• Published 8th Jun 2020
  • 863 Views, 239 Comments

Ruler of Everything - Sixes_And_Sevens



The Doctor seeks a way to communicate with the TARDIS, but it backfires horribly. With the biggest heroes in the world trapped in a mental prison, it falls to the reassembled CMC to save all of time.

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The Empty Child

Button rang the bell on the front of the Scratch-Melody residence. A beautiful chorus of chimes rang out. “Oh! That’s Haydn! Symphony 104,” Sweetie identified, humming along even after the chimes faded away. After awhile, she trailed off as well.

“Try it again,” Scootaloo said. “Maybe they didn’t hear.”

Button rang the bell again, and once again the chimes ran out. This time, they heard the sound of running coming from inside the house. The door flew open, and Octavia stuck her head out. Her bow tie was askew, and her eyes were frantic. “Don’t come in,” she ordered. “We worked it out! That’s how it gets at you, if you’re in the house when it starts again, you see? If you’re in the house when it restarts, then --” she broke off and slammed the door in their faces. For a moment, the windows all flashed gold. Then, silence.

After a moment, Button rang the doorbell again.

“Really?” Dinky said flatly.

“Do you have a better idea?”

She looked away grudgingly as the door swung open again. Octavia opened the door again, this time with bright eyes and looking perfectly put-together. “Oh, hello! What a surprise this is! How lovely to see you all again, come in, come in, Vinyl and I were about to have lunch --”

Wubs began to echo down the hall and Octavia’s face fell. “Yes, well, I’ll just go and fetch her. Do come in and make yourselves comfortable.”

She turned and trotted away. “So…” Sweetie said. “Do we go in, or…”

“Nothin’ ventured, nothin’ gained.”

“Yeah, and it looked like they could really use some help,” Rumble said, trotting in. “And they said ‘it’ only gets you if you’re in the house ‘when it restarts’. We’ll probably be good for awhile, right?”

“I guess. But for how long?” Button wondered. “Maybe we should stay out here and time the flashes.”

“Twelve minutes, seven seconds,” Dinky said.

“Uh?” Button cocked his head at her.

Dinky shook her head. “That’s how much time we have until it starts again. Don’t ask me how I know. I just do. There’s something in my head… let’s just go. I’ll keep a count of the seconds.”

Button held her gaze for a moment, then nodded. “Alright. Let’s go.”

The musicians’ house had always been an exercise in balance. Vinyl was responsible to the point of being a worrywart. Octavia was impulsive and brazen. Vinyl liked peace and stability. Octavia was a party animal. They loved each other for living the life they could not live themselves, they loved each other for the influence they had on one another, and of course they loved each other for the sheer joy of music that they shared. For the most part, they lived harmoniously, tempering themselves to be closer to one another and helping each other grow as ponies.

But they could never bring themselves to agree on interior decorating. The house was a horrible mishmash of styles and colors, ranging from bright blue tile floors paired with rich red drapes to ornate floral wallpaper festooned with neon signs to miniature replica statuettes of muscular classical-era mares wrestling. That last part was actually the one decoration both musicians could agree on. The house was both delightful to see and dreadful to look at.

Now, it mostly seemed creepy. Scootaloo was the first to say it. “The light’s wrong.”

Button nodded. “No shadows,” he said. “Rookie design error. No determined light source, it’s just everywhere.”

“And it’s golden,” Dinky said. “This is definitely the right place.”

OH MY CELESTIA, TAVI!

The Crusaders froze. Sweetie nodded. “Yep, definitely the right place.”

“Wrong time,” Dinky added, running down the hall.

All six ponies ran into Vinyl’s room, where Octavia was consoling her sobbing wife. “It just keeps happening, Tavi! Can’t you remember it? Can’t you remember?”

“Yes, love,” Octavia whispered. “I remember. I can remember, too.” She looked up at the Crusaders, sorrow in her features. “I told you not to come in,” she said.

“It’s fine, we’ve still got nine minutes, fifty-four seconds,” Dinky said. “Quickly, now. Tell us everything that’s happened here.”

“It keeps happening,” Vinyl muttered. “I’m picking out a record to work with. Tavi’s making lunch. She remembers coming to get me the first time, and then I start up the music again, and it’s all…” She made a complicated motion with her hooves.

“But you can remember that you’re in a time loop?” Dinky pressed.

