A/N: I regret nothing. I also own nothing. Leave a review!

Most people, upon experiencing death, are scared. They scream and sob and fight and try to bargain with the unfortunate creature that has to collect their soul. The wizards are the worst, Death finds. They nearly always have some kind of ridiculous ritual to fend him off. "I know the last thousand wizards who tried this still died," they will say to a baffled apprentice as they memorise a particularly long spell that for some reason includes the word banana multiple times, "but I am different."

They are not different. They die. They stay dead.

That is to say, most people stay dead.

Rory Williams is not most people.

The first time he died, it had all been very confusing. Death had not bothered to go himself – Rory wasn't a wizard, after all, and he couldn't very well go about collecting everyone's soul – and as such could not say exactly how he died. All he knew was that it was all a bit of a mess.

"Oh," Rory had said as he joined Death in the Void where Death would let him choose his path – Heaven (or Hell), reincarnation, all of that. "You must be Death. That's... great."

IS IT? Death had enquired politely.

"Yeah," Rory said. "See, I'm not real."

AH.

"So I can't really be dead," he declared. "It was all just a dream. The real me is on the TARDIS right now."

Death, of course, knew all about the TARDIS. In fact, the silly box had been quite the thorn in his side ever since that incident back in the 1500s involving an umbrella and quite a lot of rabbits. OH, said Death. I SEE. He tilted his head, looking at Rory contemplatively. He could see what Rory meant. He was, indeed, not real.

There was a pause.

WILL YOU BE LEAVING NOW, THEN?

"Um," said Rory. "Yes. I suppose I'd better be." He glanced around the Void. "Where, exactly?"

Death did a fair imitation of a sigh, for someone who didn't have any lungs. ONE OF THE DEMONS WILL SHOW YOU OUT, he said. I MUST BE GOING, he added, not impolitely. I THINK I'M ABOUT TO HAVE ANOTHER NEAR-RINCEWIND EXPERIENCE.

"Right," Rory agreed, nodding as if he understood, and they both went their separate ways.

The second time was even more of a mess.

Death was having a peaceful day. Yet another fire in Ankh Morpork had wiped out a lot of human life yesterday and so today he was having a nice rest, reading a book and eating grapes in defiance of his lack of stomach. The boatful of people currently plummeting off the edge of the Disc could live for one more day, he decided.

And then Rory Williams showed up.

"Oh," he said. "Hello."

Death looked at him, and then at the book he was reading. HELLO, said Death, and went back to his book.

Not content to simply be ignored and wallow in his own fickle mortality, Rory asked, "Am I dead?"

YES, said Death, without looking up.

Rory seemed to consider this. "Brilliant," he said at last. "Amy's going to kill me."

Death glanced at him over the top of his book, stretching out on the plush recliner he had taken from a dead merchant. IT APPEARS SOMEONE ELSE HAS DONE THAT FOR HER, he observed, eyeing the bullet wound that had killed the human.

Rory ignored him in favour of staring at his hand. "I'm disappearing," he noted.

Indeed, he had taken on a rather translucent quality. OH DEAR, said Death. YOU SEEM TO HAVE WIPED YOURSELF OUT OF CREATION.

"I've done what?" Rory's voice took on a note of some considerable panic.

I SHOULDN'T WORRY ABOUT IT, Death assured him. YOU WON'T HAVE EXISTED AT ALL IN A FEW MINUTES, AFTER ALL. THERE'S NO USE WORRYING. The poor human looked quite distraught. WOULD YOU LIKE A GRAPE?

But the human was already gone.

I DO HOPE, Death said to himself as he turned the page, THAT HE ISN'T BECOMING THE NEXT RINCEWIND.

However, as he had just recently blinked out of existence altogether, it seemed unlikely.

The third time around, Death decided he was really getting sick of this.

He had just returned from fetching the souls of several bloodthirsty wizards who had succeeded in killing their enemies at the unfortunate cost of their own lives, and his scythe swinging arm was rather tired. He sent them off to their respective afterlives and prepared to return home.

It was quite an unpleasant surprise to turn around and see Rory Williams waiting for him.

OH, said Death. YOU'RE DEAD AGAIN, ARE YOU?

Rory looked indignant. "It didn't really count, the first two times, did it?" he responded.

YOU WERE HERE, Death said, THAT COUNTS.

"Yeah, well," said Rory and he gave a pathetic sort of half-shrug.

WHAT HAPPENED THIS TIME? enquired Death.

Rory frowned. "I think I was shot again. There were these things... I don't really know. We couldn't remember them unless we were looking at them. The Doctor was supposed to be taking care of it."

OH, said Death. THOSE CREATURES. THEY WERE A BIT OF AN ACCIDENT, YOU KNOW.

"What?"

