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“So,” says Amy. “This is a stadium.”
She’s right, is the thing. Rory looks up - and up and up and up, to the multicolored lights hitting the clouds in the night sky. It looks like the Olympics opening ceremony: a giant party with lots of loud music and an announcer.
Rory can’t hear an announcer, but he can certainly hear music.
“Ah,” says the Doctor. “Yes. It’s a stadium. But it’s also the largest party in the universe.”
“What?” asks Rory, wrinkling his nose. He’s not one for big parties - or loud music, if he’s being honest. Or bright lights.
“Yep!” says the Doctor, straightening his bowtie. “Holds the universe’s record for largest party ever held. It’s not a very big stadium, of course, but it lasts nearly twenty years. Most four-dimensional volume, you understand.”
“Twenty years?” repeats Amy. “I can barely last eight hours.”
“Oh, well, people of course switch out,” says the Doctor. “No one stays for more than a handful of nights at a time, and there’s a noted decrease in traffic during the week. There were several decade-long studies about it.”
“Hold on,” says Rory. “I’ve read this book.”
“Where do you think Douglas Adams got the idea?” asks the Doctor. He doesn’t leave any time for a response, putting his hand behind both Amy and Rory’s backs and propelling them forward. “Amelia asked if we could go dancing, so here we are. The best place for dancing in the universe. We’re around year eleven - there was a dramatic upswing in activity for the ten year anniversary, but the levels are closer to manageable now.”
Amy’s starting to grin, in the way that Rory recognizes as we’re gonna be here for a while. She likes to learn about the different ways that alien cultures do things. The differences in customs. She’s said, more than once, that parties are the best places to learn about culture. “What are we waiting for, then?”
There’s a brief admission fee, but the Doctor flashes the psychic paper and gets them in without any fuss. When they emerge into the bleachers, Rory has to rub his eyes a few times to understand what’s going on. There are people everywhere, and they’re all moving to the beat of the music somehow. Vendors are scattered around the upper rim of the stadium. The bleachers are packed with people sitting, eating, talking, drinking. Rory spots two separate trivia games, as well as a darts competition on the other end of the stadium that’s attracted at least two hundred people.
In the center of the stadium, where the sports field would normally be, there’s a vast mass of people dancing. Rory can barely see the gaps where bartenders have set up shop.
In essence, yeah. It’s a giant party.
Amy gasps in delight and turns back to them. “I’m going dancing,” she announces. “Rory, do you want to come?”
She’s only asking out of courtesy. Both of them know he doesn’t like dancing at parties, and both of them are just fine with Amy going off on her own. “No, thanks,” he says. “You have fun. I’ll stay with the Doctor.”
“Yeah,” says Amy, grinning, and leans forward to press a quick kiss to his lips. “Call me if you need me!”
Then she’s gone.
Rory turns to the Doctor. “You don’t want to play darts, do you?”
The Doctor looks comically offended. “You don’t know that! In fact, I think we should go over and play darts right now. Darts. One of my favorite games, did you know? I won the galaxy championships in-”
“I doubt that,” interrupts Rory. “I’ve seen you trip over thin air in zero gravity.”
The Doctor straightens up indignantly. “That has nothing to do with my marksmanship skills, I’ll have you know.”
“Sure,” says Rory. “Still, I don’t think you should be throwing sharp things, especially around a lot of different people.”
He’s not even going to suggest the trivia. The Doctor already shares obscure information like he’s being paid by the word: a competition would not work out. For anyone.
“Want to go get a drink?”
The Doctor sighs. “You’re no fun, did you know that?”
“Come get a drink, Doctor.”
The Doctor sighs again. “Alright.”
They fight their way down the stairs to the field. The music shifts, from a high-energy song that seemed to encourage jumping, to a song with popular lyrics, if the collective belting of everyone in the stadium on key lines means anything.
Rory turns and finds the Doctor humming along. “Do you know this song?”
The Doctor frowns. “It sounds sort of familiar, but I couldn’t tell you anything about it. Sounds like this planet’s equivalent of Sweet Caroline.”
As if on cue, the entire stadium shouts, “Comin’ on-on-on home!”
When Rory pays more attention, he can make out the chorus, which seems to be about the singer looking forward to going home to her partner after a long, happy day out with friends. He can kind of relate to the sentiment, actually. He finds himself smiling and moving his head to the rhythm.
They reach the base of the stairs. Rory steels himself a little for possibly having to press through the throng of dancing people for a drink, but the Doctor pulls him to the right, towards a bar that’s thankfully on the edge of the field.
Rory puts his back to the counter and tries not to look too awkward as the Doctor orders two... somethings from the bartender, who’s tall and purple and has six fingers on each hand. They hand him the drinks with a smile. “Enjoy the party!”
The Doctor turns around to face the same way as Rory and hands him a drink. “This party was responsible for seventy-four separate innovations in the art of drink-making. This is a Bante. It was created by a bartender three years ago around... there.” He points at the relevant bar-area, then takes a big sip of his drink.
Rory stares at his Bante. It’s green. “Is this safe for humans?”
The Doctor waves a hand. “It’s basically beer. You’ll be fine.” He pauses. “Probably. Just... let me know if you start to see red frogs, okay?”
“What?” asks Rory, but the Doctor doesn’t respond. “Okay then,” he says, and sets the drink down on the counter next to him.
The Doctor seems to have caught sight of someone in the crowd. Rory follows his line of sight and sees several blue people with four arms each, a tree person, and a blonde woman who looks entirely human.
