“This is the place, then?” asked the Doctor, nodding towards the oaken door of his counterpart's home.
“Definitely,” nodded his new friend, letting her tangled blond mane flop in front of her eyes. Brushing it out of the way, she approached the door and planted four short, sharp knocks in the centre. There came no reply. “Hmm. Sounds like he's out.”
“Any idea where, old girl?”
“Um… well, probably to look for me, actually.” She opened her eyes wide. “Oh! I just ran out! He must have been so worried.”
“Well, it seems we'll have to await his return,” said the Doctor, looking rather put out.
“Not really,” giggled Derpy, “he never remembers to lock his door.”
Sure enough, they had no trouble gaining entry, and, once inside, Derpy closed the door behind them. The Doctor looked around in amazement.
“My word,” he said to himself, “some of these inventions are far ahead of their time – even by Galgonquan standards.” A look of triumph crossed his face. “Galgonquan! I knew I'd remember eventually. He's a Galgonquan, has to be.”
Derpy crossed to a table, on which were piled several glowing, multicoloured, ethereal orbs. “These are the Doc's flameless fireworks. He only just figured out how to get them to work.”
The Doctor, however, was more interested in some of the diagrams pinned to the walls. “Goodness me! Temporal redistribution! This sort of thing gives me a headache.”
“This is his high-speed bottle opener,” continued Derpy, “but the mayor banned it 'cause it nearly opened Carrot Top at the Invention Convention.”
“An evolutionary accelerator!” exclaimed the Doctor. “I've never seen anything like it… Mind you, it wouldn't work.”
“How do you know, if you've never seen anything like it?”
“I can understand the principle,” retorted the Doctor, haughtily. “Now then, let's see… ah, just as I thought. He's been trying to develop a long-range communications device – probably to contact that orbital craft you mentioned. I believe the Galgonquans have had a craft permanently in orbit for the best part of a century now, and it's still undetected.” He smiled to himself at the thought. “Wonderful ponies, the Galgonquans.”
“But it must be awful for him, stranded here. What if he can't get back, and never sees his family again?” Derpy was beginning to look sad again. The Doctor hurried over to comfort her.
“There, there. That's very unlikely. He's got all the time in the world. Galgonquans can live for anything up to eight-hundred years without any difficulty.”
“Oh my goodness...”
“You don't seem very pleased.”
“Oh, I am, it's just… I always hoped…” She trailed off, and began crying again, softly this time. The Doctor leaned forward and drew her into an awkward hug.
“I understand.” He didn't.
“Derpy? Derpy!” Tarrant was tired of running. He had been running all over Ponyville, desperately searching for his best – his only – friend. It was getting dark now, and starting to rain, too. His hooves were splashed with mud. Most sensible ponies had gone inside, and the only answer to his cries was the soft pitter-patter of raindrops on the wet soil.
Tarrant knew he was an important pony. In fact, as time-turner, his authority was only exceeded by the mayor's. In effect, he was Ponyville's number two pony. And yet, for all his importance, no one really cared about him. Certainly, other ponies might talk to him, even laugh and joke with him, but when it came down to it, there was nopony who really cared whether he lived or died. Nopony except Derpy. He didn't want to lose her friendship.
Despite this, he also knew that catching pneumonia wouldn't do him any favours, either. Reluctantly, his hooves and his heart heavy, he turned for home, fighting his way through the fierce, driving rain.
By the time he had arrived back at his house, he was wet through. His fur was dripping, his teeth chattering, and his best green tie was hanging limp and sodden from his neck. Approaching the door, he could have sworn he could hear voices coming from inside. Drat! He must have forgotten to lock the door again. Burglars were all he needed to round off today. Gritting his teeth, he flung open the door – only to see Derpy, his only friend on the planet, and the Doctor, his lifelong hero, examining his inventions. His response was much as you might expect. “Great whickering stallions!” he cried, stumbling into his house, out of the rain.
“Doc!” shrieked Derpy, rushing across the room towards him. He was clearly exhausted, and it was taking him all the energy he had just to stay upright. Derpy took his hoof, leading him through the laboratory into the sitting room, where she set about lighting a fire. The real Doctor followed them through.
When the Doctor finally spoke, the fire was lit and Tarrant was on his sofa, finally getting some rest.
“So,” he began, “you're the one who's been going around impersonating me, are you?” He looked at Tarrant very sternly, but his expression quickly softened when he realised he was being grumpy again. “That's a nice tie,” he offered, by way of apology.
“Thanks,” mumbled Tarrant, obviously quite embarrassed.
“I gather you're a bit of a fan of mine?”
“Well… yes. I suppose I am.”
“Do you know who I am?”
“You're one of the Doctors, aren't you?”
“Yes, I… wait, what do you mean, 'one of the Doctors'? I'm the Doctor. The definite article, almost.”
“But… there are more of you?”
