Fortune Favours The Brave; Rory/Amy
Title: Fortune Favours the Brave
Author: Kuroshokora
Word Count: 2287
Rating: PG-13
Pairing/characters: Rory/Amy, Doctor, Quintus, Theta, Koschei (the tiniest mention)
Summary: Rory shouldn't remember growing up in Rome, but he does.
**
“Hey… hey hey!”
Rory looked up, upside down, from where his head was rested across Amy’s thighs. Not particularly by choice, although he wasn’t complaining; Amy had neatly arranged him as she wanted him, curled on the chair by the TARDIS console that didn’t really look big enough for two but still managed to accommodate them both. She was playing with his hair; he was thinking.
“What?” he asked, grinning slightly as she leant forwards so that her hair was tickling his face.
“You were ignoring me.” she said, and pouted at him, cupping his head in both her hands and running her fingers through the slightly-long hair at the nape of his neck.
“I was thinking…” he said, and then, when that sentence didn’t seem to hold much weight on its own, he finished off with “…about when I was a Roman.”
“You mean, when…” Amy started, and Rory replied hastily: “No, no, not then. Before I was in the legion. In Rome.”
“You weren’t in Rome.”
They both turned, Rory having to squint through the curtain of Amy’s hair as it covered his eyes, and the Doctor’s head emerged almost comically through a floor panel, brandishing an oiled spanner.
“Well, you weren’t; you were an Auton.” he said, and then added helpfully “Plastic.”
“I know.” Rory said, with a glare that he honestly hoped came out withering, but probably just ended up sulky “It doesn’t mean I can’t remember things. Well… I mean… sort of.”
Amy cocked her head to the side to try and get a better look at him, comprehending slowly. He struggled to find the words. It wasn’t as though any of that had really happened. It was hazy now, just a dream. All of that was. It had been two thousand years ago, after all.
“You can’t remember any of that.” the Doctor dismissed and Amy shushed him with a frown that was probably a great deal more powerful than anything Rory might have attempted.
“Go on.” she encouraged him, tapping his cheeks “I want to hear. Come on, I won’t laugh!”
“I can hardly remember.” he said, but closed his eyes, trying to think, the soft hum of the TARDIS soothing the jumble of past and present, settling it out in his brain so that it tumbled out of his mouth just as it tumbled into his brain.
Suddenly, just like that, he was running down the dusty street, the hot Italian sun baking his bare feet and a handful of shining silver denarii jingling in the purse at his belt. There was a singing in his ears, a little distantly at first, but it soon calmed down, and a strong hand clapped down on his shoulder.
(“Who is it?” Amy interrupted, but Rory put his fingers to his lips warningly: “I never butted in when you were telling stories.”)
That was Quintus, who was the son of his mother’s brother… his cousin, of course, that was. They has journeyed to Pompeii to stay with his uncle, Caecilius, and because there was a fine market for the rich goods that they had brought with them. He knew that his father was a market trader, of course, and yet he found it hard to recall his name or even what he looked like. Yet his cousin Quintus swam vividly into his mind’s eye, at least a foot taller than Rory had been at that age. He was a child, young enough for travel to excite him more than anything, as though he was visiting a fantastic new land. Quintus wasn’t that much older, but he seemed like a man to Rory, who was still playing soldiers in the streets with wooden swords and badgering his tutor to let him finish lessons early so that he could play in the gardens, climbing up the trees, because he was bored with moral education and learning how to fight and ride and count coins.
(But there was always a slight, poignant flavour of something he was missing, someone… and sometimes he longed for somebody to play with. The other boys never knew the best games.)
They were walking in the streets while the adults talked; that is, Quintus and Rory and Marcus, who was Quintus’ slave but still had a bulla, one made of leather as opposed to Rory’s own, which was hammered leaf gold.
(“A what?” Amy demanded and Rory frowned, not really sure about that himself, even though the word had come to him naturally. “It’s an amulet. A necklace thingy.” the Doctor interjected, and Rory smiled a little, because he had known that the Doctor was only pretending not to be interested.)
A necklace thing that Roman boys wore until they were sixteen; free-born Roman boys had them anyway. Rory had worn his for as long as he could… well, he couldn’t remember anything before this. This was the first memory he had, of Ancient Rome, but he seemed to think that he’d had it from being a baby. It protected against evil spirits, his parents had said; Rory imagined men and women with huge teeth and eyes in their mouths and it made him feel safer. But he felt safe with his cousin, who was bold and bright-eyed, and cut a fine line through the town, leading his younger charge with a certain authority that came from a slight advantage of age and knowledge.
He didn’t know where they were going. No, he was sure he had done then, but he didn’t now, and it hardly mattered anyway. They had barely passed the rowdy market stalls when he saw her. Her. She was wearing a hood, a red cloak with a hood, and she was gliding along the ground as though she wasn’t walking at all but floating, magically.
Rory tugged on the almost indecently short hem of Quintus’ tunic and pointed as subtly as he could.
“Is that one of the goddesses?” he hissed, wide eyed, and Quintus caught his gaze and burst into raucous laughter.
“She’s one of the Sisterhood.” he said, a little too loudly “So you’ve got no chance, little cousin; she’s got to live pure.”
He hadn’t been entirely sure what Quintus had meant, but he’d still blushed furiously in case the beautiful woman had heard him. But she didn’t look at him at all, and he thought that was probably worse. The odd, mad urge to follow her occurred to him, but Quintus looked far too amused and Rory was trying to act grown up here.
“Evelina’s been promised to the Sisterhood.” Quintus commented idly, and took Rory by the elbow to steer him in the opposite direction.
