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locker_monsterTitle: The Boy Who Waited (1/49)
Rating: PG
Characters: Rory, with appearances from Barbara
Timeline: set between "The Pandorica Opens" and "The Big Bang"
Summary: London, 1996. Barbara Wright prepares the Pandorica for exhibit at the National Museum. As the work unfolds, she recounts the lengthy history of the stone box and its loyal protector, the Lone Centurion.
Disclaimer: Doctor Who belongs to the BBC. Everything else is me taking liberties with history.
A/N: This behemoth came about when I was watching the reconstruction of "Marco Polo" from "The Beginning" DVD boxset. What if Marco had tried to use the Pandorica instead of the TARDIS to win favour with Kublai Khan? The rest of the story spiralled out of control from there. A huge thank you to my beta![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
punch_kicker15. This story would still be sitting on my hard drive if it weren't for you.
Part One: All Roads Lead to Rome
London, 1996
Barbara Wright leaned back in her chair, stretching out in the muscles in her back. She felt a satisfying crack and let out a pleased moan. It was her own fault, but she hadn’t been able to tear herself away from her desk. When she got absorbed in a project there was very little that could pull her away from it.
She glanced at her watch and wasn’t surprised to see that it was nearly midnight. It seemed that the cleaning crews had decided to go around her office tonight. A janitor or a cleaning lady usually knocked on her door around ten o’clock when she was pulling an all-nighter, but sometimes they were kind enough to leave her alone. By now, she was probably the only person in the museum, beyond the guards who patrolled the exhibits.
With great effort she put away her files and powered down her computer. She needed rest, not sore muscles and blurry vision. The new exhibit was set to open in a few weeks. That was plenty of time for her to finish all the notes that would accompany each artefact.
Barbara was reaching for her purse, stowed in the bottom drawer of her desk for safe keeping, when she heard footsteps out in the hall. She froze. She didn’t hear the clack of wheels so it wasn’t one of the cleaning crew with one of their carts. An art thief? That seemed too fanciful, and besides, what would a thief be doing in the administrative wing? Anything worth anything would be in the main halls.
Throwing caution to the wind, she called out. “Hello?” She quickly surveyed her desk and considered the heavy pewter paperweight sitting on one corner as a potential weapon, just in case.
The footsteps grew closer until finally they stopped outside of her office. Through the frosted glass of the door, Barbara could make out a vague figure dressed in dark clothes. “Hello?” called a man’s voice. “Ms.…” There was a pause as he took in the name stencilled on the glass. “Ms. Wright?”
“Yes.” She got up from her desk and opened the door. A young man, no older than twenty-five by her estimate, stood out in the hall. He wore a security guard’s uniform and he held a torch in his hand. He looked apologetic.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” he began.
“No, it’s all right. I was just about to leave. Time got away from me, it seems. I didn’t mean to disturb your rounds.” Barbara went back to her desk to retrieve her purse. She felt slightly foolish now and welcomed the chance to step away from the conversation for a moment.
“There was nothing to disturb. You’re the only person I’ve seen tonight.”
“I was caught up in my work. It’s always the case when there’s a new exhibit.” With purse in hand, she shut off the lights and stepped out into the hall. The security guard followed her and watched as she locked her office door.
“Would you like an escort to the car park?” he offered.
It was refreshing to encounter someone so young who was so polite. Barbara found that she couldn’t refuse. And she was glad for the company, though she wouldn’t have admitted it aloud. She was quite fond of the museum during the day, but at night, long lost childhood fears took over and an irrational fear of the dark would descend.
“I’d like that very much, thank you.”
The light of his torch cut through the darkness as they walked through the museum. “What’s the exhibit you’re working on?” asked the security guard.
It was small talk, but the young man sounded genuinely interested, too. “The Anomalies. Specifically the Pandorica.”
“Oh? The big stone cube thing?”
Barbara resisted the urge to shake her head. “The ‘big stone cube thing’ is nearly two thousand years old. It has a history stretching back to the Ancient Roman times.” The Pandorica was a historian’s dream. It appeared everywhere, all throughout history, in various cultures. Hunting down references about it was like a worldwide scavenger hunt. That was what appealed to her. The box had touched every part of the world. It wasn’t part of just one nation.
“How did it end up here?”
“It’s a very long winded answer.” One Barbara had been working on for ages.
“I like stories,” said the security guard, smiling at Barbara.
She found herself smiling back. “Well, this is what we know…”
Stonehenge, 118 A.D.
