paradisalost | - thirty-seventh year waiting -

Entry tags:

rory williams

- thirty-seventh year waiting -

[dictated]

[alone on a bed in the medbay on Eleven's TARDIS, Rory Williams wakes up from a week-long sleep. He feels extremely disoriented and doesn't really remember collapsing in the castle lobby--there's so many new memories to process this time around, two thousand years' worth and then some--and he's got a pounding headache. But both of these are minor concerns when, upon regaining consciousness, the first thing he realizes is that he has a heartbeat. A pulse. And he's breathing. Not because he can, but because he has to. Which can only mean one thing:

He's gone home. And he's come back human again.

The realization hits him like a sucker punch to the chest and he makes to bolt upright into a sit, grabbing frantically at his right hand to check for the hinge--except his head throbs like it's been hit with a sledgehammer and a wave of nausea crashes over him. He sinks back onto his bed with a groan, squeezing his eyes shut and grimacing in pain. Okay, maybe the headache's not such a minor concern after all.

Swallowing to wet his dry throat, he croaks out:]

Amy? ... Doctor? Wha ...?

((open like an open thing! Rory's back from a trip home and has been canon-bumped up through Series 6, Episode 7: A Good Man Goes To War. He's no longer an Auton (buh-bye plasticness and handy gun in his hand!) and brings with him a metric fuckton of new emotional baggage courtesy of the Doctor and River Song))

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[his face nearly crumples--he knows that SHE knows there's something wrong, but still he doesn't want to give into the grief rising up to swallow him. Because Amy might not be so lucky, and who will be strong for her then? This is so much worse than before, when they shared their pain and weakness.

He opens his mouth but no sound comes out--and then his jaw works, like he can't decide what to say. What she wants to hear, how much he'll even tell. He wants to keep the worst of it from her but already knows she won't allow it.

Where does he even start? The beginning, when they discovered she'd been taken? Or the end, with the gut-wrenching devastation?]

[all Amy can do is wait for him to say something; she's scared, properly scared now, even more so than when River refused to tell her anything before]

[oh fuck, here it comes--the boulder lodged in his throat becomes too much to bear, and he looks aside as guilt and shame barrel full-force into his chest. He's not going to cry--not going to cry--]

I'm sorry--I'm so sorry--[his face is utterly stricken]--I tried, I thought I had her ...

[oh god stop talking, just stop]

But she wasn't ... they ...

[her knuckles are a threat to crack and snap from the pressure]

Rory, what are you saying.

[there's nothing else for it now, is there. He's going to hate himself for a long time over this. Swiping a hand over his eyes, he sniffs and looks back up at her. It's going to be hell to look into her eyes and say this, but it needs to be done this way, with the eye contact]

You'd--already given birth by the time we found you. They ... they were taking Melody away, trying to escape, but I, um--I stopped them. Got her back. And then ... brought her back to you. [the more he speaks, the more he's slowly falling apart, getting more and more emotional] I thought everything was fine and we were safe and I--I had my girls ...

[his voice cracks and he tries to smile at her then, because 'my girls' is a rib off of her 'my boys', but his smile cracks too]

But they .... oh, god.

[he has to stop and look away, squeezing his eyes shut because tears are pricking at them. After a moment he takes a deep breath and shakes his head. He's a coward after all--he can't look at her for this, terrified he'll see anger and blame in her eyes]

They did the same thing to her that they did to you. They replaced her. It ... it was never her I held at all. [fuck, he's losing it. His face is red and blotchy from keeping the tears back but that isn't going to last for too much longer] And they--she--oh god! ... it was too late. They took her.

Edited 2011-07-13 15:38 (UTC)

[the more Rory says, the more Amy feels like she's shifting into some horrible realm of unreality where she knows that everything he's saying is true, yet it's all too awful for her to accept. This is her future. She's a mother, even though she isn't and won't be ready for it. She'll spend her entire pregnancy alone and unknowing, without her husband by her side. Her captors are going to take her baby away...

(Part of her wants to punch him for saying it was never their baby that he'd held--does he really think she herself isn't as good as the 'real' Amy, after all?)

This can't be real. It's her worst fears about her situation realized, and then even worse]

Why...

