The Last Centurion

Cato Avilius

"Robots?" Avilius asked.

"Oh, right. Metal men."

"Ah, I see." He cast his eyes about the room again, and Rory began to feel nervous. The Roman Centurion had promised not to interfere, but if this soldier thought he had something to gain by looting the Pandorica, it wasn't much of a stretch to believe he'd disobey orders. "I didn't come down here just to ask about your artwork, actually, unusual as it may be. I came to ask about your story about the gods."

"What about it?" Rory asked cautiously.

The legionnaire studied him with a strange look in his eyes. He was a man about to step off a cliff. "What really happened?"

"You don't believe in the gods?"

"No, I don't, and I don't think you do either."

"What makes you think that?"

Avilius snorted. "No one would trust Jupiter enough to just do as he bid without at least asking. King though the stories may make him, he is still a fickle god to please. But even if you were a fool, you would have been a happy one. You told us that story without any emotion crossing your face except concentration. I imagine you were trying to keep your lies straight."

"Right, well, first of all, maybe after waiting around for two decades I'm a little not happy with the god who put me here. But secondly, if I am lying, why is it any of your business?"

Avilius shrugged. "it isn't. I was curious, and I thought maybe you would like to share the true story with some one. But if you prefer eternal solitude to conversation, I will withdraw to camp." He stood there a moment, waiting for a reply. Without one, he strode back to the steps.

Rory almost let him walk away. It was safer. But two decades had been rough - how much worse would two thousand years be? "It wasn't the gods," he called out, and Avilius halted on the second step. Rory sheathed his sword. "I don't believe in them, either. It's a bit more complicated than that."

The legionnaire turned and sat on the steps. "I'm all ears."

Rory sat as well, at the base of the Pandorica. "It's kind of because of a friend of mine. Well, he's more my fiancée’s friend than mine. But anyway, we were traveling with him - " Avilius held up a finger.

"Where is your fiancée now?"

Rory stared at him like he didn't understand the question. He wasn't sure he wanted to tell anyone. He was here to keep Amy safe. But he said, "She's right here," and patted the side of the Pandorica. "inside it, I mean. She was injured, in a battle, and now I'm protecting her." He wouldn't say that she was dead, or that he had killed her. If he could never say those things again, he would.

Avilius looked at him like he was crazy, but something - kindness, or wisdom - held him back from the more prying questions about Rory's sanity, and instead lead him to ask, "So why is she in there?"

"It's to help her recover," Rory said. "it's going to heal her. But it will take a very long time." Rory found himself explaining everything to Avilius, working backwards and turning the story inside out to explain ever detail. The Roman was fascinated by every point of it, particularly the minute scientific details that Rory didn't understand. At one point he said:

"Centurion, you said you did not believe in gods. But your friend sounds like one."

"No, no," Rory said, scowling. "The Doctor would be a terrible god. Actually, that's rather horrifying, him ruling anything. It's all science and running around and pretending he knows everything." 

"Ah. Then it's too bad you have such a strict definition of god. I was going to say, that you yourself could count as one."

Rory scoffed. "No, not really."