“Not at first,” Octavia said. “Only when the feeling of deja-vu gets too strong to ignore.”

Vinyl smiled weakly. “Tavi! You said it right that time!”

Octavia scoffed. “Well, I could only let you correct me so many times,” she said, petting her wife’s mane.

“Okay,” Dinky said, pacing the floor. “Okay. This sounds like a chronic hysteresis. They’re hard to break out of, unless you know the trick.”

“The trick?” Vinyl asked, perking up.

“Yes. You have to do what you were doing while the hysteresis started, but in the middle of the loop. Can you do that?”

Octavia nodded. “I was in the kitchen, setting the table.”

“I was picking out my record,” Vinyl said.

“Good. You’ll need to do that all over again, exactly as you did it the first time,” Dinky said. “We’ll step out of the house. That way, we won’t interfere with the conditions.”

“Hold on,” Button said. “They’ll need to start at the same time, right? How can they do that if they can’t see each other?”

Dinky hesitated. “A signal,” Rumble said. “On your mark, get set, go?”

“Or I could cast a light spell,” Sweetie said. “Just a quick flash.”

“Works for me,” Octavia said. “Vinyl?”

The DJ rose to her hooves, a little unsteady on her pins. “Anything to get out of this,” she said fervently.

“Alright,” Dinky said. “We have seven minutes, twelve seconds --” she paused. “Seven minutes, four seconds. Six minutes, fifty seconds. Time’s speeding up?”

“What?” Scootaloo asked. “Is that even possible?”

“Move now, ask questions about relativity later! Go, go, go!” Dinky shouted, shooing everypony out of the room. “Octavia, get to the kitchen! Vinyl, get ready to pull out your record! Everypony move! Four minutes, thirty-two seconds! Crusaders, get to the door! If we get out, we’ve got another shot, but if we get stuck, we’re screwed! Four minutes, seventeen seconds!”

“Are you sure about the time?” Rumble demanded.

“No! But are you willing to take that risk?”

“Fair enough.” He burst through the front door, holding it open as the others rushed out. Only Sweetie and Button were left inside. “Sweetie Belle! C’mon!” Button shouted.

She was busily helping Octavia clear off the table. “We have to reset everything to starting conditions!” she yelled back. “Go! I’ll be out in a minute!”

“A minute isn’t even a minute anymore!”

Finally, Octavia had arranged the dishes back in the counter. Sweetie Belle ran for the door, hooves skidding on the tile floor of the hallway. She flew out the door in a gangling tangle of limbs, falling head over hooves in the dirt.

“Two minutes seven seconds!” Dinky screamed. “DO IT!”

Octavia, sweating bullets, began to set the table with forced calm. Vinyl, her nerves making her magic flash and crackle like a plasma ball, levitated the record from her shelf.

“One minute, fourteen seconds,” Dinky whispered.

Octavia set a sandwich on both plates and slid them onto the table. Vinyl slipped the record from its case and slung it on the turntable.

“Fifty-five. Forty-two. Twenty-seven,” Dinky said, resignation in her voice.

Octavia set down two glasses of water, her hooves shaking. Vinyl switched on the turntable.

Time skipped. There was a crackle that made everypony’s fur stand on end, and for a moment the house before them flickered and shuddered. Then it stopped.

Dinky pitched forward and fell down, shaking uncontrollably. The others rushed to her side, but she waved them off, pulling herself back upright. “Th’ countdown’s gone,” she said, her voice slightly slurred. “‘S alright.”

“Or it was only for that one cycle,” Rumble pointed out.

Dinky gave him a scathing look. “How likely is that, ‘xactly?”

“What does ‘likely’ have to do with any part of this?”

She grunted.

Sweetie Belle pushed open the door. “The shadows are back,” she offered.

“Good sign,” Bloom said cautiously. “Not a certainty, though.”

Scootaloo stepped in cautiously. “Octavia?” she called. “Vinyl?”

Octavia stumbled out of the kitchen. “We’re free,” she said. “We’re free! Vinyl? Vinyl, where are you?”

Vinyl Scratch slammed the door of her room open, raced down the hall, and barrelled into her wife with an enormous, weepy embrace.

Dinky nodded. “Okay. Alright. That was nearly really bad for all of us, and we’re still no closer to figuring out who or what’s behind all this time stuff. I hate to say this, but I think we need to split up.”