“Such as who?”
“Well, there's the strange one with the scarf, the one with short hair and big ears, the little tramp, the-”
“Yes, I think I get the idea,” huffed the Doctor, “but I think you could describe me a little more flatteringly.”
“You? Singular?”
“I'm no Equestrian. I am a Timelord of the planet Gallifrey. I cross the void beyond the mind, the empty space that circles Time, a presence… Anyway, all those ponies are me.”
“My goodness… But how?”
“Cellular regeneration. When I die, my body rebuilds itself in a new form.”
“Can all Timelords do that?”
“Most certainly. It's not so very different from your race's many stages of existence – though I see you're still in your first.”
“That's incredible...”
“Let's not digress,” said the Doctor, assuming a businesslike tone. “As I see it, your problem is one of transport. You need a device that will move you from here to the Galgonquan orbital craft.”
“You know my species?”
“Not personally, no, but I have… I said, let's not digress!” the Doctor snapped. “Now, I don't have any such technology, and you've been unable to create it, which leaves us in a bit of a fix.”
“Oh, it's not that I can't build a transmat unit. I was top of my class in engineering.”
Derpy, who had been sitting quietly all the while, here rolled her eyes. “It's alright for some,” she muttered.
“The problem,” Tarrant continued, unaware of this, “is that I have to create a kind of teleporter completely unlike the ones my species uses.”
“Eh? Oh, I see,” interrupted the Doctor, “you don't want the Wirdegens to be able to track you.” He thought for a moment. “There's probably enough equipment here for me to rig up a home-made short-range matter-transmitter, but… well… I daren't.” He looked irritably down at Tarrant, who was simply gaping at him. “I say, are you listening?”
“Oh… sorry, it's not every day one comes face to face with one's hero.”
The Doctor was visibly mollified by this flattery. “Hum, well… see that you pay attention, that's all. As I was saying, I don't think I should make you one myself, because I don't trust myself to get it right. One screw out of place and I could transmit you straight into the planet's core, or into deep space.”
“But surely… you're the Doctor, aren't you? According to our records, you can do anything.”
“Ah, yes, your records. I've been meaning to ask about those. You say, Miss Hooves tells me, that you picked your favourite of all of the faces of mine that you'd seen, correct?”
“That's right.”
“But how could you have seen this one? Since I regenerated, I've never left this time-zone.”
“You did say you were a Timelord… I assumed that meant you could travel in time.”
“Oh, I can… well, could. I've been exiled here, and I'm not allowed to travel in time, nor yet to leave this planet.”
“Well, there are definitely records of a pony called the Doctor, who looks like you, popping up in Equestria's past.”
“My word… That means that… that this exile won't last forever! That I'll be free again!”
“Congratulations,” Tarrant offered, a little uncertain.
“Thank you, sir, thank you!” exclaimed the Doctor, seizing Tarrant's forehoof and warmly pumping it up and down several times.
“Funny,” Tarrant continued, “none of the records mentioned that you talked like this.”
The Doctor's smile vanished abruptly. “Like what?”
“Well, like a character from a comic opera.”
“Comic opera? Comic opera?”
“He does have a point,” added Derpy, who was warming her hooves by the fire.
“Thanks ever so for you opinion,” responded the Doctor, his voice dripping with sarcasm, “now do please shut up.”
“So, Doctor,” said Tarrant, wisely changing the subject, “do you have any ideas?”
“Well, presumably you know of a great deal of Galgonquan technology, but you daren't build or use any of it for fear that the Wirdegens will detect it and come and get you with their big knives.”
“That's about the gist of it.”
“I do have an idea.”
“What is it?”
“Well, isn't it obvious?”
Tarrant and Derpy shook their heads.
“Oh. Well then, I have another idea. Clearly you want to avoid building all of that technology that you would be very good at using, but which would attract the Wirdegens' attention. My plan is simple: build it.”
Derpy gave him a funny look – that is, a look that was funny even by her own high standards. “You're aware of how that came out, right?”
“Think, Derpy, think. Those Wirdegens might well have gone by now, anyway. If they are, then fine, we can just send him back up to his ship. If not, then they must be fairly well kitted-out to detect certain technological patterns. I'd be extremely surprised if they didn't have matter-transmitters of their own. All we have to do is lure them here and – ahem – clobber them.”
A few minutes and a cup of hot cocoa later, Tarrant and the Doctor had set to work in Tarrant's own private laboratory, in an attempt to replicate some easily recognisable Galgonquan technology. They had chosen the famous Galgonquan anti-gravity chopsticks – perhaps not the most glamorous of inventions, but certainly one that it wouldn't take them too long to build. Sadly, they had forgotten that they would need an external power-generator, which they were now in the process of cobbling together.
“This is actually really clever,” said Tarrant, hammering a nail into a plank of wood, and not really looking at what he was doing, so that he ended up nailing his tie to the table. “I'm surprised I didn't think of it.”
