When a blue box containing a mysterious pony lands in Ditzy's yard, she calls for the Elements. But the more she speaks with this "Doctor," the more convinced she is that they've met already.
The tenth Doctor has managed, through a strange quirk in time, to escape his regeneration, falling instead into a land of technicolor ponies-- which he has visited before. Even here, however, he isn't safe from harm, and an encounter with an old companion leaves him reeling. The Doctor made many mistakes in the Time War; can he even hope to make up for leaving behind his wife and infant daughter?
Beginnings are tricky things. Every effect must have had its cause, and that cause must have been caused by something else, which had something else cause it.
But not necessarily in that order.
The perception of time possessed by most people— and, for that matter, most ponies, dragons, griffons, and other sundry life forms with enough intelligence to observe it— is that time is a straightforward, linear path. Lifeforms fortunate enough to actually experience it, on the other hand, generally arrive at the conclusion that time is rather more like gelatin. “Exactly like gelatin,” they proclaim enthusiastically, “because, you see, it’s…”
“Well, that is to say, it’s…”
“I mean…”
It is at this point that the lifeform in question will begin to search around for the nearest available intoxicant. This unusual routine is rooted in one very simple problem; namely, the fact that time is almost, but not entirely, exactly unlike gelatin. The two have only three qualities in common. They are as follows.
-They are both wibbly-wobbly (note, however, that gelatin is not also timey-wimey)
-Their structures are both virtually incomparable to any other known substance.
-It is probably best to avoid thinking about either of them too hard.
This is the story of one individual (or two, or ten, eleven, or thirteen; it gets rather tricky) who knows rather a great deal about time. (Certainly, they know enough to avoid the gelatin metaphor unless both the explainer and the explain-ee are thoroughly, utterly, disgustingly drunk, such as when one has consumed several banana daiquiris or half of a Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster) Their name? The Doctor.
Well, alright, that’s not really their name, but let’s not get into that here. You can find it on the Internet, if you try hard enough. At any rate, our story opens appropriately enough. It begins with a box.
Trottingham, Summer 996 CE: A wooden box, it’s blue exterior many shades deeper than the robin’s-egg sky, hurled downwards from the heavens. It impacted the ground, sand and dust sent flying out of the way. A door swung open, and a short and shabby bat-pony stallion trotted out, muttering angrily to himself, “Shoddy CIA aim, typical of them. I mean, REALLY, if they intend to send me around the universe all willy-nilly, I should expect some degree of comfort and—”
He stumbled rather badly, falling flat on his wrinkly face. He pushed himself up, shaking off the dirt, and glanced at his hooves. Then, with a start, he stared down at them. He felt at his muzzle, his mane, his wings. “Oh my giddy aunt,” he breathed. “Jamie, get out here!”
Canterlot, Spring of 875 CE: The banging of hoof against wood echoed through the halls of the Equestrian Intelligence Agency. “Go away!” a reedy, petulant voice replied.
Commander Rapid Rounds groaned inwardly. “What in Celestia’s name did I do to deserve this?” he grumbled. In a louder voice, he said, “Doctor Tempus Fugit, you can’t sulk in there forever! Come out, and let’s discuss this like gentlecolts.”
“Who’s sulking?” the GUIDE scientific advisor asked. “I am merely trying to figure out how to get out of this benighted universe and return home!”
The captain rolled his eyes. Ever since the Doctor had arrived, they’d proved to be nothing but trouble and misery, grousing about how they’d very nearly repaired their TARDIS just before it blew a fuse, sending them through the dimensional rift to ‘another bloody army base, I swear this body attracts them’ as they themself put it.
Still. There was, he had learned, ONE way to get them to behave somewhat rationally. He turned away from the door, adding casually, “Ah, well. If you’re as busy as all that, I suppose we can get someone else to look into these unexplained deaths…”
The door flew open, a ruby-coated crystal pony practically springing out, shock of white mane frizzed wildly. “WHAT unexplained deaths?”
Commander Rapid smirked inwardly before hoofing the Doctor the dossier.
Unicornia, Winter, Pre-Unification Era: Starswirl the Bearded was not easily nonplussed. The stallion had faced indescribable tentacled horrors, maddened and maniacal sorcerers, and Princess Platinum on a bad mane day. It rather said something, therefore, about the state of the current courtiers when even the great Starswirl was struck dumb by the recent turn of events.
The mysterious blue box sitting in the center of the room was befuddling enough, but then a pair of earth ponies had stepped out— an unusual occurrence even before taking into account the fact that the box was too small to hold them. It was difficult to say which of the two was more disconcerting. The female, a red-maned yellow mare, seemed almost at home here in the opulent court of Unicornia. Her eyes were the only thing that betrayed her, darting hither and thither at the very confused armed guards surrounding them. It was the stallion, however, upon whom everypony’s attention was fixed. He had… gravitas, the wizard decided, this stallion with the wild eyes, the curly mane, and the trailing and multicolored scarf around his neck.
Suddenly, the fascinatingly peculiar stallion spoke. “I say,” he murmured in a low baritone, his icy blue eyes darting about the chamber, “it’s rather chilly in here, isn’t it?”
Turning to the mare, he continued, “Apple Core, wouldn’t you say it’s rather chilly in here?”
“You’re one to complain, with that scarf of yours,” she returned, her vigil against the guards never ceasing.
“Hm.”
Suddenly, he turned to the princess, the highest-ranking official in the land, notoriously classist and snobbish, and asked without preamble, “Excuse me, but would you care for a jelly baby?”
An earth pony village, Summer, Pre-Unification Era: The two young mares stared cautiously at the blue-coated stallion standing in front of them.
“How do you know our names?” demanded the white-coated one.
The stallion simply smiled enigmatically. “I’ve met you both before, little Celestia. But I rrratherrrr believe that you might not rrrememberrr that just yet.”
He leaned forward against his umbrella, piercing grey-blue eyes boring through them. “Trrrust me,” he burred. “I’m a Doctorrrr.”
Ponyville, Fall of 997 Celestial Era: It had been five years ago when they had first met, the grey pegasus with the crossed golden eyes and the kind, absentminded purple unicorn. They had met at a party. He had walked up to her, nursing her cocktail in a corner, looked straight into her crooked eyes and said with absolute sincerity, “Hello, you look quite beautiful. May I kiss you, or would that be too forward?” She decided that it probably would, but they had danced all through the evening, nevertheless.
They had met against the next week. He had listened to her shimmering laugh and said, “Wonderful.” They had kissed.
This had kept up for several months. Then, one day, he had gotten down and pulled out a ring. He whispered, “Please.” She had smiled and whispered back one word. The smile on his face threatened to split him in two.
Months later, on their wedding day, he had looked deep into those wandering golden eyes with which he had fallen in love and whispered, “I do.”
One year later, he had looked down at the newborn filly in his hooves, with her father’s coat and her mother’s mane and, crying, whispered, “Perfect.”
But there is no such thing as perfect. He had become worried and distant. At night, he would stare up at the stars, as if trying to remember something… or perhaps trying to decide. He could feel the war in his bones, even from this far away. He felt time beginning to fail, felt his species dying out, felt his home falling. And so, he looked into both sets of golden eyes once more, those eyes for whom he would do anything. And then the Doctor whispered, “Good-bye.” And he was gone.
London, Winter of 2005 A.D.: The Doctor pulled a lever, vanishing away from his last glimpse of Rose Tyler. He breathed heavily, his hearts skipping erratically, his body beginning to burn. As the TARDIS hurtled through the Vortex, he rasped with his final breaths, “I don’t want to go.”
But, in a burst of golden flame, he went anyway.
Here and Now: But where did he go?
Practically every bipedal culture has developed some iteration of the famed Trousers of Time. Ponies did not discover this, though minotaurs did. This is the quantum bifurcation of timelines into separate and distinct ‘legs’ whenever a choice is made. E.g., the cat is either alive or dead, the Doctor either regenerates or dies, the prize inside is either a wicked cool disc shooter or a lame-o top. The only way to find out which one happened is to open the box. Once the notion of the Trousers is developed, the clever person that invented it is generally quite satisfied with a day’s hard work done and goes down to the pub to boast about it over a pint of bitters. This usually precludes them from remembering something rather important about trousers. Namely, the fact that, when under sufficient strain, they will rip. A flaming, out-of-control TARDIS is rather a great deal of strain indeed.
So it was that the fabric of spacetime wibbled. It wobbled. And then, in a moment of flaming glory, it rent itself in twain for just one fraction of a second. In Ponyville, an elegant white unicorn suddenly felt the need to go take a cold shower.
Ponyville, Fall of Year 4, Harmonic Era: It was a fairly ordinary day for Thunderlane. He had turned up to work, eaten a doughnut or two, and chatted with Rainbow Dash and Snowflake before setting out to make sure that the Golden Harvest carrot farm got enough rain; altogether a routine assignment.
Thunderlane whistled absently to himself as he pushed the cloud along, content with life, work, and the world at large. He was looking forward to this evening. He had arranged a date with his marefriend, Flitter, and Dash had mentioned that her Uncle Bifrost up at the Rainbow Factory was planning a nice big rainbow over the sunset. It really was quite clever, Thunderlane mused, how they made the rainbow and sunset coloration out of fruit and vegetable dyes on finely-woven fog. He was just beginning to wonder whether the orange stripe would be composed more of oranges or carrots when he was ripped from his reverie by the large blue box that suddenly bounced off of his cloud and plummeted to the ground below, landing with a percussive crash in someone’s front yard.
