Dr. Whooves- Parallel Complications

Saddle Arabia
10 years before the arrival at the temple

“Doctor, where are we?”

“Somewhere near where we were before, but back in time,” the Doctor replied, frantically looking around. “I don’t know how far back.”

“But how do we get back, if the TARDIS is in the future?” Paige’s eyes were full of fear.

“Paige, I am sorry. I am so, so sorry. We don’t.”

The Doctor gasped as he sat up in bed, his eyes bulging open. Barely a night went by that he didn’t relive the horror of the first day being stranded by the weeping angels, 90 years ago. By the sound of crickets outside, it was clearly the middle of the night.

The Doctor sighed, and got out of bed, heading for the balcony that connected to the bedroom. They had all moved to a more green part of Saddle Arabia, to stay close to the temple yet still live comfortably, and had built a small two floor house with the help of any earth ponies and unicorns they could find and somehow pay. There wasn’t even much point to there being two floors; the first floor consisted of a square room and ancient style kitchen, and the upper floor had the bedroom that everyone shared. An hour’s walk away from any other settlements stood this one, solitary house.

When the Doctor arrived on the balcony, he discovered Jack, already awake and staring off into the stillness of the night. “And why are you awake?” the Doctor asked, raising himself so his front hooves rested on the railing.

“What am I gonna do, die of exhaustion?” Jack replied, to which both of them chuckled slightly. “I just don’t sleep much anymore. And it doesn’t seem that you do either. Nightmare again?”

“Yep.”

“I wish I could help.” Jack stared up at the sky, counting stars, wondering what other life was out there in this universe. “I get a grey hair about every 70 years. Give it a few centuries and I might start to look a little old.”

“Had they sent us back two hundred years, Minuette and I would look old by the time we got back to the temple,” the Doctor replied.

“True.” Jack paused for a long while before speaking again. “I’m just… tired, Doctor. Tired of living so long. I’m not even a thousand years old yet and yet I don’t even remember exactly how old I am. I’ve watched so many people grow old and die while I just keep going, every day. You, you’re a few centuries over a thousand, I don’t even know how you do it.”

“Time travel, makes things easier,” the Doctor replied. “Since I travel through time I can visit people at any time, any age, and avoid the times I don’t want to think about. My little way of cheating. Paige was the first one I’ve ever actually had to… to watch.” He paused, sniffing and wiping his eye. “70 years. For 70 years I watched her live, grow old, and die. It tears me apart.”

“A lot of people want long life, but be careful what you wish for, huh?” Jack shook his head, closing his eyes. “She was strong. All the way to the end.”

“She helped a lot of ponies, learned the local language, helped us get money, food, everything we needed. She used her passion for books to become a teacher, and all the little ponies loved her. She was brilliant.”

“I can’t believe she’s gone. 20 years ago. Feels like yesterday.” Jack sniffed, returning his gaze to the night sky.

The two were joined by Minuette, who rubbed her eyes before only half opening them, her sleepiness apparent. “Doing anything fun out here?” she said softly, blinking a few times before opening her eyes all the way.

“You know, just burning the midnight oil, thinking about life,” Jack replied, smiling.

“There’s plenty of time to do that during the day,” she replied, chuckling. She approached the Doctor, and gave him a caring nuzzle, which he returned. Both the Doctor and Minuette had their individual reasons for not wanting to create an intimate relationship, but their bond had grown massively. Nine decades of waiting to be back where they needed to be, and ten more years left. The only two time lords in existence, stranded together, with nowhere to go. They couldn’t help but care for each other deeply, even if love wasn’t possible.

“The nightmare again?” Minuette asked, whispering into the Doctor’s ear.

“Yeah,” he replied softly, to which Minuette responded by placing a hoof around the Doctor’s neck, hugging him tightly. The Doctor returned the hug, closing his eyes and holding Minuette close.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Minuette whispered. “It really wasn’t your fault. We’ll make it through this. Ten more years.”

The Doctor nodded, and slowly released Minuette from the hug. She did the same, joining Jack in staring off into the night. “We’re almost there,” she said.

“Yes we are,” Jack replied. “It’ll be nice to sleep in the TARDIS again. The beds in there are much comfier.”

