Disclaimer: I still don't own them...funny about that, eh?

Author's Note: So I was watching 'The Girl Who Waited' and Rory's line of 'You're turning me into you' - and so my mind started thinking, it started going a little nuts. And so I wrote this - warnings: timey-wimeyness (always fun with Doctor Who), crazy theories, minor spoilers and ... well yes. That is it. I hope you enjoy reading this and I would love to know if this theory makes any sense at all.

Either way it was fun to write.

A Promotion of Kind

"You're turning me into you" Rory Williams: the nurse, the boy who waited, the last centurion and the key to the Doctor's existence. On Lake Silencio the 22nd April, 2011 everything comes to head.

In a strange way it did make sense.

This is what Rory Williams was telling himself as he stepped out of the TARDIS. He didn't want to step out of the blue box from his wife's childhood fantasies. He truly didn't because that would be his death. In the end it had all been a farce with all the hints and clues dangling right before him. He should've been able to figure it out sooner.

Firstly River had killed a good man. The Doctor was not a good man. Hadn't he said that perfectly all that time ago on Demon's Run: 'good men don't need rules'. Rory meanwhile never did have rules. He always did what felt right, what his human heart told him to do because that was the right thing. He followed his heart, and yet the things he saw, the things he did, at some point he figured he would one day need rules.

That scared him.

He also realised, that his fear, was why his chosen profession was a nurse and not a Doctor. He didn't really want to make those choices. Except that was a lie, he was lying to himself and unsure what he wanted. It was in the back of his mind, the desire to be a doctor and yet the prospect had always seemed so huge and terrifying he couldn't become it. He only knew he wanted to be with her.

Amy Pond: the girl who waited, the strange Scottish girl in their village with fiery red hair. It was all about her, wasn't it? Always about Amelia Pond because she was the key that brought their timelines together so that he could become the Doctor.. He had to try not to laugh. He was a nurse, a warrior but never the Doctor.

And yet he was.

Rory Williams was the first form of the Doctor. It was impossible, and he didn't fully understand it because of all the timey wimey lines criss-crossing and interconnecting and separating once again. He was the ideal one because hadn't he already lived an entire lifetime protecting humanity from certain distraction, hadn't he died a hundred times (it seemed at least) and come back every time? Hadn't he been erased from time and space but forced himself to come back through living through Amy Pond's mind? Hadn't he been impossible?

And hadn't he always dressed up as the Doctor in Amy's backyard growing up?

Every action he had taken, everything he had done was in preparation for this. And he hated himself for it. He hated it as he had looked across the TARDIS console to the Doctor: he sat there, seeing time coming together in this fixed moment and smiling sadly: a smile that spoke a millennium of age.

"You didn't always know?" he had had to ask.

Amy and River weren't with them currently: the Doctor had sent them on a faux mission in Paris, seventeenth century.

The Doctor sighed. "No. All those regenerations, every battle lost and won … I never realised until now, really," he paused, "Well, actually I realised back on Apalapucia … kinda … that isn't important though,"

"But what …"

"The choice … no those words you spoke to me, Rory, - 'you're turning me into you'" said the Doctor, grimly, "And then thinking over it, and the knocking - do you remember that back in Germany? The knocking? I once had a friend - you'll have a friend … funny about that but anyway - that. Is. Not. The point … well he had a message sent to him through knocking: through four knocks, the heartbeat of Time itself. And so naturally I copied that - not that I knew I was sending it at the time but -"

"I get it,"

He didn't really but the Doctor just smiled at him, not bothering to continue on. Rory supposed that when he got to that age, he would understand. He hoped he would anyway.

But that still left Amy … that still left River.

"But if I'm you, past-you," said Rory, "You and River? Because that is -"

"By your standards, yes," said the Doctor, getting up and walking around the console to stand closer to Rory, "But in Gallifrey … well it wasn't common you see, but there is a reason we have such a precise language - there is present, past, future tense as well as potential future, potential past - and naturally this extends to relationships … when we regenerate you see … we change. We have those memories but we are new men. Whether we keep those old relationships the same or change them … well that is undecided, but also the reason we have so many different words. It's the reason it is such a complex language - and that doesn't even begin to describe it,"

"That doesn't -"

"It does," said the Doctor, "And when you grow up, when you get to this point you'll see that. Just know that while you are me - you aren't. because you are human and I am Time Lord. It is more like a piece of your spirit and soul latched onto me, and this is why you are - no wait that doesn't make sense."

