#faerietaled

the doctor stops halfway across the suspended walkway, trainers squeaking against polished metal. below, another tier of the market stretches into the distance, alive with motion. ribbons of light threaded between balconies.

“ oi ! ”  he  spins to face her  with  an  expression  of  theatrical  disbelief,  pointing  an  accusing  finger.  “ we  are  here  to  see  the  sights— not  ogle  at  the  locals… ”  hands  are  placed  on  his  hips  with  exaggerated  indignation.  “ honestly,  whole  universe  at  your  fingertips.  centuries  of  trade  routes  meeting  in  one  place.  several  different  architectural  styles  borrowed  from  three  moons  &  improved  by  civilizations  with  too  much  spare  time.  &  this  is  what  catches  your  eye ? ”

canon questionnaire meme

mostly i dislike how he gets sidelined sometimes. his characterisation is pretty much always amazing, he's allowed to be this flawed, caring, impossible character.

so my biggest pet peeve is s6ep13, where everyone else has their memories of what's going on except rory. i'm not even sure what the point of that was? some joke about amy not recognising rory when he's right in front of her? idk. and then the doctor still has the gall to ask for his 'consent' to marry river? he honestly might as well have not been in the episode.

@faerietaled // a planet filled with insane dale.ks really isn’t the best place to have an argument about their marriage. it’s not the best place to make up their marriage either. the doctor clearly thinks that’s it, that was easy, he’s fixed the ponds and now he can run off for another adventure knowing that they’ll still be here when he wants to come back down to earth.

which is more or less true, but….

it’s not that easy. 

everything was finalised, the papers signed ( and, admittedly, lost on a bus somewhere. great. that's a headache for tomorrow. ) rory had walked away from the only woman he would ever love, COULD ever love. she'd told him to go and he'd gone.

now rory sits in the living room of the house he no longer lives in. it's an odd feeling, to feel like a stranger in a house where amy lives. as children, they'd been in and out of each other's houses, a home away from home, their parents unbothered by where they ate their tea or did their homework. the cottage in leadworth had been THEIRS, theirs entirely, theirs alone. and then this london townhouse, the house the doctor bought them, with its T.A.R.D.I.S. blue door and just enough rooms.

rory's been staying with his dad. he was starting to look at flats near the hospital. now he sits in the sofa they'd bought together in IKEA and his eyes never leave amy as they finally, finally start to have the conversation they should have had months ago.

"i don't," he answers, and his voice is steady, his eyes fixed on amy.

"there are other ways of having children. we could adopt, we could foster. i'm sure the doctor could take us to some stupid planet where they'd make a clone baby or something."

he pauses there. reaches out to take her hand in his, squeezing tightly. ( he's never letting go again. )

"but that's not the point. there is no universe where i would want any of that without YOU."

"sure, i've wanted to be a dad since we were kids. but you know what i've also wanted, since we were eight years old and you were the weird new girl from scotland? i wanted to marry you. i don't care if we have more kids or we don't, i don't care if we travel with the doctor again or not, as long as we've got each other. i promise."

it starts by the doctor wanting to show her the oldest record of writing that’s never been translated before, and it ends with all of her favorite childhood stories.  roman’s and the pandorica.  it took 15 years for all of the adventures she dreamed of to become real, and each new adventure was just better than the other. they’re better than she could have ever imagined. there is adventure, and danger, but it’s fun, and she feels alive, for once amy doesn’t feel all alone.  and river is there, who’s just was easily as the doctor, became her closest friend.  the doctor and river flirt around her, in their own strange way, and she walked around the pandorica, studies the complicated designs on the box until river leaves with the TARDIS. and that’s easily when she’s attacked by a cyberman.  which isn’t exactly a species she has a lot of familairity with, but still she bangs the head against the wall of the pandorica, before letting go of the head. catching a breath, she takes a step back, only for the robotic head to hit her with a dart.  “you will be assimilated.”  “oh yeah, you and who’s body?”  she blinks against her blurring vision, and takes a step back to heavily lean against the wall. of course she’s jinxing herself. where the hell was the doctor? because her vision might be going, but amy could swear that was a cyberbody attaching it’s head back on. with a perfectly working arm.  using the nearest torch as a weapon, she holds the flame in front of her. her vision twists as she walks backwards, the cyberman still advancing, until she falls through a set of doors.  “DOCTOR!!”  amy’s yell is created by silence. the cyberman should have come through the door by now. she knows this. her movements are slow and she presses her ear against the door, and risks a small: “Doctor?” just to be greeted by a sword through the wall.  a surprised scream, and she instantly backs up. now the cyberman has a sword? but the doors swing open, and her attacker is the one with the sword pierced through. amy blinks, rapidly at the person stepping closer, straightens and prepares to fight him off.  her vision darkens around the edges, and his voice sounds too far away than it has any reason too. but she’s still conscious enough to establish he’s a roman, and the sleepy smile she offers him is an attempt at flirty.  “you know, i was handling that just fine.” 

