//------------------------------//
// Intermission Two: The Doctor's Memories 
// Story: Cranks and Bubbles 
// by guppygirl 
//------------------------------//

   The familiar low, vibrating hum echoed through the TARDIS, the only thing interrupting the blessed silence.  For the moment, peace reigned aboard the ship.  This time, however, the occupants were not away.  The companions were sleeping and, in a rare event, her wayward thief was unconscious in his room as well.  The TARDIS cherished these few moments - times when she never had to fear for her time traveler’s safety, but was allowed to keep the soothing quiet she usually only got when nopony was aboard.
   With a satisfied sort of mechanical sigh, she turned her attention to the occupants in question.  Her consciousness made its first stop in the room nearest to the console room.  In this room, Ditzy “Derpy” Doo lay tucked into a bubble-themed bed with a contented smile on her face, wings twitching slightly as she flew in her dreams.  The TARDIS gave a small beep in a smile - no matter what they saw every day, the gray mare always found a way to remain happy.  The Doctor needed a pony like her in his life, more than she could have ever imagined.
   Deeper aboard was a room filled with all sorts of half-built machinery and other clutter.  The only clean space in the room, almost an island, was a bed, where Tick Tock was now dozing.  When he’d first boarded the TARDIS, his nights were often spent restless as nightmares plagued him, memories of battled monsters and faceless bullies swirling through his mind and coalescing into images of seven-headed dragons and gaping maws and jeering comments.  Now, though, he’d seen things that he never would have dreamed possible before, things that made him understand that it was all worth it, and his nights had grown peaceful.
   No, it was not the two ponies aboard the ship that she was worried about.  She hesitated outside the door to the Doctor’s room, knowing what she would find inside.  The distressed expression, the thrashing in his sleep, the soft whimpers as the images he couldn’t remember in his waking moments flooded back in dreams.  Human faces, those he’d once known, those he’d once lost.  Those that, unawares to him, were waiting desperately for his return.
   He wasn’t ready, she told herself once more as she stole into his room.  He couldn’t help them, not yet.  She reached gently into the recesses of his mind and dulled the images, packing the memories away once more, until he grew quiet.
   One day, soon - she hoped - he would be ready for what he had yet to face.  When that happened, she would bring him home.
   Until then, she would protect him as best as she could.