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Apparently, people find his loyalty to Amy surprising.
He knows what they think. Look at that Rory Williams, following that girl about, making a fool of himself, year after year, thinking she’ll look up and notice him.
They think he’s a fool.
He’s not. Not really. It’s not faith or belief or stupidity.
He knows. He knows she’ll notice someday.
And every year, once they’re together, she’ll ask why he waited.
And he’ll never really answer.
That’ll be their mystery.
*
He spends so much time being jealous of the Doctor, of the way Amy looks at him, believes in him.
The Doctor never waited, not he. He disappeared for twelve years and then he came back and she left with him at once.
She saw him the second they met and she never stopped looking.
He spends so much time being jealous of the Doctor that he never quite notices that he hasn’t stopped looking either.
*
It takes him ages to realise that he actually likes the Doctor. The jealousy peters down to indifference and then to tolerance because Amy won’t leave the Doctor and he’ll never leave Amy.
He knows in an abstract way that his loyalty is a tad insane, especially when the Doctor looks at him with a mixture of amusement, amazement and admiration (threes a’s, all together).
If the Doctor likes something about you, you’re bound to be a tad insane.
The Doctor loves mankind even though he’s seen evil, he loves Amy because well, she’s Amy and Rory gets that, he does.
Rory’s never understood why the whole world doesn’t adore his Amy, not just because she’s beautiful but because of the way she hunches her shoulder and looks up at you, like she’s a fight and acquiescence all in one.
Rory loves Amy because he knows, deep inside, that she’d tear apart the world for him, and it’s not until ages later, two millennia and then some, that his premonition comes true.
It takes him ages to like the Doctor but it only takes a few seconds to love him.
*
It’s not the mad love he has for Amy. It’s not that intense and he wouldn’t follow the Doctor to the ends of the world if Amy refused to go, because Amy was first and the Doctor is second and there are all the people in between, the ones they failed to save, he failed to save.
His feelings for the Doctor are complicated because there’s so much pain involved, with his wife, with the daughter he never got to raise and he dreams about her sometimes, his Melody, the girl he grew up with but never got to hold.
Melody will never really be his. She’ll belong to the Doctor, always and that’s just one more thing the Doctor has taken from him, along with a part of his Amy’s heart.
He hates the Doctor some days.
But other days the Doctor will smile at him the way he smiles at Amy and look at him like he’s something special and Rory knows, in some strange way, that he’s going to love Amy forever but right now he’ll love the Doctor too.
*
They kiss sometimes, in corners of the Tardis while the Doctor makes tea and hums a tune and Amy will laugh against his mouth when the Doctor sings something by the Supremes and Rory will bite her ear gently to keep her with him and Amy will gasp.
And silence will fall.
Amy won’t notice because Rory’s hand will be sliding up her skirt but Rory knows that the Doctor’s leaning against a wall and thinking about them, thinking about all the things they do because the Doctor pretends to be above it all but Rory’s seen it, the way he looks at people sometimes and he’s not above it.
Not at all.
He wonders if Amy thinks about the Doctor when she’s with him, maybe not with complete intent, but a sort of wandering eye.
He would have blamed her before but now.
Now he doesn’t think he can.
Now he gets why she kissed the Doctor, he gets this love, platonic it might be.
He’d never give Amy up for anything, not for anyone.
But sometimes when the Doctor smiles at him or insults him or calls him Rory Pond, his knees shake a little and he’s glad, he’s so glad he met Amy first because the Doctor could ruin him, so easily, if he didn’t have her as his anchor, her smiling face and her hands and her hair, drifting across his shoulders as if it’s got a life of its own.
*
Sometimes, the Doctor will smile at him, sadly, as if he knows exactly what he’s thinking.
He doesn’t get many moments with the Doctor alone (he feels guilty for the thought, like he needs time away from his wife), so it’s rare. They usually don’t speak. The Doctor will tinker and talk to the Tardis and Rory will look at the walls, lounge on the sofa or the railings and wait for Amy to re-emerge, ignite them both again.