rory is distracted by the metal man he just stabbed---- there is no blood when he pulls his gladius free, the metal under his palm is stone cold. he assumed there must be a man under that silver armour, but clearly he was mistaken. it's an automaton of some kind; something out of a story. not of the mortal world. he thinks that he must be lucky his sword even damaged it.

his gaze drags back to the red-haired woman, and rory's breath catches at the pretty smile now being directed his way.

just fine, she says. rory raises his brows. "that's why you were hiding behind a door, of course," he agrees, because it's the polite thing to do, but amusement edges his tone.

he sheaths his sword again, after a glance over his shoulder to confirm that there is no attacker behind him. "it's safer outside. i THINK." how can he be sure, when he's never seen such enemies before? he doesn't know where her friends have gone---- neither the young man or the woman who pretended to be cleopatra. they asked for men but nobody has given him any instructions yet. will there be more metal men to fight? otherworldly creatures?

this week keeps getting stranger and stranger. first, the arrival of the unfamiliar commander and his men to the fort at sorviodunum. no messenger had come ahead of them warning of their arrival; and neither rory nor marius, the two most senior officers at the fort, had requested reinforcements. then the arrival of a lady calling herself cleopatra. rory knows he didn’t always pay the most attention in his lessons, but he knows that cleopatra had died, decades ago, long before britannia had been properly under roman rule. 

rory wants to know what’s going on. he wants to know why strange legionaries have been showing up out of nowhere. he wants to know who the three strangers are, who turned up, turning the camp on its head and then rode off to the stone circle. 

so when the lady returns, he volunteers to lead the reinforcements she’s asking for. he shouldn’t be leaving the fort; none of them should be, not without good reason. but she’s talking about invaders, visitors from another world. rory doesn’t know what that means, except that it means a fight. a battle. she needs HELP, and he can’t say no.

they arrive at stonehenge to be greeted by the sound of shouts and screaming echoing up from below their feet. they find steps leading down below ground, steps where there never were before. rory draws his sword, feeling his way down in the dark.

still screaming. heavy metal footsteps that echo on a stone floor. rory squints through the gloomy torchlight, sees a strange figure, angular, rusty, missing an arm. that, he thinks, that could be from another world. the work of some gods, somewhere. the figure is slow but steady, advancing on a young woman with red hair. 

rory doesn’t think. he drives his sword straight through metal, where the creature’s heart should be, if it has a heart. it works, at least, metal clashing as the figure crumples to the floor.

“ME?”

rory stares at amy as though she’s grown two heads; he would have been less surprised if she’d slapped him. certainly, it would hurt less. 

he knows, he KNOWS they’re not in a good place. since demon’s run, nothing’s been right. nothing’s been easy, like it once was. rory feels like he’s tried everything. trying to get amy to talk to him doesn’t work, so he backs off and tries to give her space. 

he knows that he can’t understand what she’s going through, his own pain isn’t the same, it can’t be. but surely this is the moment where they have to lean on each other. help each other, because they’re the only two people in the universe who could possibly understand each other right now.

but he doesn’t know what to do, and so he backs off when she snaps and he lets her be when she closes herself off to him and he wishes, he wishes mels was here but mels is river is melody and that’s the PROBLEM.

and so he’s walking on eggshells around his wife, and picking up extra shifts because at least if he’s working he doesn’t have to think about anything. Everything. 

so yeah, he knows they’re not in a good place. but rory has never, not once in his life, considered leaving amy’s side. 

“amy, why would i—-- how COULD i ever want to leave you?” 

what has he done to make her think that?

munday asks!!! ( accepting )