> Affections Touching Across Time
>  by Alcatraz
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Act 1
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	My name is Melissa Hope, Mel for short. I'm a seventeen year old, five foot six tall girl with long blonde hair and green eyes. Most mornings at 5am I get up and shower, dress, and eat breakfast I would prepare the day before then make the paper rounds around the local neighborhood. About a year ago after I left school because the bullying got really bad, I got the job delivering fliers, letters, and newspapers.

Living at the end of a dead end street on the other end of town hid the house from a lot of people for the most part, and one would need to know where to go to find the house.  Every town has those backstreets that rarely get visited or traveled, and it's a case of driving through town to the far end, take a seemingly abandoned road and my house is at the end hidden behind a grove of trees. When I do the early morning deliveries the sunrises are picturesque; golden rays of sun escaping over the mountain tops and touching the green grass, the trees, and everything else making them glow in the early morning light. Feeling the warmth of the morning sun is why I enjoy doing the early deliveries.

When I got the job delivering the paper and letters I had to show my boss where the house is  so he could have someone drop off tomorrows papers for delivery. My shifts would vary from day to day so I could catch up on sleep for the most part; one day it's get up early and do the morning rounds which would end about 10 or 11, then I would have a nap to catch up on any sleep I lost that night.

The next day I'd normally sleep in until ten then either cycle or walk into town to the main office to begin my midday shift delivering letters and parcels, then I would get off doing that around three or four in the afternoon and head home to watch TV or play games. That would happen four days a week and then on the other three my boyfriend, Michael, and I would go out to the movies, have dinner, or just hang out. I met him one day when I had just started working for the post office. He bumped into me with his bike and made me drop a lot of the papers, ruining some. He jumped off of his bike and rushed over, managing to save a few of the papers from rolling into the gutter. 

"I'm sorry, miss...?" he said.

A flush of red came over my cheeks and I looked down at the ground in embarrassment. "I'm uhm... My name is Melissa, but my mum calls me Mel."

"Hi, I'm Michael, sorry about your papers. Hold on, your mum?" he said quizzically.

I nodded with a slight pang of hurt from childhood that settled in my throat, but I cleared my throat to get rid of it. "I didn't, don't, have many friends. I got bullied a lot when I was in school because of how my eyes are." I paused and let out a held breath, speaking with a slightly depressed tone. "A lot of the kids in my classes would call me Derpy because of the lack of co-ordination caused by my eyes."

"May I see?" Michael took a step closer and brushed a lock of hair out of my face, and I shyly looked into his eyes too. He saw that one would be normal, while the other one would be looking up or down. I told him whenever I looked around, the same thing would happen with the other eye.

"Wow, that's kinda cool!" he said. "Why do they do that?"

"It's something called Strabismus." I nervously took a step back to regain some of my personal space, looking back down at the ground and shyly kicked at the odd pebble. Having a stranger that close makes me feel rather uneasy.

"What does that mean?" he inquired.

I cleared my throat and spoke with confidence toward him. "It's neurological, so no surgery can fix it. The doctors told me that my brain gets the muscle movements for my eyes mixed up, and makes them move funny. Sort of like having one wheel on a car spin faster than the other."

"Wow, you must be clever to remember that!" he beamed, sounding quite impressed.

Blushing again I looked down once more. "Not really, I just memorized it for when people asked me about it."

"Anyway, sorry about your papers. Can I make it up to you? Maybe lunch at the cafe in town tomorrow afternoon around four?"

His question stole my breath for a minute, no guy had asked me out before, but rather they picked on me in school. I just sheepishly nodded and he got back on his bike and took off down the road.

All that was about eight months ago, and we've been casually dating ever since. He's rather touchy feely a lot of the time when we hang out, but I just chalked that down to being overly playful.

After my shift ended in the afternoon I went home to my usual routine of either watching TV or playing games. Because of my eyes, it can be quite difficult to focus them on a single image, but with enough concentration I can make it work. Sometimes I'd find myself sitting in weird positions and mum would ask, "Mel, sweetie, isn't that uncomfortable? Doesn't it hurt your eyes?"

Julianne wasn't my birth mother, but I do call her mum a lot of the time although Jill slips out occasionally. She adopted me when I was two after my parents died in a house fire when I was one. At least that's what's on record. "Not really, sometimes I find it easier to look at the screen like this because of my eyes." Jill loves me to bits. Her husband died in a house fire a few years after they married and then adopted me about six months later. Sadly His body was never found.

"Well dinner is ready, are you hungry?"

"What are we having?"

"Spaghetti and meatballs, your favorite."

Mum always had a knack for making spaghetti and meatballs, and it annoyed me that she never tells me the recipe. "Well, second favorite."

She tisks and rolls her eyes humorously. "I never can figure out why you like muffins so much, and not cupcakes."

"I told you before!" I said as we both sat down at the table, as I poured the both of us a glass of orange juice. "Cupcakes are whore muffins, just dressed up fancy. Muffins taste better because they're sweet and savory at the same time, like blueberry muffins."

Mum gave her usual giggle-snort at my response. "I still think it's weird."

After dinner I finished watching cartoons and went to bed early enough so I could get up for the early morning shift. The next morning I got up a little before five, showered to help myself wake up, got the bag fulls of rolled papers and stacks of fliers and began to make the early rounds. It's a warm summers day so all I had on was my favorite grey tank top and loose, three-quarter length shorts. After I finished the rounds I stopped in at the bakery and got a couple filled rolls for Michael and I to eat. He's normally at home around this time, so I thought it would be nice to surprise him with a light breakfast for him and snack for myself, then we could cuddle on the couch and watch the Saturday morning replay of Friday nights movie.

I stopped off home to freshen up a bit and have a drink of water, getting my bag and putting the sandwiches in it with the other bits and pieces such as my phone, wallet, keys, and so on, and set off to Mike's house. It's only about a thirty minute walk from my place, and given the current weather I really don't mind the walk.

I walked up the driveway and felt my stomach flip a little in excitement in seeing him earlier than normal. When I got to the door and knocked on the door I heard some hushing, shuffling, and bumping coming from the room above the door, Mike's room. My brow furrowed in confusion as Mike answered the door wearing nothing but his shorts and standing there, breathing heavily as if he had done a massive workout.  It still didn't explain why he was in his boxer shorts, though.

"Oh, Mel, I didn't know you were coming around."

"No, I thought I'd surprise you." I said with apprehension, looking over both his sweaty shoulders trying to find whoever else is in there. "What's going on in there?" My heartbeat begins to quicken its pace as my misaligned eyes try to locate the source. "Who else is here?"

"Nobody!" he quickly interjected with a hint of panic in his voice.

A voice called out from upstairs. "Mike, are you coming back to bed?"

I could feel my heartbeat quicken as if powered by a nuclear reactor, and I could feel my stomach drop with the force of an exploding hydrogen bomb. At this point I stopped functioning. My joints seized up, my brain shut off, and as much shock as I was in my jaw refused to drop, only managing to uselessly twitch in a fruitless attempt to form words. The guilty look on his face said it all; he knew perfectly well he got busted.

"I... What?" escaped from my mouth in what seemed like an eternity of standing on the porch, the emotions beginning to show on my face; sadness in my ridiculous eyes, the feeling of worthlessness tugging at my heartstrings, and the worst one of all? After all those years of being picked on, I thought I finally found someone who cared about me. But I guess not. After all, who would?

The voice that called out from upstairs appeared at the top of the staircase with long curly brunette tossed everywhere, like bed head, wearing a shirt that was obviously too big but that was hastily put on to cover up everything else. She stopped, looking down on us from her position atop the stairs as Mike turned his head to look at this woman as if to say This isn't what it looks like! But she wasn't having it.

"Seriously? I mean really? That 'tard?"

The bomb just exploded, washing me with nauseating memories of people calling me retarded. I wanted to do so many things right now, attack what I thought was my boyfriend, collapse crying, [and I know this is just the epitome of emotional build up] and die.

I did what came to mind, but it was autonomous rather than choice. I simply turned and walked in the other direction, back in the direction of home.

"Mel, wait!" called Michael.

I didn't turn back, I didn't talk, I turned my back on him and just kept walking. That's what I could do, walk and keep walking until I collapse and not wake up. My mind was still flooded with a million thoughts, and I didn't know how to deal with them. Is this what an anxiety attack feels like? It's the worst thing ever.

I just kept walking until I got home, dumping my bag with the sandwiches in it in the doorway in the middle of the floor, not caring about anything else at the moment. I walked into my room, kicked off my shoes, collapsed onto the bed with the full weight and realization of everything hit me. I started crying, burying my face in the pillow until it got soaked with tears. I don't know when, but at some point I passed out from either crying too much, or just simple tiredness.

