A/N: There's actually another Doctor Who fic I'm currently in the middle of finishing, but the idea of this one entered my mind before I could stop myself. It's just a little drabble-y thing, a simple one-shot. Nothing much to it other than the fact that I really love Rory.
Disclaimer: Hahahaha, I wish.
He was getting married today. Lying in bed with an alarm blaring in his ear, Rory's mind replayed the moment he had proposed to Amy. Mels congratulating (more like brutally teasing) them after they returned to Amy's room holding hands, the whole friend/gay issue completely settled. Following her on one of her many crazy schemes that usually ended in some form of injury for him. Admiring Amy's fiery red hair the day he met her in elementary school and falling in love without even realizing he had. Everything that had happened between them had led up to this moment.
Everything...
Halfway through getting his trousers on over his pants, Rory was hit with a sharp pain in his head. Sucking in a breath, he dug the heel of his hand into the side of his head while the other fumbled to finish pulling up the trousers and zipping and buttoning them up. The nurse in him told him that this was definitely not one of the side effects from the meager amount of alcohol he had allowed himself to consume during his stag night, but the stubborn, please-don't-let-anything-go-wrong side convinced him that the flash headache was the fault of a few drinks and stress. He did not even remember anything of last night after the cake was brought in and...
Flashes of tweed and a bowtie in the unwelcome company of disturbing news.
Maybe he had downed a few too many beers. Shaking it off as a soon-to-be-gone hangover (it better be), Rory finished dressing and entered his bathroom. He was just about through with a reassuring mental mantra of 'be cool, you're getting married' while he brushed his teeth when the ringing of his cell phone made him jump, ruining any progress he had made at calming his nerves. Caller ID quickly confirmed who it was. Amy. Rory cursed through foamy paste. The bride calling the groom on their wedding day should considered be taboo.
"Hello!" Christ, did he just sing-song? But he needed to sound happy for Amy, and he was. He really, really was. There was just something, though. Something at the back of his mind that was sad, devastated, about someone. Someone missing.
"Do you feel like you've forgotten something really important? Do you feel like there's a great big thing in your head, and you feel like you should remember it but you can't?" His mind went blank.
"...Yup." Shit! He didn't mean to say that. She was so very right, but it could ruin today, the most important day of their lives.
"Are you just saying 'yes' cuz you're scared?" Sweet salvation.
"Yup," Rory held back a sigh of relief, fumbling to return her admission of love as she ended the call. Setting his phone down, he returned to getting ready, pushing back every bother that did not have anything to do with marriage. He needed to get his head on straight if he was going to attempt at not messing this whole thing up.
It was after his legs had stopped shaking, the vows made, and the reception well under way, when that niggling feeling return. Rory had followed Amy's line of sight to the windows, glimpsing a mass of blonde curls, before returning his attention to his new wife, who had stood up abruptly.
"Amy," her eyes were watering up. Something was wrong. Was it him? "Are you okay?"
She murmured a 'yeah' as she lowered herself back to her seat, but Rory knew better, "Uh, you're crying."
"So, I am. Why am I doing that?" Rory wanted so desperately to tell her the truth, of how he felt like tearing up as well, but he didn't. Today was supposed to be brilliant, fantastic, wonderful, even if something in his heart told him it was not all that.
"Because you're happy," he began hesitantly. "Probably. Happy Mrs. Rory? Happy, happy, happy?" Hysterical. He was becoming a bit hysterical.
"No, I'm sad. I'm really, really sad." If that was not a massive blow to his self-confidence, Rory could not imagine what would completely shatter it.
"Great," He croaked, forced smile freezing in place.
"Why am I sad?" Rory shrugged. How could he answer when he didn't know how to place his own sadness?
"What's that?"
"Oh," He had nearly forgotten this. "Someone left it for you. A woman." One he had not met, passing the present through a relative, apparently not wanting to be thanked. Or seen. "It's a book."
"It's blank," Amy stated, bemused and sounding a little desperate.
"It's a present," Rory did not know what to say. Why would anyone give a ratty, unfilled journal as a wedding present? Especially a stranger.
"But why?"
"Well, you know the old saying?" He was grasping at straws here. Searching through his head for something to stutter a response. "The-the old... wedding... thing? Huh?" The color of the cover. It was blue, and the wedding saying was... She was making a face. A very not good face. "Amy..."
Rory nearly flinched when Augustus Pond rose to finally give his speech. He relaxed, though. They did not have to think about his. It should not matter. They were married now. Happy Amy and Rory.
"Shut up, Dad!" Nevermind. "Sorry, but shut up, please. There's something missing. Someone important. Someone so, SO important."
"Amy, what's wrong?" Rory was afraid. Afraid that he knew exactly what was wrong.
"Sorry. Sorry, everyone. When I was a kid, I had an imaginary friend." Rory lowered his head, muttering fake apologies to the ones around him. He knew this was right, despite the scandalized whispers around them. "The Raggedy Doctor. My Raggedy Doctor. But, he wasn't imaginary. He was real."
"The psychiatrists we sent her to," Mrs. Pond's passing remark distracted Rory momentarily. He remembered those times. When she came back after biting a particularly annoying one and cried because her Raggedy Man had not returned for her. He had thought she was just clinging onto her childhood through an imaginary friend, but now...
