a brief history of the Pandorica's journey, surrounded by myth and legend, kings and travelers and an eternal guardian.
"Who are you?"
The guard glanced back at her. "Rory Williams," he answered reluctantly, in a cautious, unfamiliar sort of way, like he wasn't sure.
"That's a funny sort of name for a Centurion," she said, testing him.
He didn't deny it. He just gave her a sort of sideways, whatever kind of look and sat down on one of the nearby shelves.
Sarah Jane sat next to him, wrapping her arms around the backs of her knees. "Really though, how did you get here? This is the stuff of legends, and you're just... here. In a dusty old warehouse."
Rory shrugged. "I got rid of the armor and cape during World War II. Thought it might draw less attention. I stayed with the Pandorica, but got myself employed by whoever got it instead of just keeping put with it. I figured a museum would have to be pretty safe, as long as nobody opened it."
"Does anyone know that you're... you know..."
"A couple. Not many. But I've had to take a bit of action to stop them doing anything to it, so, yeah."
She looked back up at the box. "Why can't it be opened?"
"Not time yet."
"Come on," Sarah Jane urged, turning to face him fully instead of out towards the box. "Tell me. I have to know."
Rory raised an eyebrow at her. "For your story?"
"For me," she said. "I just have to know."
Rory stared impassively up at the Pandorica. After a long silence, he said, "I'll trade you."
"Trade for what?"
"Tell me your story," he said.
"Wh-what do you mean?" asked Sarah Jane. She couldn't think of anything about her life that could be interesting to a 1800 year old Centurion.
"I told you, I've met people like you before." Rory was smiling, just slightly. "Not very many, mind, but I think they must be drawn to 'strange things,' like you are."
"People like me?"
"With dreams of stars and planets and ancient history. Memories that are impossible. Daleks. Cybermen. Flying police boxes."
Sarah Jane gaped at him wordlessly.
"You were afraid of that Dalek," he prompted. "You knew what it was, somewhere in your mind."
"I was... I was on Skarro," she said, and the words were strange, utter nonsense, but they rang about in her head, and she clung to them. She smiled, filled with immense relief. They felt right.
"You'll tell me, though," she insisted, pulling out her pen and paper again. "You'll tell me about the Pandorica?"
"Yeah," Rory said.
"Okay," said Sarah Jane. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Images flashed behind her eyelids, strange and impossible and so familiar. "I was pretending to be my aunt, I snuck into a UNIT base for a story. I climbed into a police box and came out in Medieval Europe, and that's how I met the Doctor..."
Chapters:
Prologue: 102 - An Auton
1941 - The Lone Centurion
1977 - A Security Guard
1981 - Security
2007 - Luke Smith
2008 - Gwen Cooper
2009 - Donna Noble
1996 - Rory Williams
Epilogues