//------------------------------//
// Chapter 10: Child Psychology 
// Story: Quantum Leap Forward 
// by Halira 
//------------------------------//

"Candy, this is Doctor Marble Pie," Ma Apple said with a gesture to the grey on grey pony. "She'll be seein' you every few days from now on. At least until you've got yourself sorted out."

The psychologist held out a hoof to her without saying anything. Cheerilee had expected a verbal greeting, but hoof bumped the mare to be polite. Marble gave her a shy smile as she was putting her hoof down.

Awkward silence followed that stretched on for a solid minute. What was up with this mare? She had been talking to Ma Apple fine just a few moments ago.

Marble gave Ma Apple a bashful look. "Um, can she and I go somewhere… private? I do better with patients without an audience."

The Apple matriarch blinked. "Oh! Yes! Sorry about that." She pointed to a door. "There's a small sitting room right through there. I'm sure Pound and Pumpkin won't mind you using it."

Marble nodded and gestured for Cheerilee to walk ahead. She looked over at Cheese to see if he thought this was odd, but just got an encouraging wave and smile from him. She then got down from her seat and walked to the aforementioned door, with Marble following close behind.

They passed through the door and she got a quick look at the sitting room. It was rather simple. It had a small fireplace, two small couches, a chair, a coffee table, and a few filled bookshelves. A place for a small family to gather together that was the store lobby or kitchen. 

Marble closed the door behind them and let out a sigh of relief, before turning to her with a more genuine smile than before. "Privacy, at last. I apologize, I'm still a big Shy Pie after all these years. Not as bad as I used to be, but I'm much more comfortable dealing with ponies one-on-one. Make yourself comfortable, and we can get to know one another."

She climbed up onto one of the sofas, and Marble Pie took a seat on the sofa opposite it, still giving her a smile. "To break the ice, let me introduce and tell you about myself first, so that I'm less of a stranger. My name is Marble Pie, and I focus on trying to get ponies and other creatures to open up and discuss feelings they keep to themselves. I know I seem shy now, but growing up I was so quiet that ponies sometimes questioned if I could even talk, and I was even that way for many years after I grew up. It was with the help of therapy, and a desire to change, that I got to where I am now. I have since decided that I wanted to help ponies the same way I was helped."

"There's nothing wrong with being shy," Cheerilee replied. She had been a shy filly herself. 

Marble nodded. "Of course not, if that pony is happy. For me, I wasn't happy. Ironically, it was your father that ended up being the push that made me realize I was unhappy with the degree to which I was shy. I felt like I had missed out on something that was important to me back then because I didn't have the courage to express my feelings. There are a lot of important feelings and thoughts that ponies have that they don't express for one reason or another. It can be shyness, or we are afraid of what others might think, or we could be afraid of something else. It is still important that we be able to express these things."

The mare certainly was much more talkative now that they were alone, though the voice was still very soft, and very low volume-- reminding her a little of Fluttershy. 

Marble continued to watch her with a smile. "Now that you heard a little about me, how about you tell me a little about yourself."

She took a breath. "I can't say much about Candy, because I'm not Candy. I'm Cherrilee, and it's not an act."

Marble didn't break her smile as she nodded. "Alright, Ma Apple explained this to me. How about I don't say if that is true or not true, and for the moment just treat you as if you're who you say you are. Until something disproves it, or you say otherwise, you're to be treated as Cheerilee in our discussions."

She blinked. "Wouldn't other ponies just say that is encouraging Candy to continue to act out?"

"If Candy is acting out in that way, it could be a way of coping with something, and for the sake of trying to find out what that something is I'm willing to accept whatever pony or creature she puts in front of me."  Marble gave her a sly smile. "Don't you agree, Cheerilee?"

"But you don't really believe me, and I'll know you don't believe me," she responded bitterly.

Marble's smile went away. "That I can't help, but what I can do is let you express yourself as Cheerilee. I want to help you, and that requires you to be able to express yourself. I don't know Cheerilee personally, but I know of her, and I want to say that Cheerilee would want to see Candy get help. As Cheerilee, are you willing to work with me to try to help her?"

She chewed on her lip, then let off a defeated sigh. "Alright, at least you're willing to humor me."

Marble's smile returned. "Good! Now tell me about yourself, yourself as Cheerilee. We can go over what you can tell me about Candy later."

"Fine," Cheerilee groaned. "I'm a teacher, I'm thirty-two, not eight. I've been teaching since I was eighteen years old."

Marble raised a hoof. "Forgive me for interrupting, but if you're Cheerilee, shouldn't you be older than-"

"I'm Cheerilee, but from twenty years ago," she clarified.

Marble lowered her hoof. "Oh, understood, you can continue."

She gathered her thoughts and then continued. "The last thing I remember before I woke up in this body was I was trying to toss away a potion demonstration that had gone wrong that Applebloom had been doing in front of my graduating class. The next thing I know I'm laying on the floor of my classroom, only it's not my classroom, and I'm in the body of some unfamiliar foal."

"A failed potion from Applebloom? Kind of like the failed potion you- I mean Candy, had done?" Marble asked.

