The Adventures of the Doctor and Rory the Roman: Two Round Two

[jesterladyfic]

754 AD

Rory had never really imagined what it would be like to be alive at different points in history when he was a boy. That had been more of an Amy thing to do – when they weren’t playing Raggedy Doctor, that is – but he now found himself being forced into a very literal play acting of that exact thing.

The Pandorica had lately been in China where his hand-gun had very nearly started a revolution and might have led to the invention of gunpowder, he wasn’t sure. As it was, he’d met the first female ruler in China and she’d helped him sneak the Pandorica out of the country when it became obvious that nobody would leave it alone.

Now they were smack dab in the middle of Charlemagne’s empire, not that he was emperor just yet. It was actually very exciting, but even though everyone he met was astonished at his youth and old-fashioned armor and his grasp of linguistics and knowledge of science and history, he didn’t really get to know anyone. Which, for the most part, was fine. His mission was not to make friends and influence people, but to keep the Pandorica safe. Still, being a legend was rather lonely, even if the Pope did call on you to advise him at need.

The Pope was what had gotten him into this mess in the first place. Religious factions who were divided as to the purpose of the Pandorica were pressuring him to make a decision about what to do with it.

Rory did his best to be the mysterious figure he was play-acting at and since he was historically listed everywhere the Pandorica had been, it helped. But the now wide-spread Christianity had made people less apt to believe in mysterious signs and portents. Or more so. It was a toss-up really. Rory couldn’t help but think how fascinated the little clergyman from Leadworth would be to live at this time period. But, in the meantime, some people were trying to throw Amy in a furnace and he was having none of it.

The Doctor had showed up then.

It was the little Doctor, the one with Jamie. Only now he had a girl called Zoe with him too. She wore the most amazing jumpsuits and Rory had to focus really hard on not focusing on them. He idly wondered how Jamie handled it.

Once the Doctor had shown up, he’d taken over the hearings and the Pope and he had some really fantastic arguments. It was actually quite colossal. This version of the Doctor seemed very erratic and nervous, but Rory noticed that when something important was at stake, he was just as fiery and powerful as any of the other Doctors he’d met.

Rory didn’t say much after that. He simply stood to one side and let the Doctor handle everything. He was – as the Doctor had put it – a symbol, and it wouldn’t do to have the symbol of the Pandorica fall on his knees and start begging the Pope for mercy, as Rory felt he might have done if it had gone on much longer.

“Right, right,” the Doctor shouted after a particularly difficult session, “I didn’t want to do this, but you’re leaving me no choice. There’s always a choice, isn’t there?” he said softly to himself, so only Rory, Jamie, and Zoe could hear. “This box is special and absolutely cannot be opened or damaged or you will have destroyed yourselves.”

“You’d think he had a clue about what was in there,” Jamie whispered to Rory and Zoe and grinned.

“But he does,” Rory said and then remembered and heaved a sigh.

Now he knew how the Doctor felt. This meeting out of sequence thing was going to be the death of him. Jamie and Zoe just gave him weird looks and he ignored them. There wasn’t any point. No point at all.

The Doctor was still pontificating though and strode into his Tardis – which Rory had heard rumors was also to be put on the destroy-or-not table, and he could just imagine how well that would go – and Rory followed him, forcing himself to walk solemnly and not run like a chicken with its head cut off.

“Doctor, what are you going to do?”

“Why, give them a show, of course,” the Doctor said and grinned at him. “You might want to watch yourself.”

“Do not open that box!” Rory warned and ran back outside, leaving the Doctor muttering behind him.

The crowds were growing restless and soon the Tardis started to shake and the Pandorica started to glow, not green, but red, and some of the people dropped to their knees and others started roaring about heresy and some fled for their lives. The Pope himself was watching with his mouth open.

“Hee, how was that?” the Doctor said, striding back out and glancing with satisfaction at the mixed-up crowd. “That was something, wasn’t it?”

“I wish you’d do it again, Doctor,” Zoe said, linking her arm through his.

“Aye,” Jamie said.

“This isn’t a game,” Rory said sharply and then regretted it.

They couldn’t know how much was at stake here.

“It’s never a game,” the Doctor said. “You’re just a little bit wound up all the time, aren’t you? Shouldn’t wonder.”

