"Once upon a time there was a girl named Rose Tyler and a boy called Jack, and they were best friends," said the Centurion. The Rose and Jack stories were Amy's favourites, especially once Mels had started adding the Raggedy Doctor into them. He'd started telling Amy the stories about half a century in; he'd had to cycle through them a few times, but he thought he'd kept them straight. He thought for a while about which story to tell. The farting alien was good for a laugh. The one where Rose and Jack met? That was good, but he'd only just done that one a week ago. Maybe the one where Rose and Jack stole a boat during Prohibition in America, and-
The doors to the warehouse banged open, and a girl in a pink hoodie ran in, closing them behind her. She leaned against them, breathing heavily, closing her eyes.
"Hello," said Rory.
The girl looked up, startled, and suddenly Rory was glad he'd 'died' in World War Two, if she was this scared to see a man in a security guard's uniform. She had blonde hair, and red marks shaped like fingers on her face. "Hello," she said warily.
Rory walked forwards into better light. "You don't have to be afraid," he said, adding silently, unless you're here for the Pandorica, but he didn't think she was. There was a clang, and the girl winced. "Is he your boyfriend?"
"No, he just thinks he is." Her voice didn't shake. Good. She was brave enough, but still smart enough to run away when she needed to.
The Centurion listened for a moment, hearing the boy on the other side of the door mutter about 'tease' and 'bitch' and 'you'll regret it when I get my hands on you'. One of those, then. "Right," he said. "Stand away from the doors." She did, hesitantly. The Centurion opened them, and looked down his nose at the boy.
The boy froze, crowbar raised to swing.
The Centurion glared. "What do you think you're doing with that?" he said.
"I-I-" The boy seemed a little off balance, but he rallied. "My girlfriend come in here."
"And so you came after her with a crowbar?" said the Centurion. "Can't say I blame her for running. That's what we call assault, these days." And before then, there would be mobs to take care of you, you little shit, he remembered fondly.
That seemed to upset the boy, for some reason. "You don't know!" he said. "You don't know!" And he swung the crowbar at the man in front of him.
The man in front of him caught it.
Then, once the boy met his eyes, he bent it in half.
Once the boy stopped gaping at the crowbar, he looked back at the man, who growled, "Go. Away."
The girl was still staring at him when he turned around. He sighed. "You can stay the night if you'll feel safer. He's not liekly to attack you in the morning." She still stared. "You'll catch flies," he added.
She closed her mouth. "How'd you do that?" she asked. "That was incredible!"
"Just... something I've picked up over the years."
"Could you teach me?"
"I doubt it," he said. "Look, the museum officially doesn't want people sleeping in here, but the twelfth century French couches can take it. The pink one, over there."
"Thanks. What's your name?" she asked.
"It-" He hesitated. "I'm called... Paul."
She looked at him oddly. "Doesn't your nametag say Christopher?"
"I'm called Christopher too," he said awkwardly, because he only started using false names in the Forties, because before then, they'd all called him Centurion.
She shrugged and started walking towards the couches. "I'm Rose. Rose Tyler."
It was Rory's turn to gape. The Rose Tyler? It couldn't be. The Rose Tyler was a superhero, a time traveller... a blonde teenager in a pink hoodie. Maybe it was really her. But- she was so young. And if she was really Rose Tyler, where was the boy called Jack? Why wasn't Rose Tyler traveling through time and space with her best friend? Why was she being chased by some crap boy, instead? He quickly looked away before she turned around, and some graffiti caught his eye.
What was that supposed to mean, Bad Wolf?