Once Thunderlane was convinced that his heart had begun to beat again, he flew down to investigate. He landed right next to the owner of the crash site, Ditzy Doo. “Oh, hi, ‘Lane,” she said, left eye almost looking at him, “Is this your box?”
He shook his head. “Nope. No clue what it is, either.”
By a staggeringly incredible coincidence, ‘No clue’ was exactly what the Doctor had about when and where he was. His mind was moving sluggishly, but he was coherent enough to recognize that a flaming TARDIS was not the safest place to be, and that outside lay at least some chance of survival. So, crawling, he crashed out of the TARDIS and, grabbing Thunderlane by the withers and, glaring directly into his eyes, said, “I think.” His voice was raw and raspy, his throat stinging from his earlier screams.
Thunderlane lifted a hoof to support the stallion under his barrel, spreading his wings for balance. "Ditzy, can you get this guy some, um..." he stared blankly at the mare.
"Water?" she suggested.
"If you think it'll help, yeah."
"On it."
"I think," the stallion repeated, a little louder.
Thunderlane met his eyes. "Hey. Hey, you're gonna be alright. You're gonna be fine."
"I think," said the stranger, barely able to speak above a whisper now. Thunderlane noticed that blood was oozing from his nose.
"Yes? What is it?" he asked. "What do you think?"
The stranger met his eyes. "I think," he said with the utmost seriousness, "that when I wake up, I'm going to be a little hoarse."
His eyes rolled back in his head, and Thunderlane managed to catch him just before he hit the ground.
***
The Doctor’s eyes flickered open. He saw a thatched roof above him. ‘Oh,’ he thought. ‘Well, that’s alright then.’
In his experience, bad things tended to happen less often under thatched roofs than, say metal or stone roofs. He wasn’t sure why, but the whole room made him feel quite safe. This was compounded by the fuzzy green blanket draped over him. ‘This,’ the Doctor reasoned, ‘is not the sort of blanket you would get in a prison, generally speaking.’
“Oh, good,” a pleasant female voice chirped, “You’re awake!”
He started, glancing at the speaker. A grey pegasus mare, her mane somewhat flyaway, was looking at him in concern. And her eyes—
“Beautiful.” he whispered.
The mare shifted uncomfortably on her hooves, still smiling. “Sorry, what was that?”
“Hm?" The Doctor blinked and went a bit pink. "Oh, nothing important, just— well. Your eyes. They’re quite lovely, really. Sorry, that's probably a bit personal, innit? Actually, they sort of remind me of this one time that I was fighting this giant monster made of gold— well, not REALLY gold, but—”
“Muffin?”
He paused in his chatter. Ordinarily, he wouldn’t just take pastries from someone he’d just met, but, well, this was Equestria! It was certainly well known for its hospitable locals, and this mare— well, she just… well, she made him feel safe. It was an unusual sensation, but one which, again, seemed oddly familiar. Whatever it was, it was a pleasant feeling. “I’d love a muffin,” he said. “Are they banana, by chance?”
They weren’t, but the Doctor enjoyed them anyway. The duo ate their pastries in quiet enjoyment. At length, the Doctor asked, “So, er, what just happened?”
She frowned slightly, pushing the muffins aside. “Actually, I was hoping you could tell us that, Mister…”
“It’s Doctor, actually.”
“Really! What a coincidence.” She held out a hoof. “Dr. Derperella Ditzikov VanderDoo, nice to meet you!”
He whistled softly. “Now that’s a mouthful,” he grinned. “Anything I can call you for short? Doo? Derpy?”
“Most ponies just call me Ditzy,” she replied, picking up the muffin platter.
“What’s your doctorate, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“Physics,” she replied with a sad smile. “I was primarily interested in electrical field systems and engineering. I don’t really use it much these days. Mail delivery doesn’t have much call for it.”
“Mail delivery? What’s a physicist doing as a postal worker?”
“It keeps bread on the table,” she said with a shrug. “There was an... incident at my old university, I had to take whatever was available. It’s not a bad job, either, but after my husband left...” she tailed off into oblivion.
The Doctor flinched. “Oh, sorry, sorry, my fault, sensitive subject and that…”
She shook her head. “Hardly your fault. You didn’t know,” she said, smiling. “Anyway, he's been gone for almost eight years, now. I suppose I’ve gotten used to the fact that he won’t be coming back.”
The Doctor coughed awkwardly. “Right. So anyway, earlier you said you hoped that I could tell us what happened. Who’s 'us'?”
“There are some ponies around here that are used to dealing with things like mysterious boxes falling from the sky, escaped chaos gods, things like that,” Ditzy explained. “They should be here right about—” the doorbell rang. “Now, apparently!” she said, getting up and hurrying to the door to meet her new guests.
The Doctor was uncharacteristically still. He felt empathetic for this nice mare, but also… oddly guilty. He was forgetting something, quite an important something. He could feel the space it had left behind it. It felt… “Wonderful,” he whispered.
His introspection was interrupted when Ditzy reentered the room, with six other mares in tow, as well as— good grief, was that a dragon?
Before he could speak, the blue pegasus was up in his face, glaring angrily into his eyes. “Right! I don’t know who you are, buddy, and I sure as Tartarus don’t know how an earth pony managed to get airborne in the first place, but I DO know that you and that box of yours almost smashed my pal Thunderlane! You’d better start talking if you know what’s good for you, ‘cause I—”
She was abruptly cut off when the orange one yanked her back by the tail. “Easy there, Rainbow,” she warned, country accent still clear through the prismatic locks between her teeth. “I’m sure it was jest an accident.”
The Doctor blinked, his mouth struggling to work again. “Yes, quite,” he finally managed. “I’m terribly sorry if anything— or anypony— was harmed in the crash.” He paused momentarily and chuckled. “Anypony,” he sighed. “I think that might be one of my favorite bits about this place. Well, that and the populace, of course. And the food isn’t half bad. Oh, and—”
The yellow one interrupted, “Um. Excuse me, but we have a few questions to ask, if that’s okay with you…”
He paused. “Right, yes. Sorry about that.”
The purple one— an alicorn, the Doctor realized with fascination, things certainly had changed since the last time he was here— gave him a friendly smile. “Shall we start with some introductions?” she suggested. “I’m Twilight Sparkle, and these are my friends, Pinkie Pie,” the pink one waved enthusiastically.
“Applejack,” the orange one tilted her hat.
“Rainbow Dash,” the angry blue one glared at him.
“Rarity,” the white one inclined her head regally and smiled.
“Fluttershy,” the quiet yellow one smiled faintly.
“And, of course, Spike.” The dragon, standing easily a head taller than anypony else in the room, raised a claw in greeting.
“Very nice to meet you all!” the Doctor smiled. “I am the Doctor.”
This declaration was met with a lengthy pause. Rarity coughed. “ Er, Doctor who exactly, darling?”
He grinned impishly. This was always one of his favorite parts, and Equestria was one of the few places that he could do a proper introduction with absolute equanimity. Or equine-imity. “Just the Doctor, I’m afraid.”
Twilight chuckled nervously. “Well, er, alright then. Where are you from, Doctor?”
His grin widened. “Me? Oh, well. I’m from Gallifrey. That's the jewel in the constellation of Kasterborous, y'know. It's near the Medusa Cascade. All that's in another universe, of course, so I expect you’ve not heard of it....”
Twilight was no longer smiling. Her expression was now of concern and confusion. Applejack straightened up, surprised. Rainbow was rather less tactful. She snorted. “Do you seriously expect us to buy that story? Alien ponies?” She gave him a once-over, then glanced at Applejack and shook her head in derision. Applejack looked a little less sure than Rainbow. Either she was very gullible, or very good at telling when someone was telling the truth, the Doctor thought.
He was outright smirking now. “Alright, alright,” he said laconically, raising his hooves in a placating gesture, “I can tell that you might want a bit of hard evidence. Anypony got a stethoscope?”
“OOH! I do!” Pinkie exclaimed. She pulled one out of a desk drawer. “I hide them all over Equestria, in case of stethoscope emergencies!”
The Doctor blinked, the smirk dropping momentarily. “Well, that’s… sensible, I suppose. You there, Mr. Spike!”
The drake pointed to his chest, in the universal expression for 'who, me?'
“I need you to do something tremendously important," the Doctor said. "I want you to take that stethoscope."
"Uh, okay," Spike said, taking it from Pinkie. "Now what?"
"Now, listen to my heartbeat,” the Doctor urged.
Shrugging, Spike placed the instrument on the Doctor’s chest. He listened closely for a few moments. His brow wrinkled. “Hey, Pinkie? I think this one’s broken. There’s kind of an echo effect…”
The grin on the Doctor’s face would have made the Cheshire Cat green with envy as he said, “Move it over to the right.”
Spike listened, his eyes widening. He pushed the stethoscope back and forth over the Doctor’s chest. “Wait. What? How is that--?”
“Bit peculiar, isn’t it?”
Spike pulled away and stared at the stallion, astonished. “You’ve got two heartbeats! You’ve got two hearts!”
“That’s not all, either. Wait until you find out about my kidneys.”
Spike gave the Doctor a sideways look. “What do you mean? How many kidneys have you— actually, no, I don’t want to know.”
“Well. Four, as it happens. They’re a very nice shade of mauve.”
By this point, Twilight had grabbed the stethoscope from Spike and was even now going through the same crude forensics that he had performed. “Oh sweet Celestia, he IS an alien!” she gasped. “Aliens are real! Oh no, what if we get invaded by aliens? What if I can’t stop them? What if they defeat the princesses and the Tree of Harmony gets destroyed, and Equestria is destroyed—”
“Twi.” Applejack said, not unkindly, “You’re havin’ a meltdown again.”
