//------------------------------//
// Happily ever after... 
// Story: My Little Derpy: Strabismus is Magic 
// by juicebox 
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	He showed up at my door later that week, maintaining his composure despite something obviously bothering him. He didn’t talk for a good minute. I hugged him, telling him that whatever it was, it would be fine. He whispered a quiet thank you to me and disengaged from the hug. He followed me into my living room and I offered to brew him some tea. He declined, which was unusual for him.
I urged him to talk about it, and he eventually told me that he was really having trouble getting over his last relationship. He told me all of the things he thought he saw in her, he told me how he thought he had found the perfect mare, somepony who saw the world through his eyes. She shot down his hopes though. As so many other mares before had done to him, she leveraged his kindness, deceived him, led him on so she could acquire a relationship with him as a status symbol. He was certainly somepony to brag about, and that’s what he had become to the sickening upper crust of Ponyville.
There were about three ways a relationship with the Doctor would go: he would be left in the dust as soon as a mare found that he would not simply make love to her, he would be abandoned when his monetary excess did not meet his similar outpouring of devotion, or he would leave them because of some vast offense against his morals. The first and second happened most frequently, but the third happened more often than it should have. The Doctor had very simple morals that could be summed up effectively by the Hippocratic Oath – “First, do no harm.”
The Doctor told me about how this latest marefriend had caught his eye for years, and he was hoping that the kindness and loyalty she embodied wasn’t just a façade. It was. She was no more than a hopeless gold digger, looking for him to empty his pockets, since she had emptied most of the other available stallions’ pockets. He told me how he didn’t feel like he could trust his judgment any longer, how he thought that he wouldn’t ever find a mare he could spend his life with because he was just setting the bar too high.
I was going to have absolutely none of that. I stared him down, anger obvious in my eyes. He simply wasn’t allowed to think of himself at fault here. I scolded him, telling him that he wasn’t ever allowed to think of himself as anything less than Celestia’s gift to mares. I wasn’t going to let him dabble with self-deprecation like that.
I started telling him all of the things about him that I had loved: his eyes that spoke volumes of the sweetest poetry, his words that never failed to mirror exactly his sentiments, his everything. I told him about how I was unbelievably happy with him, how he deserved so much but got so little.
At some point, I wasn’t making a coherent point anymore. I told him all of the reasons he mattered to me, and how I hated seeing him sad. How he wasn’t ever allowed to be so stupid, how he wasn’t allowed to beat himself up. How he should have never left me.
Oh no. Did I just say that?
“I’m sorry” we both said in unison, “No I really shouldn’t have…” we both continued. He paused, letting me speak
“I shouldn’t have said that. It was stupid of me.”
“No, I should have never started that relationship. You meant too much to me, and I was willing to risk our friendship for my happiness. It was stupid.”
“No, I was totally out of line there, I just got carried away. I should have never said that, it was stupid and unfair to you and” I paused, “I’m just… I’m sorry. You can leave if you want.”
“Excuse me?” the Doctor replied, incredulous. “Are you really suggesting that I leave right now? I think we both have a little bit to talk about, don’t you?”
“N-no. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it, it was stupid. Can we just forget about it?”
“No! I obviously hurt you with that relationship, and I’m not leaving until I can fix it.”
“You can’t fix it! Doctor, you and I were never meant to be more than friends. I don’t blame you at all for going out with me, and I don’t want to see you blaming yourself. I expected that I would be the lucky mare that got to have you forever, and I took you for granted. I never once questioned whether I deserved you, or whether I could give you the kind of relationship you deserved.”
The doctor was silent, obviously tracking along a little slowly. It didn’t matter. I had more to say.
“I expected that you would give me your love and only expect what little I have to offer in return. I couldn’t be half the arm candy most of the mares you date are, I couldn’t hope to give you anything more than my heart, and Doctor, you deserve so much more. You could have a pretty mare that could love you the way you deserve, who could give something back.”
He still just stood there, seemingly in shock. This was out of character for me.
“You’ll never be able to fix the fact that we weren’t made for each other, because you won’t be able to fix me. I’m just content if you think our relationship was just a little accident, something you’ll learn from and never do again.”
“Whoa, hold up. Where under Celestia’s sun did you get an idea like that?”
