Title: The Most Patient Nurse in History

Series: Riverlets Through Time

Rating: T

Author: tkel_paris

Summary: Rory Williams didn't ask to become a companion any more than he asked to fall in love with Amy Pond... but both happened. What are the consequences? Ninth in the "Riverlets Through Time" series.

Dedication: nini_cuddles. How do you like the foray into what was 11's territory?

Disclaimer: Rory would ALWAYS have been properly acknowledged as a companion if I owned things. Heck, events like this would be happening...

Author's Note: Now that I'm in what was Eleven's time, things are getting a little harder to write. But I've gotten enough spoiler info that I think I can manage. Besides, Rory is just awesome. If I can't have a Ten or a Handy, may I please have my own Rory? :D

Rory Williams could still remember the day he met Amelia Pond. She was new to the area, as her parents had returned to England after several years of working in Scotland. They settled in a house right in his street, but he didn't actually meet her until they stumbled into each other on the first day of school.

The first thing he noticed? Her hair. It was impossible not to. He'd never seen such a shade before, and it fascinated him.

He tried to defend her against the other kids. They teased her to no end, but he could talk enough of them into backing off. It earned her friendship, and he definitely liked her.

Of course, that monster that Amelia saw when no one else could? He knew she had an imagination, but that wasn't something someone thought of on their own. He believed her, but didn't know how to convince anyone.

And then Amelia's Hedgehog-Hair Doctor arrived, with his family. They believed her, stopped the monster, and saved the school – and all of the kids. No one disbelieved any of her stories after that. Thank God she wasn't the type to come up with things just for the attention!

Rory wasn't sorry that the Doctor and his family left. It was far too exciting, having them around! Still, he'd followed the Doctor and Donna while they investigated. Partly because he instantly liked Donna; she was motherly, she said the funniest things, and her hair was as lovely as Amelia's. He could see why his friend had wondered if they were her real parents.

Years passed, but it wasn't long before Rory only had eyes for Amy, as she started going by in her teens. But she only saw him as a friend. He often sighed, remembering that the Doctor had pulled him aside and mentioned that sometimes your best friend turned out to be just right for you. So he hoped for years.

Then, a miracle. Amy dumped Jeff – who Rory knew wasn't anywhere near good enough for her; he didn't respect her anywhere like what she deserved – and suddenly came by after his duty shift at the hospital. (He'd had a knack for caring for people, and Donna had encouraged it when he helped her bandage some of the injuries from that day at the school.) She'd looked him in the eye and asked whether he liked her as more than a friend.

He was lucky he hadn't been drinking anything – he would've choked. But he managed to say it was more than like, that he loved her. And the biggest miracle? She gave him a chance!

Oh, he thought he'd bungled it more than once! Messing up plans, getting nervous at exactly the wrong moments... But she often acted the same way, like she sensed it was potentially the most important thing to both of them. She said it was because she wanted to make sure that nothing happened to their friendship, that it would survive no matter what.

Actually, the biggest miracle was that he got her to say yes to his proposal. Well, he struggled to ask, and she anticipated him with a big kiss and then holding out her left hand.

Thank God their mothers were happy to plan nearly the whole wedding. Left him more time to devote to Amy.

Then the Hedgehog-Hair Doctor came back, family in tow. No, wait, Amy was right about one thing: Donna ruled that family. The only reason he could sometimes do things without asking was because he was a Time Lord, whatever that meant, and had knowledge that Donna didn't. Although that didn't always protect him from being slapped, evidently.

Rory should've guessed that Amy would want to join them on a few adventures. She was always the more active of the two of them, whereas he preferred quieter times. But he wasn't about to let her go off without him!

It opened his mind to possibilities even Amy had never imagined, to worlds and species beyond belief. The space whale who became Britain's savior, who Amy and Jenny and Donna finally saw for what it was doing: answering the cries of children. He could've done without being in whale gag, but it was interesting to meet a queen of mixed racial blood. Liz X was an interesting woman. Almost as interesting as Donna or Amy, but he was too well-mannered to suggest it. Actually, the Doctor seemed careful to not offend the monarch. Sounded like there'd been some bad feelings from at least one of her ancestors.