"Not the same type of potion, but the same type of result," Cheerilee replied, then looked down. "I may have unknowingly made the situation with Applebloom's potion worse, at least according to what I heard. I don't know what went wrong with Candy's potion, or exactly what she was hoping to accomplish. I have guesses, about what she was trying to do."

Marble nodded. "And what do you think Candy was trying to do." She then scrunched up her muzzle. "I wish I had brought my notebook and pencil," the mare muttered to herself.

"I think she was trying to dispel whatever it is that is causing other ponies and creatures to end up in her body," Cheerilee answered confidently.

"So, you believe that everycreature she has played has been legitimately that creature?" 

Cheerilee gestured at her body. "From where I'm sitting I'm inclined to believe her." She frowned at the psychologist. "What I really don't get is why nopony seems to want to believe her."

Marble shrugged her forelegs. "It's a pretty tall tale to be telling, and it isn't something anycreature else has ever claimed and been proven true on. Foals are also known to have active imaginations."

"Horseapples!" She blurted out, not caring if she would get chided for cussing. "Crazy things happens around Ponyville all the time. At least, it did in my time, and I believe it must still. This may sound crazy and farfetched, but no crazier or far fetched than anything else that goes on here."

Marble looked ready to object, then put a hoof to her muzzle thoughtfully. "You have a fair point with that one, I'll give you that. How about we shelve that part of the discussion until I can ask your mother some questions about that--excuse me, Candy's mother. With your permission to ask her, that is."

"You have my permission. Thank you," she said in honest gratitude. "They sure weren't willing to share that information with me. It seemed like it was something personal when they refused to answer me, by the way Applejack reacted."

"I'll keep that in mind," Marble replied with a slight dip of her head. "Moving on, I'm assuming that your current goals are to get out of Candy's body? That is if you are Cheerilee. I know if I was stuck in somepony else's body that would be mine."

She was about to answer yes, but stopped and thought about it some more. She let out a long sigh before she gave her answer. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but actually...no. My goal is to help Candy."

Marble raised an eyebrow at her. "I fail to see where having another pony occupying Candy's body helps her. Are you saying Candy is unfit to deal with her problems?"

"I've been thinking…" she said slowly, forcing herself to go down this route. "If this really is an ongoing thing where ponies regularly occupy Candy's body, then they must have all gone back on their own eventually, somehow. That means I don't have to do anything to actually get home but wait. However, that leaves it being just a matter of time before it happens to Candy again. She's a foal in need, and I can't leave her without trying everything I can to help."

"And why couldn't yourself in the present be the one to come to her aid?" Marble questioned. 

Cheerilee hung her head in shame. "I apparently just dropped everything and ran off at the beginning of the school year, I don't know why me in this time did that. It doesn't make sense. I wouldn't do that, especially if I knew there was a filly depending on me to stand up for her."

"And are you sure you aren't just a reflection of how Candy feels about Principal Cheerilee suddenly leaving, and not really Cheerilee?" Marble asked. 

She grit her teeth. "I'm Cheerilee, but if Candy were here I'm sure she would want to have me help her. I don't even know how she felt about the me from this time. No one has told me about whether the two of us ever spoke." As she finished saying that she paused to think about that. Candy was eight, which meant she had been in school for at least two if not three full years. The Cheerilee from this time had run off at the beginning of this school year. There should have been some contact between the two. 

"I'll try to reach out to Cheerilee-- our Cheerilee, from this time, if you want me to do so," Marble said. Cheerilee looked up at her with wide eyes as she got more hopeful. "She should be easy enough to for a mailpony to find. I make no promises that she'll respond."

She bowed her head to the psychologist. "Yes, I do want you to reach out. I understand, and...thank you for everything you're doing. I know you're doing it to just try to prove Candy is making this up, and to try to understand why she would do that, but everypony will see in the end that she and I are telling the truth."

"I guess we'll see," Marble replied as she got down from the couch. "If it does turn out to be the truth, I'll be the first to apologize for not believing you. I'll give you your opportunities to prove yourself. I just ask that you try to be open with me during our sessions, so that if it isn't the truth I can do what I can to help."

She let off a bitter laugh. "I can agree to be open as I can, but I don't know what goes on in that filly's head. I can only tell you what I see around me as I live in her world."

Marble nodded. "That will have to do. Our time to get to know one another is over for now. Your mother isn't getting charged for this session. We need to keep our future sessions focused, as I am paid by the hour. I'd love to do this as a favor, but if I took all my patients as favors I wouldn't have a roof over my head."

"Is Cheese a favor?" Cheerilee asked.

Marble gave a small smile. "Cheese is family, and I don't charge for family. You, on the other hoof, are not-- despite my sister and your aunt getting so worked up that we have a very distant common ancestor that they can put a name to. Once you have to start double checking if you counted the right number of greats to your common grandmare it hardly counts anymore." Marble said that somewhat forcibly, and Cheerilee wondered why. It wasn't really her business, but now she was curious about the relationship between the Apples and the Pies. 

