A/N - Obligatory first lines from Life on Mars.
My name is Rory Williams. I died and woke up 2000 years earlier. Am I mad? In a coma? Or back in time? Whatever it is, it feels like I've landed on a different planet.
-X-
He can't see her face anymore. Not when he's trying. She had red hair, he's sure of it, he - knows it. If he's ever known anything. Long red hair, and a smile you can drown in, and he smiles again with the memory of her and feels that if he tries just a little bit harder, just a bit more, he might be able to see her, her face and her eyes and her smile. But then she slips away.
And then he wonders whether she ever existed at all.
He should go see a psychiatrist. And that in itself is a sign of the problem right there because there's no such thing and besides, he doesn't even speak Greek.
The days are easy. Fighting, a bit. Marching - a hell of a lot. He knows a bit of Celtic cos they taught it in the school in Rome so he's usually the one to negotiate with the locals. When they ask him how he knows the landscape so well he says he must have studied it in geography, even if he has no recollection of it. Instead he remembers that family trip when he and Amy were ten and he convinced his mum and dad to take Amy with them. They had a lot of fun playing in the car until his dad shouted that they should keep quiet because he's trying to drive, damnit.
There's no such thing as a car and you can't make it from Leadworth to Stonehenge in the same day even if you have fresh horses ready every couple of hours and there's no such place as Leadworth, anyway.
And he's never been to the British Isles in his life, until now.
When they're camping he tries to think of Cornelia, who's probably worried sick back home. They'll get married like he promised and he will see her smile again, but every now and again he imagines she has red hair.
Which is stupid because only Celts have red hair and they are barbarians anyway and he has never met a girl with red hair he liked.
Except for Amy.
He's asked once, one of the Celts they've met. What does Amy mean. The man looked at him with a blank expression and repeated the question: "What does Amy mean?" I thought it was a Celtic name, I'm sure I've heard it once, he said, but the man just shrugged. Not here, it ain't, he said and suggested maybe it's a name of the other Celts, those in Alba or their friends across the sea.
Before he goes to sleep he suddenly realises Rory isn't a Roman name, is it, and remembers he was the only kid in School named Rory, the only one he's ever met. He wonders how come he never asked his parents what made them give him such an unusual name.
He can't remember whether he was teased in school over this or not.
That night he can see her and they're playing hide-and-seek and disrupting all of Leadworth, and everyone's blaming him because everyone knows Amy's a bit weird and wild and no one's really educating her, but there's no reason Rory Williams shouldn't know better. His dad really shouted at him that night after the neighbours complained.
They probably shouldn't have painted their chihuahua green.
When Rory wakes up, he feels stupid because it was Galeia he played with that day, and it wasn't a weird dog they painted, it was a horse. His dad shouted just the same, though.
When he's asleep it all makes sense because in a world where the Raggedy Doctor exists and can take you to back in time or to a different planet you might as well wake up as a Roman soldier after you die. When he wakes up he knows he must be completely mad but as long as he can fake it he will be alright. When Cleopatra comes back and says the word Doctor he stares at her in disbelief but grabs his chance anyway.
Somewhere in his mind he feels like a liar. He doesn't want to be one of those guys. He should never have said those things to Cornelia. He didn't remember Amy back then, but that doesn't make him feel better.
Not once does he stop to consider Cornelia might only be in his mind.
They're walking towards Stonehenge and he's excited because all he can think about is the red hair and the smile, and soon he will be able to see her face again, fully awake.
When he sees her face it's like he's never forgotten it. But then he realises the girl he loves has been a figment of his imagination all this time. This wonderful red-haired goddess can't be his Amy because she doesn't remember him. She doesn't remember painting the chihuahua green or playing at the back of the car or jumping into the duck pond or playing Raggedy Doctor And Prisoner Zero. She doesn't remember being his best friend and the girl he fell in love with.
He has found the love of his life - she's only ever existed in his mind.