The doors of the TARDIS hummed closed as Bloom passed through them. The others didn’t ask if she was okay, not while she so blatantly wasn’t. The yellow mare sat down in a corner. When nopony else moved, she glanced up. “Well? Let’s git.”
Maple pursed her lips. “Well,” she said slowly. “We don’t actually… have to.”
Bloom frowned. “Well, o’ course we do. Don’t we?” She glanced around. “We can’t just leave things the way they are… can we?”
“I don’t see anything wrong with it,” Lyra said with a shrug. “The universe is still in one piece, and the world’s getting by OK.”
“But… my friends,” Bloom said slowly.
“Well, you should know, if you wish we can go,” Zecora said. “But think of both the gains and cost. For everything won, something else must be lost.”
Apple Bloom’s eyes grew damp, but her upper lip remained stiff. “A-Ah know. That fella— he killed Dash’s folks by savin’ mine. If Ah wanna git ev’rything back…”
“You’ll be responsible for sending your parents to their doom,” Thunderlane finished.
Maple shoved him. “Nice one, idiot,” she muttered.
“What? I’m honesty! That’s my thing!” the stallion protested.
“Perhaps there’s one choice more? Some clever trick to save all four?” Zecora asked, glancing at the Doctor.
The Doctor’s face was grim. “No. Not this time,” he said quietly. “This crash is going to happen either way, and one set of parents is going to get on while the other two stay behind.”
“Can’t we jes’, Ah dunno, make th’ train break down?” Apple Bloom asked desperately. “Then nopony has t’ die!”
The Doctor shook his head moodily. “That sort of thing has consequences, massive and unforeseeable. It affects hundreds of lives, changes personal timestreams, everything Mortimus did, but without the planning. The sheer amount of possibilities that could spring from that… We mustn’t.”
Apple Bloom breathed in slowly and let it out. “So… it’s mah parents or th’ world.”
“It’s your choice,” the Doctor said quietly.
“What choice? Ain’t no choice Ah can see.”
Maud stared at Bloom. “If you choose your parents, it will make little difference to the world.”
“Gaea will keep on spinning,” the Doctor agreed, “and we’ll be here to keep it safe. You can choose your parents or your sister, Apple Bloom. But you do have to choose.”
It was tempting. It was sorely tempting. Apple Bloom gazed at the train station for a long moment. If her parents had lived… she allowed herself to think what that would have been like. Her father being there to help her learn to bake the perfect apple pie. Her mother teaching her to buck apples. She could see her grandmother sitting on the porch with her beloved son, feeling years younger once more as her daughter-in-law played guitar in the background. She could see her brother with his mother, quietly doing a jigsaw puzzle together in comfortable silence. Her parents being part of her life, rather than grainy old photographs in an album. Her family being whole.
But it wouldn’t be whole. Applejack would be in Manehattan, and that was only the tip of the iceberg. If she stayed in this world, she would lose Sweetie Belle, Button, Dinky, Rainbow Dash, Twilight, Pinkie Pie… the list went on and on. Bloom pictured a life without any of them. She ground her teeth and set her jaw firm. “Let’s get ‘im,” she growled.
The Doctor smiled at her, but made no motion. Bloom cocked her head. “Uh, Doc?”
“Hm?” The Doctor snapped to, surprised. Then, his face settled into a proud smile. “Oh, don’t mind me. You just reminded me of a Song.”
***
The Monk was a proud Time Lord, and not a little vain. However, he would be the first to admit that he had, perhaps, one slight fault. He would be the first to say so only because most others would be rather busy listing his myriad other failings, but that should still count for something. He was reflecting on that flaw now, sitting on a bench outside the train station and pretending to read a newspaper, waiting for the expected guests to arrive. That was, in and of itself, the trouble.
Strictly speaking, he knew that he should be doing his utmost to avoid any sort of connection with the upcoming event, but he simply couldn’t resist staying to watch and intervene directly. He chuckled slightly to himself. That fatal attraction, that desire for inclusion, for the sheer act of being present at an event which would alter history itself, was, as ever, his fatal flaw; his desire to see his handiwork fall into place. Or rather, he mused, ‘hoofiwork’. He stared absently at the rust-colored appendage that had so recently become a part of him. Then, something caught his eye and he gasped in delight. “A sale on tea?” he murmured, staring earnestly at the coupon in his newspaper.