“Oh." Twilight cleared her throat. "Excuse me.”
The Doctor cleared his throat, slightly irked at no longer being the center of attention. “Let me just assure you that I have absolutely no intentions of attacking Equestria. I’ve saved it on multiple occasions already, just ask Celestia. Luna too, I suppose. She is back from the moon now, right?”
Twilight promptly returned her focus to the Doctor, peppering him with questions about Gallifrey, aliens, and exactly how he knew the princesses. Meanwhile, Ditzy had become very quiet, and in all of the confusion , she slipped away.
Her first husband’s journals were stacked neatly in a box, shoved up on the highest shelf of her closet. He had left very little else behind, apart from fond memories, a daughter, and a mangled watch. Exhaling slowly, she lifted one out. Her eyes flicked spasmodically over the pages of her dear Pocket Watch’s messy hoofwriting, over words like TARDIS, Time Lord, Gallifrey, over memories long buried by time and pain.
She didn’t realize how long she’d been staring at her old diaries until a voice from just behind her said “Ditzy?”
She gasped and spun around, only to see the Doctor, concern etched into his features. “Are you alright?”
Ditzy took a deep breath. “Doctor, my husband knew about Time Lords. He, he wrote about them. They were in his dreams, look…” She proffered a thick volume, open to a page describing great metal tanks of hatred.
The Doctor took the book and skimmed the pages. As he flipped through, his eyes went wider and wider. He set the book down heavily on the table, almost slamming it closed before stumbling backwards. He looked as though he’d been slapped. His face had gone slack and quite pale. “Doctor?” Ditzy asked worriedly, “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Absolutely nothing at all. No need to worry, I’ll be fine,” he replied, a strained smile masking his true feelings. “What about you? Are you…”
He moved closer, a worried look on his face. “You okay?” he asked finally.
“I… yes. Yes. Like I said before, it’s been eight years. I’ve adjusted.” She smiled faintly. “Was there something you wanted?”
“I was…" He blinked, as though trying to remember why he had come to see her in the first place. "I was just going to ask if you wanted to come see my spaceship, the TARDIS.”
“Oh! Yes, please!” she said brightening. “I’ve never actually seen one before.”
The Doctor gave her a real smile this time. “Well then! Allons-y, Ditzy!”
He extended a hoof and helped her to her hooves. Once she was standing again, he lingered for a moment, his expression unreadable. When he became cognizant of her stare, he quickly dropped her hoof. "C'mon! The others will all be wondering what's keeping us!"
***
Outside, as the Doctor fumbled with the TARDIS key, Spike spoke up, “I still can’t believe that your people called themselves ‘Time Lords’. I mean, it’s kind of, y'know, overblown, isn’t it?”
The Doctor paused in his efforts and glanced up. “My people had a near-infinite capacity for pretention,” he replied, voice heavy.
“Ya don’t say.” Rainbow snarked.
Applejack gave her a forceful nudge. “Play nice,” she said flatly. “He’s already apologized for scarin’ Thunderlane.”
Rainbow softened almost immediately and nodded, glancing away from the farmer.
“Pardon me, Doctor,” Rarity asked, trotting in circuits around the dirt-covered box, frowning, “but how exactly do you intend for all of us to fit in there? It seems rather… cramped.”
The Doctor merely turned and waggled his eyebrows, gesturing the mares inside. Ditzy was the first to step forward. The door swung open as she stuck her head into the box and gasped. She glanced back at the outside. In. Out. In. Out. “It’s… it’s…” the Doctor grinned and whispered the words as she said them. “It's bigger on the inside!” Ditzy finished, a massive smile on her face.
The crowd filed in slowly, staring in awe at the impossible size of the ship. The Doctor frowned. “Huh. The crash must have damaged her more than I had thought. She’s redecorated.”
“I like it!” Pinkie chirped, bouncing over the catwalk onto the central platform.
The room had changed from it’s moodier coral style to a much more friendly and colorful design. Light reflected pleasantly across the floor, which was tiled in tessellating hexagons, violet, red, and golden. The walls had turned to a homey wooden brown, studded regularly with fisheye lanterns in wire cages, which lit the room admirably. Wooden stairs led down to the level below the raised dais where the central console stood, and metal walkways radiated out to sliding metal doors set into the walls.
At the center of it all sat the central console itself, which seemed to have been constructed from dark stained oak, with edges of hammered brass. The time rotor looked rather akin to a Tesla coil in a glass tube, and the monitors and instruments had become rounded and larger, so as to be more easily operated by hooves. “Color-coordinated panels,” the Doctor noted. “Nice touch.”
“What’s down all of these halls, Doctor?” Spike asked, peering down a corridor full of doors labeled with various icons.
“Oh, those should just old bedrooms," the Doctor replied, not looking up from the console. "The pictures symbolize their owners— rather like cutie marks, really.”
“Hey, look at this one!” Spike said in surprise. “It looks exactly like Ditzy’s mark.”
“What?”
The pegasus in question flapped over to where Spike was pointing. “Wow. That’s… kinda weird, actually.”
“What d’ya reckon is inside?” Applejack mused.
Ditzy reached out a hoof, as if in a trance. The door loomed up, huge and disconcerting. She touched the knob… and it rattled. “Aw, nuts,” she said, equal parts disappointed and relieved. “It’s locked.”
The Doctor blinked and started breathing again. He hadn’t even noticed that he’d stopped. “Miss Rarity,” he said hastily, “You’re a... fashion designer, you said? I think the wardrobe room might interest you—”
He was cut off by a gasp so powerful he swore it ruffled his mane. “An entire room? Just for clothes? Alien clothes?” Rarity’s eyes shone disturbingly.
“Er, yes. I’ve got clothes from all over space and time, and—”
"A whole room filled with inspiration!" Rarity cried. She grabbed the Doctor by the shoulders and pressed her face right up against his. "Where is it?"
“A-ah, um, downstairs, corridor to the right of the portrait of my granddaughter.”
The unicorn sprinted off, yelling something incoherent about her spring line.
The Doctor straightened his tie, rather embarrassed. “Er-hem. Would someone please go after her? Just to try and keep her from-- well, just to make sure that she doesn’t get into locker six.”
Spike sighed, nodded and hurried off after his marefriend. “Why? What’s so terrible about locker six?” Twilight asked.
The Doctor considered that for a long moment. “Discord’s returned by now, right? Been reformed and that?” Everypony nodded. “Right. Imagine if they designed clothes for a living, and you’ll have an idea of what locker six looks like.”
There was a moment of contemplation, and almost everypony shuddered. Fluttershy looked oddly contemplative, and Pinkie was grinning broadly. “Yeeeahhh… well, if anypony’s hungry, the kitchen is right upstairs—” he was cut off by a pink blur whizzing up the steps.
The Doctor turned to the rest of them. "Anything in particular any of you'd like to see?" he asked.
"Er..." Fluttershy murmured, tracing the floor with a hoof. "Maybe I'll just go look at clothes with Rarity. Um, would you mind if I were to borrow something for a friend of mine?"
"Oh, go right ahead," the Doctor replied, waving a hoof. "Menti Celesti know I've got enough clothes as it is."
"Oh, thank you!" Fluttershy said, fluttering downstairs. Applejack gave her a funny look as she went, but said no more.
Twilight hummed. "If you've got all those clothes from different worlds," she said, "what other big collections have you got?"
"Well, let's see. I used to have a garden. Been awhile since I looked in on it, so it might be a bit overgrown. There's probably enough trinkets and trash and relics to fill a number of museums. Oh yes, and the library is down th—”
Twilight didn't even wait for him to finish. She just took off at top speed. The Doctor was impressed. He considered himself something of an old pro at running, and that kind of start was very tricky to pull off. Rainbow watched her go, contemplative. “Got any Daring Do books?” she asked casually.
“Signed by the author.”
“SWEET!” A polychromatic blur raced after Twilight, leaving the Doctor alone with Ditzy and Applejack.
“She’s my sister, you know,” Ditzy said, after a long moment.
“Who, Rainbow?” asked Applejack, raising a skeptical eyebrow.
Ditzy laughed. “No, no. Daring Do.”
“Really?” said the Doctor, impressed. “Small world! I traveled with her for a while, under the nom de plume Sand Timer.”
Ditzy looked at him, brows raised. “Oh, really? She told me that she met her husband while travelling with a Doctor…” She paused, frowning. “But the way she described him was nothing like you.”
“Hold on,” said Applejack. “Darin’ Do is your sister? And she’s married? To WHO?”
“Well, his real name is Jamie MacCrimmon, but that doesn't sound much like a pony name, so mostly he goes by 'Piper Tune'.”
“He was an old friend of mine as well,” the Doctor added. “We traveled together for ages before Daring came along.”
“Don’t complicate things, Doctor,” Ditzy scolded. “Well, obviously, she can’t put personal stuff in her novels. Ahuizotl or someone might find out and use it against her. As for us being sisters... well, I’m honestly surprised that more ponies who know both of us don’t figure it out.”
Applejack nodded slowly. “Both pegasi, got th’ same last name, yer gray with a golden mane, an' she's golden with a gray mane... Eeyup, I guess I can see it. What, are you estranged or summat?”
“Oh, no,” Ditzy replied, shaking her head. “We’re actually pretty close these days. It’s just that she lives way out in Vanhoover, and neither of our work schedules really allows for vacation time. Sometimes Jamie visits, though, with their daughter Ace.”