I woke up and looked at my bedside clock showing it to be 1:30 in the afternoon. Mum would be home from work at five, and I wanted to try and compose myself from what happened a few hours before. Our house has a wood burner  that heats the water in the water tank because it's not electrically heated, so I thought it would be a nice idea to restock the wood and light the boiler so mum can have a hot shower, and chopping wood would be a nice release of anger by doing something destructive in a constructive manner.

I've found out the hard way holding the log with my hand then bringing the hatchet down doesn't do too many favours for my fingers. I've still got them all, but there's been some pretty close calls so I've resorted to holding the log steady with a smaller branch then splitting the log. Half way through filling up the wood bucket to take it inside I hear an odd noise, almost like a wheezing old man has taken their front door key and tortured piano strings with it. It's sickening in a sense, like whatever is making the noise is diseased. I sink the hatchet into the log to hold it, then venture out of the little wood shed towards the sound of the noise emanating from the grove of trees behind the house.

Just to make sure there isn't anything, I walk several meters into the trees in an attempt to find the source of the noise. After walking around for ten minutes and stumbling over some branches and logs but not finding anything, I make my way back toward the house. When I clear the crunching of the sticks of the grove of trees and step out onto the grass, the crunching still continues. Turning to look back, attempting to focus my eyes on the trees I hear more cracking.

Is something following me?

I stand looking at the trees, hearing the odd cracking sound getting progressively closer to me. Not knowing what's coming, I retreat back into the house through the back door that's adjacent to the woodshed and look out the little window, straining my eyes on the treeline. Soon enough a small figure emerges out of the trees and collapses onto the grass. I open the door and rush out to see what the matter is, and half way across the yard it gets up and stumbles forward, clearly hurt. From my position across the yard I can see a small chestnut brown creature standing  about eighteen inches tall, and when I finally reach it I can see it to be some sort of baby horse with a darker brown mane, and an odd looking thing with a blue light at one end clenched between his teeth.

"Hey there little guy, where did you come from?" I quietly asked, kneeling down beside... him? Yeah, it's a boy alright.

I put my hands under to lift the... Is it a small horse or a pony? I'll just go with pony. I lift him up to carry him inside but winced as if something I'm putting pressure got bruised and it would make sense since I'm lifting him up with arms underneath his ribs. I take the poor thing inside and settle him down in my place on the sofa in the lounge, taking the weird looking thing from his mouth and placing it on the coffee table. I carefully slide a cushion underneath his head and went to the freezer to pull out a bag of frozen peas, wrapping it up in a tea-towel and putting it on his ribs.

That seemed to quell the problem for now. I don't know what it is that's wrong, but I don't think it's more than a  bruised rib or two, otherwise he would have been in substantially more pain. The thing that I find weird about this whole situation as I'm sitting here with a pastel chestnut-brown pony laying on my couch that came stumbling out of the forest with a weird tool in his teeth, is that I don't know why but I've got a sense of Deja-Vu around whomever or whatever this thing is supposed to be.

I leave the poor thing on the couch resting with his head on the couch cushion while I go light the boiler and finish cutting the wood as a nice surprise for mum. Not too long after I finished doing that and settled down to watch the afternoon cartoon with the little pony, who's still asleep, but putting the semi-thawed bag of peas back into the fridge so they don't go off, I hear mums car pull up in the driveway, get out, and come in the front door with a bit of shopping as she sets it down on the counter just inside the kitchen door.

"Hey sweetie, how was your day?" she asked. With the memory of earlier still fresh in my mind and not wanting to show that I'm upset about it, I just feigned being better by putting on a chipper tone and responding with "I'm fine, and I found something interesting in the grove of trees behind the house."

"Oh yeah?" she asks with a raised eyebrow as she walks around to talk to me face to face. "And what wou-" her sentence stopped mid flow as she saw the little pony laying on the couch, seeming dumbfounded to see the creature laying next to me.

"W- where did that come from? What is it?!"

"I just said, I found it in the grove of trees behind the house." I answered calmly.

"Mel, darling, you can't keep a horse in the house!"

"Pony." I countered

"Pony, right."

"And I don't plan on it either." I continued, trying to focus my stray eye on mum. "He was hurt, I put him on the couch to rest with some frozen peas on what I thought was his bruised ribs." I added, folding my arms in both pride and defense of my actions.

Jill's expression softened as she heard why this thing is on her couch, and a small smile formed on her lips. "Alright then. I supposed it can't do any harm to let him rest up, then when he's better we'll take him to someone who will know what to do with the wee thing."

If I had ears like this adorable little thing, they'd be plastered against the side of my head in sadness.

"Oh come on," mum protested. "don't give me that look, we can't keep it!"

"Why not?" I asked, a confident smile forming on my face for the upcoming response.

"To begin with we have nowhere to keep it, and nothing to feed it with."

I cleared my throat and asserted myself. "I've got enough money saved to buy some food and one of those large pet beds for dogs, for him, and whatever else he may need in the future." After finishing my sentence, mum just stood there looking down at me with what could be described as a defeated look on her face. "We can also keep him in the yard as well." She let out a long held breath before speaking.

"Ok, I've got no problem with that." she answered calmly. "But he's your responsibility, it's up to you to take care of him."

I squeed, making a noise that sounded like a deflating balloon and jumping up and throwing my arms around mum. "Honestly, how could you say no to something as cute as that, eh?" I said, gesturing with a nod toward the pony on the couch.

Mum laughed under her breath a little. "Yeah, he is pretty cute. Just think what he must be like all poofy like after a shower."

I made the sound of a deflating balloon at the thought of him being all poofy, and now that I think about it he does look a little dirty from coming out of the trees so this would be a good opportunity to find out. But maybe I was just trying to use that as an excuse to find out because deep down everyone wants to see cute fluffy things, and lets face it who wouldn't want to? You can't pass up something like that without your heart skipping beats.

I sat back down on the couch with the still sleeping colt stroking him until he started to stir, making a little groaning noise. A puzzled look came across my face, something that vocal struck me as very odd because it seems too advanced for an equine creature.

"Just take it easy little guy, you're in my house. I found you outside, you were hurt so I took care of you. Now it's time for a bath, so just stay calm while I carry you into the bathroom." He seemed to relax a little bit, so I scooped him up and and carried him into the bathroom where I set the colt down in the tub and ran the warm water until it's a few inches and he can stand up in the water. I don't know if any of the products we have like the shampoos and body washes are any good, so I just opt to use a regular bar of soap on the fur, and massage the suds in to clean his skin too.

Working up a good lather on the coat, and even though he probably can't understand me, talking seems a good thing to try and break the ice. So to speak. "So little guy, what's your name?" I give a humored huff under my breath. "Listen to me, you probably can't even understand me."

"Doctor."

Time seemed to stop. Hearing a word spoken when there's only two of us in here, and I know it wasn't me left me stunned.

"Did... did you just talk?" I said, staring at his face.

The pony shook his head and I momentarily went back to cleaning him. A minute afterwards, it dawns. "Wait a minute, you understood me! I asked if you understood me, and you shook your head, so you DID understand what I said!"

He shook his head again.

"See, you did it again! Come on little guy, you can tell me."

"Please don't tell anyone else."

My eyes widened in shock and my breathing momentarily ceased at hearing this... I don't even know what to call it anymore, speak. His voice sounded sounded like that of an Englishman, but with a more childlike tone to it. Given the age of him, I wouldn't say that much is worth questioning. My mind is reeling with what to ask next, and then realize I didn't quite catch his name when he said it the first time.

"What did you say your name is?"

"Doctor." he replied.

"Uhm, ok?" I said with some confusion as I squeezed out a wet towel over his fur to wash the soap bubbles off of him. "Why Doctor?"

The child-like English voice spoke more clearly this time. "It's the name I chose for myself."

I cocked my head as if to say whatever, not wanting to question him right now "Alright, time to hop out now, Doctor." I lay out a towel on the floor of the bathroom to catch the water dripping off the colt, and lift him out of the deep tub onto the towel, using another to dry him off.

"So, how did you get here anyway?"

"The TARDIS." the Doctor said flatly.

"The what now?"
> Act 2
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	It was a bit too much to take in at once.

After I finished drying the colt we went into the lounge to sit and talk while Mum had her shower. He told me that he came here in his TARDIS, which stood for Time and Relative Dimension In Space. A time machine, as he had to blatantly put it. One that can travel anywhere in time, and space too. Kinda of like an extremely long ranged teleport. But for some incomprehensible reason, doesn't know how or why, he can't find it. Apparently he lost the key that both unlocked the front door and somehow "called" it. All of what he was telling me went right over the top of my head so I just sat there and nodded, figuring that I would understand it in the future.