"I remember you. I remember! I brought the others back. I can bring you home, too! Raggedy Man, I remember you, and you are LATE for my wedding!" Rory silently inserted an 'our' to her statement, watching as the room shook and a familiar whirring noise filled his ears.
"I found you. I found you with words like you knew I would. That's why you told me the story, the brand new, ancient blue box. Oh, you, clever. Very, clever."
"Amy, what is it?" Rory was giddy for this. For something on the tip of his tongue, desperately wanting for it to be said.
"Something old, something new. Something borrowed, something blue." He gawked as the TARDIS (yes, he remembered the TARDIS now) appeared in the center of the room.
"It's the Doctor," Rory breathed in awe, face scrunching up as memories rushed back into existence. Memories so very tragic and wonderful. "How could we forget the Doctor?" More importantly, how could HE forget him. A man so life-changing and fearsome and more than a little childish. "I was plastic, and he was the stripper at my stag night."
Rory was barely listening as Amy vaulted over the reception table towards that magnificent blue box and conversed with the sharply dressed Doctor as he exited the Police-labeled doors. He rose and joined them in little time, smile no longer fake and very, very wide.
"Amelia, from now on I'll be leaving the kissing duties," Rory did not even protest when the Doctor wiped his lipstick-stained finger on his lapels. "to the brand new Mr. Pond!"
Now, that. "I'm not Mr. Pond." He looked to Amy, who was barely containing her laughter. "That's not how it works."
"Yeah, it is," the Doctor stared at him expectantly.
"Yeah," Who was he to spoil the fun? "It is."
It was a few days later, Oriental Express saved and Egyptian Goddess dealt with, when Rory, sitting quietly in the empty console room while Amy snored on the top bunk in their room, allowed himself to remember. Remember the 2000 (more like 1894 according to the Doctor) years that never happened.
Rome, 102 A.D. Finding Amy and the Doctor again. Killing Amy. Saving the Doctor. Deciding to stay. All of that waiting.
The Hadrian Wall, Constantine the Great, the Franks, Charlemagne, William the Conqueror, the Crusades, Marco Polo, William Wallace, the Ottoman Empire, the Hundred Year War, the Plague, Joan of Arc, Christopher Columbus, the Renaissance, empires rising and falling, the World Wars, the Blitz, so much death. Everything turning to ash and dust as he stayed, guarding the Pandorica... Rory could not breathe, his mind reeling. It was all too much and...
"You're staring."
"Sorry, what?" Rory was shaken out of his trance by a concerned Doctor, who was standing on the other side of the console and peering at him around the hanging monitor.
"I've been here for exactly five minutes and thirty three seconds, and all you've done, Mr. Pond, is stare directly, and nearly unblinkingly, at the TARDIS' crystal. She's growing uncomfortable," Before Rory knew it, the Doctor had closed the gap between them, shining the sonic screwdriver in his eyes. "Rory, tell me. What's wrong?"
"Don't tell Amy," he pleaded, turning away from the bright light as explosions flashed through his head.
"Don't tell Amy 'what,' Rory?" The Doctor asked quietly, gently urging him on.
"About how I remember everything. Being plastic and guarding her for two thousand years. She'll want to talk about it, and I don't know if I can handle reliving everything and telling her about all of those horrible-" Rory's breath hitched, and he could not bear to speak anymore, just shaking his head to how not alright he was.
"Okay." Rory observed the Doctor as he straightened up, returning his screwdriver to its pocket. "Okay..." He clapped his hands together, skipping back over to the TARDIS monitor. "Get some sleep, Pond. I have something extra special planned for your honeymoon tomorrow."
"Anything life-threatening?" Rory couldn't help but wonder.
"No! Of course not! It's going to be a perfectly safe trip. Probably. Hopefully. ...Stop stalling!" The Doctor made a shooing motion at Rory. "Now, off to bed with you!"
The former centurion scoffed, "You're hardly qualified to tell me that." He stared down at his fingers, curling them up thoughtfully. Not plastic. No murderous gun. Normal skin, normal Rory. "I am, technically, older than you. If anything, I should be telling you that it's bedtime."
"Time Lord biology," the Doctor reminded, turning a few knobs and pulling a few levers before glaring at the Brit indignantly. "And you're not my father."
Rory laughed, "And you're most definitely not mine." A yawn escaped him before he could shut his mouth. "And yes, I'll be going to sleep now. Not because you told me to, but because I feel a bit knackered."
The Doctor just glanced at him, smirking smugly, before looking back at the readings on his monitor. Rory was halfway up the steps to the bedroom hallway, when he swiveled back to face the Time Lord, "And Doctor."
"Yes, Rory?" His eyes were on the screen, but he was paying attention.
"Before Amy called you back, I-I," Rory gulped. "I think I remembered you, a little bit, at least. Didn't tell Amy about it. Thought, or at least I hoped, I was just a bit barmy from the drinks the night before and those 'wedding jitter' things. Then, you came back, and everything made sense and..." He paused, running a hand through his hair. "I'm really glad you're back, Doctor. I- Good night."
Rory shuffled quickly out of the room, missing the Doctor's smile but catching the fleeting sound of, "'Night, Rory. Sweet dreams."
A/N: So, yeah. Y'know that other fic thingy I mentioned in the beginning? It's a crossover. I'm not going to say what with because I want it to be a surprise. Okay, done talking. I hope you enjoyed. Have a great whatever time of day it is where you are.