Ponyville, Fall of Year 4, Harmonic Era: It was a fairly ordinary day for Thunderlane. He had turned up to work, eaten a doughnut or two, and chatted with Rainbow Dash and Snowflake before setting out to make sure that the Golden Harvest carrot farm got enough rain; altogether a routine assignment.
Thunderlane whistled absently to himself as he pushed the cloud along, content with life, work, and the world at large. He was looking forward to this evening. He had arranged a date with his marefriend, Flitter, and Dash had mentioned that her Uncle Bifrost up at the Rainbow Factory was planning a nice big rainbow over the sunset. It really was quite clever, Thunderlane mused, how they made the rainbow and sunset coloration out of fruit and vegetable dyes on finely-woven fog. He was just beginning to wonder whether the orange stripe would be composed more of oranges or carrots when he was ripped from his reverie by the large blue box that suddenly bounced off of his cloud and plummeted to the ground below, landing with a percussive crash in someone’s front yard.
Once Thunderlane was convinced that his heart had begun to beat again, he flew down to investigate. He landed right next to the owner of the crash site, Ditzy Doo. “Oh, hi, ‘Lane,” she said, left eye almost looking at him, “Is this your box?”
He shook his head. “Nope. No clue what it is, either.”
By a staggeringly incredible coincidence, ‘No clue’ was exactly what the Doctor had about when and where he was. His mind was moving sluggishly, but he was coherent enough to recognize that a flaming TARDIS was not the safest place to be, and that outside lay at least some chance of survival. So, crawling, he crashed out of the TARDIS and, grabbing Thunderlane by the withers and, glaring directly into his eyes, said, “I think.” His voice was raw and raspy, his throat stinging from his earlier screams.
Thunderlane lifted a hoof to support the stallion under his barrel, spreading his wings for balance. "Ditzy, can you get this guy some, um..." he stared blankly at the mare.
"Water?" she suggested.
"If you think it'll help, yeah."
"On it."
"I think," the stallion repeated, a little louder.
Thunderlane met his eyes. "Hey. Hey, you're gonna be alright. You're gonna be fine."
"I think," said the stranger, barely able to speak above a whisper now. Thunderlane noticed that blood was oozing from his nose.
"Yes? What is it?" he asked. "What do you think?"
The stranger met his eyes. "I think," he said with the utmost seriousness, "that when I wake up, I'm going to be a little hoarse."
His eyes rolled back in his head, and Thunderlane managed to catch him just before he hit the ground.
***
The Doctor’s eyes flickered open. He saw a thatched roof above him. ‘Oh,’ he thought. ‘Well, that’s alright then.’
In his experience, bad things tended to happen less often under thatched roofs than, say metal or stone roofs. He wasn’t sure why, but the whole room made him feel quite safe. This was compounded by the fuzzy green blanket draped over him. ‘This,’ the Doctor reasoned, ‘is not the sort of blanket you would get in a prison, generally speaking.’
“Oh, good,” a pleasant female voice chirped, “You’re awake!”
He started, glancing at the speaker. A grey pegasus mare, her mane somewhat flyaway, was looking at him in concern. And her eyes—
“Beautiful.” he whispered.
The mare shifted uncomfortably on her hooves, still smiling. “Sorry, what was that?”
“Hm?" The Doctor blinked and went a bit pink. "Oh, nothing important, just— well. Your eyes. They’re quite lovely, really. Sorry, that's probably a bit personal, innit? Actually, they sort of remind me of this one time that I was fighting this giant monster made of gold— well, not REALLY gold, but—”
“Muffin?”
He paused in his chatter. Ordinarily, he wouldn’t just take pastries from someone he’d just met, but, well, this was Equestria! It was certainly well known for its hospitable locals, and this mare— well, she just… well, she made him feel safe. It was an unusual sensation, but one which, again, seemed oddly familiar. Whatever it was, it was a pleasant feeling. “I’d love a muffin,” he said. “Are they banana, by chance?”
They weren’t, but the Doctor enjoyed them anyway. The duo ate their pastries in quiet enjoyment. At length, the Doctor asked, “So, er, what just happened?”
She frowned slightly, pushing the muffins aside. “Actually, I was hoping you could tell us that, Mister…”
“It’s Doctor, actually.”
“Really! What a coincidence.” She held out a hoof. “Dr. Derperella Ditzikov VanderDoo, nice to meet you!”
He whistled softly. “Now that’s a mouthful,” he grinned. “Anything I can call you for short? Doo? Derpy?”
“Most ponies just call me Ditzy,” she replied, picking up the muffin platter.
“What’s your doctorate, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“Physics,” she replied with a sad smile. “I was primarily interested in electrical field systems and engineering. I don’t really use it much these days. Mail delivery doesn’t have much call for it.”
“Mail delivery? What’s a physicist doing as a postal worker?”
“It keeps bread on the table,” she said with a shrug. “There was an... incident at my old university, I had to take whatever was available. It’s not a bad job, either, but after my husband left...” she tailed off into oblivion.
The Doctor flinched. “Oh, sorry, sorry, my fault, sensitive subject and that…”
She shook her head. “Hardly your fault. You didn’t know,” she said, smiling. “Anyway, he's been gone for almost eight years, now. I suppose I’ve gotten used to the fact that he won’t be coming back.”
The Doctor coughed awkwardly. “Right. So anyway, earlier you said you hoped that I could tell us what happened. Who’s 'us'?”
“There are some ponies around here that are used to dealing with things like mysterious boxes falling from the sky, escaped chaos gods, things like that,” Ditzy explained. “They should be here right about—” the doorbell rang. “Now, apparently!” she said, getting up and hurrying to the door to meet her new guests.