"So what's this thing I found you with?" I asked while holding up the device I got from his mouth.

Doctor jumped up on me and snatched it back with his teeth. "Careful with that, there's no telling what you could accidentally do!" He then started twisting it this way and that, making it buzz and glow blue.

"It's my sonic screwdriver, it lets me fix anything." he said rather proudly.

I eyed up the device with one of my eyes that isn't looking off into the distance, giving it a curious look. "What can't it fix?" I asked.

The Doctor snickered under his breath and spoke with his ever so cute child-like English voice. "Why, what do you want to have fixed?"

"A broken heart." I said, turning my head to the side.

His demeanour immediately softened with an expression that encompassed a sense of empathy. I could tell that look meant otherwise.

"Time heals all wounds, right?" I added, turning my head to look at him with a hopeful expression

This time his ears flattened against the sides of his head and this time it's his turn to look away, but the way he did it, it's like he's trying to hide something the way he did it.

"One could only wish for that to be the case." Doctor stated, rather flatly.

I heard Mum open the bathroom door and go into her room across the hall, presumably to change. After a few minutes she came into the lounge idly drying the last of her hair with the towel, where the Doctor and I had just finished talking.

"I heard voices, were you talking to someone?" she queried.

I defensively shook my head. "No, I was just talking to our new guest here, saying how much he'll like staying here. Because even animals need friends too, right?"

"Too right. Anyway, what do you want for dinner?"

Takeouts are a good depression dampener. "Uhm, how about fish and chips?" I say, with a somewhat pleading look in my eyes. "Chicken schnitzel with chips and tartare!"

Mum gave a humored giggle-snort before answering. "And what about your new friend here?" she said loosely, gesturing to the chestnut brown pony looking up at her with those cartoon-esque eyes. "Do you want to pick up something for him in town while we're there?"

An idea crossed my mind and I grinned at the thought of it. "So little buddy, what do you want to eat tonight?" I lean down with my head covering his muzzle from Mum as he whispered his answer into my ear. "Uh huh. OK. He says he wants hay fries." He nudged my hand. "Oh yeah, extra salt."

The look on Jill's face is priceless. "Did you just... How did you..."

This time it's my turn to laugh, and I did so with gusto. "Seriously Mum, do you really think I could talk to an animal?" I took a breath to calm my laughing. "We can just put him outside while we go into town so he can get his fill of grass and flowers, is that alright little buddy?"

Doctor simply nodded his head and hopped off the couch, trotting over to the door. The funny thing is, given his stature and even if he stood up on his hind legs he still wouldn't be tall enough to reach to door handle, but  that didn't stop him from trying. It was cute as hell to watch though. Despite my pleas, Mum insisted that we tie Doctor to the tree in the middle of the yard so he "won't get into anything that she shouldn't". He wasn't happy about it, but I offered to make things better when I got home.

Mum and I placed our order at the fish'n'chip shop and I suggested we go to the pet store to see if I can get a large bed for Doctor.

"Doctor?" Mum asked, while we were looking through a few of the beds at the store. It's a decent sized one, got cages set in against the far wall opposite the main entrance that have puppies and kittens in them, for viewing pleasure and so the little kids can pet and pick one out to take home.

"Yeah, he told me it's his name." I pulled out a circular bed from underneath a stack of smaller ones, and it popped up. Well I'll be damned. Handy little feature, having a pop-up bed.

"Ok Mel, if you say so." The tone from her voice was clearly sarcastic, but in a humored kinda way. After all, we all have pets that we pretend we can talk to.

I walk out of the store after fifteen minutes with a medium-sized pet bed in my arms, about fifty to sixty centimeters in diameter, and a nice night-blue blanket to boot. We collect our order from the takeaway bar and drive home to find Doctor curled up under the tree in the warm sun sleeping. A sight like that makes ones heart skip a beat. I decide to leave him be for the moment to sleep, god knows how much time travel messes up his sleeping patterns, and set up the bed and blanket in my room. Mum and I eat dinner with idle conversation of what we're going to do about this pony, while I savor the delicious taste of the greasy food filling in the cracks of my recently broken heart.

They say that, one day, someone will hug you so tight that all of your broken pieces will stick back together. I've had a weird way of dealing with these things over the years. Most of the time it's just walking them off after the realization sinks in of what happened, like going into shock for the most part. There's been other times where I've cried for days on end, like when nana died. I used it as an excuse to let out a flood of other emotions that I was bottling up over the years, and you know what? It felt good. Everyone needs to cry now and then, even if you're a great big heavy-set guy who is into wrestling and watches cartoons in his off time.

After dinner, all the washing up that needed doing was screwing up the paper the chips came in and toss it into the boiler's furnace. No sense to toss it into the rubbish bin where it'll end up going into landfill. I saw Doctor had woken up and is now poking at the grass with a hoof, so I go out to the tree, untie and carry the cutie inside and into my room to show him his new bed.

"Is this my bed?" he asks.

"With blanket to go with it. If Mum had her way she'd make you stay outside, but lucky for you I convinced her otherwise, so you're going to be sleeping in here with me."

Doctor then proceeds to get in the plush bed, and treads circles around in it a few times and then lays down in it.

"I suppose, it is comfortable after all."

The rest of the evening drew to a close. Doctor slept in his new bed while I watched TV well into the night and I didn't get to bed until about 11 o'clock because the following day I got the afternoon shift at work delivering mail and some of the few smaller packages.

I woke up at 10am the following morning. Doctor is still asleep so I just quietly get up and leave the room to make myself brunch. Trying to keep Mum placid about having a horse living with us won't be too easy, so I thought it would be a good idea to have some nice hot pancakes ready for when she wakes up. On principal, doing that bit extra here and there might help the cause too.

Half way through mixing the flour, eggs, and milk together, I hear a loud bump come from my room. Well, that probably means Doctor is awake. I take the skillet off the heat [but leave the element on] and go down the hall to see what happened. Cracking the door open I see the colt sitting on his haunches rubbing his forehead.

"You alright there sleepyhead?" I ask with a giggle.

"How did that door get in my way?" he replies groggily.

Clueless, half-asleep kids are adorable.

"You silly filly, you walked into the door!"

"I am not a filly!" he retorts, huffing up his chest and standing confidently.

I swear, kids trying to look macho and tough simply do everyone the favour if giving them heart palpitations from the cuteness. I just leave the door open for him and walk back into the kitchen to finish mixing the batter, adding the vanilla essence, sugar and melted butter to the mix. Not exactly healthy, but damn delicious.

"Do you want pancakes?" I call back to Doctor down the hall as he tiredly trots down the hall.

"That sounds amazing! Maple syrup too?" comes a reply. Not from the Doctor, but from Mum. Well, looks like getting a verbal answer from Doctor went out the window.

The pan I'm using isn't all that big, only about six inches across. It's great for large pancakes. Just pour the batter to the edges and when it cooks it will puff up to over half an inch. Flipping it is the hard part though. Normally what I'd do is get the spatula under the pancake, lift it out, tilt the pan on its side and carefully slide it back in. Otherwise if I flipped it upside down from the start batter will splatter everywhere.

Mum gets out two plates, knives and forks and sets them on the table across from one another.

"Two please!" she asks with enthusiasm.

The way I like to have pancakes is when the first one comes out nice and hot is to spread butter on it and let that melt while the second one cooks. After that's done, I put it on top of the first and drench with maple syrup. I make two lots of these for Mum and I and sit down at the table.

"So." Mum begins. "What are your plans with this pony of yours?"

I knew this would be coming sooner or later.

"Right now I just want to take care of the little guy and see where things go from here." I stuff a large portion of the mushy, syrup-drenched bread into my mouth. I'm not much of a cook, but my god these are amazing. "It's been a while since we had a pet anyway."

"A pet?" Mum said with a raised eyebrow. "Why would you want a pony for a pet?"

"You know, company and whatnot."

Mum swallowed her mouthful before replying. "What about your boyfriend?" she said with that friendly, albeit teasing undertone.

That kind of hit a sore spot, but I managed to stuff another mouthful of pancakes into my mouth before she finished her question which would give me time to swallow and thus get rid of the hurt rising in my throat.

"This is a different kind of company. The kind that you can give and get fluffy hugs from, and who will always be happy to see you when you get home." Uh oh, that last sentence came out subconsciously.

"Why wouldn't Mike be happy to see you?" Mum quizzically asked.

Oh shit, oh shit, don't talk about that! Steer clear of him!