Rory watched apprehensively as the Pandorica was loaded onto a large cart by half a dozen Roman soldiers. Three young men struggled to push the box up the crude ramp that led into the back of the cart while the other three, equipped with ropes tied around the stone cube, pulled from the other side. One slip and the Pandorica would go sliding back, likely crushing the foot of anyone too slow to get out of its way.
He wanted to join them, to help out. One advantage of being plastic was that he was stronger than the average person. Annoyingly, he had an armed entourage of soldiers standing around him, “protecting” him. Rory had a sneaking suspicion that they were under orders to make sure he didn’t run off. The Emperor wanted the Pandorica and its guardian to return to Rome. Not that Rory had any plans to run off. He had vowed to look after the Pandorica until the necessary time and that meant staying close by, no matter what happened. If he had to go to Rome, he would go to Rome.
One of the soldiers suddenly cried out as one of the ropes snapped. The soldier holding the now broken rope fell back into the mud while his comrades strained to keep the Pandorica on the ramp. Their faces went beet red from concentration.
That was it. Rory couldn’t watch anymore. He pushed past his armed guards and ran for the cart. He shot up the ramp and joined the soldiers in their struggle. At first the Pandorica resisted but slowly and surely he was able to overcome the force of friction between the base of the box and the ramp. The soldiers around him blinked and for a second they forgot to push.
“I can’t do this on my own,” muttered Rory. The three young men quickly returned to their task and more men were called over to help haul on the remaining two ropes. It reminded Rory of a video he had seen on the Internet once, during a long night shift at the hospital. Something called a tractor pull.
They all let out a mighty yell when the Pandorica passed over the lip of the ramp and into the back of the cart. The cart groaned under the added weight, but it held, thanks to the metal reinforcement added to its frame. It was just one custom made item among many that had been produced to get the box from Britannia to Rome. A specially built trireme, large and sturdy to support the weight of the Pandorica on the sea voyage, waited for them in the harbour at Dubris.
With the Pandorica loaded on the cart, that was half of the battle. Now they had to get it to the harbour, a week’s travel by Rory’s estimate if they kept up a good pace. He hopped down from the cart as four large oxen were hitched up to it.
His armed guards quickly swarmed around him, practically forming a barrier around him. Maybe they weren’t worried about him running off. Maybe these soldiers were tasked with his safety. He thought it was rather extravagant. He was a centurion after all, albeit a plastic one with fake memories of being a Roman soldier. Unless the world beyond Stonehenge had changed drastically since 102 A.D. The sudden disappearance of the stars might have caused some upheaval that Rory didn’t know about.
At the thought of the stars and their lack thereof, a startling realization hit him. Without stars in the sky how were they going to navigate the seas at night? Only the moon broke up the monotony of the night sky and that was on clear nights. His only hope was that they kept the coast in sight for the duration of the trip. He couldn’t see them staying on track otherwise.
He looked around at Stonehenge, now with a great longing in his heart. It essentially had been his home for the past sixteen years. He had hoped to stay here until the Doctor appeared again, but that had been misplaced optimism on his part. Of course he wouldn’t have been able to stay hidden forever. It was only chance that a Roman legion had come upon him during one of the rare times he went topside for a change of scenery. Now here he was, getting ready to leave for another country. Rory wanted to stay, if only to avoid the coming voyage.
A deep pit, dug out in the centre of Stonehenge to raise the Pandorica to the surface, and a crude pulley system disturbed the revered nature of the site. Even some of the petrified aliens had been raised as well, though most had been smashed by the first group of soldiers as they thought they were evil totems. Even now, a few of the soldiers gawked at the strange statues. One even dared to reach out and touch the pepper pot shaped one, something called a Dalek if Rory remembered Amy’s story correctly. They would be an interesting find for whoever came to visit the Stonehenge next.
The leader of the soldiers shouted an order. It was time to go. The ones travelling with the Pandorica to Rome gathered their equipment while the soldiers stationed in Britannia, who had been recruited to help with labour, started the task of demolishing the pulley system. Rory hoped they filled in the giant hole, too. Stonehenge didn’t look right with a pit in the centre.
Under the strength of the four oxen pulling, the cart rolled along over the uneven ground. It moved at a snail’s pace, but they would gain speed once they reached the road. With his entourage grouped around him, Rory didn’t get a clear glimpse of Stonehenge as he looked back. In hindsight, he should have told the soldiers who had found him that he was forbidden by the gods to leave Stonehenge. That would have solved a lot of his problems.
Oh well, it was only Rome. It wouldn’t hurt to visit somewhere civilized. He would meet the Emperor and then hang around the city for a few years before finding a way back. Pleased with his plan, Rory followed the cart and the Pandorica.
