The library door creaked open, and eight heads turned to see Midday Eclipse return, clearly fighting down the weariness in her.
"Hey!" Pinkie smiled, "You're back and you're okay and not screaming anymore and for some reason look four years younger and now we can throw your birthday party!"
Midday Eclipse stared at Pinkie Pie, and smiled slightly. "Hey, Pinkie Pie" she said, quietly, fighting her eyelids in a desperate battle to stay awake (a reminder that she was A; magically drained, and B; a pony who'd been awake for far too long), "Sorry to burst your bubble Pinkie, but can we... possibly move it to tomorrow? I'm not really feeling up to partying right now"
Pinkie Pie's smile suddenly turned upside-down, "But I had the party hats ready and everything"
"Hey!" Trixie declared as she realised there was a paper party hat on underneath her usual hat, "How in the world did you...(No, no, Trixie, that way madness lies...)"
Midday noticed her father glancing at her, "What happened to you?"
Midday considered explaining everything that had happened in a single day, that she'd been attacked by a plant, lived out her ludicrously improbable dream life, managed to bring herself out of it, and the sheer trauma of that had apparently revived the Nightmare entity which had apparently survived her cousin's last-ditch attempt at dispelling the creature, at which point she'd been thrown out of her own body, leaving Nightmare Eclipse free to rampage across Ponyville, starting with foal-murder, and moving on to severely injure almost everypony in town, until she'd managed to return by sharing a body with Trixie, sealed the Nightmare in a book, and then decided to reverse time to undo almost all of those events.
Oh, and she'd managed to forget there was a younger version of her father in Ponyville at that very moment.
'Perhaps it would be easier if I just went insane right now. Right now. Right now' she thought, waiting for a moment to see if she had.
"It's a very long story. But on the plus side, I know look like I'm actually eighteen, and not twenty-two!" she smiled. Pinkie frowned.
"Oh yeah. I thought you just changed your shirt."
Midday stared at Pinkie Pie for a moment, and then shook her head. Spike walked over to her, looking concerned.
"You sure you're okay?" he asked.
She opened her mouth to say something, then stopped. She tried to say something, say anything. After a few tries she sighed.
"I didn't say I was okay, Spike" she said, cursing her near-inability to lie. Then she looked over to her father, noting that there was one thing she could fix.
"Dad, can I speak with you outside for a moment?"
He looked surprised, and then nodded, following after Midday as the mare headed outside. The door closed behind him, and there was silence for a few moments, until Trixie spoke up.
"She came back just to go outside? That doesn't make sense."
Twilight Sparkle said nothing, merely wondering why she'd been so concerned about Comet Chaser leaving. Then she dismissed it, when she saw Pinkie Pie handing out slices of cake.
"-therwise it'll go off, so I might as well get rid of this cake and make a new one for her tomorrow!" the town's premier party-planner said.
*****
Midday and her father walked along the streets of Ponyville, the mare saying nothing.
"So... what happened to you? Sweetie, sweetie, slow down" her father said, "You know I can't keep up with you, not at my age."
She turned, to see a sardonic smile on his face. Then it vanished.
"What's wrong?" he asked. She shook her head.
"It... hasn't been a good day for me, dad" she took a deep breath, "But that's not why I dragged you outside."
"What is then?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Well, we have a problem. Actually," she said on thinking that statement through, "We have two problems. The first is that due to circumstances I would rather not explain, I have drained my magic to a dangerous extent, which means finding a spell to get both of us home isn't going to mean much even if I find one."
She waited a moment, before smirking ever-so-slight, "The second, and much direr problem is that you are in Ponyville"
Her father stared at her for a moment, before he raised an eyebrow.
"You mean the version of me that is from this time, right?"
"Yes."
He made a small noise. "But I didn't travel to Ponyville before the day I met your mother."
Then he seemed to realise something. "Oh, I think I know how this happened. He must have seen me at some point and followed me here today."
Midday resisted the urge to facehoof. Her father looked at her.
"So, how are we going to find him? Or me, as it were"
Midday gave this some thought, "Wander aimlessly around town."
"Oh, so there is a plan" he smiled, "Thank Luna."
The two began wandering aimlessly through the town, and after a few minutes came to the market-place, where Midday saw a reassuring sight, that of Big MacIntosh alive and well and talking to none other than Cheerilee.
A few seconds later, Midday realised she'd rushed over to the stallion and had started hugging him.
