A/N

I've been reading quite a few fanfics lately about Nine running into Rory during those few "seconds" before going back to ask Rose to travel with him again, and I may or may not have a new BroTP... with no regrets. So I decided to try my own version of it (because I kind of ran out of fics to read) and hopefully it's not too horrible.

The poem at the beginning and end is Paradoxes And Oxymorons by John Ashbery, the same poem that the title is taken from.

The poem is concerned with language on a very plain level.
Look at it talking to you. You look out a window
Or pretend to fidget. You have it but you don't have it.
You miss it, it misses you. You miss each other.

A few decades alone really weren't that bad, not really. In fact, he thought the time without anyone around was good for him - not that he didn't think of the alternate chain of events that would have occurred if one Rose Tyler had agreed to travel the stars with him. Maybe then the TARDIS wouldn't feel so vast and empty, and he'd have someone to bounce ideas off of, someone to talk to when he was feeling lonelier than normal. He missed having a companion around to run for his life with, and he'd yet to find more than one person since the Time War that he was willing to drag around time and space.

And that was the exact reason for why the Doctor refused to go back to London 2005. If he were to take the opportunity for a normal life away from someone who could live one so beautifully - oh, he really does have to do something about this strange obsession, doesn't he? But then, he can't keep running away from things forever, and the sooner he stopped running the better, as he knew from past experience. Not that he'd really ever stopped running once he'd started.

The jolting of the TARDIS landing shook him out of his thoughts then - the thoughts that were mostly plagued with a certain blonde Londoner who knew gymnastics and lived with her mum and used to work retail - and the Doctor was forced to stride across to the door, the sound of his footsteps on the metal echoing through the mostly silent console room. He hadn't chosen this destination himself, leaving the task up to his ship with the one rule that London was off limits, and a surprise vacation would be the best idea after the hell that broke loose in Elizabethan England - really, the things the history books said about Anne Boleyn were tame compared to the truth.

Opening the TARDIS doors and stepping out onto the grass outside was an easy enough feat; the real trouble would be blending in for a few hours and finding somewhere that served some decent chips. The first thing that the Doctor noticed when he stepped outside besides the almost too-green grass of the park was that his time ship had definitely not landed in London. The buildings weren't tall enough, or close enough together; the trees over by the edge of the park had a small pond beyond them; the quiet sounds of a small town and the various types of people living in one were all that filled the air.

There were a few families with small children running through the grass, their parents standing back as to not get in the way; a smattering of couples were walking hand in hand along the concrete path closer to the trees; and there were even fewer people just sitting on the benches - most of them older and feeding birds or just people watching like he was. But there was one figure on a bench not more than a couple dozen steps away that wasn't like the others. He was younger, and wearing a set of nurse's scrubs, his messy hair hanging down into his face while he ate his lunch.

Everyone else at the park seemed to be comfortably associated with the people around them, or immersed in the digital social web of their phones, or content with the solitude that came with having a bench to themselves - but not this man. If you didn't really look, he looked perfectly fine; alone on the bench, yes, but enjoying his lunch in peace. The Doctor, however, had learned to really look at people. The man's hair was clearly beginning to get in the way, but he hadn't made a single move to fix it, and his scrubs looked wrinkled and unkempt, likely from working a long shift or possibly a busy one. He turned his head just enough that the Time Lord still standing in the doorway of his TARDIS could see the look in his eyes. It was a small flicker of something, not something that could be seen with a glance or if the observer had never felt it before - loneliness. Though, it wasn't so much that there was loneliness in the man's eyes, but a silent craving to be somewhere else, with someone else. It was a look that the Doctor knew all too well, a look he saw in the mirror whenever he bothered to look, and he made a decision.

The TARDIS doors closed as he took the first few steps.

Eating lunch alone was a normal occurrence, especially after a double shift of working both all night and most of the morning. It wasn't like he didn't have any friends that he could eat lunch with, there was just no one in his social circle that he wanted to spend that much time alone with, and Rory didn't see anything wrong with that. Really, it was probably better that he was sat alone on a bench in the park instead of trying to socialize with his colleagues - it's harder to really think around people, and this was his one hour to think and eat and inhale twenty ounces of scalding hot caffeine before going back to work for another few hours. He was going to take advantage of it. There was a shift in the air that the young nurse could feel, but he didn't bother looking for the source of the change, more focused on getting through half of his sandwich before he had to get back to what was left of his double shift.

