Rory was asleep leaving him and Amy hanging out by the controls. He'd been asleep for a couple of hours now. The Doctor was repairing a few controls, and Amy was busy a self-thumb war. The left was winning. Nothing interesting. Then the Doctor said something; something that led to the truth behind Rory. It was a truth that the Doctor had never even thought of as possible.
"Amy, have you ever noticed that Rory just seems to always be a little too overly protective? I know you're married, but he still seems to be even more protective sometimes," the Doctor said.
"He's been through a lot," Amy replied. She was hiding something. The Doctor could sense it. There was something about Rory that he didn't know, something important.
"Well, he was picked on as a child; tormented for being geekier than the other kids. He never really had a lot of friends. Of course he's protective.
"Doctor, hasn't he ever told you the real reason those kids picked on him? Hasn't Rory told you why? " Amy asked shocked. She assumed Rory had told him at some point. It was pretty big. How could the Doctor not have known?
"No. What happened?" the Doctor asked. "Why did they pick on him?"
"Doctor, Rory has a complicated past. Something happened to him when he was really young that's followed him for a long time," Amy said sternly.
"Amy, what happened?"
"I shouldn't even be telling you this. This is his past, not mine. He should be telling you," Amy said trying to get out of this conversation. "Why don't you just ask him yourself?"
"I'm asking you because I trust you to tell me the truth. Rory, he might not tell me everything. You know that too. But you….you'll tell me. You tell me and him everything. Why did those kids all those years ago pick on him?" the Doctor spoke. He always knew just what to say.
"Rory, he used to have a sister; an older sister. They were really close when he was younger. She protected him from everything and played with, told him stories, and helped through a lot of things. They were best friends," Amy said after a long pause. She felt like she was going behind Rory's back by telling the Doctor this, but he did need to know if he was to truly understand where Rory comes from.
"What was her name?" the Doctor asked. "And what do you mean 'used to have a sister'? What happened to her?"
"Her name was Rachel. She was absolutely wonderful. She was always smiling. Whenever you saw her, she just had this huge smile on her face, but even with that, she had these huge sad eyes. She used to take Rory when he was 6 out on these walks, and he would ask why she looked sad and happy…and she would just look at him and say that she was sad because life was terrible but he made her happy again. Then she would just stand there and hug him like she might never get the chance again."
"Did you ever meet her?" the Doctor asked.
"No. I never got the chance. All I know is what Rory told me about her," Amy said sadly.
"Was she nice?"
"When Rory was sad or upset, she told him that he couldn't be sad because he had to keep her happy, and he would ask why she needed him to make her happy. She never told him for a long time, but then one day when he asked, she answered. She said that she couldn't make her own happiness, but that he could. She told Rory that he could always make himself happy just by being himself."
"She sounds so…mysterious," the Doctor said.
"She was. Used to always think that she was always happy with sadness inside her because that's what Rory had always told me, but then, he told me one day he said that when he was 7, she was outside sitting by herself, and she was crying. He didn't know why she was crying, so he went outside and sat next to her. That's when he noticed something new about her. He looked at her arm and asked what happened to her, and all she said was that she was sorry." By now, Amy had tears start to build up.
"Did she really…?"the Doctor asked.
"Yeah. She did. She told him not to tell anyone, so he stayed quiet. She said that he couldn't say anything about it. He couldn't tell their mum and dad. She was so scared that someone would find out and they would take her away. Then she couldn't see Rory again. Rachel loved Rory, more than anything. He was her favorite person in the whole world. So he stayed and sat with her while she cried. She sat there and cried for what seemed like hours," Amy said. "She just couldn't stop crying."
"Why don't you go to bed? We can finish some other time," the Doctor said to Amy. He couldn't stand to his friend cry. It drove him mad.
"What happened?" Rory said. He was standing off to the side after being asleep for hours.
"I was telling him about Rachel," Amy said.