“Ace? That her real name?” the Doctor asked.
“No, it’s Amethyst Star. But she really hates being called that, so everyone just goes with Ace.”
The Doctor smirked slightly as he examined a series of readouts.
“But back to the subject at hoof,” Ditzy continued, frowning at the Doctor. “Daring said that Sand Timer was a scruffy little old grey bat-pony. You... aren't any of those things.” She cocked her head. "Scruffy, maybe."
“Oh, well, I'm pretty old, as it happens,” the Doctor grinned. “I’ll be celebrating the big nine-seven-five this November. Think I’ll go on a pub crawl all through the Alpha Centauri system. Save the date.”
“Doctor…”
“He might be a changeling,” volunteered Applejack. She paused. “Y’ain’t, are ya?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. "It's alright if y'are, but Ah'd like t' know."
“No. Well. No. Not really. Not at all, actually. It’s just this thing Time Lords can do, see. When we’re dying, we can regenerate ourselves on a cellular level. New face, new voice, new clothes, taste buds, personality, gender identity, sometimes even a new biological sex. Never done that last one yet. Bit dull, but oh well. Never been ginger either, which is sad. One time, a friend of mine, name of I. M. Foreman, regenerated into an ecosystem, but that's a bit of a story by itself. But, yeah, Sand Timer was my second body. This is my… tenth? Sort of? It got a bit confusing for awhile.”
Applejack whistled low. “Must get hard on folks tryin’ ta keep up.”
“Oh yeah.” the Doctor said emphatically. “I mean, we’re all the same bloke, but if you compare two and three or five and six… well.” He shook his head, sucking air in through his teeth.
“Ooh, have you got pictures?” Ditzy asked eagerly. "Can we see?"
The Doctor opened his mouth. He paused, considering. “Actually... yes. Hold on a mo’.”
He ran around the the console, flicked a couple of switches on the far side, and a holographic image of an elderly, mint-green unicorn holding a walking stick shimmered into view. He peered at them through a monocle in a rather supercilious fashion. The Doctor paused. “Huh. I expected it to be humanoid. Ah, well.” Applejack, having decided that discretion might just be the better part of valor, chose not to ask.
“Anyway! This is the original me. Bit grumpy, but my hearts were in the right place. Mostly. Well. Except that one time I kidnapped a couple of my granddaughter’s schoolteachers, but that turned out alright in the end.”
“Y’all did what now?”
“Er, yes, well. We all do stupid things as teenagers. Moving on!” the image suddenly flickered to that of a raggedy grey bat-pony holding a recorder. “This is Sand Timer. He was a bit dotty, but he was a friendly sort of chap. Cleverer than he let on, too.”
The image of a vermilion crystal pony in some kind of martial arts pose appeared next. “Third me went by the name Tempus Fugit. I got stuck here for a bit after my attempts at repairing the TARDIS went dodgy. They were a bit rude and kind of snobbish. But they were an alright sort. Classy.”
The slide show continued through a brown earth pony with a massive trailing scarf and a smile as wide as a piano keyboard, an open-faced pinto pegasus wearing a stalk of celery, a lime-green crystal pony with an excessively loud jacket (and, according to the Doctor, both the personality and voice to match), and a blue pegasus carrying a question-mark-handled umbrella. “That one was the manipulative chessmaster sort, very cunning,” the Doctor said. “Next!”
The hologram flicked into the shape of a purple unicorn with a curling brown mane. “Now, I don’t remember this regeneration well,” the Doctor began. "Under, er, a lot of stress. I got involved with some very nasty time-altering--"
He paused when Applejack abruptly cut him off. “Ditzy? Y’alright there, sugarcube?”
The pegasus was staring, both eyes fixed on the hologram. She appeared to have stopped blinking, and her face was turning red. “...Ditzy?” the Doctor asked, fear seeping through both his hearts. "Is something the matter?"
He made his way over to her, only to be met with a hoof striking him sharply across the face. He toppled over, crying out in pain and shock.
“Get away from me!” Ditzy roared, leaning over him. "You-- you!"
Both of her eyes were fixed right on him and already the whites were tinged with red. Unable to finish her sentence, she ran from the TARDIS, leaving the door swinging in her wake.
“...Doc?” Applejack asked, leaning over his prone form. He lay there, staring at the ceiling.
She prodded his side with a hoof. “Are ya okay?”
He shook his head in an attempt to clear it. “Ow.” he grimaced. Looking up at Applejack, he said,“What… what just happened?”
She frowned. “Ah reckon you oughta be tellin’ me that.”
“I’ve no idea. Look, Twilight told me you’re the Element of Honesty—”
“Technically, we had t' put them Elements back where they came from. These days I’m the Councillor of Honesty, or, uh, the Magistrate, or summat like that.”
“Whatever. Tell me if I’m lying when I say that I don’t know why Ditzy reacted that way.”
“Yep.”
“... What?”
“Yes, yer lyin’.”
“I am not!”
“Yep, there’s another one.”
“I never lie!”
Applejack actually flinched. “Whoo-we! Now that there’s a WHOPPER of a whopper!”
The Doctor sighed, frustrated. "Look, will you go up to the kitchens and get me an icepack?" he asked. "I can already feel my cheek swelling up."
"Fine," Applejack said. "But when Ah get back, y'all'd better be ready to explain yerself real good." She trotted quickly across the room and went downstairs to find the kitchen.
The Doctor sat back, gloom overtaking him. There was so much pain he had wrought, so much suffering he had caused. He didn't realize there was so much that he was starting to forget it all. He glared at the hologram. It smiled back, mocking him with the image of him amnesiac former self.
Amnesiac.
Wait a second.
“I don’t remember.”
Applejack looked at him in confusion as she trotted back up the stairs. “What don’t ya remember?”
“Well, if I knew that, I wouldn’t have forgotten it, would I?”
“She rolled her eyes at that, hoofing him the icepack. “Alright, then. Ya forgot somethin’. How do you remember it again?”
He winced as he put the ice against his sore cheek, then twisted up his face in thought. “Well, generally speaking, anything from that incarnation--" he gestured vaguely at the hologram, "--is a no-go zone. My personal timeline underwent quite a lot of... let's call it interference. I developed amnesia several times, almost as a defense against the conflicting memories. No, I think this is something I just need to work out logically…” he glared pensively at the new time rotor, green electricity dancing through it.
Disjointed memories, thoughts, and emotions flittered through his mind. Ditzy’s uncharacteristic anger… her husband had been a Time Lord. Had he been the Master, perhaps? Or some other enemy? Someone who would've recognized that face, and told Ditzy about it... Not likely, but it was a lead.
Whoever it was had gone to war. Very likely, Ditzy had been referring to the Time War. Given that Equestria was in a whole other universe, it must've looked like a good place to escape from it. Pity he hadn’t thought of that himself. Had he?
Hm. What else was there? Feelings! Very important, always trust your gut, Doctor. Her house made him feel very odd, almost domestic. Eugh.
Older memories began to surface. A young lavender unicorn, her mum’s eyes and her dad’s coat… a wedding… a chance meeting… a courtship… a proposal… wait. A wedding?
The Doctor’s eyes flew open. “Oh, spack.”
Applejack leaned in. “What? What’d you do ta Ditzy?”
"Oh, this, this is bad," the Doctor said, leaning against a railing, letting the icepack fall to the floor. "This is worse than bad. Think of the three worst things you can think of, glue them together, that's not even close to how bad this is!"
Applejack sat down and folded her hooves. "Ya think y'all can be a li'l more specific, there?"
The Doctor turned to her, pain and fear in his eyes. “I… may have married her.”
There was a long pause. “Y'all did what now?” Applejack squawked, torn between anger and disbelief.
“There was a war," he babbled. "Biggest war in the cosmos, in the multiverse. I ran away, tried to escape, hid out here for awhile. I hid the TARDIS, got a job, tried to blend in, but I never thought that anything like this would happen!”
“How exactly do you forget that you have a wife?” Applejack demanded, “AND a daughter,” she added, after a moment’s consideration.
The Doctor waved his hooves frantically. “Like I said, my personal timeline got mucked up. My past became unstable, fixed points became unfixed, people suddenly stopped having ever existed! For literally an entire century, I was wandering around the Earth with no memories of who I was!” He was trembling now. “So now, there’s just a huge chunk of my personal history that I can’t remember, because it just doesn't exist!”
Applejack's jaw was hanging open as the Doctor continued to panic. She closed it with a snap. One of them had to be calm in this situation, and it didn't look like the Doctor was about to get a level head on his own. “Well," she said. "Yer back now. That’s a good start.”
The Doctor stopped and looked down at his hooves. “But now she hates me,” he said quietly.
The orange mare scoffed. “Ditzy? Hate? Ah don't reckon that mare's ever done that afore. Sweet as summer. That said—” her face hardened again. “You answer me this, and if you answer wrong, you can jes’ fly this spaceship away.”
She glared sharply into his eyes. “Do you love her?”
He paused. The memories were flowing back, now that the plug had been pulled. He let them flood his mind. He remembered seeing her for the first time, back when he was posing as a professor and accidentally put all his things in the wrong office. He remembered her walk, her smile, her laugh— oh, that laugh, all the times they had laughed together— he remembered the time he'd stood up for her at the university, and as a thank-you gift she filled his apartment with banana-nut muffins. He had told her they were his favorite five months before.