“We’ve made due so far, not much longer before we finish this,” the Doctor said. He let out a sigh, his heart still torn apart from what happened, his brain struggling to come up with a solution.

“Will she come back, in the end? When everything Chaos has done has been reversed,” Jack asked.

“I don’t know,” the Doctor replied honestly. “Being exposed to time travel makes things… trickier. When you’ve traveled through time it’s harder for the universe to resolve paradoxes based on your time stream. Things can get… complicated. It’s just like with memories, sometimes people who’ve experienced time travel can remember events that haven’t happened, and sometimes they can’t.”

“Paradoxes,” Jack shook his head. “I wish they weren’t such a poisonous thing to mess with.”

“Same here, I…” the Doctor stopped, confused as to why that comment seemed so significant to him. Poisonous…

“What is it Doctor?” Minuette asked.

The gears turned in the Doctor’s head, and a thought struck him. “Paige didn’t deserve to live out her entire life here, stuck in a purgatory,” he said. “And maybe she doesn’t have to.”

“What?” Jack didn’t understand.

“I don’t want to say anymore. We have ten years left, I can’t keep my mind on it now,” the Doctor replied. “Forget what I said.” He turned away from the balcony, walking back into the bedroom, headed straight for his bed.

“I’m worried about him,” Minuette said, moving closer to Jack. “I’ve tried so hard to make him understand what happened could not be blamed on any of us, but he refuses to forgive himself.”

“That look he got just now…” Jack said. “I feel like he just thought of something that even he’s scared to try. And honestly, if he’s talking about crossing his own time stream to save Paige, as much as it pains me to say so, I don’t think he should.”

“Well, it’s like the Doctor said, there’s ten years left before we’re back,” Minuette said. “Let’s not let ourselves worry about it at the moment. But for now… I agree with you.”

Jack nodded, and Minuette turned away, deciding that she too wanted to attempt returning to sleep.

***

10 years later

“Aww, thank you so much little ones,” Paige said, speaking flawlessly in the language of the area. “I really love it.” Paige’s students had made her a gift, and she graciously accepted it, smiling at all the little colts and fillies she had taught that year.

The Doctor watched from a short distance away. He had learned the language as well, but to his surprise, at a slower rate than Paige had. She truly was brilliant, and it pained him every day to remember that she was here because of him.

“Look, Doctor,” Paige said as the little ones went back to their parents. “They weaved me a basket. It’s actually rather impressive, they all worked together to make it an expert job.”

Paige smiled at the Doctor, happy as could be. The Doctor looked at her, knowing the happiness was sincere, but unable to return it. “Doctor, are you alright?” Paige asked, noticing something was off. “Doctor?”

“Doctor?”

The Doctor opened his eyes, discovering Minuette standing at the side of his bed. He sat up, and saw the sun beginning to rise in the horizon.

“Is everything ok?” Minuette asked. “You were groaning in your sleep. You had been better with the dreams for quite some time.”

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” the Doctor replied, slowly getting out of bed. “Today’s the day, isn’t it?”

“We’ve caught up. If what we remember from that day is correct, which I don’t know how we could forget, we have 11 hours until the TARDIS lands. More than enough time to return to the temple.”

“Let’s get some water and be off then,” the Doctor said. It had taken him ten years of debating with himself to determine if he was right, but he couldn’t stand the torment anymore. Remembering Paige’s smile, a smile of joy, and of forgiveness. He couldn’t accept that he had been forgiven, he couldn’t bear her life on his shoulders.

He was going to bring her back.

***

“Doctor, what do you mean we’re getting Paige back?” Jack asked, shocked to hear the Doctor say such a thing.

The Doctor walked quickly, leading the group back to the temple. “The weeping angels, they feed off of time energy,” the Doctor began. “Once, in New York, it became a certainty that Rory Williams would be sent back in time and forced to live out the rest of his life alone. To prevent it, Rory and his wife attempted suicide, creating a paradox that ‘poisoned the well’ if you will, and destroyed almost all the angels, preventing the event from happening.”

“Now at the time, were you sure this was going to work?”

“No,” the Doctor said. “In fact, I didn’t want them to do it.”