"Afternoon?" she heard the large pony ask, nervously. She quickly realised what she'd done and slid off of him.
"Sorry, Mr MacIntosh. Just... glad to see you today" she smiled nervously. For a moment the stallion stared at him, before shrugging.
"Clearly."
Midday was aware that Cheerilee was staring at her with a fierce intensity, and then she frowned.
"Have either of you two seen a young stallion, sort'a got the same colour fur as me? Disregarding the one behind me" she added when she saw Cheerilee begin to speak.
"I don't think so" Cheerilee said.
"Nope. Sorry" Big MacIntosh said. Midday just smiled.
"Well, thanks anyway."
She walked back over to her father, confusion all over her face. "What was that about?" he asked.
"Remember what I said a few minutes ago? Very long story."
"Is it related to why you can't use magic and look like your actual age?"
"Yes" she said after a pause. Then a chilling thought occured to her, that while she had sealed Nightmare Eclipse in a book, while having poured enough magic onto the entity to make her forget who and what she really was, the book had logically been affected by the spell she and Trixie had cast.
'So is it still in the library?' she thought. Then, quite suddenly a large book slammed down in front of her and her father's path. It was in fact the fairy-tale book she'd shoved Nightmare Eclipse into. She looked about, to see a brown-coated stallion staring at her. Or was that glaring?
She looked at her father. "Excuse me a moment, I've just remembered something I have to do."
"I'll just wait here then" he said, before trying to look casual. Midday walked over to the Doctor.
"Hello" she smiled. He looked at her.
"You re-wrote time" he said, his tone flat and unemotional, though his eyes kept daring about time.
"Yeah. I did. How did-"
"My people invented time-travel. A teenager rewinding time by an hour isn't really going to do anything to me" he said, a noticable amount of smugness in his voice.
"So, you took that book while nopony was looking so that you could... what, exactly?"
"Well, curiosity mostly," he leaned in, "I wanted to see what happened to the book as it was rewritten."
"And?"
He shifted his jaw. "Not sure yet. A mind-wiped living idea with a bad attitude against the power of a dozen fairy tales. Might get a bit messy."
He gave a conspiratorial wink.
"Nice work sealing her in that book by the way."
Midday smiled slightly, "Well, I was just making it up as I went along. And I didn't have an ectoplasmic containment unit," she frowned before adding, "Although... would that work on a sentient idea?"
The Doctor scratched his head. "I don't know. I honestly don't know. But, the TARDIS isn't being so grumpy anymore, so that's good."
He smiled before saying, "You know, turns out she didn't want to let you onboard because she was afraid of the Nightmare in you."
Midday suddenly glowered at him, "Are you saying you knew, you knew that thing was inside me, and it never occured to you to mention it?"
He looked embarrassed. "Yes, sorry."
Midday glared at him, until whatever logic she had left that wasn't screaming at her to go to sleep kicked in. "I'm guessing if you did that might've made things worse, or something?"
"Or somethink" he nodded, before shrugging, "I honestly don't know. I wasn't around the last time there was a Nightmare in town. And I don't think I want to face one again."
He suddenly looked incredibly nervous, and shuddered, though Midday was too preoccupied with a train of thought to notice.
"Doctor... your 'TARDIS' thing..."
"Not a thing. It's just the TARDIS. My TARDIS" he said, shuffling slightly, "In case you heard otherwise. I am not her Time Lord."
Midday just stared, "You said it could 'go anywhere', right?"
"Anywhere in time and space. And a few places that aren't anywhere at all" he said proudly.
"So... it can cross universes and time-lines?"
He gave a derivise snort, as if this were such an obvious question it didn't need asking, "Of course."
A small smile went across Midday's face. "Can I ask a favour of you, then?"
He looked at her, frowning. "A favour?"
"A favour..."
*****
A few minutes later, Midday walked back to where her father was standing, smiling.
"What is it?" Comet Chaser asked. She looked at him, an odd gleam in her eyes.
"Just... dealing with an important problem" she smiled. He stared at her.
"Okay. I have good news, by the way" he said, calmly. She tilted her head.
"Really?"
"Yes. I have found past-me."
"Where?" Midday asked. He pointed a hoof, to where a slightly nervous-looking stallion was standing, examining some flowers outside a flower shop.