Rating: PG
Characters: Rory, with appearances from Barbara
Timeline: set between "The Pandorica Opens" and "The Big Bang"
Summary: London, 1996. Barbara Wright prepares the Pandorica for exhibit at the National Museum. As the work unfolds, she recounts the lengthy history of the stone box and its loyal protector, the Lone Centurion.
Disclaimer: Doctor Who belongs to the BBC. Everything else is me taking liberties with history.
A/N: This behemoth came about when I was watching the reconstruction of "Marco Polo" from "The Beginning" DVD boxset. What if Marco had tried to use the Pandorica instead of the TARDIS to win favour with Kublai Khan? The rest of the story spiralled out of control from there. A huge thank you to my beta
punch_kicker15. This story would still be sitting on my hard drive if it weren't for you.1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49
Part One: All Roads Lead to Rome
London, 1996
Barbara Wright leaned back in her chair, stretching out in the muscles in her back. She felt a satisfying crack and let out a pleased moan. It was her own fault, but she hadn’t been able to tear herself away from her desk. When she got absorbed in a project there was very little that could pull her away from it.
She glanced at her watch and wasn’t surprised to see that it was nearly midnight. It seemed that the cleaning crews had decided to go around her office tonight. A janitor or a cleaning lady usually knocked on her door around ten o’clock when she was pulling an all-nighter, but sometimes they were kind enough to leave her alone. By now, she was probably the only person in the museum, beyond the guards who patrolled the exhibits.
With great effort she put away her files and powered down her computer. She needed rest, not sore muscles and blurry vision. The new exhibit was set to open in a few weeks. That was plenty of time for her to finish all the notes that would accompany each artefact.
Barbara was reaching for her purse, stowed in the bottom drawer of her desk for safe keeping, when she heard footsteps out in the hall. She froze. She didn’t hear the clack of wheels so it wasn’t one of the cleaning crew with one of their carts. An art thief? That seemed too fanciful, and besides, what would a thief be doing in the administrative wing? Anything worth anything would be in the main halls.
Throwing caution to the wind, she called out. “Hello?” She quickly surveyed her desk and considered the heavy pewter paperweight sitting on one corner as a potential weapon, just in case.
The footsteps grew closer until finally they stopped outside of her office. Through the frosted glass of the door, Barbara could make out a vague figure dressed in dark clothes. “Hello?” called a man’s voice. “Ms.…” There was a pause as he took in the name stencilled on the glass. “Ms. Wright?”
“Yes.” She got up from her desk and opened the door. A young man, no older than twenty-five by her estimate, stood out in the hall. He wore a security guard’s uniform and he held a torch in his hand. He looked apologetic.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” he began.
“No, it’s all right. I was just about to leave. Time got away from me, it seems. I didn’t mean to disturb your rounds.” Barbara went back to her desk to retrieve her purse. She felt slightly foolish now and welcomed the chance to step away from the conversation for a moment.
“There was nothing to disturb. You’re the only person I’ve seen tonight.”
“I was caught up in my work. It’s always the case when there’s a new exhibit.” With purse in hand, she shut off the lights and stepped out into the hall. The security guard followed her and watched as she locked her office door.
“Would you like an escort to the car park?” he offered.
It was refreshing to encounter someone so young who was so polite. Barbara found that she couldn’t refuse. And she was glad for the company, though she wouldn’t have admitted it aloud. She was quite fond of the museum during the day, but at night, long lost childhood fears took over and an irrational fear of the dark would descend.
“I’d like that very much, thank you.”
The light of his torch cut through the darkness as they walked through the museum. “What’s the exhibit you’re working on?” asked the security guard.
It was small talk, but the young man sounded genuinely interested, too. “The Anomalies. Specifically the Pandorica.”
“Oh? The big stone cube thing?”
Barbara resisted the urge to shake her head. “The ‘big stone cube thing’ is nearly two thousand years old. It has a history stretching back to the Ancient Roman times.” The Pandorica was a historian’s dream. It appeared everywhere, all throughout history, in various cultures. Hunting down references about it was like a worldwide scavenger hunt. That was what appealed to her. The box had touched every part of the world. It wasn’t part of just one nation.
“How did it end up here?”
“It’s a very long winded answer.” One Barbara had been working on for ages.
“I like stories,” said the security guard, smiling at Barbara.
She found herself smiling back. “Well, this is what we know…”
* * *
Stonehenge, 118 A.D.
