Fic by kerkevik: Ecce res magna dierum genus

[elisi]

Note to self: NEVER announce that you're going on hiatus, because SOMETHING will crop up. Although in this case it's a nice something - a fic that kerkevik wrote for Miss M, and which he would like be posted in my LJ first, since it's a gift. So, without further ado, here you are:

TITLE: Ecce res magna dierum genus (What a wonderful kind of day)
AUTHOR: kerkevik
FANDOM: Doctor Who (The New Re-Imagining of the Show)
LENGTH: 1000 words approx
SPOILERS: Set between S5 & S6 of NuWho, so spoilers for anything up to that point.
RATING: Well this was written for a 12/13 year old, so PG-13.
PAIRING: Amy/Rory (from Rory's POV.)
A/N: This was written as a form of apology to Miss M, daughter of the wonderful elisi, who seems under the misapprehension that I am cool..? :-) Anyway, it seemed obvious to write an Amy/Rory fic; then to set it between the Wee!Amy she likes to write, and the Rory that is the finest male hero on TV today. So this is a combination of the two; not Wee!Amy/Wee!Rory, but her as Rory remembers the time.
This will appear on my lj soon, as well on a couple of DrWho forums, I hope, but it is Miss M's, so I have gifted elisi the right to host it first.

Ecce res magna dierum genus (What a wonderful kind of day)
by kerkevik
In hindsight he should never have doubted she loved him, even if it was unlikely she ever thought the words like he did; soon as they started doing poetry in English.

The first time he read Emily Dickinson he knew what the feelings meant.

When all the other boys in school were talking about the girls they liked; which ones they wanted to go with; he was considered odd for not joining in; at least not that often. And his choices were always film stars; always carefully from black & white movies as well, so they would never realise they were invariably redheads.

He even knew when they started.

They'd, very unusually, not seen each other since they'd left the bus they caught to school. They'd both had sports in the afternoon; Rugby, which he hated; Hockey, which she loathed.

He'd chatted to her all the way to school because she was very quiet, as she always was when she had sports. In the morning he'd had biology; which he was good at, and she'd had art - which she was stellar at, though her teachers didn't seem to appreciate that.

Anyway, when he'd got back to school, his mother was waiting for him, which was very unusual. He'd waited until the car was on the road back home before he'd asked why he wasn't catching the bus home.

His mother had sighed, "Amy's Aunt Sharon called. She asked if you could come over tonight; sleepover." She'd paused to let a tractor leave through a gate, before adding, "She got into another fight at school."

He closed his eyes. He knew what that meant. Amy had never fitted in since she'd arrived with her Aunt from Inverness; especially after her Aunt had finally divorced her husband, who'd never lived with them. School sports always ended with Amy in some sort of trouble - it was never the girls who always antagonised her until she couldn't take it anymore.

He opened his mouth, but his mother just glanced at the back seat with her eyes. He turned his head, and saw a holdall with his change of clothes for tomorrow. He smiled, and patted her hand as it rested on the gear stick; they were paused at an intersection. She blew a kiss at him, which he only saw because he could see her in the mirror. They didn't need to say anything. His mother was as angry as Aunt Sharon that it was always Amy that was in trouble.

When they arrived at Amy's house, he didn't wait to say goodbye. He almost ripped the seatbelt off; was out of the car before it had come to a stop in the drive, and was inside the front door; thundering up the stairs before his mother had even turned off the engine.

He didn't even hear Aunt Sharon call out that they were having pizza if that was alright.

He did stop for a moment before opening Amy's door though. He usually knocked, though Amy always told him off, because he wasn't to, but this time he didn't. His mother had never picked him up from school before; for all the times he'd been called over to keep Amy company, so he knew something had happened that was different.

"What happened?"

She looked up at him; from the package in her hand, totally surprising him by the smile on her face; shocking him really.

"Siddoun."

He frowned curiously for a moment, but sat down on the edge of the bed, without demur (his word of the week in the diary his dad had given him for his birthday), because he always did what she said; because most often it was the best way of stopping her from planning some kind of revenge at the latest insults.

Then he saw her shins, and felt his temper rising. There were at least a half dozen - very purple - bruises. He looked at her face, and was again pulled up short by the smile on her face as she popped a VHS tape in the brand new machine her Aunt had given her.

"She hardly ever leaves her room, so why not give her some thing that will take her out of herself, and enjoy her programmes from home?" He'd heard her explaining to his mother when they'd picked it out. He'd insisted on carrying it to Aunt Sharon's car, even though he'd barely been able to lift it.

"It's for Amy," he'd heard his mother say to Aunt Sharon when she asked why he was so keen. Out of the corner of his eye he'd seen the smiles on their faces, and blushed; at the time having no clue why.

Confused as he was by Amy's behaviour, he managed to ask her what it was. She shrugged, and handed him the package the tape had come in. He ran his eyes over the printed lettering, and spotted the stamp which was very clearly marked saying it had arrived from America. He looked up, still puzzled, and was even more confused when she reached out and pulled him across the bed to sit beside her.

After a short while it all became clear. The titles of some new TV show from America started and, when he saw the name emblazoned on the titles, she settled her red hair into his shoulder and laughed her wonderful laugh as the Aardvark called Arthur started talking.

Nearly two thousand years earlier, as he stared down at her dead eyes, he somehow managed to stop from crying as he smiled at the realisation that Amy Pond, all that time ago, had somehow found a way of telling him she loved him.

And, after nearly two thousand years of guardianship; of waiting; of dreaming; of hoping... all he could hear as he saw her in the gloom of the museum, was that theme tune, and the sound of her laughing through the pain of her bruises, and put his hand to his mouth.

Because all he wanted to do was start singing the words of 'their song'; their private song, the one neither of them told anyone else about.

And the thing was, they never did find out who'd sent the videotape, or put it onto one they could watch the UK, or even known the name of the character he always played when they played Romans; he always got to be the hero in that one, because Arthur was always defending Roman Britain from the Saxons.

All he knew was that that was the moment he fell in love with Amy Pond, and that the last day they spent together before getting married was spent watching Arthur DVD's.

He still had the Arthur pyjamas she'd bought for him, and would never get rid of them.

Their wedding night, together on the TARDIS, she'd said, very, very quietly.

"If we ever have a boy, I think we should call him Arthur, don't you?"

Rory Pond had just smiled, and started humming the theme tune, and Amy Pond had settled her red hair into his shoulder, and chuckled.