"The long search is over" he deadpanned. The two ponies exchanged glances, then strode over toward the younger Comet Chaser. He didn't notice them.
Midday gave a small cough, and he looked up. A second later his eyes went wide with shock.
"Hello" Midday smiled pointing at her father, "This is you from the future, and I'm your daughter with Twilight Sparkle."
The pony fell over, though fortunately the direction he fell in missed the flower-stand by a full ninety degrees.
"Very helpful, dear" Comet Chaser sighed, before looking at her, "What in the name of Luna inspired you to do that?"
She shrugged. "It seemed right."
*****
The young Comet Chaser awoke in a dimly-lit room that smelt incredibly like frosting only to find the duplicate of himself and the young mare staring at him.
"What-" he said, before the other him spoke up.
"Hello," he said calmly, "I know you're probably a bit alarmed by what's going on. Yes, I am you. I am, from your perspective, roughly eighteen years into the future. This," he nodded to the young mare, who looked eerily familiar, "Is my daughter, from roughly twenty-two years into the future."
The older him bit his lip, before adding, "Time-travel, sort of. Bit weird, bit confusing. Now then, what are you doing in Ponyville?"
"Well..." the younger Comet Chaser's brain was running around in circles trying to figure out what was happening to it, and the logic it prized so highly, "I saw you running around Canterlot, and since you look exactly like an older version of me, I got suspicious and so I decided to see what you were doing, so I followed you here to Ponyville"
Then he looked down at the floor, "And I got completely lost in ten minutes."
"What I was doing," the older Comet Chaser said, "Was getting dragged over here to suffer torture, to see my daughter suffering from an ailment I could not cure, and having to look at a younger version of the mare I swore to spend the rest of my life with while I did so, with her having almost no idea who I am."
A look spread across the younger stallion's face. "I get married? And have a daughter?"
"Perhaps," Midday said. "Though considering everything that's happened, and what's probably going to happen, you might not."
"Or," she said, walking over to him, "It might happen differently. Because now you know who you end up with, and the end result of that, so you might not put as much effort into wooing her, or you might have the wrong motive for doing so. You get how that works?"
The younger stallion stared at her in concentration. "Or what if I feel unwilling to follow what feels like a pre-set script? That by knowing my own future, I have no choice in the matter, that I must find this mare, even without knowing a thing about her?"
"And you two aren't supposed to meet yet" the older him said, "Not for a good few years. Heck, you don't even know she exists yet, do you?"
The stallion stared blankly at them. "No. No I don't. But now I know her name, so... what should I do?"
Midday and her father exchanged looks. Then he turned to his younger self.
"Go home. Go back to your life, and your job. The time is not right for you two to meet. Not yet. Do you understand?"
He nodded, slowly.
"Okay, then," Midday smiled, "That's one disaster that has been averted today."
*****
The two ponies followed him back to the train station, nopony saying anything, although the younger stallion kept finding himself glancing at Midday, before quickly glancing away in case the mare took offense.
As he stepped onto the train, he noticed the older version of himself staring intently at him, which felt very strange, and he noticed they were not leaving, as if concerned he'd try and do something foolish.
After several minutes the train began to pull out of the station, and he watched as the two ponies, their faces eerily unemotional, slowly shrank into the distance, and then he turned around, and then... he smiled.
A pony sitting opposite him suddenly felt nervous, and looked at him.
"You alright, son?" the pony asked. Comet Chaser looked at him.
"Yeah. Why?"
"You're smilin' like a loon."
He nodded, and realised he didn't mind being told that, "Yeah. I guess I am."
"How come?" the old stallion asked. Comet Chaser wasn't trying to grin, but he honestly couldn't help himself.
"I'm gonna be a dad."
*****
Midday and her father watched the train disappear, before the young mare turned to her father.
"So," she said, "Is he going to do something stupid, or is he actually going to behave himself?"
The stallion smirked. "Difficult to say with me. After all, I did some very foolish things when I was young."
"Such as?" Midday asked.
He frowned. "Do you really think I would tell my impressionable daughter the sorts of things her old man got up to when he was 'courting' her mother?"
Midday just stared at him. He saw the odd look in her eyes, and for a split second, he could have sworn his daughter look much older than she should've been.
"Twinkie?" he asked, noticing the very beginning of a tear in her eyes, "What is it?"
There was a second where she said nothing, just staring into space.
"I'll tell you later" she said quietly, "When we get home."