The first thing he noticed when someone sat on the other end of the bench was the smell. It wasn't that it was a bad smell, just different. There was leather and the sharpness of cinnamon and something else that was bitter and sweet smelling at the same time. When he looked over at the man who had taken the seat beside him, he was surprised to see an entirely new face, one he hadn't even seen around town.

Leadworth was small enough that even if Rory didn't know someone, he could usually think of a time or a place when he'd seen them before. This man, however, didn't look even slightly familiar to him. He had big, almost monkey-like ears, broad shoulders suited more for a game of rugby than a stroll in the park, and short-cropped hair that was almost military-esque.

"Is it a girl?"

The question caught Rory off-guard, and he nearly dropped his sandwich into his lap. "I'm sorry?"

There was a pause, and then the stranger spoke in the same Northern accent, his voice somehow both booming and quiet in the same moment. "Well, you're sitting in the park alone, with a sandwich that you're clearly not exactly enjoying, and you have a look in your eyes..." He trailed off then, shaking his head with a noncommittal shrug before looking away as if trying to avoid having the nurse's full attention on him. "You look lonely."

Truthfully, Rory didn't really feel alone unless he thought about it, and the sandwich he'd made in a hurry the day before really wasn't as good as it could be, but he wouldn't really describe himself as lonely. Of course, if he came right out and said that, this stranger would only assume he was in denial and it would prove his point, so there had to be a plan B. "What's that accent? Is it Northern?" Plan B just so happened to be a change of topic.

"Lots of planets have a north," was the almost defensive response he received. It was certainly a peculiar response, but not enough so that Rory saw the reason to worry. "Besides, you don't even know my name, and I don't know yours. We aren't really close enough that I feel the need to answer your questions."

There was barely a beat of hesitation before the original occupant of the bench held his hand out toward the stranger in the leather jacket. "Rory Williams. I'm a nurse at the Royal Leadworth Hospital, about a quarter mile down the road."

The man eyed his outstretched hand for a moment before nodding and completing the short but firm shake. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Rory Williams; you can call me the Doctor. And before you ask, it's just the Doctor."

With a short nod, the younger man in scrubs had to bite back the urge to smile despite the strange addition to the Doctor's sentence. There was only one more question he had for his new acquaintance, and really, it could easily be called revenge for how the entire conversation had started. "What about you, Doctor? With that lonely look in your eyes... Is it a girl?"

Alright, so maybe he deserved that one. It didn't mean he necessarily had to answer it; and even if he did, it didn't have to be an honest answer. In his defense, it most definitely not a girl - well, not just any girl, at least. Rose Tyler was a magnificent example of why he still had faith in the human race. It wasn't necessarily because of her beauty - though she was attractive, for an ape - it was more because of how she figured things out, sometimes before even he did, and had saved his life within hours of him saving hers. She'd had a way of doing most of the day-saving than he did, and he could've used some of that assistance over the past decades of saving planets and species on his own.

"It is a girl." Elated was the best description for Rory Williams's voice and the Doctor almost rolled his eyes at those four words alone. And then the nurse spoke again. "Go on, then. Tell me about her." It didn't take more than a few short moments of silences for him to tack on an addition to his statement, slowly shaking my head. "It's not like I can tell anyone, can I?" His prompting was followed only by a solid minute of silence, and Rory let out a sigh before shaking his head at the Time Lord beside him again. "Based on that extremely detailed response, I'm going to guess things didn't end well between the two of you."

The inaccuracy of the theory made the Doctor shake his head, turning just enough to face his companion - of sorts - before speaking. "We ended things on good terms. We just wanted different things." Like how he wanted to travel through time and space and she wanted to follow it all in a linear progression. "And there was no relationship between us," he added in argument. "I knew her for less than a day, and then things ended."

He didn't miss the arched brow of the human beside him, or the attempt at a mumbled comment. "You get attached pretty quickly."