“Self-praise is no praise at all,” reminded the Doctor, “but don't think too harshly of yourself. You just couldn't see the wood for the trees. A little lateral thinking was required here.”
“All the same, in all these years…”
“All these years you've been tirelessly working on ways to create a brand-new type of transmat, Quan-Tarrant. What you've done is incredible. Don't you forget it. There's no substitute for hard work.”
“To be honest, Doctor, I wasn't just trying to create a way of getting home.”
“Oh no?”
“I really did want to help the ponies here, too.”
The Doctor smiled to himself. “I rather thought as much. But let me guess: no matter how hard you tried to fit in, the more out of place you felt?”
“Well… yes, to be honest.”
“And the closer you tried to get to ponies, the more distant you felt from them.”
“Yes, that's exactly right. How in the world did you know?”
“Trust me, I'm used to being an alien abroad.” The Doctor winked at Tarrant. “I'm afraid you'd never fit in here. You need to be at home, with your own ponies.”
“I suppose… but I am awfully fond of this place. Who'll look after them when I'm gone?”
“Now steady on, old boy, I don't think they're entirely dependent on you.”
“No, I suppose not. I've got rather protective of them, I'm afraid.”
“Well, that's not altogether surprising. Do you know, I think that after all these years trying to be like me, you've actually started to become me?”
“Really?” Tarrant seemed almost proud at the suggestion.
“Really. I've influenced a lot of ponies in my time. Plenty of them wanted to be like me, fighting evil, that sort of thing. Perhaps they try and be me, and in doing so actually become me, in a way. I sometimes wonder whether there actually are other Doctors out there, like you said, all helping in their own way.”
“This is all very interesting Doctor, but we really ought to try and get this finished. Have you seen Derpy?”
“Not since we sent her into the storeroom to get some more screws.”
“Right… She's knocked herself unconscious in there before now, you know.”
“On what?”
“I didn't like to ask. I'd better go and look for her.” Tarrant tried to move away from the workbench. “Oh.” He looked forlornly down at his once-best green tie, which, by means of a nail, was now serving to ensure that he wouldn't be going anywhere much in a hurry. “Pinkie gave me that as a 'Welcome to Ponyville' present,” he said glumly.
“Perhaps I'd better go.”
“Perhaps you'd better.”
While Tarrant searched for a hammer to get the nail out, the Doctor headed into the small storeroom at the back of the house. It was a rather pokey little affair, little more than a cupboard, and barely had room to accommodate the shelves overflowing with screws, screwdrivers, pliers, bulldog clips, electrical leads, washers, springs… and the like, which its purpose was to contain.
To his surprise, upon entering he heard the sound of sobbing – and there was Derpy, curled up in the room's far corner, weeping quietly into her forehooves. At the sound of the door opening, she looked up, frightened and embarrassed.
“Doc… I was just… uh-”
“My dear, are you feeling alright?” said the Doctor, softly.
“Yeah, fine,” lied Derpy, shakily trying to stand up.
“Don't talk such rot. What's the matter?”
“I dunno...” Derpy slumped against the wall again.
The Doctor sat down beside her, and put a hoof round her shoulders.
“Look, I may be a bit alien, and – I admit it – perhaps a little senile, but even I can tell something's wrong. Come on. You can trust me,” said the stallion she'd only met earlier that morning. “Alright,” he said to himself, considering this fact, “fair point, but still.”
“Huh?”
“Just, um, talking to myself… again.”
Derpy gave one of her pleasant, tinkling little laughs. “You're funny.”
“Thanks… I suppose. Well, you seem to have cheered up a bit. Fancy coming back through?”
“Does he have to go?”
“I beg your pardon?” This had come completely out of the blue, as far as the Doctor was concerned, and he wasn't entirely clear on what she was talking about. *
“The Doc… Tarrant...” She shuddered, still unused to the name, “does he really have to leave?”
The Doctor looked down into her wide eyes. Tears were welling up in the corners, and Derpy was beginning to quiver again. The last thing the Doctor wanted was for her to start crying again – quite apart from anything else, he still didn't feel well-adjusted enough to deal with it – but he knew what he had to say, all the same.
“No.” What? That wasn't what I meant to say! Stupid Doctor! Now is the time to put my hoof down.
“Really?”
This is it. “Of course not.” Drat! “We'll talk to him. Perhaps he would rather stay.” The Doctor was inwardly kicking himself. “He's made his home here, and he seems quite happy to me. I say we let him stay.” Doctor, you, sir, are a coward.
“Thanks, Doctor,” smiled Derpy. “You're the best.” She leant towards him, closing her eyes and resting her head on his shoulder, drawing him into a hug.
Wordlessly, the Doctor returned the hug. But he didn't smile.
*Well, alright, not even remotely clear. He was a scientist, not some sort of… social scientist.