Leaves rustled on the apple trees as a breeze kicked up, accompanied by the peculiar whooshing sound that denoted the fabric of space and time being rent. Lyra pushed open the doors. “Well now, here we all are back at th’ ol’ homestead,” she crowed.
Apple Bloom stared. “Please, never do that again.”
The unicorn crossed her eyes and blew a raspberry at the yellow mare. “You coming or not?”
Bloom hesitated. “Ah’m comin’, Ah’m comin…”
The Doctor looked at her cockeyed. He leaned in close to her ear. “You can stay in here, if you like,” he said quietly. “I understand if you… don’t want to get attached…”
Bloom’s upper lip stiffened with resolve. “No. Thank ya kindly, but Ah gotta be there. Ah need t’ explain.”
The Doctor gave her a small, honest, smile. It was far more earnest than his big gappy grins and somehow much more comforting, as well. “Come along then, Bloom. Let’s go meet the parents, hey?”
***
Macintosh Jr. glanced up from his crossword as a sharp rapping echoed through the house. He pulled himself to his hooves and ambled toward the front door. Before he could get there, however, it had already swung open, and a tropical blue pegasus was peering in. “Hallo, Mac! Mind if we come in?”
“Um,” said Mac. “Could Ah stop y’all?”
“Not really, no.”
The large red stallion nodded philosophically and gestured the Doctor in. “If you could get your parents, I’ve a few questions for them?”
Mac’s brow furrowed. “Oh, don’t worry, they’ve not done anything,” the Doctor hastily clarified. “There’s just a couple of questions I’ve got about family history.”
“Well, Granny might be able t’ help ya better…”
“Not fer this.”
Mac spun to face the new voice. “Bloom?” He grabbed her in a tight hug. “Where’d y’all run off ta?”
“The ol' treehouse,” Bloom replied. Technically she wasn’t lying. She’d just run off somewhere else a little later.
“Y’all ‘bout gave Ma conniptions,” Mac scolded before hugging his sister even tighter. “Don’t you run off like that again.”
Bloom coughed. “Mac… crushing…”
“Oops.” He released his grip on Bloom, who winced and rubbed at her ribs.
“Now, what’s all the commotion?” another male voice asked. A yellow stallion poked his head out through the door. Green eyes fixed on a red mane. “Bloom!”
In the next instant, the young mare was swept up in another embrace. This one, she returned with interest, making sure to pay attention to everything that she could. The lemon-yellow of her father’s coat, the coarse stiffness of his fur, the particular smell of dirt and apples and tree sap. Shortly after that, another, thinner pair of peach-colored hooves wrapped around them both, and the precise feeling of this embrace would remain with Bloom for the rest of her life. She would make sure of it. She would never, ever forget the first and last time she could remember being a filly in her parents’ hooves.
Eventually, though, they let go. And though part of Bloom wanted to cry ‘No. No. I have a whole fillyhood to make up for, one hug will not do,’ the rest of her knew that that one hug was far more than she had ever reasonably expected in her life. She had had her moment, her memory. So, she took a deep breath, pulled herself upright, and looked her parents dead in the eyes. “We need ta talk.”
“We most certainly do,” her father replied, raising an eyebrow. “Fer a start, we-all’d like ta know what gotcha runnin’ off like that.”
Bloom took a deep breath. “Well.”
Honesty was, her sister often said, the best policy. However, Applejack had been wrong before, and it looked like she was wrong again now. Instead, she thought that she would have to try Maud’s approach. What did her parents need to know?
“There’s been… somethin’ of an accident,” she said slowly. Almost immediately, her father’s face grew grey with worry and her mother positively blanched. “Ah’m alright,” she hastened to add. “But somepony’s been messin’ with time.”
Her father frowned. “How d’y’all know that?”
“Well, I don’t quite know,” Bloom admitted. “But Ah do. The world's been changed.”
“Applejack,” her mother said slowly. “Earlier, you said... This has something to do with Applejack, doesn’t it?” Bloom almost collapsed with relief.
“Yeah,” she said. “Yeah. Applejack was meant to come back from Manehattan jes’ a couple weeks after she left. An’ that means a buncha other stuff changed, too. Like, Miz Rarity was meant to be a dressmaker, not a teacher. An’ there’s a bunch o’ my friends that never even met me.”