No, actually he didn't. He made a point not to; because if he did get attached to people quickly, each and every life that was lost would hurt that much more than it already did, and he'll be damned if he ever had to fave any pain near as crippling as he did each time he lost someone he'd really gotten attached to. "No, Rory Williams, I don't get attached quickly." And it's been years since I last saw her, so I really should be moving on by now, shouldn't I? The Time Lord added silently, forcing himself to get to his feet before he could be further pulled in to the conversation he was having with a human who didn't understand the position he was in.

"You should try to talk to her. Some people change their minds if you give them enough time to think things over."

Time. How in the universe had he forgotten to tell her that the TARDIS can also travel through time? What a bleeding buffoon he was. Time And Relative Dimension In Space; it's even right there in the name. "Rory Williams, you're a genius." For the second time in mere minutes, the Doctor was able to use the word elated to describe someone's tone, only this time it was his own.

Meanwhile, one Rory Williams looked entirely confused, his light hair still messy and hanging down to partially cover his widened eyes. Not that he could be blamed for the look of surprise when the Time Lord who had chosen to take up just a bit of space on the same bench as him very rarely gave out compliments of that nature.

"I owe you, then, don't I? Especially if you're right." The Doctor was itching to move, but he settled for adjusting his jacket on his shoulders. It's not like he could have really paced back and forth in the middle of the still somewhat busy park. Turning on his heel to face the nurse, the question left his lips before he had the chance to think about them and take the idea back. "If you could go anywhere, Rory Williams, anywhere or anytime at all, where would it be?"

It was, by far, one of the strangest questions that he'd ever been asked, and a difficult one at that. Anywhere? Anytime? What did a question like that really mean? And how long did he have before his answer really mattered? As far as Rory was concerned, any answer he gave would be entirely hypothetical, and that's just how he chose which one to give. "I've always been a bit interested in the Holy Roman Empire."

The Doctor had to pause for a moment to ponder the response, clearly not having expected it, but quickly made up for the span of silence with enthusiasm that hadn't been there before. "Rory wants to see the Roman Empire? I suppose I could make a short stop before heading back to London."

Confused was no longer a strong enough word to describe how the young nurse was feeling, and he had no choice but to follow when the firm hand that had seemed to appear on his shoulder from nowhere pulled him to his feet. This man - the Doctor, he called himself - was mental, utterly mad, and quite possibly dangerous, but it would likely be even more dangerous to protest against the man who was leading him toward an old-fashioned police box. At least it's a police box. If bad turns to worse, he can always turn the situation around and lock the doors with the mad man inside while calling the police.

"To avoid too many questions and delays, I should tell you that, yes, it is indeed bigger on the inside."

Wait, what?

Before Rory could even begin to question the strange statement, the Doctor was unlocking the police box doors and stepping inside, the room beyond that far too large to fit in the square shaped box that supported its doors. He was hurriedly ushered inside moments later and he rushed to take in everything as the doors were closed behind him - possibly so that no one else would see the wonder that was concealed behind less than an inch of wood.

Just standing outside hadn't given him a good enough look, and the room was far bigger than he'd originally assumed. The ceiling went far above his head, too high to even hope to be restrained by the roof of the police box disguise of the exterior; the central column and the control panel around it seemed to illuminate the room while filling the air with a high-pitched wheezing that sounded vaguely like an engine starting up; there were stairs and railings and ramps and another doorway that he could see past just enough to guess that it was a hallway - meaning that there was even more impossible space beyond that.

"Hold on tight, Rory Williams," the Doctor called out from the other side of the control panel, his head peeking around the column just a few moments later. "Because the trip to the fantastic gets just a bit bumpy."

After three days of running for their lives from the Roman army - all of that after a day of infiltrating the ranks themselves - both men stumbled into the TARDIS trying not to laugh until the doors were closed behind them and they knew that they wouldn't be giving away their position. Rory was the only one of them still in the centurion uniform, the Doctor having changed back into his jacket and jumper the first chance they had, claiming they were easier to run in. The one good thing about the infiltration, however, was that he was able to find a Silurian among the ranks and take out the threat before anyone could really get hurt. That, and he was about to explain a bit more about time and space travel to his new companion while they were in hiding.