"That's besides the point. Anyway, you can be sure I'll take care of him."

"You sure, sweet?"

"Promise."

I felt a nudge on my leg and look down.

"Looks like your little friend wants something to eat. What have you got for him?"

Doctor turns his back to me and looks up at the bowl with a small amount of pancake mix in it, then back to me. Back to the bowl. Then back to me.

"I think... He wants pancakes?" Doctor only nods, implying he understood. Mum looked puzzled.

"Why would he want pancakes? I thought ponies are supposed to eat grass, hay and the like."

"Well they do, but that doesn't mean you wouldn't cook something for a dog instead of buying him canned food and dog biscuits would you? Besides, when I go to work he can explore the yard and eat grass to his hearts content!" I get up from the table with my breakfast only half eaten to turn the element back on and pour the rest of the batter into the pan, using a spoon to get it all. It will only make one about two-thirds the size of one of ours.

Mum watches with an amused face as I put the hot cake onto a smaller plate and put it on the floor for the colt. Much to our surprise, he dives right in and eagerly eats it.

"Well I'll be damned. I just saw a horse eat a pancake. Now I've seen everything."

Mum and I finished eating in silence for the next few minutes, after which she got up and put her plate in the dishwasher then went off for her morning shower. I took the time to sit on the couch with Doctor, turn on the mid-morning cartoons and let him watch with me. I tune into one of my all-time favourites; Courage the Cowardly Dog. I always liked that show, Courage especially. He's a hero to me. Well, not a hero that someone would look up to but as far as the show goes, a hero none-the-less. Being a hero is being afraid, and doing what's right anyway.

During the ad break Doctor speaks up.

"I've seen too many broken hearts to know that something happened between you and this other guy. Besides, you asked my if my screwdriver could fix a broken heart. You can talk to me, you know I'm not going to tell anyone else!"

He's right, so I decide to. "Well little dude, it's..." Me voice trailed off. "Well..." Uh oh, here come the feeling welling up in my throat. Eventually I managed to say something. "He cheated."

"He did what!?" Mum screamed behind me, from across the room. She must have walked in on my stammering and overheard me talking to the Doctor. My gut dropped, and I could see Doctor's ears flatten against the side of his head. He and I both knew that I'm going to have to explain what happened on that day.

"Mel, do you want to talk about it?" she asked with deep sympathy in her voice.

I only shook my head.

"Could you at least tell me what happened?" Mum pleaded.

Doctor nudged me with his hoof and gave a little nod, and mum sat down next to me on the couch.

"I finished work the other day and I thought I'd surprise Mike by going around to his place to watch the re-run of Fridays movie. I got a couple sandwiches from the bakery for he and I, and went over. After I got there and knocked on the door, he answered wearing his shorts and was breathing heavily as if he just ran a marathon."

"Oh sweetie, I can see where this is going." mum commented, putting an arm around me.

I took a breath before continuing, and Doctor just sat and listened too. He knew what happened but not the whole story. Now he was going to find out without having to ask.

"I heard noises upstairs and asked who else was up there, then she came to the top of the stairs wearing one of his shirts. You know, like you see women do on TV and in movies after a booty-call." That exerted a half-hearted snicker from mum and I couldn't help but join in.

"What happened then?" she asked.

"She... called me a retard, mum. Because of my eyes."

Mum wrapped her arms around me and pulled me into a hug, and Doctor nuzzled up against me too.

"Sticks and stoned honey, sticks and stones." she said, idly stroking my hair to try and comfort me.

"Don't you dare say that!" I snapped.

"What's the matter?" mum asked in bewilderment. "Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me. Don't you remember that from school?"

"Oh I remember alright." I replied. "But do you know what? We grew up surrounded by that rhyme; "Sticks and stones my break my bones but words will never hurt me." As if sticks and stones hurt more than the names we got called, and we got called them all. So we grew up not believing no one would ever fall in love with us, that we'd be lonely forever. Bullies calling us worthless, misunderstood kids getting told by teachers that they're not going to amount to anything because they don't meet their standards."

I stood up from the couch and turned to face mum and the Doctor.

"We were expected to define ourselves at an early age and if we didn't others would do it for us. Geek. Fat. Skank. Fag. Retard." I placed heavy emphasis on the last word. "That's what we were told when we were kids. Stand up for yourself. That's hard to do when bullies were always beating down on you. Sometime I'd get altitude sickness from standing up for myself I just got so used to it. Mum, he cheated on me. He only went out with me to begin with to try and work his way into my pants. When that didn't work he turned his attention elsewhere. Broken bones and bruises heal, but emotional trauma leaves mental scars that one might not always get over. DO NOT tell me that hurts less than a broken bone" I finished saying, raising my voice to an assertive yell.

Mum just stood there dumbfounded, and Doctor just looked at me with a sense of awe in his eyes.

"There's seven billion people on this planet, Julianne. This planet doesn't need me, what do I have to offer, huh? HUH?"

This must have triggered something in the Doctor because next thing I knew is he was screaming at me from his position on the couch.

"Over nine hundred years, Mel. Over nine hundred years I've been alive and not once in my entire life have I met anybody that wasn't important." realizing he just spoke, Doctor clapped a hoof over his mouth and turned to look at mum with an expression mixed with unknown horror of what was going to happen because a pony could talk, and fear at what her reaction could be.

Mum shot looks between me and Doctor, mouth hung agape. She slowly got up, facing the Doctor as she slowly backed away only managing a few words.

"You... and he... you said he..."

My demeanor softened as I sighed in defeat.

"Yeah." I said somberly. "He talks. To be fair, I did say he told me what his name was."

"Oh come on I didn't think you were being serious!" Mum countered.

"Oh yeah? Do you believe me now?"

"Mel, you and I have got some talking to do."
> Act 3
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	I sat Mum back down on the couch and explained to her from the beginning, save for what I told her about what happened with Mike. She still held me while I was explaining what happened, from my perspective.

It began with telling her about my day as usual, briefly adding a mention of Mike that she gave an understanding nod to. From there it was just the usual routine after I got home and started cutting wood is where the story started to get interesting for her.

"What was that noise anyway?" I asked, turning to the chestnut brown colt sitting on my right.

"That was the TARDIS. She makes that noise when materializing but the noise you heard is the kind she makes when upset or sick, shall I say."

"She?" Mum asked, surprised.

Doctor only chuckled. "Never in a million years would you believe me if I told you how I knew."

"You're a talking pony from god-knows-where that arrived in a female time machine. What's not to believe?" I said, rather flatly.

"Honestly?" He began. "The answer would raise more questions than anything else. There are some things about me best left unsaid. Now. Is there a little colt's room around?"

Mum and I exchanged puzzled glances before something between us clicked. "OH!" we both chimed. I got off the couch and picked him up, facing forward, and hurried out the front door and set him down on the grass out front.

"You can't be serious." He said bluntly. "Back where I'm from there were proper restrooms."

I looked at him in disbelief, but one of my eyes decided to play up, so now I was getting a mixed view of the ground and the area out in front of me. It's almost like going cross-eyed. Well, it's exactly like going cross-eyed. The opposite of going cross-eyed is going wall-eyed, which is what's happening, albeit involuntarily. I closed my eyes and shook my head like I often to in an attempt to correct the issue.

"Uhm, yes, on the grass. How does something of your species and stature even use a restroom anyway? Are they like the ones we have in the house?"

"You know, what's something I never really thought about; just kind of sat in the back of my head."

"Well... I'll... just go inside and leave you to.. do whatever it is you normally do." I promptly turned and walked back inside, sitting back down on the couch, but leaving the door open so Doctor could get back inside easily enough.



~~*****~~



Apart from the work schedule of Mum and I, the next few days were anything but normal. Jill insisted on keeping an close eye on the Doctor and was rather hesitant to call him by name, rather she just used a various assortment of third-person referrals. "Your little friend", "the pony", "that thing", to name but a few.

I found it quite annoying to say the least because even if something is completely foreign, or rather in this case, alien to us in every sense of the word, doesn't mean it deserves to be treated with any less respect or dignity. So I just chalked it down to Jill's insecurity of having Doctor staying with us. But I digress.

Fortunately it was myself who caught the Doctor sticking his muzzle into all sorts of places where he shouldn't. Sometimes I would get up and find him already gone from his bed, only to hear buzzing coming from another room in the house. Or when I came home from the morning or evening shifts at work he would be fuddling with other things like the TV or microwave. Maybe I should just listen to Mum and leave him tied up outside like she insisted when we weren't home.

