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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[Rory shakes his head against hers, hands clenching into her shoulders as he swallows and swallows, tries to breath deeply in an effort to stave off another breakdown]

No. He never said a word.

[his voice is choked and thick with despair]

He said he wanted to be absolutely sure before--but he knew, and he let us carry on like that--he said you'd been gone since before we went to America--when we were at home--and I--

[now guilt is slamming into his chest again along with the pain and frustration. It means she'd been taken away from just HIM, not him and the Doctor. He alone is responsible for not noticing she'd been replaced. Just like, in his mind, he alone is responsible for not noticing Melody was a copy too, because he's the one who had rescued her, checked her over before taking her back to Amy. And it is absolutely killing him, crushing him beneath the weight of guilt, that he's made the worst mistakes a husband and father could ever make--he failed to recognize his own wife and daughter. He feels like everything could have been avoided if he'd just *paid attention* more.

His head bows suddenly, his entire body shaking hard on a silent sob, and--he can't--he can't lose it again--]

[that is... she's having trouble parsing it. On the one hand, she can logically understand the Doctor choosing not to say anything, because it more than likely would have created a world of emotional and psychological problems between her and Rory while they searched for the real her.

(Rather like River's argument for not wanting to tell her anything here, then.)

On the other hand--she'd first begun to suspect she was pregnant during the America trip, which would have put her at perhaps... two months gone? Which leaves roughly seven months linear time between then and when Rory (at least) finally discovered what was going on, if she'd already given birth by the time they found her. SEVEN MONTHS. What the hell was the Doctor DOING all that time? They've seen him solve enormous problems in less than ten minutes. How could it have taken him seven months to figure out this?

...and what happened to this her, the Amy decoy that she currently is? It hits her, belatedly, that Rory never said]

It's not your fault, Rory--

[she says earnestly, likewise clinging to his shoulders for dear life]

I didn't know what I was, I never suspected a thing, how could you?

[he shudders again, the top of his head bumping against her chest]

You're my wife--

[it's really the only argument he has to come back to, and it's a perfectly valid one in his mind. She's his wife, they've known each other forever, he should know her well enough by now to notice the slightest hair out of line, but he hadn't. He'd been so focused on trying to live a normal life with Amy while trying to figure out what the Doctor was up to at the same time, that he'd never noticed. He's racked his brain so many times since the monastery, going over every memory, trying to find one instance of Amy acting the slightest bit odd, and--there isn't one.

But he still should have noticed. He keeps telling himself that]

We were supposed to be safe ...

[Amy slumps a little, trying to get their faces on an even keel again]

It's not your fault, it's--it's the Doctor's.

[Rory shakes his head again, refusing to let her see his face]

He wasn't there, couldn't possibly ...

[he wanted to blame the Doctor though, so much, for all those months where he knew and didn't say a thing. He doesn't understand why he waited so long, until it was all too late. Why he didn't take them to the monastery straight away, get his confirmation, and go save Amy before she gave birth. He doesn't *understand*]

I should have--[another shudder]--should--

But--it was because of him, right? They took me and Melody because of him--

[Melody. What a pretty name. A little stupidly, she hopes Rory likes it, considering he wasn't there to help choose a name. Her fingers tighten over his shoulders and she tries to slump even further to look at him, silently begging him not to pull away]

I would never blame you...

[this time he lets her forehead butt up against his, but he still doesn't open his eyes or look at her]

Yeah. Yeah ... River said it was because of him ...

[he sniffs, and his voice turns quiet and heartbroken]

But I didn't come get you. I wanted to and I--I couldn't. And you ... you must've known, then. That we knew you were gone. And it was weeks, and I didn't come for you ... I swore I'd always come for you, no matter what ...

[he doesn't know that Amy spent those weeks telling Melody stories about her father, reassuring her that he WAS coming. To him it's another source of guilt, another reason for Amy to resent him]

[and of course, Amy doesn't know that she does that. But she still has her unswerving belief that Rory will always find her if they're separated. And that the Doctor will come back for her. Twelve years or two thousand--if she has to pick only one thing to believe in, it would be that her boys would never desert her]

Rory... you had to find me first, right? I know you would come get me...