Then, she slowly began to smile again. He saw that, and a thought occured to him.
"What is it?"
She looked surprised, "Didn't I mention? I found a way home. Although," her voice trailed off, "It's a bit risky, and once we get home... there might still be problems..."
He smiled warmly, "You mean with your mother?"
She looked down at her hooves,"And after what I've done."
"What Nightmare Eclipse did."
"Yeah, that too."
They were getting close to the library at that point.
"Well, 'Midday', I don't really have anything to gather, but there are a few things I'd like to do before I go, and I'm guessing you'll probably want to say goodbye to everypony."
She smiled slightly. "Yes. Goodbyes. Just meet me back here when you're done, and we'll go sort this out."
He turned to go, stopped and turned around.
"You... are going to tell her, right?" he said. Midday tilted her head in confusion.
"Her. In there. She deserves to know by now."
"I was going to tell her today," Midday said quietly, "But then... with everything that's happened..."
She didn't finish that statement. She would've liked to have said that she didn't feel emotionally capable of doing so, but she knew if she did, her father would insist she tell Twilight Sparkle who she was. And at that moment, half-dead from exhaustion of body and soul, she didn't feel up to the challenge.
And because if she did say so, he'd notice the wording she'd liked to have used.
Her father sighed. "I'll probably be fifteen minutes."
And then he turned and headed in the direction of the post office.
*****
The door to the library opened, and Midday found Twilight and Spike eating birthday cake and wearing the silly paper hats.
"You're back!" Spike said. Midday nodded, smiling slightly at the cheerful grin on Spike's face.
"Would you like some cake?" she heard Fluttershy ask, "Since it is your birthday, and your birthday cake, but Pinkie Pie said it wasn't right to leave cake just lying about unused, and we might have had some of it. Sorry."
"It's a un-birthday party!" Pinkie Pie beamed, from behind Midday, "Since you didn't want to celebrate your birthday party today, I thought to myself 'Pinkie, you said there would be a party and cake today, so get going with it' and I don't like to be made a liar, so I decided to call it an 'un-birthday party', so it is a sort of birthday party, but it isn't but it is but it isn't and I've gone cross-eyed" she said, as her eyes did indeed cross.
Midday smiled, and Pinkie Pie just stared at her.
"What?" she asked.
"Sorry Pinkie, you were being funny, and I smiled," she placed a hoof on the mare's shoulder, "I needed that."
Pinkie Pie just smiled back. "Yes, you did. Your eyes look all sad, by the way."
*****
Comet Chaser calmly placed the envelope into the slot, and stood there for a moment. What he was doing was a dangerous risk. A gamble, perhaps. He wasn't really one for risk, or danger, even though Twilight Sparkle had told him just being around her was likely to increase the chances of odd things happening to him.
But, what was life without a bit of risk? And it wasn't like he was truly doing anything dangerous, just giving a pony who needed it some help.
He then looked at the formally-worded thank-you and goodbye letter to Dust Bowl. He dryly noted he owed that young colt more than he could ever repay. Much more.
He turned and walked out of the post office, and back to the library, and as he did, he tried not to think of the fact that Twilight Sparkle, his Twilight Sparkle, the mare who he'd married, apparently didn't remember him.
*****
Midday sat, watching at the deep blue-furred stallion approached. As he did, he looked at Midday.
"So, you told her?" he asked. Midday just looked at him, and smiled meekly. Then he noticed something.
"Don't you have anything you want to bring?"
"Nothing that can't be replaced" she said, quietly.
"So... if your magic is drained, how are we going to get home?"
Midday stood up, and silently walked past him. He turned to follow her, and her path led out toward the edge of town, where on top of a hill stood a strange box that was the bluest shade of blue Comet Chaser had ever seen. He looked at his daughter, who calmly walked up to the door and knocked on it. After a few seconds a head stuck out of it, that of a grey-furred mare who was noticably wall-eyed. He recognised her.
"Hello, Ditzy" Midday said slowly, "Is... he there?"
Ditzy nodded. "Hold on a moment, and I'll get him."
After a short while, a brown stallion with an hourglass Cutie Mark leapt out, beaming away.
"Hello," he smiled, walking over to Comet Chaser, "I'm the Doctor, or Time Turner, some ponies call me, and certainly not Star-Swirl the Bearded. Anyway, you must be Twilight Twinkle's father, nice to meet you. I'm your means of getting home."
