It occurs to him at about the same time that Amy spots the Doctor contemplating a modern cell phone. Well, modern by his standards, Rory figures. To the Doctor it must seem pathetic.
"What the bloody hell are you doing with that, then?" she asks him, blunt and beautiful as ever.
"What? It's a cell phone. People call me on it," the Doctor responds, looking a bit miffed.
"We're in a phone box," Amy says. "With a phone. Can't people just call you on that? It was good enough for Winston Churchill!"
"Well," the Doctor says, and then stops for a moment, spinning around on one foot to get a good look at the phone on the TARDIS console. "That didn't always used to be there, you know. Forget about it sometimes. Always forgetting about things, me. It's a problem, ought to get my memory checked. But anyway, phone, right. A friend of mine gave this to me, back in my phone-box-without-a-phone days. So that she'd always be able to reach me if she needed."
"But how does that work?" Amy asks. "It's just a normal phone. If I called you, but I was in the past from wherever you were, then…"
As the Doctor attempts to explain the mechanics of a cross-temporal phone line to Amy, quickly disintegrating into 'I zapped it with my screwdriver and it didn't explode, so it works fine' territory, Rory sits back and thinks. That's his role here, he's decided. The two of them can go run off into danger however they like, guns blazing, and he can be the one who stands back and considers the situation enough to think What the hell? It's not a bad role, all things considered.
So Rory thinks, and what he thinks is If he has a cell phone and we can call him whenever we want, travel with him whenever we want, why are we doing it now? Why can't we at least get married first, spend some more time together?
Rory misses Leadworth. He had liked life there, slow and simple and completely and utterly normal. He had liked that. He had been so excited about marrying Amy, and now…
And now what? And now he's flying through time and space in a blue police box with his fiancé, along with the man she ran off with the night before their wedding. Which is still kind of is. Rory can't even remember at what point his life became completely and utterly mad.
"I think I'd like to go home now," he says, interrupting an argument that appears to be over intergalactic cell phone carriers. Another thing between them that he'll never understand. They do both look up to stare at him, though. Nice to know he can still get that much.
xxx
It's two years later (again), and Rory hasn't seen Amy once. The story is that she's off in Scotland, caring for some ailing relative, although Rory doesn't think anyone believes it. Most people probably just assume she ran off. Rory can't decide whether or not they're right.
Technically, they're still engaged.
Oddly enough, that's the only thing he can think of when he looks out the window and sees a blue police box materializing in the garden. Again.
"What," is all he manages before he's bolting down the stairs. Amy's already standing outside and looking around when he gets there, and he realizes suddenly that he hasn't the slightest clue what to say to her. He had told her, two years ago, that if she wanted to go off and have fantastic adventures, then fine. She certainly wouldn't get that with him. But if she was with the Doctor, she could be off for years, and it would only be an instant for Rory. And so the Doctor had left him in Leadworth to get back to his peaceful life, and he had waited for Amy to come back, however much older she would be.
And he had waited, and waited. And finally accepted that she was never coming back. Or he had started to, at any rate. Her coming back was really going to put a wrench in those plans, that was for sure.
"Rory," Amy says, and she brushes a few strands of hair back from her face with her red, red fingernails. Rory blinks, because it's the exact same shade she was wearing when he last saw her. Funny.
How sad is it that he remembers that?
"I thought- you. You never came back," he says, stupid and tactless as ever. No wonder she ran off with some alien, at least he was eloquent. Well. Kind of.
Amy stares at him. "What are you talking about?" she asks. "You couldn't have left five minutes ago."
Oh. Oh.
"It's been two years, Amy."
The staring doesn't stop. "No, it has not," she says.
"Nope, definitely has."
"I'm going to kill him!" she says, and while Rory wouldn't call it a shriek, that's only because Amy might hit him for it.
xxx
Rory doesn't follow her into the TARDIS, partly out of self-preservation. The Doctor gets pushed out a few minutes later, Amy following close behind, arms crossed defiantly.
"Er," says the Doctor, rubbing the back of his head. Sheepishly, of all things. "Sorry, sorry, sorry, the TARDIS, she's been a bit- off, lately, need to take at look at the temporal circuits, she'd better not be-"
"You're not a very good time-traveler, are you," Rory says. Well, he isn't.
The Doctor looks hurt. "That is most definitely not at all true," he says.
"You'd think," Amy cuts in, "That a time-traveler wouldn't have as much trouble being on time as you do, wouldn't you?" She's livid. Rory thinks he probably ought to be too, but Amy came back. That's all he can think about. Amy came back, and she's pissed because she meant to do it two years ago. And, you know, they're still engaged.
"I really am sorry," says the Doctor. He looks it, too. He turns to Rory, says, "There probably aren't many bright sides for you, but two years must give a man plenty of time to think! Spent two years thinking once, horribly boring. Time Lord metabolism and all that. Anyway. Figured anything out? If you need more time we can be back in a few years."
Amy jabs him with her elbow and glares. "I am not stepping back into that box again without Rory," she says. "Two years. Is that some Time Lord code, whenever you say five minutes you really mean two years?"
"Amy," Rory says. "I think we ought to get married."
"I- what?" Amy says. The Doctor beams, and ruffles Rory's hair.
"We've definitely been engaged long enough," Rory tells her, smoothing it out again as best he can.
"You are so right," Amy says. Then, "Oh, great. Wedding planning all over again."
"I think I should maybe be leaving now," says the Doctor. "Caused quite enough damage here, quota filled, time to move on to something else."
"Oi," Amy says, jerking him back by the collar. "You are coming to our wedding, here that? I'll call you with the date. Be late and die."
"Right," says the Doctor. "Wouldn't miss it for the world! You should know I'm terrible at weddings."
"Among other things," she says.
"Well, yes. But not a lot of things! Punctuality wasn't always one of them, perhaps that's new. Hmm, very interesting."
She jabs a finger at his chest. "Wedding. Cell phone. Be there."
"Yes, yes. See you then. Again, truly sorry! Rory, when you start wanting to hit me feel free to do it to those Raggedy Doctor… things, it'll be a service to the world." With that, he disappears back into the TARDIS, which disappears entirely a few moments later.
"Well," says Amy. "Wedding planning."
"Right," says Rory. "We really ought to get on that."
Amy laughs and hugs him, and kisses him on the mouth for quite a long while.
Rory holds her face in his hands and thinks that maybe, after two years in his nice simple town, and after he (finally) gets married, he could do with a bit of excitement.