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The Time
I've Spent Fandom: Doctor Who (Eleventh
Doctor) "We were supposed to go to Mauritius," Rory says. The Doctor, who is still wearing his top hat, which has slipped to a lopsided angle, doesn't look up from whatever he's fiddling with on the TARDIS console. He frowns to himself, taps it, and absently says, "Hmmm?" "For our honeymoon," Rory clarifies. He is sitting on one of the several sets of steps which lead out of the control chamber. He's taken off his tailcoat and cravat, but is still wearing the waistcoat which, he suddenly remembers, is supposed to go back to the hire shop no later than noon tomorrow. Amy (his wife, he thinks with something like amazement: she is his wife, and he is her husband) vanished into the wardrobe room some time ago, in search of something to wear better suited to having space adventures than a wedding dress. Which is Amy through and through, Rory thinks. No matter how much she enjoyed her wedding day -- and he knows she did, because he was there for the dancing and the drinking champagne and the very nice kissing -- it's over now, and already her focus has shifted to whatever comes next. Sometimes Rory feels like she's always racing ahead of him, chasing the next thing on the horizon, and it's all he can do to keep up with her. Sometimes he worries that he won't always be able to. The Doctor's brow is furrowed again and he's muttering to himself. Rory sighs inwardly, and decides to press on with the conversation, in spite of the fact that he is clearly the only person in the room interested in having it. "It's sort of a tradition thing. The groom books the honeymoon. So I went to my mate Justin -- he lives down the road, he's a travel agent -- and he got me a really good deal. Business class flights, five star hotel, everything." The Doctor reaches out one long, knobbly finger and pushes a single button on the console. There is an audible click, and his expression clears. He straightens up. "Well, you still could. Go to Mauritius, that is. Tell you what, let's make a detour and go there right now. When do you want to arrive? It's uninhabited until the seventeenth century, which could be a little dull, although not if you and Amy want to spend some quality time alone together, which would be understandable given recent nuptial-type events. On the other hand, if it's excitement you're after, we could arrive in time for the Great Unveiling of 2647 -- that's quite an experience, although to get the most out of it, you really need an extra limb and gills --" "Doctor!" Rory interrupts. He raises his hands and then lets them fall in a gesture of helplessness. "See, this is my problem." The Doctor blinks at him, in that odd, uncomprehending way he has sometimes. He doesn't see it, Rory realizes. He really, truly doesn't. "I can give Amy twelve days in Mauritius with complimentary use of the hotel spa. You can give her…" Rory waves a hand around, taking in the TARDIS's control room, with its mish-mash of the utterly alien and the bizarrely familiar, lit up in warm oranges and cool electric blues. "This. All of time and space." The Doctor is silent for a few seconds. Then: "Oh." He blinks again. "Oh." Then, carefully, he takes off his top hat and hangs it off one of the many protuberances that adorn the control console. He descends from the console platform, slowly, as if he's thinking hard. "Budge up," he says, and Rory shuffles to one side of the step, making enough space for the Doctor to sit down next to him. "The thing that I can't give Amy," the Doctor says after a moment, "the thing that you've already given her, the thing you're going to keep giving her, is time." Rory stares at him, baffled. "You have a time machine. You literally have all the time in the world." The Doctor chuckles. He sounds sad. "You would think,
wouldn't you? I have all the time in the world. All the time in every
world, and every world that's ever been and ever will be and ever could
be. But could I wait for two millennia?" He shakes his head slowly,
and Rory sees that his gaze has taken on a distant quality, as if he's
turned it inward, on himself. The Doctor exhales quietly. At last he says, "Time and memory work in strange ways. In the old universe, the one that got destroyed, there was a human Rory Williams who died and a plastic Rory Williams constructed from Amy's memories. Perhaps both of those other Rorys got poured into you when we rebuilt the universe. Or perhaps plastic-Rory just didn't want to be forgotten." "I kept the centurion's uniform," Rory tells the Doctor. "He did. I did. I replaced the cloth when it wore out, and polished the metal plates so they didn't get dull. I kept it hidden. I didn't wear it often. Mostly I just hung around wherever the Pandorica was and tried not to get noticed. Every once in a while something would happen, like a war, and I'd put on the uniform and go and make sure no one tried to do anything to the