Work Text:
The ironic thing about living in a time machine is that it is extremely difficult to keep track of time.
There's no day and night, no clocks hung up on the wall. The trick about relatively is that it has to be in relation to something, and when you're in a time machine that becomes outright impossible. Most, if not all, past companions did very little to change this fact. Rose kept a watch by her bedside and would count the approximate hours, and Mickey would do the same. Martha estimated her travelling to a year, two months, and six days if she could recall it correctly. Donna kept her mobile phone on her at all times, checking the date constantly. Jack honestly didn't care. He'd lost track of the years a long while back. All these people, with lives and families, simply did not care how much time they were using up. The fun and the adventure was too enticing.
However, none of these people were Rory Williams.
He has his mobile on him at all times, along with a digital watch on his wrist. There's a calendar in the bedroom that he scrupulously checks and marks and a clock on his nightstand. Rory Williams needs to know things, especially how much time he's spent in between the trips back to the flat. He does have to work, whether the Doctor likes it or not, and the cat needs feeding. Besides, the first time they left the Doctor miscalculated, sending them three days into the future instead of five minutes. Clara had already filed a missing persons report and Tommy was feasting in the middle of a puddle of spilled cat food. Needless to say, after that debacle Rory Williams was keeping track of time for a Time Lord. The situation reeked of irony.
"Don't you keep something?" Rory asks. "A clock, some kind of watch? You seem like the type of person that would, I don't know, have a pocket watch tucked away to look at and yell 'I'm late!' at."
"I'm not a rabbit, Rory," the Doctor chastises. "Besides, I don't need to keep a clock. The TARDIS tells me everything I need to know, and I always have trouble getting wristy things off." He glances back. "Besides, I have an unfortunate history with pocket watches."
Rory considers this. "Do I want to know?"
"It's a long story," the Time Lord admits.
The nurse shakes his head. "But what about holidays? Anniversaries?"
"I live in a time machine," the Doctor explains. "No, correct that. I mostly live in a time machine. There were times where I would spend a week celebrating Christmas with a small break for Thanksgiving."
"What about anniversaries?"
"Rory, you know how I feel about anniversaries."
Actually, Rory has the same sentiment towards them as the Doctor, but bringing up the subject was good for the argument's sake. You see, back at the flat, Rory had absently told the Doctor that their six month anniversary was coming up. The Doctor, being the Doctor, became enthusiastic, and had baked a nice dinner and lit candles and everything. However, at one point during the night he became a little too enthusiastic, resulting in a knocked over candle and a visit from the fire brigade.
"Alright, I'll give you that. But what about birthdays? Don't you celebrate your own birthday?"
"On my planet birthdays were inefficient," he explains, continuing his piloting. "Some Gallifreyans celebrated, like my granddaughter. But us Time Lords lived for so long, we couldn't keep track. It's like those summer days where everything blends into each other."
"You had a granddaughter?" Rory asks.
The Doctor nods. "Susan. Lovely girl. Took after her mother, she did." He pauses with a sigh and decides to change the subject. "Sometimes the TARDIS will give me a little heads up, bake me a small cake. But I don't actually check the number." He looks back and gives his boyfriend a wry smile. "Gives an element of mystery, don't you think?"
His boyfriend, in return, frowns. "Wait, so you don't actually know how old you are?"
"Oh, it's somewhere in the low thousands," he dismisses.
Rory accepts this, knowing he won't get any more out of him. "So you don't think birthdays are important?"
"Not really, no."
"Ah," he says curtly.
The Doctor frowns and looks up. "What is it? Is something bothering you?"
Rory shrugs. "I don't know, just not you finding birthdays important at all...does that apply to everyone? To all the people that you've traveled with? Me?"
The Doctor's eyes widen. "Oh, yeah." He scratches his chin. "Blimey, I forgot about all the sentiment you lot harbor on those things. That's why you all throw the best parties, you know." He gulps and laughs nervously. "Well, I certainly celebrated when I had companions. Which I do now, actually. And I celebrated back at the flat! You remember that! There was the cupcakes and Clara coming over--and the power outage."