“Ah think ya might be onto somethin’ there,” Bloom agreed. “At the very least, somepony better stay behind and make sure these two are alright.”

“Sure. You and me, Bloom?” Sweetie asked.

Apple Bloom nodded. “Sure.”

“Okay,” Dinky agreed. “See if you can find any clues about why it struck here, or what it was.”

“Right. Clues.” Bloom looked dubious. “Which are gonna look like what, exactly?”

Dinky pulled a face and shrugged. “I dunno, anachronisms? Burn marks? Clocks acting weird? Just keep an eye out, okay?”

“Can do.”

“The rest of us…” Dinky paused, thinking. “Teams of two, investigating Twilight’s lab and the street where Caramel started flipping through alternate realities.”

“I’ll take the lab,” Button volunteered.

“Same,” Rumble agreed.

“Sounds like you’re stuck with me, Dinky,” Scootaloo said, elbowing her friend in the ribs. “It feels just like the old days, doesn’t it?”

Dinky’s smile soured. “Yeah…” she echoed. “Just like the old days…”


Big Macintosh met the Doctor and Ditzy as they were passing by the farmhouse. “Afternoon,” she said, nodding at them. “AJ said like as not, you’d need some help settin’ up.”

“That would be wonderful, thank you,” the Doctor said.

Ditzy just smiled, nodded, and gasped air into her lungs. She was not built for this kind of delivery.

Mac trotted alongside the cart as they approached the barn. The Doctor and Ditzy paused while she hauled open the doors and waved them in.

“Now,” Mac said as the duo unhooked themselves from the cart. “Is there anything Ah oughta know ‘bout ‘fore Ah help y’all unload this thing?”

“That she doesn’t like being called a ‘thing’,” the Doctor said sharply.

Mac’s eyebrows rose. “Mah apologies, miss,” she said, nodding at the TARDIS.

“Sorry! Sorry. Shouldn’t have snapped,” the Doctor said quickly. “It’s very nice of you to help us unload. Just a little stressed, that’s all. Erm, things you should know… shouldn’t think so. The artificial gravity’s still on, and the doors are locked. As long as she ends up standing right-side-up, everything should be fine.”

“Right.” Mac stepped around the back of the cart. “Start pushin’ it toward me,” she said. “Once Ah got an edge, we can lower it down pretty easily.”

“Right-o!” The Doctor hopped up into the back of the cart and started pushing the base of the TARDIS, while Ditzy flew up and pushed on the top. Slowly, the great blue box began to scrape along the bottom of the cart. As it edged over the side of the cart, Mac slipped her hooves underneath and kept pulling it steadily back.

“Doc, if you wanna come down, help support it from the bottom, Ah’d be much obliged.”

“Right. Ditzy, you’ve got the top?”

“I think so!”

The Doctor hopped down and lifted the box off the cart. Together, the three of them managed clumsily to haul the TARDIS over to an empty patch of floor near a wall. “Ah’m sorry it’s still a little cluttered,” Mac said, glancing around the barn. “Ah’ll get AJ ta move that chicken wire out to th’ spare shed later. Maybe put up some chairs.”

“That’s very good of you,” the Doctor said. “And really, thank you again for helping us move the TARDIS. I hardly know how we got it in the cart without your help.”

Mac stiffened at that. “Plot holes,” she muttered.

The Doctor cocked his head. “Come again?”

“Nothin’! Nothin’. Just, uh. Yer welcome. Ah gotta… go. Eeyup. Fertilizin’ th’ west orchard today.” She nodded, backing away. “Makin’ hay while th’ sun shines, eeyup. Nice seein’ y’all.” She reached the door and bolted.

Ditzy looked at the Doctor. “We’re agreed, that was weird, right?”

The Doctor nodded. “Definitely.”

“I’ll go after her, see if I can figure out what’s the matter.”

“That’s a good idea.”

“...Do you want to come, too?”

The Doctor blinked and opened his mouth to reply. “Well…” He shut it again, looking troubled. “...No,” he said at last. “No, I think it might be better if it was a one-on-one conversation, don’t you?”

“I suppose,” Ditzy said, her face falling a little.

The Doctor frowned at that, but before he could ask her what he’d said wrong, Ditzy was already flying out the door. His frown deepened.