It occurred to him now, for the first time, that he’d left his sandals in the garden, but he didn’t mind. Nor did he really pay attention to anything that his cousin was saying as they walked. His head was filled with the image of soft red hair underneath a hood, nothing like anything he had seen in his city, and dark lines that framed wide, expressive eyes. Her pale skin, unnaturally pale, and that hair, it reminded him of the Celtic slaves that were brought on boats and sold in the middle of the city. His father had taken him to the last auction, and helped him to choose a new slave for the home. He’d hated the bustle and shouting, and felt strangely uncomfortable about the whole thing. It made his skin prickle. He had never thought about it before, that their slaves were bought as they bought figs and honey and household amenities.
“Why do we sell other people? Can’t they afford villas of their own?” he had asked, and his father had told him that it was a fact of life dictated by the gods and that it was simply how it was supposed to be.
The next thing he remembered, they were back in the household, where his cousin Evelina sat demurely, her head slightly bent over her hands, and Rory spotted the strange paintings of eyes that were exactly the same as the goddess-like lady he had seen in the town. Could he ask her name, if his cousin knew it? He was just debating the possibilities, when something else caught his attention. Quite possibly, he heard it before he saw it, and for some reason he couldn’t comprehend, he felt as though he’d seen it before.
“What’s that?” he murmured, and Quintus muttered in return: “Pater thinks that it adds an atmosphere.”
Rory wasn’t entirely sure of the atmosphere that the strange blue box would give, but he never really understood art. He ran across the marble, his feet leaving dusty marks, and pressed his hands and ear against it, trying to hear.
“What’s inside?”
“There’s nothing inside.” his uncle said, seizing Rory by his upper arms and lifting him up.
He laughed and kicked his legs in mid-air delightedly, looking at him and smiling, even though he really wanted to stand back next to the magical box and listen to the song coming from inside it. But then they had to go home, and he never got the chance, and he never got to see the box again, or the beautiful girl.
(“What was the TARDIS doing in your uncle’s house?” “I don’t know, Amy… I’ve been trying to work that out.”)
They never went back to Pompeii. A little while after that, there was a terrible act of the gods, where the entire town was covered in rock and fire. He didn’t remember being frightened for his family, or even hearing the news, and yet when he thought about it, it was as clear as if he had been there, standing on the red hot streets and feeling the grey snow cover his hair and cheeks. Tears on his cheeks as hot as sulphur and the sky burnt orange… no, not orange. Black with the clouds of ash, and the suns… the sun. The sun obscured entirely.
And soon after that Quintus and Evelina and his aunt and uncle moved to Rome. His uncle Caecilius was made a partner in his father’s business. All was prosperous and well, or so his father insisted, and said that their family had been blessed.
“That’s the same box.” Rory commented curiously, leaning across the altar to trace the icon of the household gods, and Quintus caught him around the waist and dragged him back.
“Those are the gods who saved us. The Doctor and his red haired goddess…” he said, with more sincerity than Rory had heard from him in his whole life.
In his mind’s eye, he could hear a whirling, humming noise, and imagined a perfect, wonderful girl with a tall, stern, impossible man in strange clothes and dark timeless eyes. Humbled, he backed from the altar. But then he remembered the woman in Pompeii, the real one, and he was afraid to ask. And that made him sadder than he could have imagined, as though he knew her, as though he had spent his whole life knowing her. He felt close to tears, but he was a strong Roman man and he couldn’t cry.
(Silently, Amy tightened her arms around his shoulders, and the Doctor was looking at him quietly, his face unreadable.)
Quintus was older, learning the art of physic and medicine. Before, Rory felt that he’d never been mature enough or important enough for his cousin to be spending much of his important time with him. Now he felt that he could not have been closer to Quintus if he had been his own brother. After the day’s lessons were over, they would chase each other in the streets, and Quintus always knew the right games.
“I’ll be the Doctor this time.” he said, and wound a strip of material around his neck but neither of them could make it look quite right no matter how they knotted it.
It didn’t matter because it was real enough in Rory’s mind.
(“Do we always have to play Raggedy Doctor, Amelia?” Rory complained, sitting down on her bed with his arms folded. She glared at him, looking so angry that he recoiled meekly. “You have to, you have to or I won’t let you play with me any more!”)
“Where now, Doctor?” he asked breathlessly.
“We will circumnavigate the Sun and see the gods at breakfast!” Quintus declared grandly “My mystical box is a wingless chariot to the stars!”
Rory shouted out, laughing loudly when Quintus hoisted him onto his shoulder and spun him round in circles. He closed his eyes and imagined that he was flying through space, through the heavens themselves, and seeing the whole world beneath them, spinning lazily in its sphere. Quintus cupped one hand over his mouth to make the right noises: vwworrrrp… vwwworrrp…
(“I’ll race you, Kosch. Come on, you can run faster than that.” Theta Sigma goaded, as he glanced over his shoulder for his friend, the long red grass whipping at his legs. “When we’re Time Lords, Theta, we can race across the galaxy!”)
“You were there, weren’t you? You saved them. It isn’t my memory at all, it’s yours. I don’t know how or why, but it‘s in my mind. But none of that happened, not like that, did it?” Rory questioned softly, turning his head in Amy’s lap to look the Doctor straight in the eyes.
Silently, the Doctor found his hand, and then Amy’s, and held them both tight. For once, he didn’t tell Rory that he was wrong.
(In the Doctor’s mind, ash was falling from the darkening orange sky and the very air was burning, and a whole civilisation was falling to ruins around him.)