He remembered her mind, oh so clever at crosswords and understanding the universe— and muffins, he supposed— remembered that sharp glint in her eye when she had got an idea.
He remembered all the times they had spent together, good and bad.
He remembered quitting his post at that prestigious university because she had been cut from the staff.
He remembered moving to Ponyville, sharing rooms with her college roommate until they had been able to buy a house.
He remembered their daughter.
He opened his eyes and let loose his tears over his smiling face. “Yeah. Yeah, I really think I do.”
Applejack studied him for another long moment. Then, she suddenly smiled and stepped away from the door. “Go get ‘er.”
“You are absolutely brilliant, you know that?” he said, beating a rapid path to the door. At the threshold, he paused and, glancing back, added “Just make sure that no one touches the console while I’m gone. Or… anything else in here, actually.” he dashed out.
Moments later, he popped his head back in, grinning coltishly. “Oh, and Applejack? Thanks."
“Quit stallin',” Applejack cried in mock anger, waving her hat at him. He winked and ran out again.
Donning her hat and chuckling, she settled down to her guard duty.
Ditzy lay on the bed, staring blankly at the wall. She wasn’t crying. She had cried for him years ago, when he left. She had cried for him when he was gone, and she was hurt, or sad, or alone. Now, he was back. She didn't think she had any tears left.
How could he have loved her, then hurt her like this? Vanishing for eight rutting years, and then just suddenly popping up out of nowhere without so much as a ‘hello’? How could the stallion she had loved so dearly do such a thing?
She heard the door gently creaking open. "Can I come in?" the Doctor asked. She made no response.
"Should I leave you alone?" Again, she said nothing.
"Then I'll just sit right here." She heard the sound of his weight settling on the floor at the threshold. Neither of them spoke for a long while.
The Doctor let out a long breath. “Ditzy Doo, I can't tell you how sorry I am about what I did to you.”
She made no reply. He should be sorry. She had thought that he was dead! How could he just come waltzing back into her life, back into Dinky's life, as though nothing had ever changed?
Except… that wasn’t quite true, was it? Something had certainly changed. He seemed so much older now. So tired. So… lost. He interrupted her thoughts.
“Well, I say I'm sorry. Sorry isn't really strong enough a word. There is absolutely no excuse for the way that I hurt you and Dinky,” he said. “I wish I could fix it, I wish that I could change time like that, but I can’t. I can’t bring back Dinky’s childhood, I can’t return those eight years you spent raising her on your own, I can’t undo all that time when you thought I’d either died or run off, not sure which was worse—” he broke off.
He was right, Ditzy thought. There was no excuse. She kept listening anyway.
After several choked sobs, he whispered, “All my fault.”
He breathed deeply a few times before continuing. “I can’t fix what I’ve done to you, Ditzy Doo, and I am so sorry for that, as well. I’m… I’m bad news. Trouble follows me wherever I go. But… if you want me back, and I expect that’s a pretty big ‘if’ after all that I’ve done, then I promise you. I promise you that I will be there for you always and forever, I can promise you that.”
She lifted her head from the pillow and stared at him blankly, framed in the doorway. “Please,” he whispered, “Just give me an answer. If it’s a no, then I promise, I will go. I'll leave Ponyville, leave Equestria if you want, leave you and Dinky in peace forever, and if it breaks both my hearts, then I don't care. ‘Cos, Ditzy Doo, I think you’re brilliant. And I remember loving you, and I remember you loving me. And I’m so, so sorry that I hurt you.”
She stared at him a little longer. And then, she spoke. “When you left, I was worried sick. Up until today, I was certain that you were never coming back. You have missed so, so much. Dinky’s first word, her first day of school, her first crush. You weren’t here for her or me. I don't need to forgive you for any of that.” She was shouting now, her face red.
He winced as though she had punched him again. Then, he nodded, face stoic and resigned. “Alright. I’ll just— I’ll just go then.” He rose to his hooves and turned to leave.
"Wait." He stopped. "I want you to look at me, Doctor, and I want you to listen."
He turned and faced her, and he was quite surprised to see that she was smiling at him. “Oh, Doctor,” she whispered through the new tears springing to her eyes, “have you learned nothing over all the years you’ve been gone?”
“What?” he asked, befuddled.
"I don't need to forgive you,” she said, rising from her bed. "But I'll do it anyway."
She reached him and embraced him tightly. He was frozen for a moment, too shocked to move. But then, he relaxed and hugged her back even tighter, burying his face in her mane. She smelled of blueberries and fresh pastries and home.
Ditzy felt warm tears dribbling onto her coat, heard murmured and half-sobbed gibberish pouring into her ears. “Missed you too,” Ditzy murmured into his barrel as she led him into the room slowly stumbling backwards. They sat down together on the bedspread, still hugging.
They stayed like that for a long minute before she pulled away and said with half-playful anger, “All that said, you’d better have a real good explanation of where you’ve been, buster!” She poked him right in the barrel.
He pulled away and looked at her and through his tears, he grinned that infectious grin of his. Her facade wobbled and then shattered, the last of her anger evaporating as she broke into giggles. They laughed and laughed until their sides hurt and, wheezing, lay down next to each other on the bedspread.
"I love you," the Doctor said once he could breathe again.
Ditzy smiled at him. "Quite right, too." She relished his eyes going wide with shock. "Oh, alright. I love you too, my starpony."
"Right. Yes. Thank you," the Doctor said, still looking mildly puzzled.
“Really though,” she said, sitting up and leaning over his prone form, “I want to know what you’ve done while you were gone.” She eyed him. “Not running with fast and loose women, I hope?”
“Well,” he admitted rubbing his chin with a hoof, “None of them were loose, anyway. All of them had their heads screwed on good and tight. Certainly fairly fast though, you have to be if you’re running away from as many aliens as I usually do. I expect that will rather increase if I’m staying around here, I tend to attract a bit of attention…” He screwed up his face in thought. “Oh yes, and there was Jack. I suppose if anyone ever counted as fast and loose, he certainly did… Let me tell you about the time that we…”
Dinky Doo hummed a quiet, half-remembered tune as she walked home from school, her friend Scootaloo riding beside her in companionable silence. Her wings gave Dinky a cooling breeze as they propelled the pegasus and her scooter along. Eventually, the unicorn interrupted herself to comment, “I wonder if I could get a cutie mark in music.”
The pegasus shrugged. “Maybe. What would a cutie mark for humming even look like, though?”
“Not humming,” Dinky clarified. “I’ve been thinking about learning to play the bagpipes.”
Scootaloo snorted. “Seriously? Not the coolest instrument there, Dinks.”
Dinky gave her friend the stink-eye. “My uncle plays the bagpipes.” she said cooly.
The orange filly, sensing that she had stumbled into dangerous territory, quickly backtracked, saying, “Well, y’know, there’s nothing WRONG with them, they’re just—”
Dinky smirked. “It’s alright. The pipes aren’t everypony’s cup of tea."
“Right,” Scootaloo agreed awkwardly. Recovering herself, she added, “You coming to the clubhouse later?”
“Eh, if I get my homework done.”
“Pfft. Like it would even hurt your grades if you didn’t, nerd. Maybe if you missed an assignment, you wouldn't wreck the curve as bad as you do.”
Dinky stuck her tongue out at her friend before turning up the path that led to her house. “See ya, Scoots!”
“Later, Dinks!”
Dinky trudged onwards towards the door, ready to collapse into her bed and get some time to herself after dealing with school all day. It bored her; she already knew most of what Miss Cheerilee was teaching, and the little that she hadn’t already learned was either practically intuitive or completely impossible to grasp.
She glanced askance at the peculiar blue box sitting in the yard. She’d have to ask her mother about that. Walking into the kitchen, she let her saddlebag slip from her sides. She glanced up. Her eyes narrowed. Her mother was sitting down at the table, smiling at her. This was perfectly normal. What was less normal was the strange tan stallion also smiling (admittedly more nervously) at her. “Hi, mom,” she said carefully, her eyes never leaving the stranger. “Who’s this?” Not that his name really matters, she thought. Just another conpony trying to take advantage of her mother, soon to be dealt with. Either that, or her last science project had been too much for the school board to handle and she was expected to see a psychologist. Again.
“This is the Doctor!” her mother announced. Quite possibly it was the second option. Great.
The stranger just sat there, eating a muffin. He was doing his best to appear nonchalant, but it didn't take a psycologist to see through that facade. He was worried, even frightened. But of what? Of her? He seemed to be watching her carefully, though never meeting her eye, as though she might at any moment explode. “Hi.” she said.
“Hello, Dinky,” he managed to say.
“Take a seat, muffin,” her mother invited.
Dinky shuffled over to sit close to her mother, staring warily at the stranger. There was an exceedingly lengthy and awkward pause. The two adults seemed to be communicating silently that they wanted the other to explain. With a sigh, her mother finally began to speak. “Do you remember,” she said slowly, “all of those stories that I told you about your father?”
“Yyyyeah…” Dinky agreed. “You said that he was some kind of time-travelling alien that died in a war.” She had never believed it of course. It was impossible. But deep down, you had to wonder…
The stallion sighed. “Rumours of my death,” he said, “have been greatly exaggerated.”
Dinky blinked. “You aren’t my dad,” she said flatly. “My dad was a unicorn, and purple.”
“Regeneration,” the Doctor began. “I can change my appearance when I’m about to die.”
Dinky’s eyes narrowed. “Occam’s Razor shows that it’s far more likely that you’re just a dragon-oil salesman trying to seduce my mom.” She felt bad about hurting her mother like this, but it had to be done.