For a moment, he took a step to follow after her, but his hooves dragged. Better not to complicate the situation further. Better not mess things up any further than he had already. He dragged a forehoof in small circles on the ground, staring at nothing. Then, silently, tail between his legs, he slunk back into the TARDIS.


The flower shop was quiet today. Only a few ponies had wandered in to buy something. That didn’t bother Rose too much. Quiet days were expected between the cusp of spring and summer. Plenty of ponies could go and pick their own flowers for free, most of the ones who were interested in starting their own gardens had already purchased all the seeds they would need, and the summer tourism rush wouldn’t start for another couple of weeks. Ponyville in May was a quiet time -- or at the very least, as quiet as any time in Ponyville could be.

She clicked on the fan as she stared out the plate-glass windows, watching the street outside. Not many ponies seemed to be out in the streets, either. That was a little odd. It was a gorgeous day outside, after all. Ponies were usually out in throngs in this kind of weather.

The bell on the door rang. Rose glanced around. “Good afternoon!”

The white stallion who’d entered merely nodded at her. Not a big talker, then. That was fine. It was strange, though -- she didn’t recognize him. Perhaps the tourist season was starting a little early this year.

She glanced away, blinking rapidly. Her temples throbbed. “Can I help you find anything?” she asked, staring straight ahead.

“R̶o̶s̸e̶b̷u̸d̵.”

Her head starts to spin, but she manages to stammer out, “Rosebuds? I think you’ll find some on the bottom shelf over there, sir.”

He moves across her field of vision and scans the suggested shelf. “Y̷̰̏e̸̞̍s̷̱̏.̴̖̋ ̶̱͒R̷̫̓o̴̡̊s̵̢͗e̷̤͊b̵͈͋u̵͇̒d̷̙͛s̶̪̔.̶̧̐”

He will pick them up and set them on the counter. She will look into his face. She will see nothing there. She will scream and scream and --


Rose blinked, dazed. She glanced around. The shop was empty. How odd. She could have sworn she’d heard the bell ding. She shook her head, trotting out from behind the counter to straighten up the flowers. Behind her, the gentle whir of the fan hid the sound of the wall clock -- its hands were whizzing around in reverse, too fast for the naked eye to properly register.


“So, this is where it happened?” Scootaloo asked, glancing up and down the street.

“Mhm,” Dinky said. “Caramel was standing right about…” she squinted. “There. Just a few meters past the corner.”

“Where were you and Rumble and Bloom?”

Dinky gestured up the street. “Still pretty close to the bar. That’s probably not relevant -- whatever it was, it was targeting Caramel. I was just a side effect, I guess.”

“Hmm. So you wanna start with Caramel, then?”

“Yeah. Seems more likely to bear fruit. C’mon.”

They trotted down the road together. “So…” Scootaloo said, trailing off. “What was it, y’know. Like?”

Dinky side-eyed her. “What was what like?”

“Y’know. Time standing still.”

“Oh. That.” Dinky thought about it for a minute. “It was… bad. I mean, it was scary, but more than that it was wrong. You know the feeling when it’s dark and you’re going up some stairs, and you think there’s one more step than there really is? You know how your stomach just plummets, and you feel like the world’s been pulled out from under you?”

“Yeah?” Scootaloo said, wide-eyed.

“Imagine that happened with time instead of space.”

Scootaloo thought about that. “I can’t even picture what that means,” she admitted.

“Neither could I, until it happened,” Dinky said grimly. “Like I said, it was bad.”

“Yikes,” said Scootaloo. “So, why do you think you’re immune? And the countdown, what was that all about? And--”

“It was right about here,” Dinky said, stopping suddenly. Scootaloo looked back. Dinky’s face had gone cold. Okay then. No more questions now. Got it.

Scootaloo inspected the ground. “I’m not really seeing anything,” she admitted.

“What, did you expect scorch marks on the cobblestones?”

“I dunno, maybe. What kind of clues were you thinking of?”

“I’ll know it when I see it,” Dinky muttered, looking away.

In other words, she didn’t know either. Great. Desperate to escape the pit of social awkwardness into which their conversation had collapsed, Scootaloo changed the subject. “So, uh, how was college?”

Dinky brightened noticeably. “Oh, it was great. They had the best library, and my final thesis went really well.”

“What was it on?”