When paradoxes solve the problem, you call that luck, not precedence,” Jack said. “I want Paige back too, but you’re putting a lot on the line.”

“I unfortunately have to agree,” Minuette said, catching up to trot along next to the Doctor through the desert sand. “Time has already been damaged by what Chaos has done, and you want to try to throw this into it. You could tear apart this entire universe and Chaos wouldn’t even have to do anything.”

“Hold on, I have this theory about the angels,” the Doctor interrupted. “And I’ve been working on it for ten years, ever since Jack put the thought of New York into my head. Jack, you’re right, paradoxes solving the problem are luck. It rarely works and typically creates more problems. I couldn’t believe it when Amy’s future self managed to save her past self and rewrite her entire life. There have been many more times when a paradox would have been the solution, and it didn’t work, compared to the amount of times it has. But I think the angels are different.

“You see, the New York incident stopped the angels, but I never understood fully how it destroyed them. Sure the time energy they had been feeding on for decades had been poisoned, but to destroy all but one or two of these powerful creatures is something you can’t just brush off. The only way I’ve ever destroyed angels was through no means of my own, I forced them to fall into a crack where they were erased from existence.”

“So what are you saying? What’s different about the angels?” Minuette asked.

“They feed off of time, yes, but a specific type of time. Paradoxes,” the Doctor continued. “We now know that the weeping angels were created by Chaos, which means their power may extend beyond what I’ve thought before. I believe that the angels have the ability to absorb the damage caused by paradoxes, and are themselves causing paradoxes rather than natural changes to the flow of time when they send beings back.”

“But then what destroyed them?” Jack asked.

“The angels are like living paradox machines, if I understand it now. When you counter a paradox they create with another paradox, you’re not only taking away the energy they feed off of, you’re literally ripping time apart from inside them until they implode.”

“Alright, we’ve gotten to the point where anyone but a time lord is unable to follow what the heck you’re talking about,” Jack said. “I’ll believe you that all this craziness you’re saying is true, but Doctor, are you sure it will work?”

“No,” the Doctor said. “But I have to try.”

“Doctor, stop.” Minuette halted the group with the harshness in her voice, and the Doctor turned. She walked up to him, noticing now that he was trembling. “This has been tearing you up, when it shouldn’t,” she continued, placing a hoof on his shoulder. The Doctor shivered at first, but his trembling slowed. “The way Paige smiled at you… over all those years… that wasn’t a smile of hatred, it was a smile of forgiveness,” she told him. “She never blamed you, right from the start. Even her initial sadness wasn’t directed at you. She understood the risks of her journey with you and accepted them. What you’re planning is risky. Maybe it’s best, as much as it pains me to say, to leave things as they are.”

The Doctor calmed himself fully, closing his eyes for a moment. “Doctor, you need to understand something,” Minuette said. “I can’t imagine the pain you’ve accumulated in your life, so many people dying around you, but you have to understand something. You have to understand this or you will destroy yourself, and it will get worse than ever. You are good. You are good, Doctor. Regardless of what happens, your heart is good.”

A long pause followed Minuette’s words. The Doctor looked at Jack, who nodded, silently agreeing with Minuette’s words. A calm wind stirred the sand beneath their hooves, and a single tear rolled down the Doctor’s cheek, and she wiped at it with her hoof. “Minuette, thank you,” the Doctor said. “I feel like those are the most important words that have been said to me. I’ve been focusing so much on what I’ve done wrong, and I’ve been tortured with this for a century.”

Minuette nodded, and the two shared a hug. The Doctor pulled away first, taking a few deep breaths, his mind calming.

Their heads turned as off in the distance, at the bottom of the hill they stood atop, noises of the TARDIS landing reached their ears. The temple stood tall, shining in the evening sunlight, and ponies began to exit the little blue box. The Doctor’s heart tightened when he was able to make out the shape of Paige, 70 years younger than the last time he saw her.

“But look at them, Minuette,” the Doctor said softly. “Unaffected by the torment of a century of waiting to catch up with time. I have to take the chance, Minuette. I have to do it for Paige. Too many times have I been the cause of a companion’s fall. I don’t care what happens to me, I’ve lived long enough to endure pain. But she has a short life, and she deserves another chance. I brought this on her, and I can either stand here and wait for her fate to be sealed again, or I can risk saving her. It’s who I am.”