[she manages to say--she doesn't know how--her entire replacement body feels like it's buzzing with white noise]

...why us? Why our baby? Why do they want our baby?

[he can't really voice why he feels like he'd never held Melody at all--possibly it's just his grief talking. At least with Amy he'd known her as real before she was replaced. With Melody, he knows she was already a ganger when he found her. He's never set eyes on the real baby Melody. So ... in his mind, the two situations are different. But grief instead of logic is still ruling him, and mostly it's anger and devastation that he was deceived not once, but twice--with the two most important people in his life.

And he can see the dawning horror in Amy, in the way her face drains of all color and then goes carefully blank, her body humming with tension. He's killing her, and it's killing him]

Because--because of the Doctor. They want to turn her into a weapon against him. That's what River said. [somehow, he manages to keep his poker face on as far as River is concerned] Kovarian, she, she thinks the Doctor's some great evil fearful--thing--that has to be stopped and she needs our baby to turn into a sodding weapon to do it!

[composure? Gone. His shit, he's losing it]

But I don't know why it had to be her! Why wouldn't anyone else work? Why did it have to be you, and our baby?!

[this? Is too much. She's been kidnapped and held captive and now her baby's been kidnapped because of the Doctor? Somehow, it's his fault? And these people want to turn her baby into a weapon?

Why didn't the Doctor fix this? Why didn't he save them both? He fixes everything, he saves everyone! And then Amy thinks, no he doesn't. She lost Rory twice and the Doctor couldn't save him, either time. She hasn't one hundred percent believed in his ability to make everything right ever since Rory dissolved into a pile of dust right in front of her. She can remember standing on the bridge of that crashing starliner, looking at Rory, and thinking: this is it. We're about to die.

If this is what happens, he arrives too late to rescue her baby and they were taken because of him in the first place, she and Rory lose their daughter because of him... she thinks her faith in him has just been shaken to the ground]

You can't... turn a baby into a weapon...

I'm sorry--

[he can't keep calm anymore; he twists on the bed to turn away from her, burying his face in his hands for a moment. When he pulls them away, his cheeks are wet]

I'm so sorry ... I thought I had her, and it was over and we were safe--

[Amy's scream is echoing in his ears and all he can see in his mind's eye is the horrific sight of Amy clutching an empty blanket and her trousers and the floor covered in--it was just like when Amy--

An intense wave of nausea hits him and he retches, but tries to cover it up by coughing and hastily swiping at the tears in his eyes]

God I'm so sorry--!

[it feels like her death grip on the edge of Rory's bed is the only thing keeping her standing; she can't let go to touch him, comfort him--and how the hell could she even? It's like her entire world is being snatched away from her, the world she *could* be living in, safe with her husband and her--her baby girl--

She is *so* not ready to be a mum, but even though she hasn't lived what Rory has, the strength of the protective, maternal feelings flooding through her make the white noise in her ears buzz even louder. She isn't ready, she hasn't even had this baby, but she loves it and would do anything for it with everything she has. And hearing that their daughter is stolen from them is crushing her]

Rory--tell me--tell me everything.

[he shakes his head violently, not looking at her, and a muffled sob chokes in his throat. No. He is NOT telling her what happened to her, or what happened to Melody. How they were ... decommissioned. It makes him feel sick to even think of it that way. And he's done enough damage as it is. He's told her she spends her entire pregnancy alone and frightened, gives birth without him by her side, and then had their child snatched from her arms. Finding out how--he can't. He just can't. And then there's what he did as the Centurion, the lengths both he and the Doctor went to--and River--

He shakes his head again, almost in a panic]

Edited 2011-07-14 07:13 (UTC)

[a decent chunk of the unreality Amy's feeling has to do with exactly this--she's never seen Rory like this. Ever. It's even worse than when he woke up the last time he went home, reeling from having just shot and killed her. She doesn't know how to handle it, doesn't think she *can* handle it. It's funny... she's supposed to be the strong one, the one who can handle anything. Then Rory completely breaks down and all her strength and bravado flies right out the metaphorical window.