“The practical applications and drawbacks of pre-enchanted teleportation spells. Professor Portal Key was very impressed.”

“Uh, what are the applications of pre-enchanted whatever-you-said?”

“Ponies would be able to magically travel between any two predetermined points, just by touching a jewel or something,” Dinky explained. “The downside is, you can only take one being along on it or else… well, it's not pleasant.”

“What, do you fuse together?” Scootaloo asked, turning around. “Like, you teleport, and a fly lands on your tail, and suddenly you have compound eyes?”

“What? No, biology doesn't work like that. You'd just materialize in the same place, and, well, it'd be a real mess to clean up.”

Scootaloo paused. “‘Kay. Well, that mental image is going to haunt my nightmares for awhile.”

“What else is science for?” Dinky joked. “What about you?”

“Calculating changing velocity based on relative motion. I designed this really cool aerial stunt based on…” she noticed that Dinky was staring off into the distance, facing completely away from her. “Uh, are you paying attention?”

Dinky’s head whipped around. Her face had gone slack. She moved to take a step toward Scootaloo, but stumbled. “Dinky? Dinky, are you alright?”

“So fast,” Dinky said, her eyes glazed. “So many more numbers, moving so much faster. Different again.”

“Okay. Okay.” Scootaloo led Dinky by the hoof to the shade of a tree. “Slow down. What are the numbers?”

“Another countdown,” Dinky said, her eyes clearing slightly. “Years instead of minutes, but counting down much faster, relatively speaking.”

“Okay. Is this something we need to investigate?”

Dinky hesitated, then nodded. “Thirty-eight years, four months.”

“Where is it?”

Dinky furrowed her brow. Her horn sparked with golden light. “I see… flowers. So many flowers. They’re dead, and springing back to life and shrinking back into buds, over and over again.”

“Okay. Flowers.” Scootaloo nodded. “Probably need to check out the flower shop, then.”

“Thirty-four years, seven months. We’d better hurry.”

“Can you… walk? You seemed pretty out of it, for a minute.”

“Took me by surprise, that’s all. C’mon, time’s running out! We have to go!”

She bolted out of the shade, leaving Scootaloo surprised and stumbling over her hooves as she raced after her friend.


“Mac?” Ditzy called, trotting through the orchard. “Mac, where are you?”

The farmer was much faster than her laid-back attitude and lazy drawl suggested. She didn’t need to put on a turn of speed very often, but on one occasion, Ditzy had seen her start from the barn when Granny Smith had started ringing the dinner bell, and pass into the house before the old mare had finished saying “Soup’s on!”

In fairness, Ditzy had later learned that Pear Butter’s justly famous cheesy potatoes had been on that night’s menu. That kind of dinner could bring out the gold-medal sprinter in anypony.

None of that was really important right now, Ditzy had to admit. Mac had already bolted, and she might be anywhere. She had to go about this logically. She landed under a tree and shut her eyes, listening to the sounds of the orchard. The wind rustled the leaves. The birds sang in the boughs. And off in the distance, she heard the sound of hooves, crunching in the dirt. Ditzy smiled. Got her. She rose, and with a flap of her wings, was off.

She landed quietly on the first branch she could find when she saw that first glimpse of familiar red coat. Observe first, then engage.

Mac was pacing in an open grove. The only other thing Ditzy could see there was a small tree, barely more than a sapling. Anything beyond that was blocked by the trunk of the tree she was sitting in.

She contemplated the sapling. The odd thing about it was, it didn’t look a thing like an apple tree -- it was covered with small pink flowers, far more than there were apple blossoms on any other tree, and she could hardly see any leaves on it. She put that thought out of her mind quickly when Mac began to speak.

“It ain’t right,” she said to nopony in particular. “Somethin’ went wrong today. Real, proper wrong. Not a mistake -- somethin’ vicious, an’ hurtful, an’ wrong. What Ah saw… Ah ain’t got th’ words for it. Ah reckon you don’t need ‘em.”

Who was she talking to? Ditzy couldn’t see anypony, and if Mac knew she was sitting on this branch, she hadn’t given any kind of sign. Mac turned around and paced in front of the pink tree some more. She turned, looking at something beyond the tree, somepony that Ditzy couldn’t make out from her vantage point. “Ah dunno what it means,” Mac said, plaintive. “Ah dunno what to do ‘bout it, or if Ah can do anything ‘bout it, but Ah know somethin’ is wrong. Is it Bloom? Did we do wrong by her? Please, Ah’m askin’: give me a sign?”