Rory watched apprehensively as the Pandorica was loaded onto a large cart by half a dozen Roman soldiers. Three young men struggled to push the box up the crude ramp that led into the back of the cart while the other three, equipped with ropes tied around the stone cube, pulled from the other side. One slip and the Pandorica would go sliding back, likely crushing the foot of anyone too slow to get out of its way.
He wanted to join them, to help out. One advantage of being plastic was that he was stronger than the average person. Annoyingly, he had an armed entourage of soldiers standing around him, “protecting” him. Rory had a sneaking suspicion that they were under orders to make sure he didn’t run off. The Emperor wanted the Pandorica and its guardian to return to Rome. Not that Rory had any plans to run off. He had vowed to look after the Pandorica until the necessary time and that meant staying close by, no matter what happened. If he had to go to Rome, he would go to Rome.
One of the soldiers suddenly cried out as one of the ropes snapped. The soldier holding the now broken rope fell back into the mud while his comrades strained to keep the Pandorica on the ramp. Their faces went beet red from concentration.
That was it. Rory couldn’t watch anymore. He pushed past his armed guards and ran for the cart. He shot up the ramp and joined the soldiers in their struggle. At first the Pandorica resisted but slowly and surely he was able to overcome the force of friction between the base of the box and the ramp. The soldiers around him blinked and for a second they forgot to push.
“I can’t do this on my own,” muttered Rory. The three young men quickly returned to their task and more men were called over to help haul on the remaining two ropes. It reminded Rory of a video he had seen on the Internet once, during a long night shift at the hospital. Something called a tractor pull.
They all let out a mighty yell when the Pandorica passed over the lip of the ramp and into the back of the cart. The cart groaned under the added weight, but it held, thanks to the metal reinforcement added to its frame. It was just one custom made item among many that had been produced to get the box from Britannia to Rome. A specially built trireme, large and sturdy to support the weight of the Pandorica on the sea voyage, waited for them in the harbour at Dubris.
With the Pandorica loaded on the cart, that was half of the battle. Now they had to get it to the harbour, a week’s travel by Rory’s estimate if they kept up a good pace. He hopped down from the cart as four large oxen were hitched up to it.
His armed guards quickly swarmed around him, practically forming a barrier around him. Maybe they weren’t worried about him running off. Maybe these soldiers were tasked with his safety. He thought it was rather extravagant. He was a centurion after all, albeit a plastic one with fake memories of being a Roman soldier. Unless the world beyond Stonehenge had changed drastically since 102 A.D. The sudden disappearance of the stars might have caused some upheaval that Rory didn’t know about.
At the thought of the stars and their lack thereof, a startling realization hit him. Without stars in the sky how were they going to navigate the seas at night? Only the moon broke up the monotony of the night sky and that was on clear nights. His only hope was that they kept the coast in sight for the duration of the trip. He couldn’t see them staying on track otherwise.
He looked around at Stonehenge, now with a great longing in his heart. It essentially had been his home for the past sixteen years. He had hoped to stay here until the Doctor appeared again, but that had been misplaced optimism on his part. Of course he wouldn’t have been able to stay hidden forever. It was only chance that a Roman legion had come upon him during one of the rare times he went topside for a change of scenery. Now here he was, getting ready to leave for another country. Rory wanted to stay, if only to avoid the coming voyage.
A deep pit, dug out in the centre of Stonehenge to raise the Pandorica to the surface, and a crude pulley system disturbed the revered nature of the site. Even some of the petrified aliens had been raised as well, though most had been smashed by the first group of soldiers as they thought they were evil totems. Even now, a few of the soldiers gawked at the strange statues. One even dared to reach out and touch the pepper pot shaped one, something called a Dalek if Rory remembered Amy’s story correctly. They would be an interesting find for whoever came to visit the Stonehenge next.
The leader of the soldiers shouted an order. It was time to go. The ones travelling with the Pandorica to Rome gathered their equipment while the soldiers stationed in Britannia, who had been recruited to help with labour, started the task of demolishing the pulley system. Rory hoped they filled in the giant hole, too. Stonehenge didn’t look right with a pit in the centre.
Under the strength of the four oxen pulling, the cart rolled along over the uneven ground. It moved at a snail’s pace, but they would gain speed once they reached the road. With his entourage grouped around him, Rory didn’t get a clear glimpse of Stonehenge as he looked back. In hindsight, he should have told the soldiers who had found him that he was forbidden by the gods to leave Stonehenge. That would have solved a lot of his problems.
Oh well, it was only Rome. It wouldn’t hurt to visit somewhere civilized. He would meet the Emperor and then hang around the city for a few years before finding a way back. Pleased with his plan, Rory followed the cart and the Pandorica.
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