“Don’t give me condolences. I know you deserve better. You don’t need to flatter me.”
“I’m not trying to flatter you. You are wrong in every possible way. I never left you because you weren’t good enough; I left you because I didn’t know if I could be good enough to you. I don’t trust myself to love you as much as you loved me. I felt like I was taking advantage of you, leveraging the fact that we had such a close friendship to justify our relationship.”
“Don’t give me your pity. I heard all of the other mares. They all said you just couldn’t give up on me as your charity case. They said that you only loved me because you felt obligated to. I don’t want your charity. I’m a big mare now and I can take care of myself just fine.”
“Really? You think I would date you because I felt sorry for you? You couldn’t possibly be more wrong. I dated you because I could see just how lucky the stallion that spent their life with you would be. I was selfish and stupid. I wanted to be with you because you were the most caring, kind, sweet, loyal, loving pony I knew. I left because I knew I could never be everything you deserved.”
“Oh, and what do I deserve? Somepony to protect me? I don’t need a parent. Somepony to defend me? I can stand up for myself. Somepony to wipe away my tears? I did fine by myself almost my entire life. Somepony to fix me? It’s not going to happen, I can’t be fixed.”
“This is it. You need to be quiet and listen to what I have to say!”
That was the most assertive I had ever seen the Doctor. It was frightening.
“I don’t want to protect you, defend you, watch you cry, or fix you. I want to show you just how wonderful you are. I want to love you, not because no one else does, but because I can. I don’t want to be the one pony who matters to you because you need it; I want to be that pony because I need it. I don’t want looks or money or popularity, I want you. I grew up with you, and I learned just how beautiful somepony can be on the inside. I’ve never met a more wonderful pony, and I’d have to set the bar fairly low in comparison to come up with the next best.”
He paused, my face softened. I felt the tears; warm, salty, confused.
“Derpy, I can’t begin to explain how stupid I was, I can’t apologize enough. I’ll never do enough to fix what I did to you earlier. I know I’ll never be enough to deserve your love, I know I’ll never truly be able to be more than a friend without hurting you. You mean the world to me, and I have no intention of letting myself ruin what we have as friends.”
I finally understood. Not that I didn’t understand before, but I wanted to be angry at him. He was so perfect, and I couldn’t have him because he was too darn nice.
“Oh come on, Doctor, be a little adventurous.” I prompted, “You’ll never know when some other stallion will come and sweep me off of my feet. I couldn’t ask for anything more than you, and I never want to have to settle for less. There is no pony on this entire planet that I would wish to be with more than you. You’re not giving me the short end of the deal. You’d suffer a life of hate and ridicule if you were to have any serious relationship with me, and I’d be unbelievably happy for the rest of my life. I think you have it backwards.”
“No, I don’t. Even if it mattered what some other pony said, I could never do enough to earn your love. I’m flattered that you would consider me so special, but I can’t help but feel like I’m forcing you to settle.”
“I swear, Doctor, it’s getting really close to sounding like you are saying that I don’t know how to decide what I want. And I’m pretty sure you don’t want to go there. I’m darn well smart enough to make my own decisions and heck if I haven’t already decided that the only pony I want is you.”
The doctor took my point in quietly. He, I could tell, understood.
“I don’t want to pressure you into something that you don’t want, but it’d be really nice if, you know, I was pressuring you into something you did want.”
The doctor chuckled, I couldn’t get over that laugh; it was so sweet. He didn’t speak but he, I thought, was starting to come around.
“Doctor, I’ve had my eyes on you for a long time. I was totally surprised when you asked me to go on a date with you; I never thought you would be so kind as to ask me something like that. And then I was absolutely amazed when I found out that you weren’t just humoring me. I didn’t understand why you would want to date a pony like me, but I was definitely not complaining. But when you broke up, it just felt like something that was going to happen eventually, I was sad but I still felt lucky.”
The doctor looked puzzled; he didn’t know where I was going with this one.
“Doctor, I feel lucky to have you, in whatever capacity I get you, but I really hope that you would consider letting me be your marefriend. It would mean the world to me, and I would try my hardest to make it meaningful for you.”
“But I don’t deserve you. I’m sure I would do something horrible that would hurt you. More importantly, what if I did something to lose you? I would be crushed if you left me, and you wouldn’t be the first mare to do so. It’s easier and safer for us to be friends.” He didn’t get it.