Well, there was another thing, too.

"I can call you 'Rory the Roman' now, can't I?" He'd waited three days to make a comment on the topic, and it was small enough that it didn't distract from the rest of the situation - which was that they were still standing close to the doors and leaning back against them as if the army that had been searching for them had any chance of entering otherwise. "Or would you rather I still to calling you 'Rory Williams'?"

They were enough in their right minds to push away from the doors then, the younger of the two pulling the helmet from his head while letting out an amused bout of laughter. "Is my full name really necessary, Doctor? I've told you just to call me by my first name, multiple times now."

With a roll of his eyes, the Time Lord shook his head and walked up the ramp to the control panel, glancing back over his shoulder at the nurse he'd virtually abducted nearly a week ago. "When do you have to be back in Leadworth, Rory the Roman? Oh, no, I don't like that. It's much too long. I'll think of a better name for you, Rory Williams."

"I am supposed to be in the middle of a double shift," the human pointed out as he walked just a bit slower up the same metal path, shaking his head.

The Doctor didn't necessarily want to drop off his new companion so soon, and getting back in time for him to get back to work, more rested than when he'd picked him up, would be no problem considering they were spending most of their time in a time machine. "I was thinking a quick stop in London, and then we can decide from there." London meant Rose Tyler, and if she were to join their small group, it would be her turn to pick their stop. He ignored the questions coming from Rory's direction while setting the date and coordinates for their next stop - making a point to appear just seconds after he'd disappeared from the spot the last time he'd been there. There was a short moment when he sent a glance over his shoulder just to make sure the centurion-uniformed man behind him was holding on before pulling the lever toward him to send the TARDIS to its next destination.

This landing was even rougher than the one during the Roman empire and Rory had to hold onto the railing tighter seeing as one of his hands was a bit occupied with holding onto the helmet he'd removed less than a full minute before. Something was in London, something - or someone - that the Doctor wanted to see before committing to another adventure like the one they'd just been on. It wasn't that he didn't have a bit of fun, but the break, no matter how short, would be nice compared to running for his life and hiding away in caves and tunnels because they had half an army chasing after them once they were discovered.

When the Doctor walked past him toward the door, the Roman attired man turned around and was leaning back against the railing by the time a bit more light was let into the big room. It was immediately clear by the glimpse of the woman outside that he'd been entirely right on that park bench all those days ago, and Rory couldn't help but smirk slightly before frowning when the Time Lord's words reached his ears.

"Hello again, Rose Tyler. You remember the TARDIS, don't you? And this is Roricus the Roman, a friend I met jest a few days ago."

Roricus the Roman. Well, he supposed it could have been worse, and even more embarrassing to explain if anyone back home found out he'd met someone new - someone who claimed to not get attached quickly but was already calling him a friend and had only known this Rose Tyler for a day before deciding that she was worthy of traveling through time and space with. Rory didn't exactly pride himself in his minuscule psychoanalysis skills, but he knew enough from taking a psychology course at uni that what the Doctor was dealing with was easy to diagnose.

He was lonely.

Maybe not in the traditional sense, miserable and making a point of finding people to share his thoughts and ideas with, but in a more diluted meaning of the diagnosis. He was longing for someone to spend time with, yes, but not just to spout ideas and thoughts to - he could do that to the empty ship around him if he ever got really desperate - or insult in some sort of power play, which may or may not have happened on multiple occasions while they were fleeing for their lives. It was more to fill the empty space left by something that had been there before.

At first, Rory had thought he'd been recruited to replace Rose, but now it was clear that wasn't wasn't at all true. Rose wasn't the one who was being replace; she was one of the few people that the Time Lord decided could be an adequate stand in for someone or something else.

He'd been so absorbed in digging into the personality of his new acquaintance - friend - that Rory had missed most of the conversation, and just barely caught the last thing that the Doctor said to the blonde outside. "By the way, did I mention it also travels in time?"

It has been played once more. I think you exist only
To tease me into doing it, on your level, and then you aren't there
Or have adopted a different attitude. And the poem
Has set me softly down beside you. The poem is you.