#verse two;

[traditorem]

-- We had decided on a bath now - did we not, love?  { Loki steps into the bath now, the water a bit too hot for his skin, being the race that he was. }

[inquinaribus]

• unchained • closed • dominaspacium •

     Everything was separate.

     A schoolboy could learn all about the prejudice of the sixties by reading books, and think he understands. Rory would sit and think about it for hours, about how surprised he'd been to learn that everything he thought he knew and understood was on such a low level compared to reality. He saw riots in the streets, and the pages of a book could never quite describe what it was to hear the wet pack of skin on skin, of paddles and police rifles against bruised flesh.

     He was a doctor and he wasn't allowed to help the people who fell in the race riots. There'd been a bus filled with people of colour. Twelve members of the Ku Klux Klan surrounded the bus with torches and more came, and they flipped the bus. And Rory, he could not help, no matter how much he wanted.

     It was starting to become too much. He took one look at his wife before he left for work that night, and he decided to help, no matter what colour. He wasn't prejudiced, but frankly, he facilitated the violence by not doing anything. It made him just as bad as every racist who expected a golden crown for every slur that fell from their greasy mouths.

     With an ache in his gut and a tug on his brain, Rory kissed his wife goodbye. He left the little flat into the night chill. New York was one of the most beautiful places Rory had ever seen, and it wouldn't get old. He and Amy, they were happy and all was well.

     He didn't even make it to the hospital before he spotted fire. There were officers and shields, and two groups of people facing off. In seconds, the space between them closed, and guns went off. 

     If anything of the Doctor had rubbed off on Rory, it was the inability to run away from trouble. The madman's voice in the back of his head urged him forward and he ran for the first body that fell. He knew that face -- Reverend James Martin, a friend, a man who'd never stop fighting for equality among men. The reverend had taken a shot through the chest, but the bullet missed his heart. Rory knelt, ignoring the scattering folk around them.

     "Doctor," James panted.

      He didn't feel any pain. His ears were ringing, and he looked at Reverend James Martin with wide eyes, the situation registering slowly.

     "Doctor Williams!"

      He fell on his side, right next to his friend. Feet pushed him onto his back and Rory stared up at the darkening sky.

      He sort of expected it to start raining, like in the films. The tingling down his spine faded and he felt absolutely nothing. No pain, nothing. Rory's vision faded in and out, and the noise faded too. It was cloudy, and then -- 

                                     There was nothing.

      Rory Arthur Williams died the first monday of February. The funeral procession was exactly one week later, and the story they put in the papers was that he'd been shot by a black man on his way to work, in cold blood.

      He couldn't leave letting people believe that.

                     He watched. He waited to see Amy, because if anybody would know the truth, it'd be her.