"You?" Comet Chaser asked, "In a little blue box?"
The Doctor smiled, it was the sort of smile that made ravenous beasts nervous.
"Little?" he said, derisvely. "This old girl's anything but little."
He patted a hoof against the box, "It's okay, sexy, he didn't mean anything by it."
Midday stared at the box, "You know, every time I've gone near this thing, something odd has happened to it. You aren't just pulling my leg with this thing, are you?"
The Doctor turned to look at her. "No, you can go inside."
She stared skeptically at him. "Go on," he smiled, "You won't regret it."
She looked at it, bit her lip, and walked inside. A few seconds later she reappeared, and then circled the box. She stared at it for several seconds, then at the Doctor, then back to the box, then back to him.
"That's..." she said, breathlessly. He grinned an unbelievably smug grin.
"Yeah."
"Dimensionally transcendental" she whispered. His eyes went wide, as she pressed her hooves on the box.
"This thing is beautiful!" she turned to look at him, "But how do you fit the outside around it?"
"Good, isn't it?" he smiled, "And do you want to see something better?"
She grinned giddily, despite the fact that she was seconds away from falling asleep there and then.
The Doctor ushered Comet Chaser onboard, and as he did, he saw what Midday had seen.
Inside the box was a whole room, and beyond that, he could tell there were more rooms, whole corridors even. The room he was currently in was a brightly lit room, with a strange console that looked like it was designed by a child with dreams of becoming an interior designer, pieced together out of whatever was at hand. The floor was made of glass, showing an odd basin beneath, and in the center was a massive cylinder around which the console was placed.
"So..." he asked, nervously, "This is going to get my daughter and me back to our own time?"
The Doctor grinned. "Should do, if I get the date right."
"But... how?"
The Doctor ignored him, and moved toward a large switch, nudging Ditzy out of the way as he did. He flicked it, and then...
There was a noise, a noise unlike any Comet Chaser had ever heard. A brilliant, insane, strange noise, both weird and beautiful and mysterious all at once.
It was the sound of the last TARDIS in flight, the sound of the universe.
Unfortunately, it was then that he noticed something.
"Twinkie?" he asked, looking about the room. He saw his daughter, and she was beginning to blur and fade.
"Sorry dad, I'm... not actually going home yet" she said, her voice low and sad, "There are... things I need to take care of first. I can't leave yet. Not without knowing certain ponies are safe. I'm sorry I didn't tell you, but..." her after-image began to fade completely.
"You would've tried to stop me, and I need to make sure of something..."
He stared in horror as the image of his daughter vanished, and as he realised the look in the pony he'd barely recognised as his little girl.
The sound stopped, and there was a large clunk as Ditzy opened the door, which creaked as it did. He wandered over to the door. Outside lay Ponyville, looking almost exactly as it should have. He turned to look at the Doctor.
"Can you take me back?" he asked. The stallion stared at him.
"No. She was incredibly insistant on that matter. And do you know how much energy it takes to move across universes?" he said, stroking the console with a hoof, "I couldn't do this for everypony, I'm just doing this because you were displaced on purpose."
Then an odd look passed across his face, "And she did ask nicely. That might've helped."
Comet Chaser looked outside. "So, what do I do? Just wander into town, act like nothing ever happened?"
The Doctor sighed, frowned and then walked over to him. "Honestly? I don't know. Do whatever you think works. It's your life."
Comet Chaser frowned, and looked at the town in front of him. "Okay," he said, "Here I go"
"Good luck" Ditzy smiled. He strode out, and quickly made his way toward the town. Ditzy gently closed the door.
"We're following him, right?" she asked. He just smiled, grabbing the screwdriver next to him.
"Yeah" he said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
*****
Comet Chaser looked around at Ponyville. From his point of view, it had only been a few years. Only a few years, and everything seemed the same, yet strangely different. He frowned as he noticed a small gathering of pink-maned ponies, all excitedly talking amongst themselves. He kept walking, moving toward the library, which had a lot of guards standing around it, he noticed, and none of them looked friendly. He paused, wondering if approaching was the right idea.
'What if she doesn't remember me? What if she doesn't believe it's me?'
He stood there, and then finally decided on what to do. He was going to see his wife, and nopony was going to stop him.