“You’re not making sense! You want me, I want you, but you’re afraid that you’ll screw up? And you’re using that as an excuse to deprive me of you? If anything, that’s what’s selfish. I’m sure that there’s nothing you could do to make me leave you. I understand that we’re not perfect, and that being perfect for each other is a fantasy, but you would never do anything bad enough that I would leave you. Even if we argue, even if you get angry with me, I wouldn’t leave you. I don’t want to be just any other mare you’ve dated, I want to be special. I don’t want your money or your body; I want your love, your attention, somepony to hug at the end of the day, somepony to feel for. Doctor, I really just want to steal you away and keep you to myself, because friendships come and go, but I could love you forever.”
“Well, um… I really want to be with you, but I just can’t. You deserve better.”
“Hold up. You are the only pony who has carried on a conversation with me that ever got past “what’s wrong with you” or “you’re so stupid.” Even if I did deserve better than you, which I don’t believe I do, I would never find it. There is no pony that has or will ever treat me the way you do. I don’t know how you’ve discerned that I deserve better than you, but your hypothesis is without any observable proof, nor is there any reality where it could be fulfilled. If there were something out there better than you, which I remind you there isn’t, it would come with some horrible caveat that would entirely nullify any benefit of such engagement. You are definitely brushing up against the limit of too good to be true, and I would have put you higher if I didn’t want to give you more fuel for your argument.” I paused, “I’ve given this a lot of thought, Doctor. If you really think that you could be happy with me, and you’re not worried about how our relationship would hurt you, there is no further consideration you need address. Just ask me to be your marefriend, and I promise I will do everything in my power to make it worth your while.”
“I can’t argue with your logic. I still feel like I shouldn’t be taking advantage of your kindness or our situation.”
“You’re not taking advantage of our situation. If Celestia’s grand plan called for us to be brought together, who are we to contest the outcome of that plan?”
“Did you really just make our relationship a theological argument?” the Doctor asked, incredulous.
“Yes. And I’m sure Celestia would swoop down at any minute and personally banish you to the moon, should you not embrace your fate and ask me to dinner.”
“I can’t believe you sometimes, but I can’t argue with the royal agenda.”
“Does this signal your concession? And my having a dinner date tonight.”
“Sure. Where would milady like to go?”
I didn’t really talk about much that night, with the exception of how happy I was. The Doctor, as usual, was a perfect gentleman; he held doors for me, paid the bill, and walked me home. He didn’t even ask for sex, like I’d heard so many stallions did, he simply hugged me and told me that I would see him soon. I dearly hoped so.
He came over the next evening carrying a craft paper sack of the finest tea leaves this side of Manehattan. I quickly ushered him in, giddily preparing a kettle and digging for my long forgotten tea ball. He had done this before, it was our second date; he had promised me a night in after I told him that I really just wanted to talk with him forever. That time he also brought fancy tea, along with his usual dose of handsome and charming. I couldn’t believe how sentimental my long-lost lover really was.
“Is that-” I start, “Did you really-” He nods. “I can’t believe after all this time you remember! That’s my absolute favorite tea! And do you know why it’s my absolute favorite tea? Because you introduced it to me, and it reminds me of you, and I like things that remind me of you.” I was rambling, “It’s so perfect, it’s just so… I can’t believe you remembered.” My little girlish reverie makes him smile.
“Well. Glad I could give you something so special.” He muses, laughing slightly. I think he means the tea, but I kind of hope that he secretly means himself.
“Yeah, the two of us certainly get to share a treat, alright; the tea and I, that is.” He pauses for a second, confirming my realization that he wasn’t subtly hinting at his importance to me, but then again maybe I’m glad he’s humble. Anyway, I appreciate the little cackle he gives when he gets my joke. He always makes me feel witty, a feeling that I seldom experience outside of his presence.
“It’s more difficult to find this in Ponyville. I’ll definitely have to instill the virtues of importing such quality tea with the local import stores,” he begins, “And no, I have no plans for anypony else to start importing me.” He catches on so wonderfully well to things, and always weaves in the wittiest, most amusing counterpoints at a moment’s notice.