She’s the catalyst, he knows. He wouldn’t want the Doctor if it wasn’t for Amy, because he sees the Doctor through Amy’s eyes. He doesn’t have the same faith in the Doctor but he does have affection, in spades. The Doctor sees the world through coloured lenses, mankind distorted and cleaned and Amy loves that about him so Rory loves it too.
If it weren’t for Amy, Rory wouldn’t listen to the Doctor. Not really. And if it weren’t for Amy, Rory wouldn’t have waited two millennia and the Doctor wouldn’t touch him with that shining respect.
Amy’s taking a shower and he makes tea and the Doctor tumbles in, eyes bright and running on about something, a planet made of candy or something and there’s flailing and waving and Rory grins for an instant, wide and the Doctor stops and they’re both stuck for a second, with each other and then a door bangs shut and Amy’s calling their names and Rory looks down and sees the Doctor’s boots leave the kitchen.
He wonders if Amy knows, if she’s noticed.
She must have, she’s so bright, but she never says anything.
*
They’re on a planet with a purple sky and the Doctor is talking but Rory can’t take his eyes away and Amy has wandered off with a child and he keeps tilting his head to watch her and then look back up.
Sometimes he gets why Amy left. If the Doctor had come to him and promised him all this as a child, he might have left as well. And he’s never been as impulsive as Amy.
The Doctor falls silent when he notices that Rory isn’t listening and then comes closer.
Their shoulders brush and Rory tries not to shiver.
The Doctor touches Amy all the time, hugs and pats and trust and affection, because she’ll save him, she’ll do anything for him.
Rory gets occasional smudges of affection but he tries not to look for them because between the two of them, between his wife and her Doctor he’s been made mad enough and he doesn’t want to be insecure and second fiddle anymore because he’s Rory Pond now and that’s enough for him.
He’s the boy who waited for Amy Pond. He won’t be the boy who waited for the Doctor.
Not when the Doctor will someday (today) love his daughter and make her his and he knows that he should feel fatherly wrath but in some exhausted way he understands it, understands her, gets to a T why she’ll feel the way she will and why she’ll turn towards the Doctor like a flower to the sun.
“She’s out there somewhere. Learning to become the River we know.”
He leans back and the Doctor’s looking up too.
He thinks Rory is thinking of Melody. And he’s right, but not completely.
Rory smiles to himself. It’s nice to get one over the Doctor sometimes.
He knows that the Doctor knows and he finds that he doesn’t care because what’s the sense in worrying about a Time Lord knowing about your stupid crush? It’s hardly the worst thing about him. It’s hardly his greatest weakness.
They both know that it’s really Amy, and it’ll always be her.
*
He’s wrapping his leg up and Amy’s stormed off, yelling away and her voice is echoing through the Tardis while the Doctor stands close, looking contrite.
He doesn’t need to look up to know what the Doctor’s doing, wringing hands and tapping feet, the whole nine yards.
He’s not the only predictable one on this ship.
“She’ll get over it.”
The Doctor looks at him and he can’t help but smile at that look, that I-just-got-shouted-at-and-good-look.
He’s had that look since he was ten and Amy yelled at him until she went hoarse for accidentally twisting an arm off the Ken Barbie she’d painted and dressed to look like the Doctor.
He pulls down the cuff of his pants and starts to get up to wash his hands. But the Doctor’s there. Very close.
He swallows and tries to breathe because the Doctor knows but he’d never mock, he’d never take advantage.
And then he’s enveloped and it’s an Amy-style hug, chin in shoulder and all and he’s hugging back before he realises what he’s doing and the Doctor is tense against him and he runs his hand over the Doctor’s back like he’s Mr.Jenkins from the hospital who would wake up from nightmares involving cows and cling mercilessly until someone pried him off.