Meeting Winston Churchill and helping stop a threat worse than the Nazis? Okay, that was awesome, actually meeting a man he'd admired from history class! And Donna's catching him trying to steal the TARDIS key? The look on Mr. Chuchill's face was priceless. The Prime Minister was, thankfully, not disappointed too much. He commented on what a fine wife the Doctor had chosen, and that their daughters took after her.

No one corrected him on Amy, but Rory knew that she was pleased to be mistaken for their child. Yes, it wasn't a bad thing if someone thought she was Donna's daughter, and it was only the first time it happened.

But then they had the first visit from a recurring guest: Doctor River Song. As soon as the Doctor and his family saw her image from that... black box-like thing, they were groaning and uneasy. No one seemed to trust her, but they said they had no choice. Although Rory wondered just why Ben had to shove River off him when she slammed against him from space, sharply reminding her that he wasn't the Doctor. Doctor Song just laughed at him before using the TARDIS sensors like she'd been doing it her entire life.

That Weeping Angels thing was a nightmare of the worst kind, and only the first of a number of bad incidents. More than a few nearly got him – and Amy – killed. Seemed that was the risk one ran when they ran with the Doctor – although having Donna and his family around seemed to lessen the risk at times. More people to prevent things from really hitting the fan.

River walked away casually, seemingly ignoring the Doctor's loud warnings and admonishments. Rory thought the woman acted like she did this all the time. Although he wondered why she was so nice to him and to Amy.

Rory was so grateful when Amy decided it was time to go home for the wedding. He badly wanted to be married. He kept having to correct the Doctor when he called them the Ponds, but he soon learned that the Doctor went by the human name John Noble. (He'd gone by John Smith, but he'd chosen to use Donna's name since he liked the sound of it, and it was to placate her for all she'd been through.) So he sort of understood why the Doctor acted like things worked the other way.

Amy invited the Doctor and his entire family, including Sylvia and Wilf. The Doctor had hesitated, saying that he was rubbish at weddings, but Donna overruled him. And so they all were there for the wedding and the reception. Rory wondered why the Doctor and his two older children acted so vigilant during the wedding, but dismissed it when things went off without a hitch and the party began in earnest. He vaguely noticed how the Doctor stayed at Donna's side, helping her move around in her heavily pregnant body. (Twin girls, he understood. He also could understand the Doctor's wanting them to have their mother's hair; there just weren't enough gingers in the world.)

And then the honeymoon. The Doctor helped them get aboard a spaceship so they could have a lot of privacy... but things went wrong – naturally. They had to help the Doctor persuade an old man to help them make it possible to land. It felt like a long while before they learned just what happened to the old man, and the woman who provoked such a strong emotional reaction in him. Whatever it was, the Doctor looked very sad for them, and looked like he knew how devastated the man was.

But the most interesting part of the whole thing? The odd phone call for Ben from a Marilyn. Rory had watched enough old movies to be absolutely sure who she was. Ben's embarrassed reaction and answer for Rory to relay had not spared him from his mother grabbing his shirt collar and demanding to know how her son had nearly found himself married to Marilyn Monroe...

The story had Jenny and Amy laughing themselves sick, Donna smirking, the Doctor snorting behind a hand, and Rory looking on in fascination. A number of things clicked in his head, and he asked just why Ben had been so vehement about Marilyn hearing that it was an unlisted number and that it wasn't a real chapel. Ben had growled about how there was no way he was touching someone who gladly slept with the hound otherwise known as President Jack Kennedy.

Okay, Rory understood the idea. If you knew someone had... been around, you had good reason to think twice about putting your own key in the slot. But it was the timing that had his attention. When he determined when things had happened, he felt it necessary to tell Ben and the others that it was shortly thereafter that Marilyn was killed by the psychologist. Quite possibly because she was drugged to say that she'd made Ben Noble up.

Ben went so pale, Rory thought he'd faint. He lowered his head, obviously feeling a bit responsible. Donna promptly went to his side, hugging him tightly and whispering that he had no way of knowing. The Doctor was the most silent of them all, looking like he was having flashbacks to something bad that happened to someone he knew. Rory soon had to walk out of the room, leaving Ben to grieve in peace. He'd done additional reading on cases where far more medicine was used than needed in famous cases. The Marilyn Monroe one had stuck out in his mind, firmly believing that the psychologist should've been arrested and jailed. It was a bit unnerving to know that he knew someone who had no idea they could've prevented it. Once again, bad things balanced out the good.