“I should hope not. Because I’m capitalizing on this market.” I said in my snootiest rich-pony voice, “Only the best imported pony for me!” I finished. Both of us snickered, that was so not like me (and probably so like every other pony the Doctor dated.) Even so, the Doctor was mine now.
“So um… while the tea steeps, do you want to talk?” He made this little shuffling move with one of his hooves. I hated that little tick of his, it meant he was holding out on something he didn’t want to say.
“And what, dare I ask, shall we be talking about?” I said in a nastier-than-necessary tone. I instantly expected the worst. He was really just leading me on again.
“About how everything just happened so fast…” He said. I resisted the urge to cut him off. He seemed like he had more to say before his point was made. “I don’t regret anything I said, but I really want to just walk through the entire thing again. I feel like I don’t have my head on straight.”
“Okay. Where do we start?” I asked, again with undue animosity in my voice.
“How about the part where we had a really good friendship?”
“Yes…”
“And how I really don’t want to lose you. You promised me that you would stay with me forever, and I wouldn’t leave you for anything, but I worry that whatever wonderful circumstance brought us together has an inverse that is lurking in the shadows waiting to tear us apart.” He could write poetry, if he wasn’t so stupid! Why did he have to make so much sense, but be so wrong?
“I don’t think you’re thinking this through. There are two circumstances that would cause either of us to leave the other. One is death, and the other is our choice to end it. The latter of those situations will never happen, and the first of those is so dreary that I should hope you don’t ponder frequently on how fate will eventually separate us in body.” I was being a smart pony too. I could write poetry too if I wasn’t so entirely consumed with the Doctor. “You won’t ever find me thinking about that, because every second I think about that is a second that it has already stolen from us. Now stop wasting seconds.”
“You make a sound point. Onto my next topic,” The Doctor announced almost clinically, “I feel like you’re settling. I’m the only pony you’ve ever dated, and I feel like that is unfairly affecting your judgment.”
“You’re also the only pony who has ever spoken to me at anything higher than a first grade level. You’re the only pony to understand me, to listen to me, to really know my story. If that doesn’t give me an unfair bias, I don’t know what would, but if I have to choose between you and being single, a thousand times over I would choose you. Not only do you make me happy, Doctor, but I’m starting to believe that I make you happy too. And that’s all I ever really wanted, was to share happiness with somepony.”
“I can’t argue with that, but I still feel like I’ve found such a high prize in getting to know you, and I feel that taking this any further than a platonic friendship would do nothing more than tarnish the gift I’ve so graciously been given.”
“Doctor, you don’t make much sense. I don’t think you really think about me outside of the fact that we offer each other something that both of us seldom find separately; understanding. I wish you’d think, when you tell me how wonderful I am, as everypony else does. I’m not any more beautiful than most of the other mares you’ve dated, in fact I’d rather posit that I’m at the low end of that spectrum. I’ve got these eyes that seem to drive everypony away as if I was diseased. The point here is that I’m not wonderful, beautiful, or more than you deserve. I’m just a weird, broken, very lucky gray mare that you seem to look straight through. I wish you could see just how broken I am.”
“Derpy, I may look at you differently than most ponies, but I don’t regret my vantage point. I’m grateful every day that I can see you for who you are. I don’t think it’s your eyes that are at fault here, I think it’s everypony else’s. If I was ever forced to share the perception of you that every uncouth outsider so viciously attacks you with, I would have to first shed every moral and logical fiber of my being, and I would forever be compromised in a way I wish to never experience.” The doctor replied. I wasn’t crying right now, not at all. There weren’t wet pathways drawn through the fur over my cheeks from how hard I was crying at the doctor’s sentiment. No, it was just a little misty in here, and I must have gotten something in my eye. And certainly, under no circumstances, was I at such a loss for composure because that was the nicest thing that any pony would ever say to me, and that his sheer abundance of kindness and compassion was so wonderfully unnecessary. Okay, maybe I was making a puddle on the floor. Maybe I reached out and hugged the Doctor with my forehooves. Maybe I didn’t hear the kettle for a full three minutes while I sobbed into his shoulder between soft whimpers of how much I loved him and what a sweetheart he was and how he was a perfect gentleman.