*****
Twilight Sparkle sat there, drinking what was probably the fourteenth cup of tea Fluttershy had handed her at a pace that made glaciers seem like fun-loving maniacs, just staring at the floor. She was aware of somepony knocking at the door, despite Fluttershy's insistance that she be left undisturbed. She hadn't really agreed to that, but after several hours examining the scene upstairs she'd run out of ideas. She also had to go reassure Vanilla Pie she wasn't angry at him, and reassure Pinkie she wasn't angry at her son and that there was no need for an Apology Party.
The knocking was still going on. She looked about, and then decided to answer it herself, walking over to the door. She opened the door to see a stallion standing there, trying and failing to look calm.
"Hello?" she said, before noting he had blue fur, orange hair and orange eyes, just like another pony she knew.
"Do I know you?" she asked, noticing the utterly destroyed look on his face.
"Yes," he said, "You should."
She stared at him blankly for a moment, and while she did feel strangely nervous, she felt something else as well.
"Who are you?"
He sighed, and looked about. "You really don't remember me, do you?"
Twilight Sparkle stared at him, scutinising every detail of his face. There was an odd feeling in her stomach.
He sighed, "She told me you wouldn't, but... I guess I needed to see."
"I'm sorry, but I'm really not sure what's going on," Twilight said, feeling increasingly on edge, "Who told you what?"
He looked at her. "Who do you think?" he asked. She gasped.
"You know where Twinkle is?" she said, unaware she was smiling as she did.
"Yes" he said quietly.
Twilight Sparkle nodded, "Is she... alright?"
He paused, giving his answer some thought.
"She's safe."
"Safe? That doesn't actually sound reassuring" Twilight frowned. He just nodded. Twilight suddenly shook her head.
"Can you tell me what happened to her? Why did she just... vanish?"
He stared at her, and there was something in his eyes, like he was fighting back some urge.
"She was trying to teleport. Something she's never been able to do, ever since she was little. And we both know why that is, don't we?"
Twilight stared at him. "What. Happened. To. My daughter" she hissed.
He walked over to one of the bookshelves, "She managed to travel through time. Roughly twenty-two years and an even number of months. And she's safe."
There was a slight pause as Twilight Sparkle frowned at him. He looked at her.
"Nothing about me looks familiar, does it? You don't recognise my voice?"
Twilight sighed, "I don't mean to be rude, mister...?"
"Comet Chaser," he said quietly.
"Mister Comet Chaser, but I don't know you, and while I am a bit alarmed at how much you resemble my daughter, I am more concerned about why she was trying to teleport, and why she's in the past."
"I can tell. But you shouldn't worry about her. You always worry about her, but... she's not a little girl anymore. She's a grown mare and she is more than capable of looking after herself. And it's not exactly as if she's alone. She did wind up in the Ponyville of the past, after all."
Twilight Sparkle stared at him, wondering why he was talking with such familiarity about her.
"If I did know you," she asked, cautiously, wondering where Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy had gotten to, "Where would I know you from?"
"Eighteen years ago. Ponyville, the little tiny hill just outside town you liked to watch the stars on. Most of your friends were busy. Pinkie Pie was foalsitting the Cake twins, Applejack was out of town, Rainbow Dash was off training to be a Wonderbolt and Fluttershy and Rarity-"
"Had scheduling conflicts. I know. I remember that night," Twilight said, and then she noticed the hopeful grin on the stallion's face, "But I remember being there, alone."
"I had come to Ponyville to observe the stars and had chosen that tiny hill to do so, which was when I bumped into you. And then we got into an argument about 'the best spot on the hill', and it took us over an hour to finally come to a compromise, and spent the rest of the evening fighting over who got to use the telescope. That was how we met."
Twilight Sparkle frowned. "No. I spent that evening up on the hill alone" she said, though for some reason she wasn't so sure.
Now that she thought about it, the last several years of her life didn't make sense. Twinkle had said she had a father, and she'd been so insistant. But what had she dismissed her daughter's claims so readily?
"So... what happened after that?" she asked, hesitantly.
"Well, there was a period of courting, and dating and so on. Most of it unbelievably awkward and such, and there were all those times you saved my life from disasters or accidents. I mean, some of them you were saving Ponyville and / or Equestria as a whole, but the general point stands."
Comet Chaser smiled as he remembered something, then he looked at Twilight. "So you honestly don't remember the cheesiest declaration of love ever made?" he asked.
Twilight shook her head. "I think I'd remember that."