She draws in a breath--it shocks her, how much it *hurts*--and tries relaxing her grip on the bed. It doesn't work, and she ends up sitting down hard on the very edge of her chair. It's a wonder the thing doesn't fly out from under her]

[consumed by grief and inconsolable he may be, but he still Rory who puts his wife before everything else. So when he hears the hard thunk of her arse hitting the chair and the harsh scrape of it's legs on the floor, fear pierces his heart and he whips around, forgetting about his blotchy, tear-stained face, and lunges for her]

Amy, don't--

[her ankle, he's thinking, she's going to fall]

[and that's when the chair gives up any semblance of staying steady and shoots right out from under her; Amy drops the rest of the way to the floor even harder than she'd sat on the chair, wrenching her arm as she loses the remainder of her grip on the bed. Not so weirdly, she barely even feels the sudden shock of pain there or in her backside. She just lands with a surprised 'whuff' and then--slumps]

Oh god--

[he's sliding off the bed after her almost before she hits the floor, ignoring how the sudden movement makes his head throb. Then he's gripping her arms and tugging her toward him as he checks her over]

Amy, Amy, are you okay? I'm sorry!

[he's missed. AGAIN. And it's stupid to equate failing to catch Amy falling out of a chair to failing to notice she was a Flesh copy, or failing to rescue Melody, but he does. He's already beating himself up for it in his mind and struggling not to cry again as his hands flutter nervously at her. Grief and guilt and anger have twisted his perception and turned a simple accident he had no control over into a monumental screw-up]

[now the pain's starting to register: a sort of creeping, hard numbness, more blunt where Rory's fingers press into her wrenched arm. And then she remembers that she's supposed to be taking care of him, he was in pain, and she reaches to hold his arms in turn]

Don't--your headache--

[--is the most inconsequential thing in the world right now, but it's something she has control over]

[he shakes his head and scoots closer, brushing off her concern even as his cheek twitches from the throbbing]

But you--that was a hard fall--

[this might turn into a battle of wills, or who wants to forget more by distraction]

[she sees that twitch, and lifts a hand to smooth her fingertips over it--and oh god, it's his real human skin, he's human again, and the barest ghost of a smile flickers across her face]

You've got a twitch.

[his face has a flush too, his cheeks and nose red and blotchy from being upset. As an Auton even when he'd cried or gotten embarrassed or angry, his skin had stayed pale. He flinches slightly at the unexpected gentleness and murmurs]

Do I?

[what does it matter if he's got a twitch? They've lost their baby girl and he's just let her take a bad tumble. She should be angry at him, or upset, not touching him like he's important. (Nevermind that at Demon's Run she'd clung to him like he was the last solid thing in the universe.) He pushes up to his knees and makes as if to scoop her up in his arms]

Come on--up you get ...

[she squeezes his arm to stay him for a moment, shifting her fingertips to let her palm rest on his cheek]

And you're all blotchy and--your eyes are red...

[it goes straight over his head because it's such a non-issue right now: his joy over realizing he was human again had been very short-lived in the face of everything else. He blinks at her and sinks back on his haunches a little, frowning]

I ... sorry about that. For, um ... for crying.

[sniffs awkwardly and looks askance. Thinking about how he was just crying is making is chin tremble again. Dammit]

Shut up.

[she replies, not unkindly. She doesn't doesn't think he has to, or NEEDS to, apologize. Not for this. Never for this. She keeps her hand on his cheek]

Is the--the light still hurting you?

[blinks again, and unconsciously tilts his face into her hand just a fraction]

Uh--no, not ... not--I'll be fine, it's not that bad.

[man translation: it hurts like a bitch]

[Amy can read you, Rory. And so, it seems, can the TARDIS--he's the pretty one now, after all. As if on cue, the lights in the medbay dim to a more tolerable level. Amy glances up at the ceiling for a moment and breathes a quiet sigh of relief, then turns back to Rory]

Let's get you back on the bed, yeah?

[he doesn't say anything about it, but the relief on his face is palpable, and he stops squinting as badly]

You're the one who fell ...

[but it's a feeble protest, and he's rising back up on his knees and reaching out for her again]

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holy fuck long tag

he has a lot of feelings

no kidding

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