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The Doctor was tinkering in the console room when he heard footsteps in the doorway.
‘Amy,’ he said, without looking up, ‘Can’t sleep? I’ve got something for that…’
‘Actually, it’s me.’
‘Oh, it’s you,’ said the Doctor, finally looking at Rory where he stood just inside of the doorway.
‘Yeah. And you could sound a little less disappointed.’
‘Ah, sorry,’ the Doctor paused with his hands hovering in the air, clearly eager to get back to his tinkering ‘Well, what do you want?’
‘Nothing, I just thought you might want to talk.’
‘And why do you think I’d want to talk to you?’ Rory took a breath and reminded himself that most of the time the Doctor didn’t actually intend to be as rude as he sounded.
Probably.
‘You told the Dream Lord that you knew who he was because no one in the whole universe hated you as much as he did. You said it to yourself.’ At that the Doctor went back to his tinkering, refusing to make eye contact.
‘Come on, you can talk to me. You might find that I'm better at this than you think. Back in Upper Leadworth I fixed Mrs Hamill's depression.'
The doctor laughed. There was something dark and cruel in it and Rory thought it sounded like the Dream Lord’s echo.
'Oh Rory, you really are dense' said the Doctor. 'That should have been the first clue that world was fake. You can't fix depression and it's the height of stupidity to think otherwise.'
'Now hang on, that isn't fair.'
The doctor saw that he'd actually offended Rory this time and he stopped laughing.
'No one can fix depression. You can treat it, you can learn to live with it, you can run from it, if you're lucky you can forget about it for a time but don't you ever think you can fix it as if it was never there to begin with.'
Rory's silent for a moment, that sort of silence that said he was thinking really hard about something.
'What do you do?'
'Can't you guess?'
This was said with a cheeky grin. The doctor had noticed that Rory had listened and understood the subtext behind the lecture he'd given him. And really, he was meant to be the intergalactic man of mystery so he'd have been disappointed if Rory already knew the answer to his question.
'I run from it. Why do you think we hurtle from one exciting and dangerous adventure to the next, with hardly any time to think in between?'
Rory thought that if that was the reason they lurched from one life threatening disaster to another the doctor had a lot to answer for. He’d actually (kind of) died that day. But ironically, he couldn't really hold the Doctor accountable for the psychic pollen. It had been him the whole time but he couldn't have known the pollen would come through the filters in the first place.
Besides, he thought that the doctor wasn't done talking. So he sat in attentive silence, waiting for the doctor to break it.
'Travelling with you and Amy helps as well. I've been reliably informed that I shouldn't travel alone. She was right, too.'
'Who?'
The Doctor's eyes widened and his arms flailed in exaggerated surprise.
'You must be good at this after all.'
He'd hadn't talked about her since and he'd never intended to. Hadn't even really, consciously thought of her since he'd regenerated. But the mention of her brought his Other Self's memories and emotions uncommonly close to the surface.
'Donna Noble.’
He said her name as if it would mean something to Rory, to everyone. She’d been the most important woman in the universe after all. But all he got from Rory was a blank look.
‘She was my companion before you and Amy.'
You and Amy. Rory appreciated being included, probably more than was warranted. He knew how easy it would have been for the Doctor and Amy to leave him behind or failing that, make him feel like a tag along.
Rory loved Amy and he knew that she loved him. She’d chosen him after all, essentially risked suicide for the chance to get him back. But some small part of him wondered what she’d have done if the Doctor had been the one to die, if it had happened in the TARDIS illusion.
Would she have done the same for the Doctor?
Ultimately, he was grateful that the Doctor had never made any move to seriously compete for Amy's affections and now he knew for certain that the Doctor did want Amy. That if he was less decent he’d try to win her.
All of this had lead Rory to seek a friendship with the Doctor on his own terms rather than just as Amy’s boyfriend. And he knew which part of friendship he excelled in. Listening. Just being there. Inviting people to talk to him. So he asked the Doctor what had happened to Donna Noble because he’d been able to tell from the past tense and the tone of the Doctor’s voice that something tragic had happened to her.
The Doctor remembered just how glorious Donna had been by the end, so stunning, so bright she shone, she seared the eyelids and threatened to implode. He remembered how she'd begged him not to take her memories and how he'd done it anyway. He felt guilty over that but he didn’t regret it.
He had to believe that no matter how bad it got, how miserable life could be none of it could be worse than death. He just had to. Not only for her sake but for his own as well.
He realised that Rory was expecting an answer.
'I'm not going to tell you, Rory. You might be good but you're not that good. Now go get some sleep. I've got a big day planned for us tomorrow.'
He said the last bit with a manic grin but Rort wasn't fooled so easily.
'Are you sure you're all right?'
'I'm always all right,'
He remembered another voice replying with Is alright special Time Lord code for really not all right at all?
But Rory only gave him a keen look and then took him at his word, leaving the console room.