With a jolt, Ditzy suddenly realized where the two of them were. She craned her neck to get a better view. Together with Mac, she stared at the beautifully entwined pair of fruit trees that marked the graves of Bright Macintosh and Pear Butter. Mac sighed, and sat down next to what Ditzy now recognized as a dogwood tree -- a marker for the Apple family’s faithful Winona.

Ditzy took a deep breath in, and hopped down from the branch. Mac glanced up in surprise as her hooves crunched in the underbrush.

“Shoulda guessed you woulda found me, sooner or later,” Mac said, her voice even.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to intrude,” Ditzy said. “The Doctor and I were just worried about you, that’s all.”

Mac snorted. “Eeyup. Always been a lousy liar, me.” She looked around. “Where’s th’ Doctor hid, then?”

“We… agreed it would be better if this was a one-on-one conversation,” Ditzy said.

Mac cocked her head. “Are ya sure?”

“Huh?”

“Do you remember actually agreeing that?”

“Yes, of course. Why?”

Mac sucked on her teeth for a minute. “...How much… did ya see of all that?”

“‘Something went real, proper wrong’.”

Mac nodded, pinching her lips tight. “Figures.”

“Was that something you didn’t want me to hear?”

Mac snorted. “Ah didn’t want ya ta hear any of it.”

“Oh. Right. Sorry.”

“Well…” Mac sighed. “‘S alright, Ah reckon. If Ah was gonna ask anypony for advice on this, it’d be you.”

“Oh! Thanks.”

“You… or the Doctor, in most cases.”

Ditzy hesitated. “Most cases.”

“Yes’m.”

“Not in this case.”

“Nope.”

“...Why not?”

Mac chewed her lower lip. “There’s somethin’ wrong.”

“With the Doctor?”

“Him, too. Ah meant more with…” she waved a hoof in the air. “Th’ world. Time. Everything today is just…” she trailed off.

“Off,” Ditzy finished. “Yeah, I noticed that, too.” She paused. “Earlier… you were talking like there was something specific.”

Mac tightened her jaw. “Eeyup. Ah saw it on mah way to Carousel Boutique.”

In the shade of her parents’ grave, she told Ditzy everything she could remember. It was a golden moment in the May sunshine. A frozen moment of time. And that moment was listening to every word the two of them said.


Roseluck gazed out the window, staring at the bowling alley across the way. She felt like she was forgetting something, but she didn’t know what it could possibly be. She had checked the register, made sure that the watering system was functioning perfectly, and hauled in the order of fertilizer and stored it in the back room. Maybe she’d just been sitting still too long. Getting antsy. She rose and stretched, stepping out from behind the counter.

Rose shook her head. She still felt like she was forgetting something. She looked across the road at the construction work. Signs posted told her that there would be a new bowling alley erected there. That sounded like fun. Perhaps she and Daisy and Lily could go out one evening after it was done. Daisy could even bring along that marefriend of hers, Carrot Top. She was a sweet one. Rose hoped it would work out with the two of them. She still couldn’t remember what she was forgetting.

Lucky sat down and ran through the list in her head again. Check the register. Water the flowers. Bring in the fertilizer. She didn’t know what she could be forgetting and it was driving her crazy! She had to be better than this. She and her sisters had only just inherited the business, now that dad had retired. She refused to be the one who ran it into the ground.

Red stomped her hoof. She had done everything on the list, she was sure of it! Why hadn’t dad let her go out to hang with her friends yet? She glanced wistfully across the street at the cinema-house. It was so unfair that she had to help with her dad’s stupid business. Not like he ever lifted a hoof to help out. She’d watered the flowers and hauled in those big bags of fertilizer. In a few years, she’d probably have to handle the register, too. She considered poking her head in the backroom to ask dad if she could go yet, but thought better of it at the last minute. Dad was known to… entertain… in the back room. She didn’t want to see any of that.

Rosie sighed and slumped against a shelf of dahlias. When was mom gonna get here to pick her up? She had already watered all the flowers, two whole times, and then dad had taken away her water can and told her that too much water was as bad for flowers as too little. That was dumb. She tilted her head back and stared at the ceiling tiles.

Ga-goo?