The stallion merely grinned, though he seemed hardly any more at ease. “If Occam ever met me, he’d grow a beard.”
“A pithy saying proves nothing.” the filly replied evenly.
“Alright,” the stallion shrugged. “Proof you want, proof you’ll get. Allons-y.” He rose and trotted out of the room, Dinky and Ditzy close behind.
“What’s this thing supposed to be?” Dinky asked as they approached the blue box.
“My TARDIS,” the Doctor said proudly, fiddling with the lock.
“It means ‘Time And Relative Dimensions In Space’.” her mother clarified. "It's his time machine."
Dinky stared at the box. “You can't be serious. I don't think you could even fit in there, let alone make it travel in time."
The Doctor frowned. “Oi,” he admonished, “No daughter of mine gets to be that cynical. ‘Specially not at the TARDIS. You’ll hurt her feelings.”
Dinky raised an eyebrow. Her mother nudged her. “Say you’re sorry,” she murmured.
The filly blew out her cheeks. “Fine. I’m sorry I insulted your box,” she said flatly.
The light at the top flickered, and the box made a whooshing sort of noise. The stallion beamed. “She forgives you,” he said happily. “Actually, I think she rather likes you.”
Dinky fought a smile. She refused to fall for his trickery. No matter how clownish and friendly he might seem, she had to remain vigilant.
Then the doors swung open and all that she could think was ‘Oh sweet princesses and Discord and Tree of Harmony, it’s bigger on the inside.’
This was quickly followed by a joyous ‘He really is my father!’
Which was, in it’s turn, followed by a more worried ‘He’s my… father?’
She glanced up at the tan stallion. “Proof enough for you?” he chuckled, grinning broadly.
A moment later, a small purple hoof connected with his nose. “DINKY!” her mother gasped.
“No, no,” the Doctor muttered, rubbing at the injured area. “It’s fine. I deserved far worse for what I’ve done. Anyway, you--”
“Even if I thought that was true, I didn't raise my daughter to do anything like that,” Ditzy said, cutting him off quickly. “No dessert tonight, young filly.”
The little unicorn snorted and stared at the Doctor. He drew a breath and met Dinky squarely in the eye. “I don’t expect you to forgive me anytime soon,” he stated. “Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if you never really did.”
Dinky held up a hoof. “Shut up. I have questions for you. Two of them.”
She looked up at the domed ceiling of the console room and took a deep, calming breath. “First," she said, lowering her gaze after a few tense seconds. "Can you promise, really promise, that you won't ever leave us again?”
He paused, glancing around the control room, then to Ditzy, then back to Dinky. Solemnly, he raised his right hoof. “There's no power that could make me leave either of you behind, so long as you want me here.”
She nodded. “Question two, and this is the serious one,” she said, glaring. “What weird alien drugs were you on when you named me? What kind of name is ‘Dinkestra (Θ2)Σ*π/α Akitor Doo’ for a baby?
He dropped his hoof to the ground, looking rather hurt. “Your mother told me that ‘Dinkestra’ was an old family name!” he protested.
She looked at him flatly. “And the rest of it?”
He stiffened his upper lip. “I’ll have you know that (Θ2)Σ*π/α was a very popular name on Gallifrey! And Akitor was for my favorite granddaughter. In your language, it would translate as ‘Rose’.”
“Granddaughter?” Dinky looked ready to pop. “Am I an aunt, then? How many mares have you seduced in this big blue box of yours?”
The Doctor looked at Ditzy imploringly. She giggled impishly and just shook her head lightly. He was on his own. “Right. Begin at the beginning…” he muttered. He stared Dinky straight in the eyes and said, “Hello, I’m the Doctor, but you may as well call me Time Turner. Or, well, dad, I suppose, should you ever want to.”
He glanced and Ditzy. “Time Turner works, right? Good name?”
She nodded, rolling her eyes but smiling nevertheless. “Doctor Turner it is,” she agreed, “but you’ll always be Pocket Watch to me.”
“Right-o.” He turned back to Dinky. “I’m a nine-hundred and seventy-four-year-old Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey, in the constellation of Kasterborous. To answer your question, I've been married three times before I met your mum, plus five failed engagements, eighteen annulments, and one archaeologist who claimed to be my wife from the future. Plus, five kids, nine grandkids. All of them are in another universe, but I think that might just be a conversation for another day. Basically, I save people.”
“Although, since saving planets generally doesn’t pay very well, we’ll have to see about getting you a new job,” Ditzy added, eyes sparkling with mirth.
“Argh! A real job?” ‘Time Turner’ gasped in mock agony. Probably-mock agony. “What’s next, a mortgage? Oh, the trials of domesticity!”
They broke into a fit of giggles, and in the confusion, Dinky very quietly slipped away to deal with these new developments on her own terms.
It was a disconcerted and ponderous Dinky Doo that trotted into the Cutie Mark Crusader Clubhouse. The rest of the CMC— Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo, Rumble, and Button Mash— had already arrived. Apple Bloom acknowledged Dinky with a nod as she walked in, proceeding to strike the ground with the gavel she had kept from the ‘Cutie Mark Crusader Justice System’ incident. “Alright, Crusaders,” she said, “What’re we gonna do today?”
“Cutie Mark Crusader Stunt Fliers!”
“Cutie Mark Crusader Beat Poets!”
“Cutie Mark Crusader Diamond Miners!”
“We did all of that last month!”
Finally, Dinky spoke up. “Cutie Mark Crusader Alien Investigators.” she said firmly.
There was a lengthy pause. “Didn’t we do that back in July?” Sweetie finally asked.
“This time is different!” Dinky insisted. “There’s actually an alien to investigate!”
“Really?” Button asked, curious. “How do you know?”
Dinky took a deep breath and began to explain everything she knew about the TARDIS, the Doctor, and their relation to her mother. There was a long moment of silence once she had finished. No one doubted that she was telling the truth. She seemed far too serious for it to be a mere joke or exaggeration. Besides, Crusaders stuck together no matter what!
Anyway, it was hardly the weirdest thing that had happened in Ponyville.
So, when Rumble spoke up a moment later, it was not to mock or tease his friend, but merely to ask, “So… does that make you half-alien?”
This had not been one of Dinky’s primary considerations, but she decided that it was a good point. “I… guess,” she shrugged. “But that’s not really what’s important right now. The important thing is the fact that my father, the time-travelling, shapeshifting, centuries old LORD OF TIME has just WALTZED back into my life after TEN YEARS!”
The others sat in silence, taken aback by their normally reserved friend’s sudden outburst. Apple Bloom gingerly reached out and patted her shoulder. “Feel better now?” she asked.
Dinky snuffled faintly and nodded. “Cutie Mark Crusader Alien Investigators?” she asked hoarsely.
Glances were exchanged. “CUTIE MARK CRUSADER ALIEN INVESTIGATORS! YAY!”
***
The Doctor trotted through town, drinking in the sights with interest. “Over there’s Sugarcube Corner,” Ditzy said, continuing her steady commentary. “It’s a very popular bakery. They’re the best! Pinkie does fantastic pastries.”
“Oh?” the Doctor asked, peering in through the windows. “Does she run it? The architecture is… well, it certainly seems her style.”
Ditzy giggled. “That’s true, but no. It’s owned by the Cakes, Cup and Carrot. Pinkie just works here as a baker and nanny for the twins.”
The Doctor stared in a little longer. “Is that… a banana cream pie?” he asked.
Ditzy smiled. “Hungry?”
“A bit peckish. Come on, let’s have a bite. I think I’ve got a few pounds…” he reached for a pocket, then blinked at his hoof hit his flank. “No pockets. Right. How did that trick work again?”
“My treat, then,” Ditzy said.
“Oh, I couldn’t…” the Doctor said, distressed.
“Take me somewhere nice in the TARDIS, and we’ll call it even, how ‘bout that?” Ditzy riposted, opening the doors. “Besides, I’m hungry too.”
The two trotted up to the counter, neither one paying much attention to the two foals sitting at a table against the wall. “What’s a tar-diss?” Button whispered to Sweetie, who shrugged.
“I think she said something about taking her somewhere. Maybe it’s his spaceship?” she whispered back.
“Oh, yeah. Wait, they’re talking again!”
“Two slices of banana cream pie, please,” Ditzy requested at the counter.
“Coming right up,” Mrs. Cake replied, turning to the glass case. “Out on a date, dearie?”
The two ponies exchanged nervous glances. This had not been anticipated. “Not… exactly,” the Doctor said. “Well. I mean, sort of. Well. You could call it that…”
“It’s complicated,” Ditzy said.
“Yes, I can tell,” Mrs. Cake said with a grin. “That’ll be six bits, please.”
“Here you go,” Ditzy replied, laying a hooffull of coins on the counter. “Have a nice day!”
Mrs. Cake’s smile had faded slightly. Being as she was something of a traditionalist, she did not entirely approve of a mare paying for a date. Especially not Ditzy who, Celestia knows, was hardly well-off. “Yes,” she said, slightly coolly. “Have a nice day, Ditzy.”
“I don’t think she likes me,” the Doctor muttered as the two trotted over to a table with their pie.
Ditzy smiled. “Don’t be silly. Mrs. Cake likes everypony! And you are a very likable…” she trailed off. “Not technically a pony,” she said thoughtfully. “You look like one right now, but what was that you said earlier? What you actually look like?”
Sweetie leaned forward. “This could be important!” she hissed. Button stared hard at the couple across the way, slurping thoughtfully at his milkshake.
