And so he waits
Hey baby, I don't wanna be your Superman
I just wanna be your man and I'll be super, baby
Train
There's that funny flash of blue-ish light and the Doctor's gone and he is alone, an echo of humanity in a plastic shell alone with the silhouettes of aliens.
He might be plastic, but the black room fills him with a very human fear, so he draws his sword, brandishing it warily at the shadows and resolutely ignoring the tremor in his hand.
He knows he's in for a long wait as he settles down on the floor, but he does it anyway. He stays.
He stays because he has to. He has no choice. What life is there for a half-plastic centurion outside this underground room where the stuff of nightmares mingles with a twisted fairytale, and the line between worlds is blurred almost to the point of non-recognition.
He stays because it's where he belongs. Part man, part machine, alone with the magical box and the girl inside.
He stays for her. What else could he do? He stays because he loves her, because who is Rory without his wild ex-kissogram girlfriend? Because he can't face the world without her.
Maybe he's doing it to prove something. Maybe it's to prove to the Doctor that he's even the tiniest bit deserving of the girl he's given his being to.
He sees something like respect in the Doctor's eyes as he announces his intentions to guard her, and for the first time since meeting him he's not Amy's-boyfriend-Rory or Rory-who-never-gets-things-right or Rory-who's-there-to-fetch-and-carry. He's Rory, and it feels good.
So he guards her, because it's his small way of repaying the gift she's given to him, because although he gave her his whole heart in return for half of hers (he knows that the other half will always be the Doctor's) he still needs to give her more because she threw away her freedom for him, and Amy Pond's freedom means more to her than anything.
(He sort of knows that, had the Doctor actually existed while they were exchanging vows, she'd never have said I do, but he tries his hardest to ignore that part of his brain and focus on the bit that says but she did).
And so he waits.
A/N while writing this, I was stunned at the fact that my computer doesn't recognise ish as a word. I soon put it right.
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