And it re-enforced a rather sticking point. Women seemed to fall over themselves to catch this Doctor's attention, and now his son's. Rory found it rather amusing most of the time to watch. Ones who did it at the wrong moment found themselves on the receiving end of a tirade from Donna, if not a slap. At least, the more persistent ones who refused to have a clue; most Donna considered no threat, especially as the Doctor seemed oblivious to how any woman reacted to him. The only one who mattered was Donna.

Of course, Ben only had his wits and his sister to protect him. The funniest time was when she had to pretend to be his wife to drive away a more persistent would-be suitor. Only hugs and some funny (to the family) names had been needed, along with suggesting that Tommy was their son, but it left their mother laughing hysterically and Jenny demanding whether her brother could make himself less appealing somehow!

Rory had nearly choked on his own laughter while Amy actually rolled on the floor as Jenny launched in another one of her rants over how she couldn't understand why anyone would find her father or brother attractive. Donna found the reactions of her husband and oldest son – as neither seemed to know how to react – the greatest things ever, even as she had to soothe her husband's bruised ego. (Mind, Donna seemed to think his ego still had plenty of room to be deflated, so it wasn't clear how much soothing she really did.)

And little Tommy would be watching these moments from his high chair, laughing with his mother and making his father smirk over the verbal fights his two eldest got into. Amy and Rory could only watch in stunned shock as Jenny and Ben would spat, and give their baby brother huge Excuse Me? glares that only made him laugh harder.

Life in the TARDIS wasn't dull. Even on quiet days when they didn't go anywhere.

Then things got really confusing. Amy seemed to be pregnant, and yet not. Ben managed to scan her at the right moment to determine that she was experiencing a quantum pregnancy. Being human, and having conceived with another human in a time field, she was having problems getting the pregnancy to proceed as it ought to. The Doctor had to give her a special series of injections to make her body adjust a bit to the time field so she could bloom as Donna had. Rory didn't understand how the things within those injections were supposed to work, but it seemed to lessen Amy's symptoms and she no longer fluctuated between seeming pregnant and then not. So they were both relieved.

Also... Jenny had the strange feeling that someone... or something... was following them through time. It was disconcerting. Rory knew that the Doctor and his family had enemies, but there were children involved. Time Tots, as the Doctor referred to his young children, were potentially kidnapping targets, and therefore he had to be vigilant.

But the sense that they were being followed was not as alarming as the warnings that someone was trying to kill the Doctor. These warnings had a tendency to appear whenever River Song did, which made the Time Family a lot less trusting of her – and they evidently barely trusted her to begin with. It was only because, as Ben once explained, they needed her to live so she could make it to the Library to help the Doctor in a critical moment. Otherwise, all of history would be re-written. And unwritten; the children – including Ben – might not have been born. Scary thought.

Which made finding the Silence – that was the name that kept popping up as the potential culprit – important. Possibly the most important thing Rory would help with in his whole time aboard the TARDIS.

Rory had no intention of letting a friend die. Even less of letting a child grow up without a parent. So he gladly helped try to piece together the mess. Of course, the efforts were made harder when Donna gave birth to twin girls. Gingers, which made the Doctor ecstatic. (And Ben and Tommy a bit envious.)

If anything, the danger seemed to increase then. So Donna was keeping the babies carefully hidden aboard the TARDIS. Sylvia and Wilf even had to start traveling with them; the Doctor didn't trust that the Silence wouldn't go after either or both of them to lure him in.

At last, Amy's delivery day came upon them. They'd been tracking things down on a planet, and she couldn't get back to the TARDIS in time. So Rory had to deliver his own child... a girl. They were so proud of their little Melody. She would grow up with good friends in the Doctor's young children. He was only sorry that his girl wasn't a ginger like her mummy, but she was just as beautiful. If she had even half the intelligence and thoughtfulness he believed she did, then she would be as extraordinary as her mother!

Then Tommy somehow got out of the TARDIS, and to Amy and Melody's side. He was babbling about something coming, and that was the last thing Rory or Amy remembered as the world went black around them...

TO BE CONTINUED IN "Tough Little Guy"