Minuette didn’t respond at first, but then let out a sigh. “I understand,” she said. “And what we’re about to do is risky, but when is something worth fighting for not?”

“You’ve got me convinced,” Jack said happily. “Let’s go save ourselves. I’ve never met me before. I bet I’m handsome.”

The Doctor laughed, and turned to Minuette. “Of course, I hope I remember some of our time here,” he said. “You have no idea how much it helps to hear a time lord say the things you just said.”

“You needed to hear that, and that’s why I said it,” Minuette replied. “I hope you remember it too. Now let’s make a plan.”

***

The Doctor stood at the entrance to the temple, his mind flashing back to the last time he had stepped in here. The statues that had decorated the outside path were gone, already in pursuit of their past selves.

“We have to assume there are angels all over this temple,” the Doctor said. “There were a lot surrounding us and that may well have not been all of them.”

“What do you think would be the best route?” Minuette asked.

“The ponies that made this temple made basically every pathway lead to our destination. So I say we take any route but our original one. We’ll alert the angels that were following us early on.”

“Agreed.”

The three stepped into the temple, keeping their eyes open and moving quickly. This time they turned down a different hallway, and Minuette activated her magical light.

As before, after traveling a short distance in a trap opened beneath them. This time, however, they were all expecting a pit trap at any given moment, and all managed to land on their feet. Minuette kept her light on, and was grateful she did.

“Everyone, hold still for a moment. And don’t blink.”

Unlike 100 years ago when they fell into another narrow hallway, this time the three travelers had landed in a more open room, with a doorway on either side of them. Lined up on the walls that didn’t have doorways were angels, some looking surprised, others with their fangs already bared.

“Minuette, don’t deactivate your light. Keep looking at the angels on your side, I have this side. Jack, which way does the text go, where do we want to move towards?”

Jack trusted the other two and moved about freely, looking at the walls. “We want to go to your left, Doctor,” Jack said.

“Alright, Jack, direct Minuette and I. Minuette, keep your eyes on them.”

Minuette trembled as Jack carefully voiced instructions for the other two, keeping eye contact with all the angels in the room. They continued to stare at the walls while Jack acted as an extra pair of eyes, just in case. When the three reached the edge of the room, they halted.

“Alright, everyone ready? We have to lose sight of them to go into the hallway. Just back up quickly so that they can’t reach us when they get the chance to move.”

The three prepped themselves, then backed in to the hallway, as quickly as possible. Once all the angels were out of their field of vision, in a flash they appeared at the doorway, blocking the path out in an attempt to get them. Minuette screamed, turning to find more angels behind them.

“Doctor, there’s more of them in this hall!” she shouted.

“Don’t lose sight of them! Everyone, make a triangle. We can get through this. We have to get to our past selves before they’re sent back, we won’t get a second chance.”

The three put their backs to each other, slowly moving forward and rotating their triangle now and again. Everyone fought to keep their eyes open; with angels on every side, there was no chance to blink.

“How close are we?” Jack asked as they continued.

“We should be getting there, we’re following the text and have gone nearly as far as we did in the other hall,” the Doctor replied.

Minuette kept her light strong, and every time angels in the distance fell into darkness, they would reappear, just several steps away. As they moved past angels, they would simply join the hoard trailing after them. Eventually, they began to hear faint voices, which made them hush their voices, not wanting to alert their past selves yet.

“Paige is reading the wall,” Minuette said. “I can hear it. We have to get there quickly.”

“But how do we deal with these angels?” the Doctor asked. “There’s no point in saving them from the angels in the room if before the poisoning of the time stream they created can sink in, these angels following us get to them.”

“Doctor, give me your sonic screwdriver,” Jack said. “I have an idea.”

“What?” the Doctor replied.

“If I can create just the right frequency, I can make this tunnel cave in, block these angels from getting in the room.”

“But you’d have to be underneath what you’re making cave in, you’d-“

“Hey, this whole timeline is about to not exist, right?” Come on, toss it over.”

The Doctor hesitated, but nodded. Without looking down, he used his bare front hoof to slide off his sonic screwdriver, and he kicked it across the floor so Jack could put it on.”