“It’s called a perception filter,” the Doctor was saying. “Usually, I set it to a humanoid default, that’s a sort of… a tall, mostly hairless ape. In clothes. Usually pretty questionable clothes. What I look like under that is…” he cleared his throat. “Hard to describe in any language off Gallifrey.”
Ditzy wrinkled her snout up. “Weird.”
He shrugged. “Most would probably say the same about a world filled with talking, technicolor equines.”
“Well, maybe, but that’s normal!” She paused, then frowned. “...right?”
The Doctor shrugged. “In this universe… a bit, yeah. It’s not uncommon, anyway. In my universe, no.”
“His universe?” Sweetie mouthed to Button. It was at this point that she noticed that her fellow spy was no longer sitting next to her. She sighed and peered over the edge of the table. The colt lay curled in a ball, eyes squeezed shut and an expression of exquisite pain on his face. “Every time,” Sweetie sighed, glaring at her friend. “Really, Button, just drink a little slower!”
The colt cracked an eye open and stared up at his friend. “But… milkshake!” he protested.
Sweetie sighed and sat back. The targets had left while she was distracted. Grimly, she bit into a cupcake as she stared after their retreating forms. They hadn’t found out much. But there would be others…
“What in the world is that?” the Doctor asked, staring up at the massive crystalline structure before him.
Ditzy landed neatly next to him. She followed his gaze and winced. “Ah. Yeah. That’s the Castle of Friendship. I know, it’s kind of an eyesore. Princess Twilight’s been trying to get it properly remodeled for years, but…”
The Doctor kept staring. “It looks like some kind of tree.”
“Yeah. Long story.”
As the couple stared up at the castle, two foals were staring at them from the bushes. Dinky poked Rumble in the side. “Give me the binoculars,” she hissed.
“No way, I just got them!”
The unicorn glared at her friend. “That is my mom out there, as well as the creature that fathered me. Give.”
The pegasus sighed and hoofed Dinky the device. She held them to her eyes, glaring at the couple. “Look at him,” she hissed.
“With what?” Rumble snarked back. The unicorn glared at him, but he didn’t flinch.
“He’s trying to seduce her!” the filly finally exploded.
The pegasus squinted at the adults. “I think they’re just talking.”
“Yes, but talking about what?”
Rumble studied the couple for a little longer. “Probably Twilight,” he decided.
“Or,” Dinky said fiercely, “Maybe they’re plotting a way to take over the world for the aliens!”
Rumble glanced at his friend. “I can’t really see your mom doing that.”
“Well, I can’t see her marrying a space pony!”
The pegasus sighed, and sat back in the bush as Dinky peered at her parents through her binoculars. “They’re on the move,” she hissed. “To position Delta!”
“Where?”
The unicorn filly gave an impatient sigh. “My front garden. The blue box. Come on!”
Rumble made to get up, but tumbled backwards. “I think my wing is caught,” he said, but his friend had already raced off. Shaking his head, the colt sat back to disentangle the brambles from his feathers.
***
“And this,” Ditzy said, gesturing grandly, “is Sweet Apple Acres.”
The Doctor glanced around. “I’m gonna take a wild guess and say that this is where Applejack works,” he said.
“Yup! She lives up at that farmhouse over there with her grandmother, her brother, and her little sis— Oh, hello, Apple Bloom!”
The filly straightened up in surprise. “Oh! Um, hi, Miss Ditzy. Hi, Doc— pony I’ve never met before.”
Ditzy gave the filly a sidelong glance, but the Doctor appeared not to have noticed the slip. “Hello, young filly. What’re you up to, then?”
“Uh, Ah’m tryin’ t’ get my cutie mark in… hidin’. Yep. We’re all playin’ hide’n’seek.” She glanced back at her flank. It was still devoid of any mark for hiding or spying— or, for that matter, clever lying. “Guess not.”
She looked up at the Doctor, suddenly seeing an opportunity for gathering information. “Say, mister! What’s your cutie mark mean?”
The tan stallion paused. He glanced back at his flank, frowning. “I have no idea,” he admitted. “Probably something about arriving in the nick of time. Or keeping good time.” He brightened. “Oh! Maybe it’s for having a good time! That’d be nice!”
Apple Bloom frowned. “Ya mean y’don’t know?”
“Nope! No clue. Never really mattered much to me anyway.” He squinted. “Though, I think it might be steadily running out of sand as I get older. Huh.”
“Well, we’d better be going on our tour,” Ditzy said quickly. “See you later, Bloom!”
After the two had left, Scootaloo poked her head out from behind a tree. “Hiding cutie mark? Really?”
Apple Bloom made a face. “Ah didn’t have much time, so sue me. Anyhow, did ya hear that? He don’t know what his own cutie mark means!”
“That is weird,” Scootaloo agreed. “Come on. Let’s go meet the others.”
***
Rumble trudged into the garden, his expression black and his wings full of leaves. The other five glanced up as he walked through the gate. “Sorry. Got stuck in a bush,” he said shortly, giving a sharp look toward a certain lilac unicorn. “What’s new?”
The rest of the Crusaders glanced at each other, and then they all started talking at once, interrupting and interjecting and shouting over one another, trying to share what they had learned. Rumble stared blankly. “So. Basically, we know nothing,” he said.
There was a long awkward silence. “Yeah,” said Scootaloo.
The colt nodded. “Right. Anyone get an espionage cutie mark?”
There was a rather more intense silence as the assembled turned to look at their own flanks. The general consensus was that none of them were meant to be spies. “But that’s okay,” Sweetie Belle added brightly. “I mean, if spies had spying cutie marks, everypony would know they were spies!”
“What if they’re invisible cutie marks?” Button wondered. “Like, hiding or something.”
Sweetie gasped. "You're right! Maybe they're invisible ink cutie marks, and we have to hold them to a candle--"
"I'm gonna stop you right there," Rumble said. "We aren't allowed near open flame anymore, remember?"
Everypony shuddered at the memory. That had been the first and last Guy Fetlocks day that Ponyville had ever celebrated.
“Well, this was pointless,” Apple Bloom sighed. “We ain’t got cutie marks, and we don’t know any more ‘bout Dinky’s da--”
“Not my dad,” Dinky growled.
“Well, there’s one place we haven’t looked,” Rumble said thoughtfully.
The others followed his gaze up to the big blue box...
***
The Doctor had been alive for many centuries, exploring the furthest reaches of space and time. He had seen beautiful vistas that would make even the hardest-hearted of cynics weep with joy, ancient horrors that devoured world and decimated cultures, seen fake gods, bad gods, demigods, would-be gods, but he had never before seen a TARDIS control room coated in… was that tree sap? “What?!”
The console, new just a few hours ago, was smoking and spitting sparks. “What?!”
The setup of the entire room was flickering, visions of previous desktop settings fading in and out of existence, which should have been completely impossible. “What?!”
Six sheepish-looking foals, equally coated in tree sap, stood in a corner of the console room. Ditzy, looking around at the carnage, merely rolled her eyes. “Collateral damage of living with one of the Crusaders,” she said dryly. “But didn't you say this ship comes with a self-repair function?”
The Doctor, who had been looking at the wreck in despair, brightened. “Ah! So it does!” His enthusiasm dimmed slightly as he glanced back at the Crusaders. “Unfortunately, it doesn’t clean ponies.” He hummed slightly. “Right, you lot, let’s get you to the showers.”
Ditzy glanced at her watch. “Oops!” she gasped, “I’m running late! Can you handle the foals by yourself?”
The Doctor chuckled. “I’ve faced Daleks, Cybermen, and Weeping Angels all before breakfast, how hard can it be?”
Ditzy glanced pointedly at the sap-covered console, which chose that moment to let off another shower of sparks. The Doctor exhaled. “Point taken,” he conceded, “But I’m quite sure that nothing like this is ever going to happen again.” He fixed the Crusaders with a firm look. “Will it.”
“No, Doctor,” the Crusaders chorused, chastened. Even Dinky looked a little abashed.
“Well, almost certainly not,” Sweetie added conscientiously. “Probably.”
The Doctor nodded. “Good enough,” he decided.
***
“So, exactly what were you lot doing in there, anyway?” the Doctor asked as he led them down the hall.
“Investigating,” Button replied.
“Button!” Dinky hissed, inasmuch as a word without sibilants may be.
Button looked up from his GameColt absently. “Wait, did he just say something and then I said something back?”
“Yeah, and then you went blank. It was kind of hilarious,” Scootaloo replied.
The Doctor just chuckled. “Pony Torchwood, eh? Well, at least no one got hurt. Or sucked into an alternate universe. Again.” He stopped for a moment, gazing into space. Then, shaking himself off, he continued, “Right, tell you what, I’ll answer any questions you’ve got about me if you answer some of my questions about Ponyville. Your club, it’s the Cutie Mark Crusaders, right?”
“Yep!” Apple Bloom replied quickly. “Now, how come this box is bigger on the inside?”
They continued in this vein for a while. The Doctor learned a great deal about current events (he’d missed rather a lot of interesting stuff, which he decided to eventually go back and watch) and rather a lot about the ponies living in town. The Crusaders, in turn, had learned that the Time Lords had two hearts and a respiratory bypass, and that they were very uptight and officious. Well, except for the Doctor. They also learned that there weren't many Time Lords left anymore. His face had gone a bit peculiar when he had said that, and he had gone quiet for a long minute afterwards. Eventually, Rumble had to ask. “What happened?”
The Doctor looked up, his face grave. “Not every culture fights wars using pies,” he said. No one said anything more for a while after that.