His defense was that because nobody was home, he got rather bored and attempted to start 'fixing' things with his little screwdriver. It didn't quite go well as one would guess from a talking nine-hundred year old alien pony. I had a couple of old cellphones laying around in my old desk drawer which I gave him to use, telling him they're still good but are just really slow, thus a pain to use for any period of time. He got them working perfectly fine, and the issue was apparently I had been "Pushing the system too hard to get it to do what I want it to."

Huh. Never really thought about it like that.

I already had a cellphone that I used on a regular basis so I gave those to the Doctor, so he could have fun with and do whatever it is he likes with them. He requested some sort of magnet. Said it was called a rare-earth magnet.

"If they're rare, how am I supposed to get one?"

"You see, that's just the name. They're made from elements that are rare, but the magnets themselves are not. They're several times stronger than normal ferromagnetic material."

"So... They're common magnets made from rare earth elements? If they're common why are they called rare?"

The resulting debate had me reeling in confusion. Honestly, there are some things that are just going to go straight over the top of my head despite best efforts to understand it. That's kind of why I got called stupid a lot when I was at school. I didn't understand something because it's not knowledge I shared, but it's just I got a different set of skills and knowledge. Those people are equally stupid by comparison.

By the end of the week Doctor had ripped into half the electronics in the house. I was belivid.

"Mum will have a fit and crawl up the wall when she realizes what you've done! You're lucky I've been able to find you before she does!"

"I made them better."

"You destroyed half the appliances in the house just so you could build... whatever this thing is!" I shouted, gesturing to the odd-looking device laying in the middle of the room. I had just got home from the morning shift to find yet more things missing, but for some reason they still worked. "And what do you mean they work better?!"

"It's like going from point A, to point B, then C, then D, right along until you get to Z. If you cut out the middle, you get the job done with more efficiency. That's where I've got all these extra bits and pieces, and from the phones you gave me last week." He didn't look up from his little project, but just kept tinkering with the thing using his screwdriver.

"If Jill finds out you've had it, Mister!"

"Doctor."

"Whatever!" I cried out.

Much to my surprise, Mum didn't notice anything wrong with the appliances around the house even I knew half the components were missing, and Doctor kept his little invention away from prying eyes, hidden under my bed. Whatever it's for I don't know, nor do I want to know. The explanation will probably go right over my head.

The next months progresses without any incident, and Doctor stops taking bits and pieces out of the appliances around the house but insists on playing with his little device when I'm not home. It's unnerving to have him playing with a device that I have no idea about what it does, but at the same time nothing bad has happened. How bad could it really be?

He does start growing a little bit, but only very slightly, not more than a couple inches or so over the last month and a half since I found him. When I had some spare time I would sit down with Doctor and just teach him about what I knew. I don't know if what I have to offer in that respect would be of any help to him, but I feel like it is. In return he would tell me about himself.

It turns out he was human at one point. Well not quite, humanoid is more like it. He told me that in his grand adventures across time and space his time machine inexplicably 'jumped' between universes.

"Imagine a bubble. inside this bubble are more bubbles. One of these bubbles is your universe. What happened was is the TARDIS somehow went from one bubble to another, and to this day I never found out how it did that to begin with because it shouldn't be possible. Some of these universes have different laws of physics, and some will alter your DNA if you stay too long, like what happened to me when I got trapped on Equestria, the country that the TARDIS crashed on."

This is making more sense, but only just.

"So. You're from one bubble, but you're in my bubble, but ponies come from another bubble?" I asked, not entirely knowing what just came out of my mouth.

"More or less. But what you just mentioned is something called the multi-verse theory, my dear. For every possible situation you can think of, there's most likely a universe for it."

"That's... both wonderful and scary at the same time, Doctor. For all I know there could be some cute fully pony-me from a magical land of talking horses, but at the same time there are innumerable situations where bad things are happening to me at the same time."

He comes and nuzzles my side. "Don't forget about all the good you've done, or will do. The way I look at it, Mel, every life is a pile of good things and bad things. The good things don't always soften the bad things, but vice-versa the bad things don't spoil the good things or make them unimportant."

I picked up the colt and gave him a nice, warm hug. His fur is so soft I could cuddle him all day. "Hey, Doctor?"

"Yes?"

"In the universe you came from, being the one where you landed in and became a pony, is there a pony version of me?"

He looked into my misaligned eyes, and said with all due warmth in his voice. "I met her. She's the most bubbliest, happiest pony I ever met."

That one comment. That one comment made my heart flutter with happiness and joy. To know that he met a different version of me in an alternate universe made my day, knowing there was another me that could bring joy into another creatures life. How awesome is that feeling? Knowing that somewhere out there something you did has changed the life of someone else for the better. Never in a million years would I ever think I could have such an impact like he just told me.

Later that evening when we were both laying in out respective beds, he said something else.

"You can do anything you want, and it's always going to look nice. 'Cause you did it, and you're wonderful, and you have to believe that."

That gave me a lot of comfort. Besides Jill, Doctor is the only one to have shown me any affection that made me proud to be who I am. If you give someone one of your smiles, it might be the only sunshine they see all day. It can change the world. Well, maybe not the whole world, but their world.

I slept the best on this night than I have in a long time. It's a pity that I don't dream as much as I'd like, but sleeping extra made up for that. I went to bed around 10:30pm, and didn't wake up until the same time the following morning. Doctor woke up before I did, only to be greeted by Mum in the kitchen. When I woke up and began making my way into the kitchen I heard the two of them talking to one another.

"You know I still haven't got used to you in every sense of the word, no offense intended."

"None taken ma'am. I understand why you'd say so too."

I decide to hang back and listen to where this goes.

"If I may ask, what made you decide to adopt Melissa?"

"My husband died in a house fire a few years after we got married. The body was never found, so I assumed everything got burnt up and we had a closed casket funeral with friends and family. We had planned on having a family, but nothing happened. We went to a doctor to see if something could be wrong, but we were both fine, thank god."

"My condolences about your husband. I've lost family of my own, too."

Doctor never told me he had family. Did he?

"I'm sorry to hear that. Anyway, my desire to have kids never faltered and it was just too soon to move on. I feel like I'd be dishonouring my husband and his family by doing so. I allowed myself some time to wind down after the funeral, and six months after the fact I visited the local orphanage."

Right now I'm just sitting on the floor with my back against the wall with the door ajar, listening to the conversation. I know eves dropping is frowned upon, but this is the story I've been wanting to hear for years. I am a little annoyed mum is telling it to Doctor first, but it's her way of reconciling their differences. Doctor just sat on a stool listening to her. Normally Mum would have told him to get down, but her attitude seems to have changed.

"These orphanage had a programme where parents wanting to adopt would come in when the kids were playing, or reading in the main hall. That's where the kids spent most of their time outside of their communal bedrooms. The parents would just sit back and observe the kids, and the kids would either go up to the ones they liked, for whatever reason, or the parents would go to the kids.

"I went once three times that week, and during my visits I noticed one particular two-year-old girl who just sat on her own and blow bubbles. I would just sit on one of the chairs while the other parents and kids would have fun getting to know each other until they were ready to make their decision, but not me. I spent most of my time just watching this little kid with awe."

This brought a smile to my face. I don't remember playing with bubbles a lot when I was a kid, but that could just be after Jill bought me back home I just fell out of touch with them.

"This little two-year-old would just sit there for hours on end blowing bubbles. Blowing about a dozen of the things then getting up and trying to pop them. At some point I went up up to and talked to her. I said; "Hello cutie, my name is Julianne, what's yours?" She gave me a look with those eyes, a smile as wide as I've ever seen, and simply held up the little bubble wand to me and just exclaimed "Bubbles!" It was the most adorable thing ever.

"The following day I bought some bubbles with me, then Mel and I spent the whole day blowing bubbles and popping them. Toward the end of the day I went to speak with the owner of the orphanage about her. She told me the most bizarre story about how the procured her. Apparently an older couple bought her in after they found her while the husband was hunting one day. But that's not the strangest part.

"That part was... how shall I say, the environment. This old man said that the place looked like a bomb had gone off; trees were pushed away from the, it would be best described as the centre of an explosion all charred and burnt, and in the middle he found a sleeping baby."

The Doctor only gave a nervous chuckle. "Heh, yeah, that is rather peculiar."

That makes him sound like he knows something. What isn't he telling me?

"The couple did what they could for two months before the strain of taking care of a baby caught up with them. It broke their heart to do it, but they knew it was in the best interest of the child. They named the baby, and the owner decided to keep it and give her a surname when someone adopted her. That's where I came in."

"Did the orphanage owner ever call in someone to look at her eyes?" asked Doctor

"Oh yes of course. It's policy when they get in someone new to give them a full exam regardless of age. They couldn't find anything else wrong except her eyes, which they diagnosed as Strabismus. Kind of like-"

"Having one wheel on a car spin faster than the other?" Doctor chuckled, finishing off Jill's sentence. "Yeah, she told me that much."