Rory couldn’t really argue with him. He hadn’t been at ease for six hundred years. That was enough to make anyone on edge.

“Sorry,” he said. “Just, please, remember how important she is.”

“We could if you would explain,” Zoe said gently and Rory smiled down at her.

“Later,” he promised.

In the meantime, everyone had more or less quieted down and the Pope stood to address them all.

“We declare this box to be a treasure of the empire and the Church. It shall be proclaimed sacred and treated with the utmost care. We shall heed the warning of the Lone Centurion.”

“Fancy title,” Jamie said, elbowing Rory.

“Just what I needed,” Rory said.

So then he oversaw the placing of the Pandorica in one of the more heavily guarded vaults. The Pope had insisted on putting the Tardis in there too and the Doctor and Rory hadn’t argued. What did it matter when the Tardis could just leave? What the Pope couldn’t dissuade Rory from was being locked in the room with both boxes, not knowing that the Doctor, Jamie, and Zoe had vanished into the Tardis already.

Rory gave them strict instructions not to open the vault under any circumstance and the heavy doors were closed and even Rory wouldn’t be able to get them back open. Rory ran to the Pandorica and leaned his head against it.

“I thought I’d lost you today,” he whispered.

He felt a hand on his shoulder and looked to see the Doctor.

“Shall you explain now?”

“I already explained to your ninth body,” Rory said. “Won’t my telling you now mess that up?”

“Hmmm, yes, that is a conundrum.” The Doctor thought for a second. “Would you say that the reason you’re here is related to a wrong-ness in the timelines?”

“Definitely,” Rory said.

“And if this box doesn’t somehow make it to a certain time then all is lost?”

“Yes.”

It was true; after all, all would be lost for him if Amy died.

“And you originally met me in my…”

“Later than ninth is all I know.”

“Then I daresay everything is rather messed up anyway. It would probably help to have more information should you meet my third or fourth selves, for example. Especially third, humph.”

Rory laughed a little.

“Couldn’t you, say, erase your own memory of seeing me?”

“Yes, that could work,” the Doctor said, putting his fingers to his lips. “Except we’ve already met several times for you already. Unless…” he stopped for a moment “…unless I gave myself a trigger. A trigger of you. I wouldn’t remember this unless I saw you again, in which case it wouldn’t matter if you already knew me.”

“But I met your ninth before your eighth and he gave me things based on things that I had told Eight.”

“A little illogicality is to be assumed,” the Doctor said. “I’ve noticed some very strange things on Earth recently, things not happening as they were supposed to.”

“Let me tell you why,” Rory said, deciding he’d rather have the Doctor make this decision with full knowledge of what he was really deciding.

And so he told them everything.

“My, my,” the Doctor said, “oh, just imagine all you’ve done. I’m quite proud of you.”

The Doctor hugged him and it was a little bit uncomfortable in his armor, but Rory didn’t really mind. It was amazing how lack of human – alien, whatever – touch made you go a little bit crazy. Killing people with swords didn’t really count and Rory really didn’t want to think about that.

“Thank you,” he said. “So you understand how important it is that I protect her? And that we don’t mess with time any further than we can help?”

“I still believe that erasing my memory when I’m not with you will work,” the Doctor said. “The trigger of seeing you should mitigate whatever temporal disturbances we’ve already caused by meeting ahead of time. Mostly.”

“I need you to be sure,” Rory said. Amy’s life was on the line. “I have to be sure.”

“Do you trust me?” the Doctor asked.

“With her life,” Rory said after a minute or two.

“Then, whenever you see me, simply say ‘Rory,’ and I’ll remember.”

Rory nodded. He still wasn’t sure what was going to happen, but at least he could count on the Doctor.

“You’d better get going,” he said. “I’d hate for you to miss whatever else you’re going to do.”

“You might have to make sure I forget you again though,” the Doctor said. “I’m a little bit obstinate in remembering things I’m not supposed to.”

“Forget me, Doctor,” Rory said and the Doctor hugged him again.

Then Jamie shook his hand and Zoe hugged him and they all trooped into the Tardis, taking with them the ship’s light, leaving Rory alone with the box in the dark,

“You’re an empirical treasure now,” he told Amy, exploring the vault with his enhanced vision. “What do you think about that?”