[she's sliding her nose against his now that he's let her get that close again, hands curling around the back of his neck--and she can feel his pulse, his actual beating pulse]

[and he's nuzzling back, blindly, instinctively, needing that contact even if he's afraid to reach for it and doesn't feel that he deserves it]

I thought I'd lost you for good ... you and the baby ...

[another hard tremor]

For a while I didn't think we'd ever find you ... I mean--how do you find one person in all of time and space ... [a weak, sad laugh] And everything was still in our room, all your things, your clothes, and--and the bed still smelled like you--

[probably he'll be mortified and disgusted with himself for saying all this later, for being so weak in front of her, but the words are just spilling out now and he can't shut up]

[the thing is, though--she can identify with him on this. After Rory's death in Wales, the TARDIS had removed all his physical effects from their room, but... it hadn't been able to remove the traces of his scent from her--their--bed. And because of that, Amy was never able to get a completely good rest whenever she slept in it; she would always wake up with the strangest ache in her chest, and her face practically smothered in the pillows. She can remember that pain, even if she hadn't realized what it was at the time.

It makes her scoot closer to him, his fears be damned]

Rory, I... I know you would never stop looking... I will know that. I won't blame you for not coming sooner. I promise...

He made me leave you--

[he blurts it out, just like she had earlier, and his hands clench and unclench restlessly over her shoulders. Bit by bit, all the reasons and sources for his guilt and self-loathing are coming out, even though rationally he knows in this instance he had no choice]

What?

[she just asks it, no accusation in her voice, only wanting to know and try to understand]

[he swallows thickly]

He made me stand away from you. When we--found out you were a copy.

[Amy takes the opportunity to slide her arms around his neck, pulling him closer still whether he wants it or not; her faces pinches briefly]

Why? I wasn't a danger, was I?

[he only resists a little, and doesn't seem to notice or care that his face is now all but smashed into hers a little off-center, his mouth brushing at the corner of hers when he speaks]

No ... no, you weren't. [and yet another shake] He ... we didn't know what was happening, you and me. He--he had to--to, um--had to cut the connection ...

[that makes her shiver a little--not his mouth brushing against hers, but the words 'cut the connection']

And I just... I mean, this me, I... wasn't, anymore?

[all Rory can do--bile is churning in his stomach at the memory, that's something new again--is shake his head no]

[she's got no idea if that was a 'yes' no or a 'no' no, but either way--she keeps holding him]

Is that what happened to--to Melody, too?

[there's a long moment where Rory doesn't move or speak. He's seeing Amy dissolve into pale goo on the floor of the TARDIS; he's running around the stack of crates to see Amy splattered with the same pale liquid, clutching an empty blanket and screaming. His stomach heaves and the world spins dizzily for a moment.

And then he nods, clenching her shoulders so hard his knuckles turn white]

[Amy's own stomach turns over, hard, and she buries her face in Rory's neck. It's suddenly hard to breathe; that numbness she'd felt back in the TARDIS medbay is returning, creeping through her limbs. She's going to have a daughter and she's going to lose her. She and Rory are going to lose their baby. There won't be a happily ever after, not this time]

[Rory presses his cheek hard into hers, hands grasping restlessly at her shoulders again]

He told me to stand away ... and you--you looked at me like--like I was--I was--leaving you--

[that had been one of the worst parts of it, for him: that the last look Amy had given him had been one of fear, hurt, and betrayal]

[and she totally would have, too--if she hadn't understood what was happening. She feels like it's important that she say that]

You said we didn't know what was happening--if I thought I was--me...

I didn't want to!

[he blurts that loudly, pulling back to look her desperately in the eyes; his own are red-rimmed and watery again. he feels it's important that she knows this too]

He told me to and I said no, I wouldn't, but then he got--angry--and shouted and I think maybe I started to understand ...

Rory...

[her voice is trembling a little, no matter how she wishes it wouldn't]

...what happened to me?

[he clams up at that, pressing his lips down into a hard line, ducking his head again so she can't see his face, and shakes his head no again. He's not telling her about this--he CAN'T tell her. Especially now that she knows what happened to her, happened to Melody]

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