It's nice to see those two making friends. It means a lot to me that my friend is trying to get along with my mother.

"You know, Doctor, whenever Mel has been happy I've noticed she's had a certain glow about her. You make her happy. After Michael you've helped make things bearable for her. She didn't have too many friends growing up, and the friendships she did have kinda fell through in the end because nobody wanted to hang out with a derpy-eyed person who tripped over things on a regular basis."

I think it's time to make my presence known. I just quietly get up off the floor from sitting there for the last fifteen minutes, and quietly inch the door open seeing how long it would take them to realize. I just stand in the doorway leaning on the door frame until they take notice, and Doctor continues talking.

"The lonliest people are the kindest. The saddest people smile the brightest. The most damaged people are the wisest. Even though Mel has had a lot of hardships, by no means does it make her any less of a strong, confident person."

"Thank you, Doctor." I say.

They both snap their head in my direction.

"How long have you been standing there?" said a stunned Julianne.

"Long enough, Mum. Long enough."

"How much did you hear?"

"A lot. I'm not mad or anything, but I know you feel good about finally getting it off your chest after all these years."  I moved my stool around the table next to Mum's so I can give her a hug. "You too, Doctor." HE got off his stool and trotted around the table where I lifted him on my lap between Mum and I. We all hugged for a good five minutes. It felt good. Hugs make everything better. Some day someone will hug you so tight that all our broken pieces will stick back together. Right now, I feel complete.

After we broke the hug, I went to get ready for the afternoon shift at work. It was Mum's day off today, so it'd just be her and the Doctor home. Here's hoping he doesn't make his weird contraption known to her, she would probably flip and have a freak. Trust must be earned, and it can be lost in an instant. Mum has only just started to trust Doctor from the morning talk. It would break my heart to see something happen to the both of them, and it would tear me in two as well.

The next couple months began to get very strange. There were an increase of electrical storms and people were beginning to go missing. This had both Mum, myself, and Doctor worried. Any one of us could be next, and if someone found Doctor they could perform any number of experiments on a humanoid-turned-pony that's been to several different universes.

It's highly unlike me to do this, but because of the reported missing persons cases that were being treated as serial kidnappings, I started carrying a pocket knife on me. I'm scared that someone is going to take me, and it's for the security more than actually having to use it. I don't know what would happen if that time came, knock on wood.

The increase of the storms meant the sky was clouded over most days, although there was a few days of sunshine. Part of me thinks that was to keep people placid; having constant cloud will probably just build suspicion. The meteorologists couldn't figure out what was causing it either. They say that half way through the week on one of their weather charts, it changed drastically. One day it was scheduled sunny with a chance of cloud but instead this thick bank of cloud rolled in from literally nowhere. It had everyone in town puzzled.

Doctor seemed very worried about what was causing the storms, and not even he knew. When Mum was at work He'd take his little device outside and start pushing buttons on it. When nothing happened, that made him even more concerned.

"Whatever is causing these storms is blocking the transmission from this. This is not just a mere storm. Something is creating it."

The talk of the town was who was going to get kidnapped next, and I even heard people saying "Oohhh, I bet it's Little Johnny from up the street.", or, "Did you hear about the new couple that moved in the other day?" As if the new couple has anything to do with the disappearances, but there were people being investigated mentioned the police. Although half-arsed efforts didn't seem to be going over well.

I payed no attention to them. It was all just gossip, and if you start buying into gossip that's when shit starts to hit the fan. Gossip is the most destructive force in the universe. But doing the mail routes around town and some of the back streets, you keep an ear out for things that pique your interest. Every story has an element of truth, and I've found if you listen to them all then you can make a better educated guess about what's going on.

This is not the case.

I've heard everything from aliens to demons, and vampires were even mentioned at one point too. What a load of horse apples, how stupid do you have to be to believe in... wait... I have an alien living with me. Well that just throws my credibility out the window. The more I think about it, if anyone DID find Doctor, being an alien from another universe entirely, they're going to want to blame things on him.

But that's the problem with people, they're so quick to judge and place blame on something that they'll do it without a second thought if it means some sort of comfort or closure about the matter at hand. Frankly, you need to look at all the evidence not what you think could be the problem. It's a little something called the benefit of the doubt.

A month into this weird weather and hundreds of people kept going missing not just from in town, but it was happening all over the country.

Things turned sour for the worst one afternoon when I got a call from Mum's work saying she never made it in that day.
> Act 4
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	I was heartbroken.

What happened to Mum? Where did she go? Who took her? WHAT took her? What does this strange weather have in connection to the missing persons all over the country?

I went out the front door where Doctor was fiddling with his little contraption, and told him that Mum went missing, and he looked at me with utter disbelief.

"They took her!?" he exclaimed, wrapping his hooves around me in a hug.

I eagerly returned the much welcomed hug, but then it dawned on me.

"Doctor..." I said apprehensively. "Who are they?"

His reply was even more disconcerting. "I don't know Derpy, I don't know."

Why did he just call me Derpy? That's the name I got mocked with in school, I thought I told him that? I eased my way out of the hug and gave him a look mixed with anger, confusion, amongst other things.

"Doctor, you sound like you know more behind what's going on. Besides, nobody calls me Derpy, you know that. So why did you? You've got some explaining to do."

He only let out a sigh, and looked down. "Mel, I haven't been completely honest with you. But please, I promise I will explain everything when we find your mother. You have my word, okay?"

I really wanted to do something I'd regret to make myself feel better, but I wouldn't know what, or what with. All I could do is sit on the concrete in shock and let Doctor talk. I know he's just trying to help, but it's like unless I'm doing everything in my power to find Mum then I feel useless. But it sounds like Doctor knows what he's talking about so it would be best if I listen to him.

"Fine. I sit and wait like a useless retard like always." My choice of words made Doctor figuratively trip over himself. He looked in my direction when I finished my sentence and accidentally fell into his device, knocking it over. Doctor just looked between it and me, trying to decide what to do.

Not for the last time today, he calmly walked over to me and gave me another hug.

"Don't worry, your mother will be fine. My machine will help find her. Please don't get sad, that makes me sad also."

I returned the hug with gusto, for what seemed an eternity until the clouds overhead rumbled some more. We both turned and looked up to them with a sense of foreboding in mind. Something was going on and neither of us knew what it is, or what it wants.

Doctor went back over to his machine and stood it up on its end. The shape could be described as cylindrical, but very loosely. There was tubes and wires coming from and going to all sorts of places. Blinking lights and switches adorned the mysterious gadget, idly blinking away like a cars indicator.

"Hm. You clever girl." Doctor mused, under his breath. I barely caught what he said.

"Pardon? I'm not clever."

"Oh, not you, Mel, the TARDIS." Then it dawned on him what he just said. "Not to say you're not clever, you are! I was just talking about the TARDIS, I swear!"

Seeing him flustered like that made me smile, if not only for a second. It was cute coming from him.

"Anyway, the machine here was supposed to tell me where the TARDIS is. But in this case, it's where it isn't that matters."

That went right over the top of my head. "Uuhhh... What?"

"When astronomers on earth scan deep space, they sometimes make astonishing discoveries. Dark Matter makes up 95% of the universe, it's the matter that you can't see but is the black stuff against the night sky. You can see it, but don't know it's there."

"How can you see something if you don't know it's there, Doctor?" More of his nonsensical babbling. I just gawk at him with a look that screamed WHAT.

"A perception filter in this case." He remarked.

"Explain." Doctor went to open his mouth before I added something else. "In English, not science-y mumbo jumbo." I said with a motion of my hands on the mumbo jumbo part.

"It'll sound upside down, but I'll try my best. If I had a perception filter on me, it would let you shift your field of view. You know I'm there, but the device makes you look elsewhere as if your brain doesn't want to acknowledge I'm standing in front of you."

"So... a device that makes you see what it wants you to?" I queried.

Without saying a word, Doctor pushed a couple buttons and threw a switch, and that sent out some sort of pulse. I don't know what it was, but it made me feel dizzy and nauseous. Nothing that I couldn't shake off.

"Now, would you follow me?" Doctor casually started trotting around to the back of the house. I followed purely out of morbid curiosity. I shut my eyes shaking my head to clear the leftover nausea and try to realign my eyes, and when I opened them there was an object sitting in the middle of the grove of trees out the back of the house.

When I first found Doctor, this is the same area he came out of but I didn't notice this thing there before. several feet tall and half as wide with double doors and a bulb sitting atop the roof. It had a black plaque with white lettering on it.