"You would think a robot made to wash dishes would be water proof," Rory comments.
"It had a couple kinks to work out," the time traveler admits. "But it was a good day! You enjoyed it, I enjoyed it. The city's electricity department had a good laugh."
Rory smiles. "Yeah, it was a good day." His expression quickly changes, however, to something slightly more off setting. "What day was it?"
That throws the Doctor off. "Um...I recall it being a Sunday."
"No, I mean the date." He crosses his arms. "You don't know, do you?"
"Of course I do! It was the 25th of January!"
Rory shakes his head. "Nope."
He gulps. "21st of November?"
"Wrong again."
"October 9th."
"You couldn't be farther from the truth."
"I remember that there a month somewhere in there," he recalls.
Rory laughs. "Well, you've got that part right."
The Doctor looks around, trying to grasp on some sort of answer before he sighs. "Fine. I don't know."
"Thought so," Rory says, smiling. "I'm going to go change, I think there's still dirt in my pockets from today."
He's halfway up the stairs when the Doctor calls for him. "Wait!" he says.
Rory turns around, frowning. "What is it?"
"You're not going to tell me?"
Rory thinks about it for a moment before shaking his head. "No."
"Why not?" the Time Lord whines.
"Because you got me pushed into an ant hill today," he explains. "And...I don't know, it just seems better to not tell you."
"Why?"
"It serves a dramatic purpose. And...I don't know, you've always got this air of mystery about you. And now I do, too."
And with that, he leaves.
#
Of course, this does not settle well with the Doctor.
He likes to know things, especially when no one else knows them. In his head he has secrets that no man should know, terrible facts and figures that would make entire galaxies quake in their boots. He has seen and heard things too terrible to utter, things that even the highest ranking officials would beg and plead to even get a hint of.
So not knowing his boyfriend's own birthday is rather insulting.
Ugh, that word. Boyfriend. It makes him sound like a lovesick teenager--which, mind you, he's been compared to on multiple occasions. However, it's the only word that really fits at the moment and rolls off the tongue at a good pace. Lover sounds too materialized, and whenever he uses that word Rory turns redder than a cherry lollipop. Partner is too casual, seeing as he's used it before for his past companions and he's never snogged any of them. Okay, maybe he has, but the point still stands. And he's tried using other synonyms: beau, suitor, sweetheart. None of them worked. And he dared not use husband, as that would spill out into a whole slew of problems.
But he's getting off track. He has things to do, yes. Or, rather, one thing: find out when Rory's birthday is.
And he has plans...four plans, to be exact. All backups for each other. And if they don't work, then he'll resort to begging and bargaining.
Plan A
The first plan is the simplest and quickest way he can imagine: looking through the calendar. Rory has one in his bedroom, which the Doctor most undoubtedly has the key to. He has the key to every lockable room in the TARDIS, resulting in a rather bulky looking key ring that weighs more than a small dog. He files through the endless line of metal slivers until he comes across a bronze one with "RORY" written in marker. He smiles, fitting it inside the slot and listening as the lock clicks and he's granted access.
They'd never technically shared a room, so much ended up in the same bed roughly 5/7 of the time. That hadn't changed since the TARDIS had returned, and neither had the style of Rory's room. A simple double bed with simple covers and walls painted a sort of regal red color, with a bookshelf that's slightly disordered with books crammed into the corners to save space and some pictures hung up on the wall. At the flat, they're of family and friends. But in here they're of planets and people, of adventures. They had made a deal: the Doctor can get into trouble as long as Rory can channel his inner tourist. It was an easy exchange.
And there, on the wall opposite the bed is a calendar. It's the kind realtors give you, with pictures of waterfalls and houses and things like that. He notes that, from a linear perspective, they're in the month of May, and there's a little check in the corner of the 28th. He takes said calendar off of the wall and starts at the beginning, back in January, looking for some indicator, like a small doodle of a birthday hat or possibly a note saying "Happy Birthday to Me!" He scours patiently through January and February and starts to get antsy for information midway through March.