Rory makes an educated guess. “Do you know that blonde woman?”
The Doctor laughs a little. “You could say that. You know, I should really start keeping track of these. The odds of...”
“Of you running into someone you know?” asks Rory. “Probably not as low as you think. You know a lot of people.”
The Doctor smiles vaguely and polishes off his Bante. “I’ll see you later, Rory, okay?”
Rory doesn’t have time to respond before the Doctor is off, making a beeline for the blonde woman.
“Okay,” says Rory, and hazards a sip of the Bante. It doesn’t taste too terrible. He takes another sip and spends a few long minutes looking for Amy. The music’s shifted to a much slower dance, better suited for people to sway cheek-to-cheek. Sometimes she comes and drags him onto the dance floor for these - but she’s more likely gone to get a drink and take a breather. Hopefully she doesn’t drink anything dangerous, he thinks, looking down at his own glass.
“Bante?” says someone next to him. Rory turns to see a skinny human-looking man in a brown suit, looking at Rory’s drink. “Great idea. I’ll have one of those, please,” says the man, gesturing at the bartender. When he has the drink, he turns to Rory. “Any red frogs?”
“...No?” says Rory. “At least, I don’t think so. You’re human too?”
The man laughs. “No. But it’s a risk for all species who aren’t from the Skellia system.” He looks Rory over with a critical eye. “What’s a human doing at this party, if you don’t mind me asking? Because it’s currently 1987 on Earth, and I don’t remember you lot discovering intergalactic travel for another two hundred years.”
It might be the dismissive way he says it, or the look in his eye, or (most likely) the casual mention of future events. Whatever it is, Rory skips right past the panic stage and goes straight into exasperation. “Hi, Doctor.”
The Doctor - whichever version this is - wrinkles his nose. “Oh, so you’re here with me, are you?”
Rory frowns. “No, I read about you in a magazine and have been stalking you ever since. Yes, of course I’m with you.”
“Really,” says the younger Doctor. “Well, I don’t recognize you, so it must be a future regeneration. Can you point me out to myself, please?”
The soft, romantic song from earlier is still playing. Rory scans the heads for the familiar flop of brown hair - and finds it remarkably close to the blonde woman from earlier. He didn’t even know the Doctor could tolerate romantic music, much less dance to it. There he is, though, swaying cheek-to-cheek with the blonde woman.
The younger Doctor follows his hand to the couple. “Of course,” he sighs, and takes a deep swig of his drink.
“You know her too?”
“She’s here with me,” says the Doctor, running a hand through his hair. “I just wish I was a bit more subtle about it, you know? This sort of thing’s already happened twice. Rose is going to get suspicious.”
“What sort of thing?” asks Rory. He’s met a past version of the Doctor before, but it was a rushed thing in which his companion at the time - a loud girl in a leather jacket - petitioned loudly to be allowed to blow up the source of their problems. He wonders how different each regeneration really is.
“Interfering on my personal timeline to have a few more minutes with her,” grumbles the younger Doctor. “It’s not any fun for me either, you know, knowing that I can’t do anything to stop... whatever’s going to happen.”
“Rose is a companion you lost,” realizes Rory.
The Doctor tugs at an earlobe, tilting his head to one side. “Not just any companion.”
“Obviously,” says Rory, staring at his version of the Doctor look utterly besotted. “If it helps, I don’t think he did it on purpose. He said something about the odds being really, really low?”
“That’s because they are,” says the younger Doctor. “The years in this system are about two and a half of-”
He cuts himself off, because the song’s ended. Rose grabs Rory’s Doctor’s hand and pulls him over to the bar.
“Hi, Rose,” says the younger Doctor. “Who’s your friend?”
“This is John,” says Rose, pulling Rory’s Doctor forward. “He’s human too, can you believe it? The odds must be tiny to meet another human so far from Earth. Uh, John, this is my friend the Doctor. We travel together.”
“Delighted,” says Rory’s Doctor, flatly, as he shakes the younger Doctor’s hand.
“Likewise,” says the younger Doctor. “Listen, it’s not as if I don’t understand the impulse, but this- this dancing is getting out of hand.”
Rory’s Doctor tightens his hold on the younger Doctor’s hand. “I’ve only been here for half an hour,” he says. “I think I can afford to dance for a little longer.”
“And I’m John’s friend Rory!” interrupts Rory, pushing the two Doctors apart and taking Rose’s hand. “Very nice to meet someone else from Earth. John, maybe the Doctor is right? He seems to be a professional and knows what he’s talking about.”
Rory’s Doctor shoots him a glare, but doesn’t argue. Rory puts a hand on his shoulder.
“Rose, lovely to meet you, but we should go find my wife. Doctor, good luck with-” he hesitates. “Everything?”
“Thanks,” says the younger Doctor. “Nice to meet you, Rory. I’ll see you around, huh?”
“Sooner than you hope,” says Rory’s Doctor. “But Rory’s a good man. Him and Amy. You’ll see.”
“I’m sure I will,” says the younger Doctor. He shares an inscrutable look with the other Doctor. “It was always her, wasn’t it?”
“After all this time, it was always her,” agrees Rory’s Doctor. “There’ll always be dancing, anyway.”
Rory, worried, sneaks a glance at Rose, but she’s distracted talking to the bartender.
“Come on, Do- John,” says Rory.
“Yeah,” says his Doctor. “Nice to meet you, Doctor, Rose. Thanks for the dance, Rose.”
She doesn’t see them slip away.