Maybe I should turn the kettle off. Easier said than done in my state. I carefully reassembled all of my working nerves and poured each of us a shaky glass of tea, added a shaky spoonful of honey to each, and shakily brought them over to the table, all while still crying and thinking to myself about how I was the luckiest mare ever. The doctor knew he had just dropped a bombshell on my composure, and didn’t complain when I struggled to regain my calm after sitting down with him at my quaint kitchen table. It just wasn’t fair. I couldn’t say something like that to him. Why did he have to be so good with everything?
“I do get your point though. You may not appeal to every pony in the way that you do to me, but I could never use that as an excuse to justify our relationship.”
“Doctor,” I started between sobs, brushing my mane out of my face, “you don’t need an excuse. You don’t have to justify our relationship to anypony other than you and me. And my justification is that you’re wonderful, and your justification should be that you’re wonderful. So just skip the whole part where you ask me repeatedly if I’m sure this is what I want, and just get to the part where you tell me you love me and I tell you how I want to live my entire life with you, get married, have foals, grow old, travel all over Equestria, and never stop reminding you every step of the way that I love you so much.”
“R-Really? All that?” the Doctor asks, clearly taken aback by how far ahead I was willing to consider. “I’ve obviously underestimated how clearly you’ve thought this all through.”
“Oh, Doctor. You’ve clearly underestimated a lot of things about just how wonderful you are and just how crazy I am about you. I wanted to marry you since like two weeks after I met you. I have entire notebooks full of fancy scribbles of “Dr. and Mrs. Whooves.” I started reading cheap romance novels and I always fantasized afterward about you and me going on whatever ridiculous adventure or traveling to whichever fantastic foreign land. It’s all rather embarrassing, now that I’m actually telling you all of this, but Doctor, my point is that there hasn’t been a moment since I’ve met you that I haven’t been thinking this through.”
“Wow. Well, I guess that makes two of us. I never fantasized quite as deeply, but that doesn’t mean that I wasn’t equally enamored with the underlying concept. I always thought you were just such a jewel, so beautiful and yet with a whole side to you that no one else knew. I felt like I was special, just by the virtue that I could see you in clearer focus than anypony else, and I felt like you were special because of just how much of you there was that was obscured by the prejudices against you.” The Doctor explained, “And I always imagined settling down with somepony like you. It’s actually become quite infectious, every time a relationship ends, I wonder what I was missing, why I couldn’t find all of the wonderful things that I find in you in whatever mare I had just left or been left by.”
I simply smiled for a second, thinking about how both of us were so silly and stupid and wonderful and perfect and everything else positive that I couldn’t quite think of an adjective to attach to. “Doctor, you’ve given me enough words for today, at least on this topic. But you haven’t so much as given me one kiss on the cheek, and I’m becoming quite impatient after all of this buttering up you’ve done. I do expect that you weren’t planning on telling me how much you loved me only to leave without presenting me with some small physical token of the validity of those statements.” The doctor blushed at my words. I don’t think he had realized that we hadn’t kissed, honestly I wasn’t even sure if he realized he could kiss me. Nonetheless, we locked eyes, and he leaned in. Right as he was going to peck me lightly on the cheek in what would have been such a boring and atrociously gentlemanly kiss, I swiftly craned my neck and gave him a light kiss directly on his mouth. Our noses touched ever so briefly, and as we both pulled away slightly, we locked eyes in a way that I still can’t put to words. I leaned in again, and wrapped my left front hoof around his neck and drew him in for a much longer kiss.
Our tea sat forgotten on the table as I forced him to kiss me for what couldn’t have been more than a few seconds, but felt like hours of bliss. It wasn’t even that the Doctor was an impressive kisser, which he still was. The real reason that it was so great was that it was so affirming. Even I was starting to admit that the previous night had been really rushed, and I much more appreciated the conclusion we had reached today.
We sat and kissed and talked a lot more about everything under the sun. He, as usual, was a perfect gentleman, and despite my leadings, he never so much as contemplated anything more sensual than a closed mouth kiss. Oh well, he would come around eventually. This was the start of what would be a wonderful several weeks of dating, with nothing else that matched in emotional intensity this first day, but nonetheless nothing that was by any means unsatisfactory. There were so many wonderful moments, but too many to mention individually, so I will simply say that those several weeks were wonderful. But that isn’t the end of our story.