"Aunt Margie's wedding anniversary," he reads out. "Laundry day...Amy's birthday...who's Amy? St. Patrick's Day...I think I still have HIS cloak, I've got to give that back some time." He flips into April and sighs. "You would think finding a simple birthday wouldn't be so tiresome."
There's the sound of someone clearing their throat, and he looks up to see Rory Williams with his arms crossed, standing in the doorway.
"Oh, hello Rory!" he says, quickly shoving the calendar off of his lap and standing up. "Fancy seeing you here."
"It is my bedroom," Rory reminds him. "I do come in here quite a lot."
"I know," the Doctor says. "That's why I came here. I was, uh, waiting for you. Yes! I was waiting for you."
Rory shifts skeptically. "Why?"
"Because," the Doctor replies. "Things. Stuff and things, that's why." He looks around and fixes his bow tie. "Is it getting hot in here? I think it's getting hot in here, maybe I should go check the thermal systems. Yes, I'll do that right n--"
"Is that my calendar?" Rory interrupts.
The Doctor gulps. "Yes. Waiting for you got tedious, so I started reading...your calendar."
Rory walks in, picks up the calendar, and smirks. "Nice try. You were close, I'll give you that."
The Doctor huffs, trying to keep his resolve up. "I have no idea what you're talking about."
"I'm not dumb, I know what you were trying to do," he explains. He holds up the calendar in front of the Doctor's face. "And I'll be keeping this very close, so don't try to do anything."
The Doctor, in a last minute attempt, tries to snatch the thing away from Rory, who quickly puts it behind his back. The Doctor sighs, sagging. "I won't."
Rory smiles and gives him a little peck on the cheek. "Good. Now go fix the thermal systems."
The Doctor frowns. "Why would I fix the thermal systems?" His eyes widen. "Oh, yes! I said I would...yes, I'll go do that. Yes."
Obviously Plan A isn't as thought out as he had hoped.
Plan B
Plan B, however, is much more subtle. At least that's what he thinks.
For the approximate year and a half he had spent in London, the Doctor had come to learn three things: 1) no matter how well you explained, dragging a dirty shovel into the flat was bound to raise some questions, 2) getting drunk and watching Mulan could be very eventful given the right conditions, and 3) people loved social networking. It was odd how no one had tried to take over the world by simply disconnecting the Internet.
And along with social networking came information. Profiles, 'about me' pages, posts that quickly put together the puzzle pieces of people's lives. It's all at people's fingertips, only a screen and keyboard away. And the information was so diverse. You could find pet names, favorite hobbies, friend names, significant others...
You could find birthdays.
Three days have passed, it seems. In that time the Doctor hasn't laid a finger on he subject of birthdays, or calendars. In fact, they've just returned from a planet that could be likened to something from Willy Wonka. And they both are experienced what could be described as a "sugar hangover".
"Hrngh," Rory groans, face flat on the counter of the TARDIS kitchen. "We're never going there again."
"Noted," the Doctor agrees as he sits down and mirrors Rory's position for a couple seconds before twisting his head to face him. "Still fun, eh?"
Rory does the same. "Yeah, it was. I still don't think I'll be able to look at anything gummy for a long...long time."
The Doctor chuckles. "Be glad you never met my fourth face. He had a preference for Jelly Babies."
Rory laughs, but stops short and groans again, resuming to placing his forehead on the counter top. "Oh, god, I'm gonna be sick."
The Doctor pushes himself out of his seat with a bit of difficulty. "Got just the thing," he says, and leaves the room only to come back not five minutes later with two small yellow pills. "Nutrient Stabilizers. Help balance out the body, so it'll eradicate all the excess gluten in our systems. Should help with the headache. And the stomachache. And the everything-else ache." He smiles sheepishly and places the pill in front of the suffering man in front of him.