"Yeah it does." Said Rory but then paused, "Kinda,"

"If you want to take the easy way but it isn't really anything like that," said the Doctor, running his hand through his hair.

"But this is a paradox,"

"Yes and no,"

It was but it wasn't. Just like he Rory Williams was the Doctor and yet he wasn't. It was a realm of impossible potential outcomes and here was how it was sorted. The Doctor went out then: the Doctor met his - Rory's - past self, Amy and River. They had a picnic on a beach. An astronaut rose and shot.

They left, and Rory emerged from the future TARDIS, the vortex streaming through him. Time and space was ripping him apart in a hundred and fifty ways and then when he reached the edge of the lake, when he stared at it through all of existence, time jumped. Jumped back in one spot and the Doctor remained drifting, starting to burn on the edge.

Two separate time streams running against one another, creating a crack.

Funny. He was to blame for the crack in Amy's wall, but how fitting as well.

He didn't want to become this. He really didn't. And yet he didn't stop because this had to happen. He had to die, he had to killed, the good man, so he could become the Doctor (how he wasn't sure, he was never really sure). He stepped forward, stared down at his dead body (because he was going to become this) and bent forward. His lips pressed against the Doctpr's, and he started to splinter. If someone was watching, they would see his body disintegrating in golden light, the quintessence of dust as what made him Rory Williams was sacrificed to the Doctor.

The Doctor's eyes opened, time and space collapsed for a moment. He rolled into the water, the flames quenching and scrambled to the edge. His mind realising everything that was and had been, as he saw that The Doctor saw everything: he saw the himself as a young boy having strange dreams of another world and a different life. He had this strange attachment to this name: Rory. He desperately wanted that to be his but it couldn't be, because that name would belong only to a good man. He didn't think he could ever be a good man.

He had too many rules, Time had too many rules and so he picked something else: Theta Sigma because together in capitals it asked the eternal question of who, and yet he had picked it because it meant god. Which he saw he was now. He had fashioned his own creation, made sure that Rory Williams followed his instructions so he could become the Doctor.

He realised why Rory had heard the knocks back on that day in Germany, a throwback to this moment when he - well, Rory, - had taken into the Time Vortex to restore him. He saw why he was always so attached to Earth - hadn't he grown up there? He realised why the TARDIS liked Rory so much. And he saw why he had consistently made Rory take the hard choices, make the decisions he didn't want to make because he couldn't: like waiting with Amy for two thousand years, like picking between the older Amy and the younger Amy on Apalapucia. He had already made them.

The Doctor saw why he picked Doctor as his title.

He had been sitting with Koschei, drawing a Roman - he always had liked Earth history the most - and brainstorming titles for his friend when Koschei had turned to him, with his darkened eyes and asked.

"Thete, what do you wanna be when you grow up?"

He frowned. "I want to help people, I think. I want to make them better … I want to be a Doctor," he paused, "The Doctor,"

"Suits you,"

He had never known at the time that he wanted to be the Doctor. But now he saw why his true name was always hidden.

He sighed, and stumbled off to find his actual versions of River and Amy. He told them and watched as Amy Pond left. She had to because she had made her choice: Rory. And he wasn't Rory, no matter how much she would want him to be. River stayed though, understanding time and space, and now knowing his childhood longing to be called Rory, his true name, the name she would whisper in the library upon her death. The thing he would never tell anyone because it just seemed too impossible.

They dropped Amy home, and for old times they shared a hug.

She walked away, and he re-entered the TARDIS. River was leaning against the railing.

"This adds another level of kinkiness to our relationship - doesn't it?" she said in Gallifreyan.

He sighed. "No wonder I always felt slightly awkward with the kissing - I mean I was never like this previously,"

River chuckled. "No wonder I was always so determined - Freud was onto something,"

"I'm not actually Rory," he said abruptly, looking at her straight in the eye.

"I know, my love," said River, breaking into English, "You just carry a piece of him within you,"

Meanwhile Rory Williams was born again: the fourth time, but this time on a planet with red grass.

Except he wasn't really Rory Williams: Rory Williams was just a figment, a tiny aspect to everything that was to be the Doctor.

Fin

Author's Notes: Thoughts and opinions are like the Doctor appearing outside your door step and asking you to see of time and space with him. :) In other words I would be very appreciative to hear what you think - thanks for reading anyway!