“Ah-huh,” her father said, nodding slowly. “So, what do we need t’ do?”
Bloom blinked. “Wait. Y’all believe me? Jes’ like that?”
“Bloomers, yer our daughter. O’course we trust you.”
And that just makes this even harder, Bloom thought grimly. Fortunately, at this point, the Doctor swooped in to take over the conversation. “Well, what we really need to know is a list of events leading up to your daughter’s exodus to Manehattan. I’m given to understand you were both in Vanhoover for a few days not long before the young mare’s departure. Perhaps we could start there?”
What ensued was a ten-minute explanation of GrowerCon, the main event of the farming, gardening, and landscaping worlds. By the time Pear Butter and Bright Mac had finished reminiscing, Lyra’s jaw had a sag in it, Spike was asleep, and Thunderlane’s eyes had grown bloodshot. The others were spared by the virtue of being genuinely interested (the Doctor, Zecora), by never being interested in almost anything (Maud), or by having actually attended GrowerCon and been made to sit through the same spiel several times already. (Bloom, Maple).
However, not even the Doctor’s patience was infinite, and at length, he gently prodded, “Well, what about your trip home? Was that uneventful?”
Ma snorted and Pa shook his head. “Not hardly. Buttercup here put a hoof through the boards at the train station and got a nail stuck right through her hoof.” He held up a forehoof for emphasis. “Had t’ get t’ hospice right away. Lucky for us, there was a nice coupla pegasi bought our tickets off us, and a fella that called us an ambulance. Insisted that we couldn’t travel today.”
The Doctor stiffened, and the other Elements perked up. The expression on his face was unreadable. “That fella. Did he give his name?”
Pa frowned. “Well, yes. Can’t for the life of me remember it. M— summat.”
“Matins?” Ma said. "Somethin' like that."
“No… No, but yer close. Matinides, that was it.”
“And I’m guessing his cutie mark was some kind of timekeeping device?” the Doctor asked grimly.
Ma and Pa exchanged confused glances. “Candle, I think it was,” Ma said.
“With little lines down the sides? Yes, a traditional timekeeping device, before the discovery of clockwork.” The Doctor sighed, closing his eyes. “Of all the people that could’ve made it through to Equestria, it had to be him. I mean, the Master made it in once or twice, but at least he had style. Even the Rani would’ve been better! Or Drax! The Corsair, perhaps? Romana? But no, it had to be Mortimus…” He shook his head. “Right. I’m heading back to the TARDIS. Thank you both, you’ve been very helpful.”
Apple Bloom made to rise, but a Look from her mother pinned her back. “Not so fast,” she said. “I think there are a few more things that need saying, aren’t there.”
Maple glanced at the younger mare worriedly, but Bloom waved her on. She could tell Family Business when it came up.
The cream-coated pegasus closed the door behind her. Bloom regarded her parents. They looked back at her. “Applejack,” her mother began. “Do you know why she left?”
Bloom bit her lower lip. “No, ma’am.”
Pear Butter nodded. “She thought we were too... old-fashioned. Too stuck in our ways.”
“Ah believe the words she used were—” Bright shut up under the combined force of the glares of his wife and daughter.
Ma returned her look to Apple Bloom. “You can bring her back?”
“Yes.”
Ma rolled this over in her mind. “Is she happy, in this other timeline?”
“Very.”
“She got herself a colt?”
“A mare.”
“Good for her?”
“They’re happy.”
Ma nodded solemnly. “I love you. Your father loves you. Junior loves you, and Granny Smith does, too. We love Applejack, too, and your brother. We would do anything— ANYTHING— to keep you safe. Do you understand?”
Apple Bloom understood. She was being told what she needed to hear. Tears prickled at her eyes. “Ah’m sorry,” she whispered. “Ah wish there was some other way. But Ah don’t reckon there is.”
Her mother leaned forward and smoothed back Bloom’s mane, lingering over where the bow had once been. “It suits you,” she said quietly. “Be safe.”
Bloom could not say anything. She merely nodded, then turned toward the door. The filly exited the room. The mare entered the hallway.