Rory sits up and takes the pill, swallowing it and looking at the Doctor skeptically. "How can you even stand?"
"Time Lord biology," the Doctor boasts, swallowing his own dose. "Already eradicating all the icky sickness from my body. The pill does speed it up a bit, though."
Rory rubs his face. "If this ends up being a joke and I end up collapsing somewhere, just promise I won't see pictures of myself on the Internet," he jokes.
"Rory, what kind of person do you take me for?" the Doctor laughs. Plan B, which has been fermenting in his mind for the past few days, floats into his head and he takes the opportunity. "Websites like that, I've never gone near them...have you?"
Rory shakes his head. "Not really my thing," he tells him. "Didn't have anything interesting to say."
"But you're plenty interesting!" the Doctor argues. "And if not then, you've certainly got things to say now, don't you?"
"Oh yes," Rory agrees sarcastically. "Because if I were to tell people that I had just been on a planet made of candy, they would think I'm completely sane."
"No need to be snide," the Doctor grumbles. "So...nothing? No Facenovel or Yourspace? Twitter?"
Rory shakes his head. "Nope--wait, I used to, before you moved in. But I didn't do much on it. Posted a picture, maybe, and got messages when it was my birthd--" Realization slaps across his face and he stares at the Doctor with his trademarked 'you-idiot' look.
The Doctor tries to change the subject. "Care for something drink?" he asks. It doesn't work, and Rory's expression doesn't change. He drops the act. "Will you just tell me?"
"I will not," Rory says. He points to the man. "You brought this on yourself. You don't have to know everything."
"But I do!" the Doctor replies. "I do have to know everything, and I want to know everything. Especially you. It feels weird, not knowing everything about you."
"There's still a lot about you I don't know about," Rory reminds him. "It doesn't bother me."
The Doctor prepares to argue, but finds himself falling short. He puts his hands on his hips. "Good point."
And thus ends the saga of Plan B.
Plan C
Plan C is, more or less, much less subtle and more so direct. Really direct, if one is honest.
The Doctor has done things like this before. He's always been one for a good revolution, always one to help out the underdog. And he liked espionage. After all, being a spy was 'cool'. But the thing with espionage is that you have to get familiar with the enemy. In some cases, very familiar.
So when the Doctor finds Rory in the library a week after Plan B, he knows exactly what he's doing.
"What've you got there?" he asks.
Rory looks up. "Oh, nothing. Just something on Rome."
"Rome?"
"Yeah. It's,um, it's kind of a topic of interest for me since I was a kid. You know, the aqueducts, the soldiers, the government. Just sort of...I don't know, it fascinates me."
The Doctor smiles. "You fascinate me every day, Rory Williams. Look at me, learning new things about you I never knew before. Tell you what, I'll take you to Rome some time."
"Why not now?" the nurse asks curiously.
"Weather's not right," he answers quickly. "But on another day, we will go to Rome. I promise we will, and I don't break my promises."
Rory frowns. "You break them all the time."
"Okay, yeah I do. But this is a promise I vow to not break. It'll be an indestructible promise."
"Indestructible promise," Rory repeats. "I like the sound of that."
The Doctor hums. "Bet you do."
It's quiet for another moment before Rory speaks. "So is there something you want to show me?"
"Why would I be showing you something?"
"I don't know. It's just that whenever you come looking for me you usually want to show me something."
"Oh." Well that certainly is a better prompt then 'let's get out of here and snog'. "Yes. The--The bouncy ball room. Just found it, tucked away. Very good room, very...bouncy."
"I think I'll pass," Rory states, and starts returning his attention to the book in front of him.
"Oh, come on," the Doctor whines, starting to jump up and down. "Bouncy balls! Bouncy things!"
Rory sighs and closes his book. "Fine. Let's go."