The Doctor doesn’t speak, and he feels hands in his hair and his stomach lurches because he doesn’t think the Doctor would be intentionally cruel and give him anything that he doesn’t have the right to have. The Doctor knows, he has to know but sometimes he can be unforgivably stupid because he doesn’t quite understand.
Rory shuts his eyes and stills his hands and he feels the Doctor pull away and then there are lips, lips he’s felt once against his forehead, a scruffy beard attached and it’s different this time as they trace his left eyebrow and end at the middle of his forehead and he’s shaking now and the Doctor’s hands are tight on his arms.
The Doctor is speaking but he can’t hear him or its babble and he doesn’t know because he can’t, won’t open his eyes because the Doctor’s eyes are so old.
They always do him in.
The Doctor lets him go eventually and he stumbles into his and Amy’s room and he’s never been happier that she loves their bathroom so much because he can collapse on the bed and think for a few seconds, and not be happy, exactly, but quiet.
*
They’re awkward around each other for a bit because the Doctor won’t look him straight in the eye and he chooses to hide behind his wife, his Amy, who’s still annoyed with the Doctor and only sort of semi speaking to him.
She kisses him in front of the Doctor, flirting lightly and he catches the Doctor’s eyes and they’re still and Rory wonders if there’s a lost kind of loneliness there, whether the Doctor wants what they have or them, maybe, in some odd way. Maybe he wants to keep them with him forever and he knows he can’t. He knows he’ll see them die or hear of it or see one of them only to discover the other’s gone.
Rory only wants one thing. He doesn’t want to be the one left behind. He can’t be. He knows it’s selfish but Amy can live after him, he knows this somehow.
He doesn’t think he can. He doesn’t think he’ll want to.
They’re on a new planet and Amy holds his hand the whole time and the Doctor keeps looking at the empty one and Rory finds himself reaching out, almost, except that he’s not sure he can, because he doesn’t know what Amy’s thinking, if she knows.
Amy clears up halfway into the day because this is a good trip, there haven’t been death threats or sudden urges to run. She grabs the Doctor’s arm and he relaxes and puts his arm around her and Rory follows, breathing for the first time in ages and he didn’t realise it, he never noticed, that he’d been waiting.
He catches up and they pass through crowds and at one point there’s a hand on his elbow, steering him and when he looks up, the Doctor has a tiny smile.
*
The Doctor kisses him on an ordinary day.
It’s 2010 and they are thankfully not at all close to their current selves. Rory’s learned to worry tremendously about that sort of thing.
They’re in a park in South America and after the Doctor clarified that he didn’t really bother to ask where. He doesn’t know why they’re here or why the Doctor’s sent Amy off to make a phone call or hunt some chickens. When he tried to follow the Doctor told him to stay and Amy gave them a quizzical look but kissed him on the cheek and went on her way.
He feels tense without her here. Things happen when they’re apart, bad things, horrible things and he glares at the Doctor’s back.
“Please stop glaring at me. She’ll be fine. I promise.”
“You say that a lot, you know. More often then you ought to.”
The Doctor turns around at that and he’s smiling again, like he does always and comes and sits next to Rory and Rory’s fingers tense because love for Amy or not, he’s really an idiot sometimes.
“Rory Pond. The boy who waited.”
The Doctor’s arm is behind him, leaning across the backrest of the bench Rory had dropped down on when Amy had wandered off.
The Doctor’s arm brushes his hair.
The Doctor’s close and he’s smiling and Rory knows what’s coming but he’ll wish then, and years later, that his eyes hadn’t been sad.
It’s chaste but Rory still closes his eyes despite himself and reaches across and grabs the Doctor’s hand because a kiss is a kiss is a kiss.
He doesn’t let go of the Doctor’s hand when the Doctor pulls back and they sit in silence until they hear Amy coming back.
*
When he comes outside and the Doctor’s gone, he’s surprised but not really and he dries Amy’s tears and holds her in bed that night because she cries, all through the night.
He doesn’t cry at all. He thinks he got his goodbye on that bench in 2010 and Amy would give anything to see the Doctor again but he knows.