//------------------------------//
// The Doctor Returns 
// Story: The Night Lasts Forever 
// by MasterFrasca 
//------------------------------//

	“Well then, this doesn’t look like the planet of Midnight…” Doctor Hooves started, poking his head out the door of his little blue box. Within seconds his eyes snapped to my own and I gave him the meanest glare I could.

“This would be my room, Doctor,” I said through gritted teeth, putting a lot of emphasis on the final word. I couldn’t believe that he would show his face to me again after last night. That stallion made my blood boil, and he had some nerve dropping in on me in my own room, especially after what happened last time. I was ready to take him out, but Twilight was there to stop me. He just better be careful this time.

“Luna!” he overenthusiastically greeted me. “It’s been ages!” 

“Don’t give me that ‘ages,’ Doctor,” I yelled back at him. “It’s been less than a day since you and I last talked to each other.”

“Has it really been that short of a time period? Fancy that, then! The TARDIS must really like you Luna, because I think this is probably the fifth time I’ve talked to you recently, and I really have been enjoying these chats. They were always happy and energetic and full of life, except last time. I think I met you at some sort of restaru—Oh…” He faltered as something seemed to cross his mind.

“This is the day after that last meeting isn’t it?” he asked in a deadpan voice. He seemed to already know the answer by the look of his face. I nodded and he continued on, “And that was when Twilight joined me, wasn’t it?” Another nod from me and he asked one last question with a grimace on his face, “And you’re probably still really mad at me aren’t you?”

I picked up my abacus with my horn and threw it at him as hard as I could in response. He quickly ducked back into his TARDIS to avoid being hit by the flying math tool. When the abacus hit the blue box, it exploded and all the beads flew off, scattering randomly about the room. Were we somewhere else, I might have considered trying to strike him with a bolt of lightning. We were in the Canterlot Castle, though, and that would have been too dangerous. I may have damaged something of my own in the process.

Poking his head cautiously out of the box, so he wouldn’t get hit by some other flying anomaly, the Doctor spoke up again. “Now let’s not get hasty here,” he started. “I do have company with me this time around.”

“Luna?” A voice I hadn’t heard since last night came from inside of the small blue box. My hopes rose up when I heard the sound of it. “What’s going on out there?” Twilight stepped out of the TARDIS next to the Doctor, and looked around curiously, obviously noticing the beads scattered throughout the room from my sudden outburst seconds ago. She had never seen the inside of my own personal bedroom. Not many ponies had. She quickly finished and her eyes locked onto mine, motionless and almost daunting. She stood there for a few seconds, staring directly at me, as if trying to read my mind before she burst out, “What in the hay happened between you two?!”

“He and I don’t exactly see eye to eye, Twilight,” I said, staring at the Doctor once more, “ever since that day all those years ago when he abandoned me in that damn forest.”

“Princess!” Twilight interjected, obviously not used to hearing royalty use any sort of vulgar language. “Wait, Doctor…is this true?”

“I told you that was an accident, Luna,” the Doctor said to me, ignoring Twilight’s question and keeping his eyes locked with mine. “As soon as I dropped you off in the forest, I went back into the TARDIS to recalibrate the engine after that run-in with that Ood uprising. When I tried to do a systems check, she took off with me inside. I realized my mistake too late and tried to go back to get you again, but when I got back you were gone. I searched for you for days, Luna. I didn’t abandon you by any means.”

“I don’t care anymore Doctor, because being with you caused the rage of Nightmare Moon to overcome me again after nearly a thousand years of peace. I just don’t want to risk heartbreak again and another death…”

“But Luna,” he started.

“Just leave me alone Doctor,” I interjected, turning my head towards the ground while slowly reassembling my shattered abacus. “Can’t you see that you’ve already done enough damage?” I turned my head back to Twilight, and with a serious tone, I started “As for you Twilight… I guess pleading for you to stay probably won’t change your stance, but I want you to know that if you go with him, then Equestria will be missing one of the six Elements of Harmony.” Finally I quietly added,
“Celestia help us all when that happens…”

“What would happen if one of the elements was missing?” Twilight asked me, curiously.

“I can’t say exactly, but nothing good I can assure you.” I replied, looking reflectively out my window. “Without the Elements of Harmony, Discord would still be in power, and I would still be that…that beast… Instead of guessing at unplanned events, why don’t we just have the Doctor show you?”

“What do you mean by that?” she asked me. When I gave no response past looking at Doctor Whooves, she turned to him and asked, “What does she mean, Doctor? Can you show me a future without me in it?”

“Theoretically, I could set up coordinates in the temporal flux of the central engine of the TARDIS, making one seemingly harmless event, one that you would not believe could change the world, change or differ from the accepted timeline, but if I get that to work, I wouldn’t be able to hold us in the alternate universe it creates for longer than a few lightseconds.”

“Usually, I know what you’re talking about Doctor,” Twilight responded after his speech, “but this time, could you simplify it a little bit?”

“I could do it, but we won’t be able to stay long.”

“Well then what are we waiting for?” Twilight asked, hopping back into the TARDIS. “I want to know what the possible future holds!”

“Luna,” the Doctor turned to me, “I know you and I aren’t on the best of terms,” he said as I thought about how I had just thrown an abacus at him, which I was still fixing, “But if you want to come…”

“I need to be there,” I said staring at the abacus, putting the final few beads back in place. “Twilight needs me to be there, because I can figure what a few years without the Elements of Harmony will do. I know the chaos it can cause.” 
I put down the newly-repaired abacus and headed for his blue box. “Don’t think that this makes us ‘friends’ again Doctor. I will never forgive you for the damage you caused, regardless whether it was intentional or not.”

I stepped inside to see that the TARDIS was still the same as I remembered it. I felt emotions of love and heartbreak as I remembered all the events that this room held, from the travels to this planet called Earth to meeting a slave race called the Ood. Also memories of the night he abandoned me fluttered through my head and anger started to well up inside me again.

Twilight’s voice calmed me down as she proclaimed carefree, “Isn’t it wonderful, Luna? We can travel across the stars and through time itself!” She hopped around the ship exclaiming, “It makes me so happy to be traveling and to learn so much! I don’t ever want to leave this ship!”

The Doctor stepped on, but nothing changed in Twilight’s giddy emotions. The fact that her love of the Doctor was probably directly related to this ship made me feel a little bit better. If I could somehow convince her that this ship brought nothing but trouble, then maybe I could get her to break her bonds with him. At the very least, I need her to stay in Equestria.


Before the Doctor arrived, she was going to be the next Princess…