He gave a sad chuckle. "Well, I honestly don't know what I'd been thinking at the time, but... I took you out for a date, you know, fancy meal, clumsy dancing, the usual sort of thing, and then... well, I might have asked you to close your eyes, while I led you to the big observatory, the one by the Royal Canterlot Archives. You see, I might have asked Princess Luna, very very nicely, if she would be so kind as to give the night sky a bit of a temporary cosmetic alteration."
Twilight Sparkle found herself grinning, though she honestly wasn't sure why.
"And what happened then? Did you woo me with a romantic phrase made out of stars?"
He blushed, and for no reason she could understand, she found it actually adorable to see a stallion in his late-thirties (or at least he looked like he was in his late thirties, possibly he was older) acting like a teenager with a bad crush.
"Well, I'd asked Luna to move the stars about to say... 'I love you, Twilight Sparkle'."
For a moment neither pony said anything, Twilight just staring at him in disbelief.
"And... then you yelled at me for that, because I'd gotten rid of 'our' constellation. Which you had never mentioned before. And we might have started arguing, and looking back on it, we weren't arguining about anything in particular, just... yelling, really."
Then his blush increased. "And by this point we were standing really close to one another, and we might have kissed. And then we started making out."
Twilight stared at him, her eyes wide in shock, mostly because of the almost manic smile on his face. Then Comet Chaser looked at her.
"You don't remember any of this, do you?" he said quietly. Twilight stared at him. For a few seconds she wasn't sure what to say.
"No. No, I... sorry. I don't remember any of this."
He just nodded. "Twinkie said you didn't remember. She said you two had been arguing for some time about this."
"Yes," Twilight said solemnly, "We have. Strange, actually, it all seemed so important at the time, but now... now my daughter is gone and I don't even know why she felt the need to run."
He stared at her. "You mean... you don't know yet? You haven't heard anything from the Crystal Empire?"
"No," Twilight said, "And Fluttershy, that's the mayor of Ponyville by the way, has been distracted with what's happened to her son."
"He's alive, as well."
"How do you know?" Twilight said, suspicion suddenly swelling in her.
"Twinkle found him. But apparently the Changelings caught up with him, but the last time she checked, he was still alive."
"And how does she know all this?"
He shuffled, and then sighed, "I think it would probably be better if she explained it, when she came back."
He looked around the library, "Anyway, I'll just... just go. That's what I'll do."
And before Twilight Sparkle could say anything, he walked out of the door. Twilight was aware of the door to the kitchen opening, and Fluttershy looking into the room.
"Who was that?" she asked, quietly.
For a moment, Twilight Sparkle didn't respond, as her mind faced an internal war. She knew him. He knew her, and he knew Twilight Twinkle, her daughter. He said they were married, and for some reason, this sounded... right. She frowned, and then... it was like a curtain had been pulled away from her eyes. And she remembered.
She remembered so much, she remembered seeing the inky purple night sky, with a dozen stars aligned in a message to her, courtesy of Princess Luna, which had led to... an ailse, a dress, vows. She remembered all of those, of seeing her daughter for the first time ever, of looking at him, and the two of them smiling madly.
She turned to look at Fluttershy, and laughed, only just aware of tears on her cheek.
And then she rushed out through the door.
*****
Comet Chaser walked slowly down the streets, staring absently at everything he walked past. He ran, he thought to himself. He couldn't even bare to look at her, couldn't stand the fact that for the second time in twenty-four hours, he'd had to look at her and have her looking back, not knowing who he was.
And as he walked past another small cafe, he suddenly thought to himself 'no'.
'No. I am going to go back, and I am going to tell her how much she means to me, and I am not going to stop until she remembers!'
And as he turned around he was tackled by a large purple tangle of legs and wings.
"Right. Hello, dear" he said awkwardly, to the mare on top of him.
"It's you," she whispered, and he noticed she was hugging him unbelievably close.
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I forgot you and I didn't even know, and she tried to tell me and I wouldn't listen."
He tried to free his forelegs from under her, but couldn't. He saw the tears on Twilight Sparkle's face though.
"It's alright, dear. It wasn't your fault."
She looked at him, and smiled. Then a thought occured to him.
"Honey, do you mind, perhaps moving a bit? It's just that you're... cutting of the circulation to my legs."
"In a minute," she said quietly, "Just give me a minute. Just to make sure you're real."