The Doctor grins and practically skips out of the library, with Rory trailing behind as he aimlessly wanders the corridors, not heading towards anything in particular but moreso leading the two of them into the general area where all the bedrooms are kept. If they're going to need them, anyway.
He keeps them walking until Rory begins to get skeptical.
"Um, Doctor," Rory says. "I don't think we're going the right way."
The Doctor stops walking and turns around, heading back for Rory. "I know," he says.
Rory frowns at that. "Then why--" He starts to ask the question, but is firmly cut off by being shoved against the wall. The back of his head bounces off of it like a basketball, but he's honestly gotten used to it. He stares at the Doctor, who kind of just apprehensively looks back, and it clicks.
They're glued to each other in less than a second, with the Doctor's hands grabbing onto Rory's hair and gripping it like it's his lifeline. Rory, on the other hand, as a preference towards the lapels of the Doctor's jacket, though somehow without breaking apart to suggest the idea the article of clothing is shoved off of the alien's shoulders at the first minute mark. Rory's hands find a new spot anyway.
Meanwhile, the Doctor temporarily loses his fascination with Rory's hair and starts going elsewhere. He likes to explore, he likes finding things, and he's always pleasantly surprised. Pleasantly, amazingly surprised. And this is no exception.
After a minute or two, tongues and mouths become boring. Necks, that's where it's at. Necks are spectacular.
Rory, who's finally able to speak, decides to pose a question after a minute of more groping and groaning.
"So what about the bouncy ball room?" he asks, words separated with seconds in between them due to distraction. The Doctor growls something and starts working on his pulse point, which ends up in more moaning. "Okay, got the message."
After another five minutes and more busy hands, the Doctor pulls away and looks at Rory, smiling with one hand on each of his shoulders as if Rory's going to collapse. He's got it, he knows what he's doing, and he's enjoying it. If he's going to look back on it, he's going to say that he created the plan because 1) it's brilliant and 2) he's always looking for reasons to shove Rory against the wall.
"Rory Williams, you are the most spectacular human I have ever met," he whispers, like their schoolboys skipping class and having their way in the broom closet. Like it's a secret, kept in the dark but not the shadows. It's sincere, like every other time he says things like that because he believes it. He believes that Rory Williams is spectacular.
Rory smiles back, and they stare at each other for what seems like ages.
"I'm still not telling you," Rory states, his breaths heavy.
The Doctor stares at him for a moment longer, the smile dropping immediately.
"Damn," he curses, still whispering.
He drops his hands from Rory's shoulders, all hope for the plan working completely and utterly destroyed. He'd like to continue, alas that would ruin the point. So instead he turns and simply leaves, heading towards the console room and leaving a rather disordered-looking Rory in the hallway, still panting.
Plan D
He makes this one his last resort. Not because it's the least effective, but because it's the least fun.
There's no espionage, no cunning conversations or sneaking around. And there's no kissing, either, which really puts a damper on things. However, it is his last resort. If he can't get anything from this, he's better off with the begging. At least there's the possibility of kissing if he begs.
He drops Rory off in Leadworth, partly because he needs Rory out of the console room and partly because he knows Rory's been homesick since back in London. He'll go meet the relatives afterwards, and Rory's friends. He's interested in this 'Amy Pond', who he asked about for precautionary reasons. She sounds like someone he would travel with, if the position wasn't already filled.
As soon as he's sure that Rory is out of the TARDIS he hops up the stairs and lands in front of the telephone, picking it up and punching in the number as he has before, like when he was lost in London and Rory was sick or whenever he needs to borrow something. He waits as it rings once, then twice, before being picked up.
"Hello soldier," Clara Oswald jokes. "How goes the day?"
"Oh, fine," the Doctor replies. "All's well."
"You forget something?" Clara asks. "You left ten minutes ago."
"We did?" he asks, slightly thrown off. He blinks, recalling timelines and the date on the monitor. He smacks himself on the forehead. "We did!" He lowers his voice to a mumble. "Have to land later next time around."