The Doctor was uncharacteristically still. He felt empathetic for this nice mare, but also… oddly guilty. He was forgetting something, quite an important something. He could feel the space it had left behind it. It felt… “Wonderful,” he whispered.
His introspection was interrupted when Ditzy reentered the room, with six other mares in tow, as well as— good grief, was that a dragon?
Before he could speak, the blue pegasus was up in his face, glaring angrily into his eyes. “Right! I don’t know who you are, buddy, and I sure as Tartarus don’t know how an earth pony managed to get airborne in the first place, but I DO know that you and that box of yours almost smashed my pal Thunderlane! You’d better start talking if you know what’s good for you, ‘cause I—”
She was abruptly cut off when the orange one yanked her back by the tail. “Easy there, Rainbow,” she warned, country accent still clear through the prismatic locks between her teeth. “I’m sure it was jest an accident.”
The Doctor blinked, his mouth struggling to work again. “Yes, quite,” he finally managed. “I’m terribly sorry if anything— or anypony— was harmed in the crash.” He paused momentarily and chuckled. “Anypony,” he sighed. “I think that might be one of my favorite bits about this place. Well, that and the populace, of course. And the food isn’t half bad. Oh, and—”
The yellow one interrupted, “Um. Excuse me, but we have a few questions to ask, if that’s okay with you…”
He paused. “Right, yes. Sorry about that.”
The purple one— an alicorn, the Doctor realized with fascination, things certainly had changed since the last time he was here— gave him a friendly smile. “Shall we start with some introductions?” she suggested. “I’m Twilight Sparkle, and these are my friends, Pinkie Pie,” the pink one waved enthusiastically.
“Applejack,” the orange one tilted her hat.
“Rainbow Dash,” the angry blue one glared at him.
“Rarity,” the white one inclined her head regally and smiled.
“Fluttershy,” the quiet yellow one smiled faintly.
“And, of course, Spike.” The dragon, standing easily a head taller than anypony else in the room, raised a claw in greeting.
“Very nice to meet you all!” the Doctor smiled. “I am the Doctor.”
This declaration was met with a lengthy pause. Rarity coughed. “ Er, Doctor who exactly, darling?”
He grinned impishly. This was always one of his favorite parts, and Equestria was one of the few places that he could do a proper introduction with absolute equanimity. Or equine-imity. “Just the Doctor, I’m afraid.”
Twilight chuckled nervously. “Well, er, alright then. Where are you from, Doctor?”
His grin widened. “Me? Oh, well. I’m from Gallifrey. That's the jewel in the constellation of Kasterborous, y'know. It's near the Medusa Cascade. All that's in another universe, of course, so I expect you’ve not heard of it....”
Twilight was no longer smiling. Her expression was now of concern and confusion. Applejack straightened up, surprised. Rainbow was rather less tactful. She snorted. “Do you seriously expect us to buy that story? Alien ponies?” She gave him a once-over, then glanced at Applejack and shook her head in derision. Applejack looked a little less sure than Rainbow. Either she was very gullible, or very good at telling when someone was telling the truth, the Doctor thought.
He was outright smirking now. “Alright, alright,” he said laconically, raising his hooves in a placating gesture, “I can tell that you might want a bit of hard evidence. Anypony got a stethoscope?”
“OOH! I do!” Pinkie exclaimed. She pulled one out of a desk drawer. “I hide them all over Equestria, in case of stethoscope emergencies!”
The Doctor blinked, the smirk dropping momentarily. “Well, that’s… sensible, I suppose. You there, Mr. Spike!”
The drake pointed to his chest, in the universal expression for 'who, me?'
“I need you to do something tremendously important," the Doctor said. "I want you to take that stethoscope."
"Uh, okay," Spike said, taking it from Pinkie. "Now what?"
"Now, listen to my heartbeat,” the Doctor urged.
Shrugging, Spike placed the instrument on the Doctor’s chest. He listened closely for a few moments. His brow wrinkled. “Hey, Pinkie? I think this one’s broken. There’s kind of an echo effect…”
The grin on the Doctor’s face would have made the Cheshire Cat green with envy as he said, “Move it over to the right.”
Spike listened, his eyes widening. He pushed the stethoscope back and forth over the Doctor’s chest. “Wait. What? How is that--?”
“Bit peculiar, isn’t it?”
Spike pulled away and stared at the stallion, astonished. “You’ve got two heartbeats! You’ve got two hearts!”
“That’s not all, either. Wait until you find out about my kidneys.”
Spike gave the Doctor a sideways look. “What do you mean? How many kidneys have you— actually, no, I don’t want to know.”
“Well. Four, as it happens. They’re a very nice shade of mauve.”
By this point, Twilight had grabbed the stethoscope from Spike and was even now going through the same crude forensics that he had performed. “Oh sweet Celestia, he IS an alien!” she gasped. “Aliens are real! Oh no, what if we get invaded by aliens? What if I can’t stop them? What if they defeat the princesses and the Tree of Harmony gets destroyed, and Equestria is destroyed—”
“Twi.” Applejack said, not unkindly, “You’re havin’ a meltdown again.”
“Oh." Twilight cleared her throat. "Excuse me.”
The Doctor cleared his throat, slightly irked at no longer being the center of attention. “Let me just assure you that I have absolutely no intentions of attacking Equestria. I’ve saved it on multiple occasions already, just ask Celestia. Luna too, I suppose. She is back from the moon now, right?”
Twilight promptly returned her focus to the Doctor, peppering him with questions about Gallifrey, aliens, and exactly how he knew the princesses. Meanwhile, Ditzy had become very quiet, and in all of the confusion , she slipped away.