Dinky got to use the shower first. She stared, actually rather impressed at the dizzying array of knobs and buttons covering the walls. She counted seventeen faucets, half again as many many showerheads, and several perfume nozzles. Very tentatively, she reached out a hoof and turned a yellow knob. Water poured down, lemon-scented bubbles filling the air. Pulling on a purple knob, she caused the room to fill with a warm mist. She actually smiled, delighted. Then, she pushed down on a blue button.
Ten seconds later, a bedraggled, sopping wet filly left the shower, mane plastered against her head. The Doctor winced. “Accidentally set the pressure wash?” he asked sympathetically.
The other Crusaders had gone home, now. Dinky was left in her room, all alone. She gazed out the window, watching the fob watch hung on it sway back and forth in the breeze. It had been the last reminder of her father, once. What was it now that he had returned? She let herself slip out of conscious thought as the watch swung hypnotically, side to side to side to side to side to
***
He had arrived inoffensively. Quite unobtrusive. Dinky had been young, but she could remember it all too well. He had just-- appeared one day, taking rooms in a boarding house on the outskirts of Ponyville. He was charming. He had been intelligent. He had been kind. His name was Ponet.
‘An artist,’ ponies had murmured. His pictures were indeed beautiful. They seemed almost to shine with an inner light, possessed of an unknown, fey quality. He did portraits for cheap, hardly more than enough to keep himself afloat. She had seen the one he had done of her and her mother many times when she had been younger. It had been hung with pride in the middle of the living room.
He had done many portraits. Most no longer existed, but there were a few where sentiment had outweighed what followed. Captivating images of sweet newborns, loving couples, happy families, and more. All seemed to be almost lifelike, but with some intangible screen separating them from the world.
That was how he had met them. Painting a portrait for posterity, so Ditzy could have a reminder of her young daughter as she grew older. Dinky couldn't remember most of the conversations between the two adults; Mr. Ponet had set out some hoofpaints for her, and she had spent the breaks between sittings busily doing sums in all the colors of the rainbow. Therefore, she had no way to know how Ditzy fell in love. Maybe Ponet reminded her of another purple unicorn stallion. Maybe he just saw how trusting she was and thought he could use that. Maybe, though Dinky hadn't thought it viable for years, he really had loved her mother in some strange way.
He had moved in with them. Between an artist and a postmare, income was limited, but they had enough to get by. They were happy together. Dinky could remember him well. He had been there on her first day of school, kissed her hoof better when she had caught it in a window, set up a little paint studio for her in the corner of his ‘workshop’.
And then, one day she woke up, and Ponet was gone. So was quite a lot of their cash, and some of the more valuable heirlooms. Ditzy’s heart had been shattered, her trust and love sold for perhaps a thousand bits.
They had sold the old house not long after. They didn't need to, not really; friends and neighbors were all glad to give their friendly local postmare a little extra envelope to help her and her daughter survive. But the house was dark, now. Tainted by betrayal. Neither mother nor daughter could stand to live there anymore, not when so much of their home had been touched by him.
Carrot Top had been only too happy to let her old college roommate and friend stay with her for a few months. It had been a hard time for them both. But Ditzy had a slew of friends to help her, old and loyal. Dinky, shy, intelligent, unearthly filly that she was, had her mother, and very little else. She had grown closer to her mother, and vice-versa. The difference was, Ditzy had grown closer to others as well. She had taken all that pain, all that sorrow, and turned it back out to the world as kindness.
Dinky had never let go. She never forgave, and-- blessing or curse-- she never forgot. Until the Crusaders, she'd never really had friends. She never thought she could trust them. It had taken nothing short of a miracle to change that…
***
She floated gently awake once more, gazing at the watch as its period grew longer and longer, until it stopped altogether. She took it from the windowsill and turned it over in her hooves. For a long moment, she considered dashing it to the floor, watching as springs and gears flew in unpredictable trajectories, order made chaos in a split instant. Like Ponet leaving. Like the Doctor returning. Like life, here in Ponyville.
She set down the watch on the table and set her head in her hooves, staring at it. She did not cry. She just stared, empty-eyed.
The Doctor had, as he had stated earlier, faced down Daleks, Cybermen, the Master, and so many others besides. This did absolutely nothing to assuage his fears as he looked at the tiny figure glaring at him over the dinner table. All through the meal, the filly had been watching him with deep distrust and anger. Ditzy had been watching her with concern for the same amount of time. Meanwhile, the Doctor had been doing what he did best when under pressure: talking. At length. More babbling, really, making noise just to fill the silence. Eventually, Dinky interrupted. “May I be excused?”
Ditzy frowned. “You’ve hardly touched your green beans,” she chided.
“Not hungry.”
“You won’t get dessert if you don’t finish your beans.”
“I don't get dessert tonight anyway.”
That stymied the pegasus for a moment, long enough for Dinky to push her chair away and trot from the room.
The Doctor watched her go. “Does she… does she hate me?” he asked quietly. “Does she blame me for leaving?”
Ditzy let out a deep sigh. “She never knew you,” she consoled. “It’s much easier to blame a name than an actual pony.”
“So that’s a yes.”
“...Yes.”
“She’s not wrong,” he muttered. He looked up at Ditzy. “Do you blame me?” he asked quietly.
She stopped. He was staring at her now, eyes sad and curious. She let out a breath. “I’d like to,” she admitted. “It would make everything a lot easier.”
He looked down at the floor. “But I don’t,” she continued. “You told me that you didn’t have a choice. Your people, your planet, it was all dying. I can’t exactly blame you for trying to save it. It was all..." she trailed off, waving a hoof abstractly. "All just bad luck.”
She realized, suddenly, that at some point, the Doctor had started crying. “Why do you have to be so nice?” he sobbed, throwing down his fork. “Can’t you just be angry at me? I don’t deserve this! I don’t deserve your kindness. I don't deserve kindness at all! After everything I’ve done, all the people that I’ve hurt playing hero, I’m not worthy of you! Pocket Watch, maybe he was, but I’m not him! Not anymore!”
His shoulders were shaking, his eyes red and tearful. “You know what they call me back home? ‘Oncoming Storm’. ‘Death-Bearer’. The Daleks, the nastiest, most genocidal little tin cans in the universe, call me 'ka faraq gati.' 'The Predator.'
"I thought that I was a god, infallible, and people died because of that. They died ‘cos of me. And you, Ditzy Doo, you don’t deserve to be stuck with me! You deserve the one you loved! The kind, absent-minded unicorn that showed you the stars. You deserve the one you fell in love with, not some miserable old replacement twice-removed!” He broke down completely, sobbing.
Ditzy reached out a hoof, lightly rubbing his back. When he looked up, still sniffling, she smiled. “I have loved the stars too fondly to be frightened of the night,” she said.
He stared at her blankly, and she sighed. “Maybe you're right. Maybe you don’t deserve me. Maybe I don’t deserve you. But let me tell you a secret, my spacepony. No one ever gets what they deserve. You just take what life gives you, and you use it the best that you can."
He looked up at her, coat matted by tears. “Thank you,” he whispered.
“You’re very welcome, Pocket Watch.”
He frowned. “I’m not him anymore,” he protested. “I’ve changed.”
“True,” she agreed. “But I think it’s important that you remember that you were him, once upon a time. It’ll help you remember what you want to be again.”
***
The Doctor knocked on the door gingerly. “Come in,” a voice replied. He did so.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hello,” his daughter replied, voice brittle. She took a deep breath. “So, I heard what you were saying earlier.”
He frowned. “Eavesdropping, are we?” he asked, eyebrow raised.
“...Yeah, I guess.”
He gave a crooked grin. “Attagirl.”
“...Right, okay. So, I guess I should apologize for being such a jerk to you before.”
“No. Nonononono. I came in here to apologize for abandoning you. You were completely within your rights to—”
“Shush,” she interrupted. “I’d really rather you didn’t get all emotional on me. That’s just awkward. But anyway, I’m apologizing for being rude to you. Accept it. Or, y’know, don’t, if you’re still having that pity party. I guess, it’s just that, as long as I can remember, it’s just been me and mom. And sometimes you get ponies who see families like that as a target. Bullies, conmen, worse. I thought that you might be one of them. Sorry about that too, I guess. But what I’m trying to say is that I… kind of had to adapt. I had to become cynical. Be strong. Be tough. Because it hurts too much to feel.”
The Doctor’s head was suddenly filled with visions of Cybermen and Daleks, going from fighting back their own emotions to destroying lives, nations, worlds.
He breathed in sharply. “Well, you don’t have to be that way anymore,” he said firmly. “In fact, I’m going to help make sure of that. I can show you and your mum all the wonders of the universe. ‘Cos, you know feelings can hurt. I think you know that as well as anyone does. Definitely better than you should. So I’m going to show you that feelings can be wonderful, too. You deserve to know that." He met her eyes. "And you are going to get what you deserve, because you are my daughter, and as soon as I saw you for the first time, I loved you more than time and space could ever express.”
Dinky blinked as his words sunk in. Her lips curled up into a little half-grin, the first smile she had given him since he’d returned. “Thanks,” she said, glancing away.
He grinned broadly. “You are very welcome. Now,” he added, pulling out a white paper bag, “your mum said you weren't to have dessert, but I've never been much of a disciplinarian. How would you like a jelly baby?”
***
Endings are tricky things. Every action leads to another, and another, and another, and so forth. Not necessarily in that order, of course, but the point remains. Nothing never really ends. Especially not love.