Police call box. Doors open outward.


One feature struck me as it's most prominent feature. The colour. The shade was hard to discern. Too dark to be described as sky blue or ocean blue, too light to be described as navy blue. It was almost a shade of it's own. TARDIS Blue. A great big, blue, police call box. Why did I never notice this before?

Oh, right. The perception filter.

Doctor hopped the fence and ran right up to it. I followed closely behind and when I met him just a few feet from the box, he was stroking it with a hoof. Weirdo.

He put his hooves on the handles, and pushed inwards. But the sign says they open outwards! None the less, he goes in and immediately closes the door behind. Not two seconds later, Doctor reopens the door and pokes his head out.

"Coming in?" he asks.

Utterly dumbfounded by the situation at hand, I grip one of the handles and push the door in with a click, swinging it open and stepping inside the door frame. I immediately stepped back out in fear with erratic breathing. Doctor poked his head out yet again.

"Yes I know, it does that to people sometimes."

"H- how!?" was all that managed to escape from my lips.

Doctor walked out and took my hand, pulling me back inside and closing the doors behind us. I stared in awe at my surroundings. For something that is barely two and a half metres tall and just over a metre wide, there is no way to describe the insides. All that comes to my mind is, "It's smaller on the outside..."

"Funny. People say it's usually bigger on the inside."

Doctor went over to the console and started flipping switches and pressing more buttons, finally throwing a big lever. All of a sudden, the entire thing started shaking and humming. Being off balance doesn't do me any good especially with my eyes the way they are, and the next thing I knew after I try to make a grab for the railing around the console, my hand misses and I fall flat on my back and pass out.

I don't know how much time passed, but I wake up with the Doctor standing over me looking me in the eyes with our noses practically touching. He helped me up, but something seemed different about him. After a minute of clarity and dealing with my eyes, I can see he's wearing a white collar that look like shirt lapels with a green tie hanging from it. His rear has the image of an hourglass on it, and it seems he's substantially more grown up now, three or four times the size he was while I had him.

"Wake up!" he exclaims. "We still have to rescue Julianne, Mel!"

I had completely forgotten about Mum. Immediately my mind reels back to thoughts of her. "Where is she!?" I scream.

"Calm down. I managed to find her, but..." he trailed off, looking to the floor with flattened ears. "You best see for yourself."

He nodded in the direction of the door, and I went over to them. Looking back over to Doctor with confusion, he gave an assertive nod to assure me it'll be alright, and I cracked the door open. The sound assaulted my ears and I just listened for a moment.

It sounded like a metalworking factory. Periodic hissing from pistons and whatever was producing copious amounts of steam, the sound of rhythmic clonking of metal on metal; almost like a military parade, grinding, the sounds of saws in the distance, and one other thing struck me deep.

Screaming.

I could hear screaming now and then. I shot an incredulous look back to Doctor and I opened the door. What I saw shook me to the core from sheer and utter disbelief.

Rows upon rows upon rows of robots marching in a far too organized manner, like everything they did was choreographed well in advanced and drilled into their heads like the army. The robots themselves were unlike anything I had ever seen, both from TV or in games. What could be describes as their armor was plated; covering the arms, fore-arms, chest, legs, and the helmet appeared not to have a seam. The helmet had eye holes, a narrow mouth slit, and it looked like it was wearing a paid of headphones. The big chest-plate itself had a raised circular area emblazoned with a giant "C"

My breathing rapidly quickened when I managed to see in the distance rows of normal people dressed in every day clothing being marched into round rooms without a roof or ceiling of any description. Above the room itself looked like an operating area that lowered when someone entered the room, which was causing the screaming.

When I heard my last scream, I shut the door and plastered my back against it. "WHAT THE HELL IS OUT THERE!?" I screamed at the Doctor, with what I just saw taking it's time to fully register in my brain. Those screams...

"Cybermen." was the only answer he gave me.

"Cybermen?" I said flatly with a dead tone in my voice.

"A robotic exoskeleton covering segmented soft tissue."

Maintaining a firm gaze on Doctors eyes while slowly walking in his direction, I say "What does that even mean and what has that got to do with my mother?"

"I'm sorry. So, so sorry, Mel."

My gut sank like the weight of the Titanic.

"My, my mu- my mum, is sh- she..."

"I don't know yet. If she isn't, we need to find her and put a stop to what they're doing."

"Pray tell, what are they doing Doctor?" the last word rolls off my tongue, dripping of venom.

"They're marching people into those chambers, and pumping out Cybermen. It's a metal exoskeleton, but they cut out the brain and any other useful parts, and put them into one of these suits."

Those words fell on deaf ears. I didn't want to believe how horrible this whole situation was, let alone accept that the brain of my mother was inside one of those things. At least it explains all the disappearances lately. The Mothership must have been parked above the clouds as a guise so they can kidnap people and turn them into Cybermen. It doesn't make any sense, who would want to do this?

"H- how do we stop them and save my mum?" As much as I hated to think it, but Doctor was right. There was no way to know if Julianne had already been converted, and it tore my heart into a million pieces just thinking what would I do if she had?

"I can get us to the main control room easily enough, and there we can hopefully shut down the whole operation with any luck."

My voice raised significantly this time. "And with all this technology at your fingertips you can't so much as scan for her? How useless is this thing!?"

Ignoring my poor choice of words in my last sentence, Doctor rubbed a hoof under his chin as if to think, and spoke with a less-than-hopeful tone.

"I might be able to, but if she's already been converted then it won't show up anything. If she's still in line, waiting, then we'll be able to get her." He then proceeded to go over to the console and pull a monitor around to his level that is on a swivel, push a few buttons and stare intently at the screen. "And it should just... AH HA! She's still alive!"

My heart leapt and a huge smile spread on my lips from ear to ear. "She's still alive!?"

"Yes, and she's in line for the chambers. We need to get to her soon."

"Ain't no metal sons-a-bitches gonna take my mother!"

Doctor couldn't help but snicker at me saying that, he never took me for the type who would swear like that. Next stop was the control room of the ship, but this time I made sure to hang onto something before Doctor threw the lever making the TARDIS shake and rumble around. I couldn't tell if we has landed or not, but everything seemed still.

"Did it stop?"

"Yes, we've teleported to the control room now. The Cyber Leader will be out there, so we need to be careful. He controls the rest of the army and can make them do stuff at the drop of a hat if he so desires. Let me go first." With that, Doctor gingerly opens the doors and stepped out. Not two seconds later he calls back for me. "You... might want to come see this."

I step out the door after him, and am greeted by an unholy sight. Surrounded by four cybermen on both his left and right stood the Cyber Leader. His metal armor, exoskeleton or whatever you want to call it is significantly different. Notably is the helmet, it's completely see through. I can see his brain, or rather the brain of the unlucky soul that it once belonged to. The rest of his armor was a mixture of night black plates overlapping one another like plate mail on a knight.

One extremely futuristic knight.

"DOCTOR?" the leader began. "WHEN DID YOU GAIN THIS EQUINE FORM?!"

"Wibbly wobbly, timey wimey... stuff... Anyway, you've got to stop what you're doing here, you're killing innocent people!"

The leader stared blankly at him for several moments. Well, I don't know about staring since I can't exactly see its face. On that thought, I doubt I would want to.

"YOU AND YOUR COMPANION WILL BE ASSIMILATED. TAKE THEM TO THE CONVERSION CHAMBERS."

My gut dropped at the thought of becoming one of those monstrosities. Two cybermen promptly started walking forward and Doctor braced himself. For what, I don't know, but that will be revealed in the next two seconds. He turned on the spot, raised his hind legs and kicked one cyberman square in the middle of its chest, caving it in and sending it flying back a few feet. During that, the second cyberman managed to grab a hold of my arm and start pulling me toward the door at the rear of the room.

"DOCTOR!" I cry out.

By this stage two more cybermen had gone after him, but Doctor is faster. He ripped out a piece of the robot, the big "C" from the middle of its chest and rushed over to buck at the cyberman pulling me in an unwanted direction with ungodly strength that Hulk would be envious of. Doctor managed to kick out its leg, crippling the robot.

"STOP THEM!" commanded the leader.

The remaining six cybermen began their practiced march toward us.

"Quick, to the TARDIS!" he called, running back towards the blue box. We barely managed to get inside and shut the door before they start pounding on the doors

"Won't they get through!?" I exclaim, scared utterly shitless.

"Not if their lives depended on it." Doctor had to do a double take on his words. "Poor choice of words but you understand."

I slump against the railing, sinking down to the floor to catch my breath. "What's that thing you got there, Doctor?" I said, motioning to the amalgam of metal and wires he's holding in his mouth.