WELL, Death told him, THE GODS WERE HAVING A FIGHT WITH THE ICE GIANTS AGAIN AND IT JUST HAPPENED. NO ONE IS QUITE SURE HOW.

Rory might have grown angry at that, if it weren't for a demon showing up. "Er, 'scuse me, Mr Death," said the demon nervously, "seems there's been a mistake."

A MISTAKE? Death asked calmly.

"Er, yes," the demon agreed. "This human here is supposed to go back. That Doctor bloke's gone and screwed it up again."

Death sighed. I SEE, he said. One day he would have to have a conversation with this Doctor fellow. He was really rather irritating, what with his constant disregard for simple mortality. WELL, he said to Rory, I SUPPOSE YOU'D BETTER GO. IT WAS NICE MEETING YOU AGAIN.

"Um," said Rory. "Yes." And then he was gone, the demon whisking him away to cram his soul back into his body.

Apparently, the saying 'third time lucky' did not apply to Rory Williams.

"This is getting ridiculous."

OH, Death looked up from polishing his scythe. HELLO.

"Don't 'hello' me!" snapped Rory, looking half-terrified at the prospect of shouting at Death. "This keeps happening to me! You need to sort your staff out!"

MY APOLOGIES, Death said politely. BUT YOU DO HAVE QUITE THE REPUTATION FOR GETTING INTO THESE THINGS. I BELIEVE THE DEMONS HAVE A BET ON. He did not mention that he had also joined in, betting that Rory would only die on the sixth try.

"A bet?" Rory repeated incredulously.

MIGHT I ASK WHAT HAPPENED THIS TIME?

"Aren't you supposed to know?" snapped Rory. "You are Death, after all."

I AM INDEED, he agreed. I'M AFRAID I HAVE RATHER A SHORT MEMORY, THOUGH.

"Right." Rory snorted. "Brilliant. Well if you must know, I drowned."

THAT'S NEW, Death observed.

"Yeah. It wasn't much fun." Rory sighed an irritated sort of sigh.

HOW DOES ONE DROWN IN SPACE? Asked Death, curious. This human had a way of getting under his non-existent skin, and Death would have liked to kill him again were it not for the fact that he had rather a lot of money depending on Rory dying on his sixth attempt.

Rory sighed, throwing his arms out. "There was a pirate ship, and of course the Doctor thought we should just check it out and then there was this black dot thing and then, next thing I know, I'm drowning!"

THIS DOCTOR OF YOURS IS RATHER TROUBLESOME, YOU KNOW, Death informed him.

Rory huffed out a laugh. "Tell me about it. So, what happens now?"

Death sighed to himself. So much for dying on the sixth try. WELL, he began, only to be cut off by the appearance of another demon.

"Sorry about this, Mr Death," the demon apologised, grimacing at him, "Only we've got a rather angry Siren out there sayin' that this guy" – he jerked a thumb at Rory – "is supposed to be alive."

Death nodded. YES, he said levelly, I SUPPOSE I SHOULD HAVE EXPECTED SOMETHING LIKE THIS.

"Nice talking to you," Rory called over his shoulder as the demon pulled him away.

When Rory died for the fifth time, he looked rather different.

YOU HAVE A BEARD, Death noted.

Rory glared at him, his face a wrinkled map of the torment he had recently experienced. "You should have killed me sooner!" he accused, pointing a finger at Death.

Death was rather surprised. He received a lot of demands when humans died, but complaints of his lateness were not customary. I'M SORRY, he said evenly.

"She left me!" Rory cried, his finger quivering as he lowered it back to his side. "She just left me there to grow old by myself while she waltzed around the TARDIS without me." An angry sob escaped his throat. "I hate her."

Death looked at Rory. He was not accustomed to crying humans. Of course, lots of them cried when they died, but Death did not usually deal with it; he just sent them on the way into the afterlife.

I SEE, he said.

"No you don't!" snapped Rory, bringing up a hand to muffle his sobs. When he attempted to pull it away, it became tangled in his rather substantial amount of facial hair.

MAY I ASK WHAT HAPPENED?

"No, you may not." And that was the end of it. Rory simply glared at the air in front of him, and Death went back to the game of Thud he was playing with a demon.

"I can't believe she would just leave me to die," Rory lamented. "I thought she loved me!"

"Oh, honestly," muttered the demon, moving one of his pieces. "Humans. They're pathetic."

QUITE, Death said as he planned his next move. HE IS RUINING THE MOOD. TAKE HIM BACK TO HIS BODY, WOULD YOU?

Only too happy to oblige, the demon scooped up Rory's soul, ignoring his protests of, "I don't want to go back! She doesn't love me!" and promptly disappeared.

Death took advantage of the demon's absence, removing several of its pieces from the board and wondering if sending Rory back to his body would be seen as bad sportsmanship. There was a bet on, after all.

Then again, he was Death. No one ever said he had to play fair.