She was escorted out of the room and returned to the table where Cheese sat waiting for her, his puzzle long since completed. In the meantime, Marble Pie and Ma Apple walked over to a corner for some privacy and spoke together. 

"So, do you like Aunt Marble?" Cheese asked. "I like Aunt Marble, and I want you to like her too."

"I don't know yet," she replied. "She wasn't what I was expecting, but I don't know what I was expecting. She might be able to help. We'll see how things go." She looked over at the androgynous colt, and gave him a considering look. "What kinds of things do the two of you talk about together?"

Cheese started squirming in his seat. "She says I don't have to talk to anycreature about our talks, if I don't want to. She says she won't tell anycreature either if I say no."

She looked down. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to invade your privacy. I just wanted to get a better idea about how to feel about her. You told me a little before, so I assumed it was okay to ask. I shouldn't have assumed that."

Cheese continued to squirm in his seat, and looked around the shop-- though she couldn't for the life of her guess what he was looking for. He then got stiff and leaned in close to her over the table. "She listens to me tell her about all the bullies at school. She asks me about how I feel about what they say. She tells me I'm special, and that sometimes creatures can be afraid of things that are different. Mommy tells me that too, but I don't like to talk to Mommy about those things."

She blinked and gave him a concerned look. "Why not? I can tell how much your mother loves you."

Cheese looked down again, but she could see his eyes watering. "It makes Mommy sad. I don't like it when Mommy gets sad. She's supposed to make everypony happy, but she can't make them happy if I'm making her sad." He sniffled. "Sometimes, when I come home from school, after a lot of bullies have been mean to me, she looks at me, and I can tell she's sad. She asks me if I want to tell her about it, and I say no. Then she takes me to Aunt Marble, and I tell Aunt Marble."

"And you tell your Aunt Marble not to tell your mom?" She asked, and got a quiet nod back in confirmation. "Has your aunt told you that you should talk to your mom about it? Or that you might be hurting her feelings by not talking to her about it?"

"She does," Cheese mumbled. 

"But you still tell her she can't tell your mom?" She asked. He gave her another quiet nod. She took a deep breath in frustration. She had enough to deal with trying to help Candy, but she couldn't let this go. "Why? You have to understand that she must know what's going on. She wouldn't be asking you about it if she didn't know. She loves you and is worried about you."

"You're nice, you sound like Aunt Marble," Cheese sniffled. 

She snorted in aggregation. "Right now I don't care if I'm nice or mean. What I care about is you're going through a hard time and you aren't letting the pony that cares about you more than anything help you. You need to talk to your mom." 

"I can't…" Cheese choked out. 

As the colt buried his face into his forelegs to cry, Cheerilee spotted a certain pink mare standing by the counter watching them, her beehive mane limp, and her expression mournful. There was no telling how long Pinkie had been there, but clearly it had been long enough to hear the discussion of her. Before Cheerilee could look away Pinkie noticed that she had noticed Pinkie watching. They mare looked around frantically for a second, as if preparing to hide, then stopped her gaze on her son. Cheerilee watched as Pinkie composed herself to where she looked as perky as ever, and then the party pony made a show of having just walked into the store lobby.

"Oh Lil' Cheese! Cheesy Bread! My little whoopie cushion! Where are you?" Pinkie called out, looking every which way but at her son. 

Cheese quickly wiped his face dry and forced a smile on his face, if it weren't for his bloodshot eyes nopony would even know he had been crying a moment before. He turned and waved his forelegs up above his head. "Here I am, Mommy!"

Pinkie looked over at him and gasped as if surprised. "Oh there you are! I couldn't find you," the mare lied with a straight face. She then trotted over to the table and gave her son a quick hug. "Guess what? I've decided to take the rest of the morning off to do something else. Do you know what I'm going to do?"

The colt stared up at her and shook his head. "What are you going to do?"

Pinkie booped him on the nose. "I'm going to take you to the park and have a picnic! Just you and me! Doesn't that sound fun!"

Cheese's face lit up excitedly. "Yeah!"

The party pony picked him up off the chair and set him down on the ground. "Now, you go upstairs and wash before we go, and make sure you give Boneless Six a good wash too. When you're done we can go."

The colt didn't need to be told twice. "Okay, Mommy!" He shouted as he ran for the stairs, nearly knocking over a customer or two on his way.

Pinkie Pie smiled as she watched the colt go up the stairs, and only when he vanished from view did the smile slip off. Cheerilee felt dread as the pink mare turned a serious gaze to her, a far more serious gaze than Cheerilee had ever seen on the party pony's face. Pinkie then took the seat that Cheese had just vacated and continued to stare at her.

The silence was oppressive, made more oppressive by the fact that it was a normally very loud and flamboyant pony that was dragging it out. She felt the need to break it. "I didn't mean to do any harm. I was just concerned about-"

"I believe you."

She sighed with relief. "Thank you, I thought you were going to think that I was trying to upset your son."

Pinkie shook her head. "Oh, I believe that too, but that's not what I meant."

She blinked. "Um, I don't understand. What are we discussing?"

Pinkie leaned over the table. "You're not Candy Apple, you're Cheerilee, and I can tell."