Pandorica. The uniform was important. It made me feel…" He can feel his throat working as he struggles to explain. He has no idea if the Doctor wants to hear this or not, but suddenly he needs to share it with someone. "It made me feel more like a warrior, and less like a plastic copy of a staff nurse from Leadworth." "The stories we tell ourselves," the Doctor murmurs. "And then, after a couple of centuries, people started to tell stories about me. Like I was a myth. And that scared me, because I didn't want to be a myth. I wanted to be a real person. I just wanted to be a real human being and to see Amy alive again. I would have waited ten thousand years, if I'd had to." Rory turns to the Doctor. "Wouldn't anyone do that, if they loved someone? Wouldn't you?" "I got bored watching Vincent Van Gogh paint for an afternoon. I don't wait for people, Rory. I make them wait for me." "Have you ever been married?" Rory asks. The question slips out before he's really thought about it. He's not even sure why he's asking. The reaction is immediate. The Doctor leaps to his feet and walks up and down, in front of the steps where Rory is still sitting. He tucks one arm behind his back and raises his other hand in the air, waving his hand in a declamatory manner. "Married? Well, I mean, it very much depends on what cultural definition of marriage you're applying… and then, in the more general sense, you can be married to a cause or to an idea or, in one case I know of, to a sentient five-bar melody, and that worked out very well for all concerned, and the children were delightful little tunes, all of them… but if we're talking about the kind of marriage that involves a ceremony and a celebration involving copious amounts of food, drink and everyone doing the conga to Dancing Queen in the early hours of the next morning… no. Not that kind of married. I've done an awful lot of things, but I haven't done that." He finishes with a decisive nod. "No, no, no." "Pity," Rory says. "I could have done with some advice." He takes a breath. "It's just… I worry I won't be good enough for her." The Doctor looks at him. "Well, yes. You should." "Oh, thank you," Rory tells him. "Thank you very much. Please never become a life coach. Or, if you do, stay well away from me." "You asked!" the Doctor returns, tetchy. "I did not ask anything!" Rory snaps back. "I told you something -- something rather personal, as it happens -- and all you had to do was…" He breaks off, momentarily uncertain what he had wanted the Doctor to do. "I don't know, clap me on the back and tell me to buck up and that everything will be fine." "You mean like this?" The Doctor strides over and claps him mightily on the back. "Buck up. Everything will be fine." His face scrunches into an inquisitive expression. "Is that better?" Rory can feel a hand-sized bruise beginning to bloom right between his shoulder-blades. "No." "I'm not surprised," the Doctor says. "Humans. You complain that you don't like being lied to, and then complain even more when someone tries to tell you the truth." He sits down next to Rory again. "You should worry. You should to wake up every morning and think, 'How can I be good enough for Amy today?' Because, I'll tell you what, Rory." The Doctor leans towards him, a little, and lowers his voice to a conspiratorial whisper: "She's going to wake up every day thinking about how she can be good enough for you." Rory stares, trying to discern the slightest shred of evidence in the Doctor's face that he's making fun of Rory. But there's nothing to find, and somehow Rory knew there wouldn't be. "You think?" he asks. His own voice has gone very quiet, too. The Doctor nods. "Rory," he says softly, "you kept her safe for her for two thousand years." "I did," Rory says, and hears the wonder in his own voice. It hits him suddenly, what he did, the enormity of it. The centuries of waiting, a single continuous line of unbroken consciousness. The memory of being alive, and human, and knowing -- every minute, every second -- that he wasn't. The awful weight of guilt he'd carried with him through all of it, and the knowledge that he would make any sacrifice, carry out any task, to make things right. No wonder he'd become a myth in that other universe. He'd earned it. "That kind of thing," the Doctor says, a hint of a smile on his lips, "makes an impression on a girl." Rory looks at him. "Thank you," he says, sincerely. "You're welcome," the Doctor says, and puts a hand to his head, as if about to doff his hat. He looks vaguely perturbed when he remembers he's not wearing one anymore. "Now," he announces, standing up, "go and find out what's taking your wife so long to choose a new outfit, Mr. Pond." Rory gets up too, grinning. "This? This is nothing. You should see what she's like in Top Shop on a Saturday afternoon. The time I've spent waiting for her, I deserve a medal." "Yes," the Doctor says. "I rather think you do."
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