Applejack’s pounding gallop echoed through the halls like gunshots, the swift beats of Rainbow’s wings close on her tail. Flying higher to get a better view of the situation, the pegasus peered back at the source of the noise. Her eyes widened and she swooped back down to Applejack’s side. “I think we’re being chased by a fur coat!”
“Come again?”
“Well, that’s what it looks like!” Dash defended.
Applejack stifled a groan. “How ‘bout a way out? Did ya see that?”
“Yeah, there was a door over… thataway. Come on, I’ll lead the way!”
“No! You go, I’ll handle this guy m’self.”
“AJ…”
“Go on. Me an’ Bucky McGillicuddy and Kicks McGee can handle— HEY! Put me down!”
“No! I’m not gonna leave you behind!” Dash growled, hauling Applejack off the ground. “Especially not to get attacked by a stupid walking fur coat! Now quit struggling, and lay off the apple fritters, will ya?”
Applejack snorted. “Please. This here is pure muscle.” But she stopped squirming as Dash soared higher. The beast roared in the distance.
This is actually pretty nice, Applejack thought. Well. Not that crack about her weight, but the rest of it… she gazed at the floor far below. Flying was pretty fun. “Okay, AJ, we’re coming in for a landing!” Rainbow shouted.
“What?”
Dash banged into the double doors, knocking them open as Applejack went sprawling. “Oops. Heh, sorry about that, Applejack…”
“‘S fine,” Applejack grumbled, stumbling to her hooves, “Jest help me find m’ hat.”
Hoofing Applejack her stetson, Dash yanked open the doors with her other hoof.
“Oi!” groused the Doctor, reeling back from the light.
***
There was a long, awkward pause. “Uh, Doc? What are you doing in here?” asked Dash.
“Well, just at the moment, I’m looking for a light switch,” the Time Lord huffed. “Check that wall on your left, will you?”
Brushing the wall with her wing, Rainbow flicked on the lights. “So, what is this place?” Applejack asked.
“Huh. It’s the secondary control room!” the Doctor said, glancing around. “I haven’t been in here for centuries!”
“Nice place,” Dash said, taking in the beautiful and intricately carved wooden paneling, the delicate brasswork, the vaulted ceiling and swooping staircases of the room.
Applejack, perhaps more pragmatically, asked, “So, does that mean we can fly the TARDIS from here?”
“Yep!" the Doctor said, scooping his sonic off the ground. "Well. We could, but the engines are still knackered. So, no, not really…” he trailed off.
Meanwhile, Applejack was investigating a monitor mounted on the wall. “Now, how does this thing work?” she muttered.
“Oh! Allow me,” the Doctor said, flicking a knob on the console. The viewscreen flickered, but did nothing else. The Doctor gave the console a solid kick, and the view finally settled on an empty hallway.
“Hey, can you get a view of the main room?” Rainbow suggested. “Pinkie was flipping out about something when I left.”
Nodding, the Doctor carefully turned the knob a few clicks. The screen flashed red for a moment, before settling on a terrible sight.
The ponies stared. The control room was empty, the doors swung open to reveal terrible golden yellow energy. The Doctor sat down heavily, his face gone slack. Rainbow spun around to face him, her eyes blazing and her mouth open, ready to roar, but his expression stopped her cold. “It can’t be,” he whispered, staring into empty space. “I just got them back, and they’re gone.”
Applejack sat down heavily next to him, wrapping a hoof around his side. “They ain’t the first you’ve lost?” she whispered. It wasn’t really a question.
The Doctor took a shuddering breath before replying. “No,” he agreed. “Not the first.”
After a lengthy pause, he continued, “Y’know, you’d think that it would hurt less, by now. After every loss, you’d think that death would lose its sting. But it doesn’t.”
“No,” agreed Applejack, “It don’t. But do ya know what all that pain is good for?”
The Doctor glanced up at her.
“It lets ya know that you are still alive,” she said firmly. “And while you’re still alive, you can remember ‘em. You can help folk learn to get on with their lives. While there’s life, Doc, you can live.”
There was a long silence. After what felt like an eternity, Dash sat down and put a hoof around them both.
“If you don’t mind my asking,” the Doctor murmured, “who did you lose?”
“Mah parents,” Applejack replied, nodding her head out of respect for the dead. “Ah was only ‘bout twelve when it happened. Bloom was just a toddler. They were going off to visit relatives in Vanhoover, and the train crashed. They weren’t the only Apples we lost that day, either.”
She paused for a moment to swallow a growing lump in her throat. “Hey. AJ. You don’t have to talk about this if you don’t wanna,” said Dash.
“Nah, nah. ‘S fine." She sniffed. "Anyway, when my folks died, Ah was devastated. We all were. Mac drew even further into his shell than usual. Granny’s eyes weren’t dry for a week. Even Bloom knew that something was wrong. But Ah was the worst of the bunch. Kept blaming myself. Shoulda made them stay, or gone with ‘em, or something anything. Ah didn’t get outta bed for a week. Probably woulda stayed there longer, except Granny came in an’ told me that she’d already lost a bunch o’ good Apples, and she wasn’t gonna lose another. Then Ah yelled something stupid about how Ah wished that I’d gone instead of them, and it just turned into a great big ol’ shouting match.”
Taking a deep breath, Applejack continued. “But the gist of it was, while there’s life, there’s hope. Sounds a bit cheesy, but that’s wisdom for you.”
The Doctor exhaled slowly and nodded. “Thank you,” he whispered.
“Anyway,” Dash said, “I kinda don’t think that they’re dead. Just a hunch, but, y’know, Twi’s an alicorn and Pinkie is— well, Pinkie. If anyone’s going to survive that, I’d put good money on a group with them in it.”
“Yep, y’all got a point there,” Applejack agreed.
“That’s the Time Vortex,” the Doctor said flatly. "The only people who can survive extended direct exposure to it are already fundamentally immortal.”
“Well, we’ll just have to see about that,” Dash said, a sharp glint in her eyes as she flipped the monitor dial to ‘External View’.
As expected, the view consisted mainly of yellow time energy. Less expected however...
“What in Celestia’s name is that?” Rainbow gaped.
“It looks like…”
“What?”
“I don’t suppose there’s any way you could fly us at faster-than-light speed?” the Doctor asked, looking over at her, expression half-hopeful.
In the center of the viewscreen, what appeared to be a black hole in the timestream pulsed, its gaping maw grasping at anything around it.