There was a faint disturbance in the air currents as the TARDIS materialized into existence between a photo booth and a rack of postcards depicting beautiful downtown Vanhoover. In accordance with the laws of the universe, the postcards were all liberally sprinkled with brightly-colored captions which seemed to have been written by someone whose sense of humor had been surgically removed. The ‘fun’ facts written on the reverse side were likely written by the same individual.
The doors creaked open and Maple peered out. “All clear,” she called back, trotting out.
“Now, Mortimus is a very tricky fellow,” the Doctor said, leading the rest of the pack out of the TARDIS. “Alias, the Monk. The Meddling Monk, I call him. Always upsetting the ol’ apple cart, just for the thrill of watching it tumble over. Except, not so much an apple cart as perhaps a war. Or a sinking ship. Or a peace conference. Anything major in history, really. And when I say ‘upset’, I mean ‘alter’. Y’know what, let’s just stick with the apple cart.”
“Thematically appropriate, if nothing else,” Thunderlane commented drily.
“So basically, we need to be on our guard? That shouldn’t, I think, be too hard.”
The Doctor sighed. “Right. Meantime, we need somepony to fix whatever trap the Monk set up for Bright and Buttercup. Anypony up for that?”
Maud nodded solemnly and Maple raised a hoof. “Great,” the Doctor said. “Now, everypony else, be on the lookout for a red stallion with a candle cutie mark! We mustn’t let him get away, or he might try something else. Spread out!”
Thunderlane and Bloom trotted along, eyes carefully peeled for candles or suspicious red stallions. “Ah meant t’ apologize,” the mare said suddenly.
“Huh?”
“Ah din’t mean t’ make ya feel awkward. Sorry.”
Thunderlane was quiet. “Not your fault. You’re all right.”
“Are you?”
“Nah.”
Bloom glanced up at him in surprise. Thunderlane raised an eyebrow. “What? Like I said, honesty’s my schtick.”
“Well… yeah… but…”
“It’s alright not to be alright, yanno.”
“Ah mean… Ah guess.”
“You gonna be alright after all this is over?”
“Bout as likely as a pig joinin’ th’ weather patrol.”
“Good. Well. Not good. But I’d be way more worried if you thought you were going to be completely fine.”
“Uh-huh. Well, you got a point. But you gotta let things go sooner or later, too.”
Thunderlane paused, then nodded slightly. “I guess I’m just going to go with ‘later’.”
“If Ah understand th’ Doc rightly, the whole world’s gonna blink out once we stop that Monk feller. D’ya really wanna go out with that on yer chest?”
Thunderlane hesitated. “We’ll have twenty minutes, our time, before anything shifts back. I dunno why, but that’s time travel for you. Wibbly-wobbly.”
“Timey-wimey,” Bloom agreed. “Heh. He still says that?”
Thunderlane rolled his eyes. “All the time.”
“Bananas are good.”
“Fezzes are cool.”
“Well…”
“Oh, brilliant! We’re about to get killed in a really interesting way!”
They shared a look and burst into laughter. “He never really changes, does he?” Bloom gasped.
Thunderlane shook his head. “You have no idea. Once, we met his fourth self?” He chuckled. “That was a wild ride…”
Bloom smirked. “Scarf guy?”
“Scarf guy. So, where do you think this guy’s going to be?”
The yellow mare scrunched up her nose. “Well… he’d prob’ly want t’ be pretty near th’ train, so’s he could make sure ev’rything went like he’d planned. So, we should look over…” she trailed off, staring at a figure on the bench. Proudly emblazoned on his flank was a candle marked off with lines at regular intervals. “Huh. Don’ look now, but Ah reckon that’s our guy.”
Thunderlane followed her line of sight. “Huh. I’ll be honest, I wasn’t expecting him to be so…”
“Old?”
“Yeah.”
The stallion was what one might kindly call ‘venerable’. He looked more than anything else like somepony’s beloved grandfather. “Shoot,” Thunderlane muttered. “Well, we can’t exactly just tackle him. The police will be here before you can say ‘elder abuse’.”
Bloom rubbed her chin. “Ah may jes’ have an idea…”