He smiled warmly, as he noted the cool spring air and that fact that he had his wife back, so suddenly loss of circulation in his legs didn't seem so bad.
"Take all the time you need, dear."
*****
A short distance away, a stallion and a mailmare watched the scene in front of them, and turned to each other.
"Nothing is ever completely forgotten" The Doctor smiled. Then he looked around, and saw a ginger mare with a similar brown coat to his own, and a Cutie Mark of an hourglass. His expression dropped as he saw the look of outright loathing she was giving him.
"I think we've seen enough" he said, "Come along, Ditzy."
The mare watched as alicorn and unicorn unsteadily got to their hooves, still staring at the other in disbelief, and smiled at the sight.
*****
Midday stood, waiting for the box to return, or for something to happen, for anything. She could feel a slight chill of the late afternoon wind, and sighed.
After twenty minutes of waiting, she turned around and started back down the hill. And then she heard it again, that noise, that strange, beautiful haunting noise, followed by the small clunk and odd creak of hinges. She turned to see a mad-pony wearing a bowtie and grinning at her.
"So, everything went okay?" she asked. He grinned.
"There was crying and hugging, and I think I saw a bit of kissing" he frowned, "So yes, I did as you asked."
She smiled gently. "Thank you, Doctor."
He looked about, and frowned, "But what about you? How does Twilight Twinkle plan to get home?"
She looked at him, "I'll find a way. Somehow. Thanks for getting my father back to where he belongs."
"Well, that's me. The Doctor, sorter out of paradoxes, here to help. All that stuff."
She nodded, and then nodded to Ditzy, before turning back toward Ponyville.
"You are going to tell her, right?" Ditzy asked. Midday turned to look at her, and noticed the mild irritation on Ditzy's face.
"You said you were going to tell her today. Are you?" the mailmare spoke.
"I'll tell her tomorrow" Midday said. The Doctor just smirked.
"Never do today what you can put off 'till tomorrow. Time isn't the boss of you, but you'd know that, right?"
Midday looked at him. "Bye, Doctor. Try not to get into trouble out there. And..." she stopped, and smiled at him, "Try and stay out of my life for a while, please?"
*****
The two ponies watched as Midday walked away, before the Doctor tilted his head, and looked at Midday.
"What now?" Ditzy asked.
"Well, I've got a box that can go anywhere in time and space, no demons to fight here, and I'm getting a bit bored of seeing events pass in the right order" The Doctor said. Ditzy stared straight ahead at the clouds wafting in the late afternoon sky.
"So that offer about travelling with you, it's still valid, right?"
"Of course" he smiled. Then a thought occured to Ditzy.
"Could Dinky come with us? I don't really want to leave her on her own, even if it is with Amethyst."
He just looked at her, his expression momentarily one of worry, but then his smile returned. "Yeah, you can bring her. I can show her things her teachers would never think of, wonders no-one else in the universe can witness. The Eye of Orion, the magnificent Alingment of the Seven Holiest Cities, one devoted to each virtue. Anywhere you want to go or can think of, or places you never could imagine in your maddest dreams. Places where the sky sings, worlds dream, cities made of hope, places where love burns brighter than the stars and-"
He paused.
"The tea's getting cold" he turned and rushed into the box.
Ditzy Doo smiled, before unfurling her wings, and setting off toward the town herself.
Twenty minutes later, a mad-man, a mailpony and her daughter were gone, travelling on in the strange box of the bluest blue there every was.
Ditzy, Dinky and the Doctor, in the TARDIS.
Next stop, everywhere.
*****
Midday Eclipse slowly walked toward the library, finding each step harder and harder, the world getting blurier with each step. At some point, she realised, she must have started crying, but she didn't feel it.
She walked past Twilight Sparkle, and Spike. They were probably saying something, but she didn't hear them, just making her way slowly up the stairs, toward the bed.
She crawled into it, barely able to tell whether she was actually sitting on it at all, and her eyes were closed before she'd even hit the pillow.
*****
In Canterlot, the next morning, the young version of Comet Chaser found a letter written to himself in familiar writing. He stared at it with incredulity.
To Comet Chaser
From, Comet Chaser
I am taking an awful risk doing this, but I feel it is only fair to give you some advice.
So here it is:
She likes daisy sandwiches, reading, and being with her friends.
And for the love of sanity, learn to dance!
All my love to long ago