"What was that?" Clara asks.
"Nothing! Nothing at all, just...muttering things." He waves his hand, as if she can see him talking, and shakes his head. He grins. "Anyways! How have you been?"
"Same as I was ten minutes ago," Clara states slowly.
"Nothing new? Nothing exciting?" he goads.
"Uhh...I'm baking," she tells him skeptically. "And watching television. Nothing different from any of my other days off."
"Wonderful! Wonderful..." He believes the required 'small talk' stage is done with and moves on. "I actually have a question for you."
"Oh?" she says. "Fire away."
"Do you know when Rory's birthday is?" he asks, rocking on his heels.
"Yeah, of course I do," Clara answers. "Why? It's not coming up."
He wants to say Well, from your perspective, yes. From our perspective, not so much. Time travel, a wonderful thing but also very messy.. However, that would mean telling Clara, and he's hoping to do that when they get back. By parking the TARDIS in her kitchen.
And he can't miss an opportunity to be dramatic.
So, instead, he dismisses it. "Oh, you know. Stuff and things and...stuff. Just curious."
Clara scoffs. "You're the lover boy, shouldn't you know?"
"But I don't, and that is the problem," he argues. "I need to know everything about him, every aspect of him. I don't like unanswered things."
There's a pause. "It's the 17th of June," Clara says. "I hope that helps."
"Oh, it does," he says, feeling like giggling. "Thank you, so much. So much." He clicks the phone off before Clara can respond. Oh well, he'll get back to her later anyways.
He does a little jump and rubs his hands together, until he starts counting the days and freezes.
"It's in ten days," he says to himself. "I have ten days to plan a birthday party."
#
"Where are we going, exactly?" Rory asks, peering over the Doctor's shoulder as the alien works the controls.
"Oh, you'll find out soon enough," said alien tells him, grinning and not taking his eyes off of the console.
They land and the Doctor rushes out ahead of Rory, bounding out of the doors and onto the unknown terrain. Rory follows him, and peeks through the doors. He doesn't see the Doctor, but he does the land.
It's a lot like the Willy Wonka planet, except that there's a lot less candy and a lot more trees. And the trees are sprouting cakes.
Rory frowns, stepping out of the TARDIS. "What--"
The Doctor hops into view with a blue glittery birthday hat. "Happy Birthday Rory Williams!"
Rory blinks. "I--what?"
"Welcome to Tarta Zuhaitz!" the Doctor continues. "The number one birthday destination! Cake trees, Rory, and of all different kinds. Any flavor you can imagine, right here. And the parties...oh, dear Rory, the parties are phenomenal. Trust me, this will be a birthday you will never forget, I made sure of that."
Rory's eyes dart between the scene before him and the Doctor himself. "How did you find out?" he asks, bewildered.
The Doctor's smile grows. "Oh, you know. A little birdie told me."
Rory stares at him. "You called Clara, didn't you?"
"Yes, I did," he answers immediately. He throws an arm around Rory's shoulders. "But hey! Found out, made a couple calls and long story short an entire village is throwing you a party, with an entire cake tree devoted to you and everything." He starts pushing Rory into the forest. "Come along, Rory. We'll be late."
#
"How was I supposed to know that cake trees were flammable?"
"There cake trees, you idiot! Why'd you have to try to light the candles!"
"I thought they were regular candles, not part of the tree!"
"You've set fire to an entire block of the forest!"
The locals are looking at them rather sourly at this point, eyes trained on them and swords poised to draw. The couple notices this after another half a minute of bickering.
The Doctor keeps his eyes wide and on the villagers. "We should probably go."
Rory nods. "Yeah. Yeah, we should."
They break out into a sprint towards the TARDIS, shutting the doors behind them just as the villagers start throwing spears. Rory locks the doors as the Doctor hurries up to the console and flies them into the vortex.
It becomes silent after that, and the Doctor slowly turns to face the birthday boy.
"Well," he says, "I did say that you would never forget it."