He  put it on the console, got out his screwdriver and pointed it at the piece of the Cyberman he ripped from its chest.

"This is an emotional inhibitor. When they put you in the suit, this little device wipes all emotions and memories, essentially turning you into a mindless robot." Those words were a little more fitting. "Excuse me, I need to go and get a connector for this to the console from another room, I won't be a minute."

He got down off the main platform around the console and disappeared from my field of view into an adjacent room. Curiosity got the better of me and I went to take a look at the inhibitor. I pick it up off the console and turn it over a few times. Nothing special about it, really. Just a few circuit boards, wires, tubes, and a few vials of some kind of fluid. The thing is heavy though, about a kilo at least. I hear trotting coming from around the corner, signalling to me Doctor had found what he's looking for and is returning.

When he came into view in the door frame not two metres from me, the device in my hands decided it was going to have a mind of its own and leapt out of my hands and wrapped the various wires and tubes around my face. I instantly drop to the floor on my knees, screaming loudly. It didn't hurt, but boy am I scared as hell having this thing clamp itself around my face.

They say that right before you die, your life flashes by your eyes. I didn't recognize any of these memories. Brief flashes of a technicolour world I had never been to flooded my vision. I saw clouds whipping my with legs stretched out in front. Are they even my legs? I don't remember any of this! The next thing to cloud my mind was of a tiny little lavender coloured, blonde hairy thing wrapping herself around my leg saying "I love you mummy." Mummy?! I'm 17! After that came more clouds, only this time something multi-coloured knocked me off course and I could feel myself plummeting, then everything faded to black.

All I heard in those last moments was a voice, and some buzzing. This feeling is weird. I'm totally unconcious but it's almost like I can tell what's going on. I can feel the thing being peeled away from my face, then I heard a voice saying "Let's get you home."
> Act 5 (POV Doctor)
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	I just left Derpy in the control room for a minute to go get a connector for the emotional inhibitor. Hopefully I could jury rig a connection into the TARDIS and use the software and hardware in the inhibitor to send out a signal to disable the rest of the inhibitors in the remaining cybermen.

When I came back, the device had latched onto Derpy's face and had started to erase her emotions and memories to get her ready for conversion. If I was gone longer, it may have certainly succeeded in doing so, remaining permenantly latched onto her, using her as its puppet until a suit of cyber armor could be obtained or built.

I dropped the coupling I was holding and ran over to Derpy, pulling out my sonic screwdriver and quickly disabling it before any permenant damage could occur. A quick scan of her with the screwdriver showed no lasting effects, at least none that she wouldn't recover from. She might be missing chunks of memory from here and there, but nothing too major.

My thoughts reeling back to the cybermen, I finished what I started by connecting the inhibitor to the console and sending out a pulse that disabled and fried the other emotional inhibitors in the rest of the cybermen. When that happens, their brains get flooded with remnants of their memories and who they used to be. Realising what they they have become creates an overload in the circuitry and they simply die. It's tragic really, humans dying twice.

This has been the chance I needed to take her home too.

Being an earth pony meant I couldn't levitate her into one of the bedrooms so she could sleep soundly for the journey, so I went and got a pillow and blanket from the room and bought them right to her.

"Time to take you home," I said.

What followed was just a simple groan, from what I can't tell. Going back over to the console I set the controls to take us to Equestria.



~~~***~~~


After Derpy and I returned to Equestria, I immediately took her to her house and set her in bed. It wasn't long after my arrival that I got a summons by Princess Celestia. I left the TARDIS in Ponyville and took the Friendship Express train all the way to Canterlot to see the princess in her throne room.

"You found her?"

"I did, Princess. She's at home resting. I'm not sure the extent of her memory loss, but I'll make sure everything will be ok."

The alabaster mare nodded, and I turned to take my leave.

"Doctor, one more thing."

I turned my head to look back at her.

"I can't thank you enough for your services. I only wish I could repay you. We are all in your debt for bringing Derpy back.

I shake my head with a thankful smile. "You need not think yourself indebted. I'm only doing what I normally do."

"If you say so, Doctor."

After a short trip on the train back to Ponyville, much to my surprise Derpy was already up and about. I can say this because she flew head on into me and spilled the basket of muffins she was carrying.

"Oh, I'm sorry about that Mister!" After picking up the muffins off the ground and putting them back in the basket, she extended a hoof forward with a muffin in it. "Here, take this as an apology!"

Trying to put on a smile, I took the muffin from her and happily ate it. "It's quite alright my dear. Tell me, how are you today?"

"I'm good, thank you!" she beamed.

"No headaches or anything like that? Do you remeber anything?" Not exactly subtle, but I had to ask.

"Well, I had a headache when I woke up this morning after I had the weirdest dream, but I can remember everything just fine. Hey, how did you know? Are you a doctor or something?" Derpy asked, scratching a hoof behind her head in confusion.

I gave another smile, a more hearty one than before. "Yeah, you could say that." It seems her memories from Earth were erased, but her memories from her time on Equestria before being sent to Earth had been restored.

"Well, sorry for bumping into you Mister. I'll see you later!" With that, she picked up the basket and took off down the street.

I looked back at her as she took off towards Cloudsdale, disappearing into a bank of clouds.

After the encounter I went to a local cafe for a spot of tea and to reminise about past events. After the incident with Discord, whom was apparently having a bad day and was in an equally foul mood, he lost the plot and started raging at Derpy for bumping into him. Witnesses say that, in a fit of rage, had screamed at her to  "Get lost you cross-eyed loser!" and that unintentionally activated his magic which made a lightning bolt strike her, and she vanished into thin air.

Celestia came to me for help. She knew about my TARDIS and what it could do. After I crashed into this universe, one of her guards was sent to investigate and bought me and the TARDIS back to the castle in secret for questioning. It took some time, but I managed to convince her.

I decided to prove it by going back in time ten minutes to Luna's bed chambers and take the slice of cake she had ordered from the kitchen previously. I returned to the same point in time just as Luna came storming into the throne room screaming in her Royal Canterlot Voice. Apparently her journey to the throne room takes that long.

"TIA, YOU DARE STEAL OUR CAKE!?"

Celestia only chuckled at the sight of Luna huffing her chest in and out, angry that her cake was stolen. Luna glimpsed in my direction to see the cake on the plate at my feet. She blinked between me and her sister in disbelief before I spoke up.

"I do apologise for the theft of your treat, Princess. Please, forgive me and go enjoy your desert." I'm not sure if it was just me, but she appeared to blush under her blue coat before levitating the cake and walking back to her room.

"Thank you for the laugh, Doctor. You proved your point."

From that point on she allowed me to keep the TARDIS in Ponyville, and she used some magic to disguse it as one of the houses on the street so I could inconspicuously pretend as if I was living in that house, since the Chameleon Circuit still wasn't working. Aside from that, I lived a normal life in the peaceful town fixing clocks and keeping the time on the clock in the main tower in town. I mainly worked out of, shall we say home, for the most part. When I was needed for a job fixing a pocket watch or any other related device I would take my screwdriver with me out to a call or thepony would bring their time piece right to me. I'd spend all of five seconds going over the device with the screwdriver. No one seemed to once question a buzzing probe.

Not too long after my initial arrival I ran into a bubbly, grey pegasus mare. We hit it off instantly, and I introduced myself as Time Turner, adding that I fixed clocks and watches. We spent a lot of time together after that, and she even introduced me to her daughter, Dinky. Dinky asked if we were coltfriend and marefriend because we spent so much time together, and I had to giggle at the cuteness but couldn't help but blush under my coat.

It was nice living a quiet life, one that didn't involve travelling everywhere around the universe. It got a little bit debilitating after a while and some of the friends I made had gotten lost by one means or another. I loved not having to worry about losing someone else I cared about, but I of all should know that things don't always go to plan.

After Celestia came to me and asked if I could track down Derpy, I went to Fluttershy and asked if she could take care of Dinky while I helped her mother with a few errands. She was more than greatful to help, and I said I'd be back to pick her up by the end of the day. When I got back to Equestria with Derpy, I made sure to arrive just before I left in the morning so I could still pick up Dinky later on as stipulated and take her back home to her mother.

In the following days, I avoided any further interaction with Derpy not knowing if spending too much time around me would reawaken those memories from back on Earth, and Julianne, least she remember what happened to her mother.

Soon enough other matters arose. Luna had gone missing, and Celestia had use for me again. Stepping back into the TARDIS for another journey, I look back on Derpy and Dinky walking down the dirt road towards Ponyville Elementary.

"Goodbye, Derpy. I will always remember you."