“Now, both of you get running. And Doctor, I’d rather not spend my eternal coming back from the dead trapped under rocks. Please make sure this works.”

With no more angels between them and the hallway, only the ones behind, the Doctor and Minuette gave Jack one last look, then turned, running. Jack activated the sonic screwdriver, which began to issue a high pitched squeal, and the hallway began to crumble.

***

“Chaos created the weeping angels.”

The light Minuette had cast flickered, and suddenly the entire outer perimeter of the room was filled with what looked like statues of pegasi, standing on their hind legs, their front hooves covering their face and their wings stretched out.

“Doctor, what do we do?!” Paige shouted. The Doctor had told her so much about his universe she couldn’t remember it all. She had heard of the weeping angels, but didn’t know how to fight them. She looked around, terrified by the sheer number that had appeared.

“Everyone, stand on different sides of the pedestal!” the Doctor shouted. “Don’t blink, keep looking at them!”

“Doctor, they’re interfering… with my magic…” Minuette’s head drooped, and the light ball in the center of the room flickered again. The angels were now closer, and their hooves no longer covered their face. They were stretched out, reaching for the travelers, their fangs baring.

“There’s too many,” Jack said, backing up against his side of the pedestal. “We’re surrounded, no way out.” He jumped as he felt the ground shake underneath him for a moment. “And now it seems they’re making this temple fall apart just in case we could get away.”

Minuette fought to continue channeling magic to the light, but the angels had some magic of their own, and were fighting just as hard. With more sounds of crumbling and shaking, she lost focus. The light fluctuated again, and the angels closed in, only several feet away.

“Doctor, they’re almost on me!” Paige cried, tears falling from her face as fear filled every portion of her body.

“I’m sorry Paige, but you can’t fly away,” the Doctor said. “If you fly, you have to look away, and then they’ll have you anyways. “Just keep looking, don’t blink!”

“Doctor!” Minuette yelled, her voice filled with pain. “I can’t hold… the light…”

“You have to! Fight their magic with your own, you can do this!”

“They’re… too… strong…” Minuette screamed as the largest tremor yet came. She could now actually hear stone crumbling, and she stumbled. She somehow managed to keep her eyes open as she fell against the pedestal, but her magic was no longer active. She knew that the light would soon shut off, but to her surprise, the room actually got brighter.

The Doctor and Minuette, that is, the ones outside the circle of angels, skidded to a halt, having just barely avoided being caught in the tunnel with Jack. Minuette had spent a hundred years improving her magic, and the angels would not be able to diminish her light this time. “Someone grab the void drive!” she shouted.

“Who’s that?” the Doctor inside the circle of angels shouted. The voice was familiar, but not quite. “Minuette, did you just shout that?”

“No, what’s going on? Who’s out there? Can you help us?” Minuette replied.

“I can if someone grabs the void drive,” the other Minuette said. “Minuette, your magic is good enough at this point to where you can levitate small things. Use your magic and lift it up.”

Minuette didn’t bother to ask how the mare shouting knew her name, or how she had gotten there. She concentrated again, her horn beginning to glow, and the void drive lifted off the pedestal. After a few seconds, the pedestal shook, and sunk into the ground. “I’ve got it!”

The other Minuette concentrated again, and used a spell typically only for higher level unicorns, but she had a century to practice. She teleported from where she had been to inside the circle of angels. Now that she could see all the ponies inside, she could properly perform a group teleport spell. She only had the power to do a short range teleport, but with heavy concentration, all five in the circle of angels teleported to a corner of the room. With the pedestal down in the ground, there was nothing for the angels to look at but each other. They were stuck eternally, with no way to move.

“They can’t move.” The Doctor slowly rose after shaking his head, shocked by the teleport. “We’re safe. But who-“

The Doctor gasped when he turned. Standing in front of him was Minuette, but not the one he knew. Her eyes were older, and her body showed slight signs of aging. “How…”

The Doctor’s eyes caught something else, and suddenly he was looking at himself. An older Doctor, with a look of pain on his face. Gears began to turn in the Doctor’s head, and he realized that what had just happened didn’t originally happen.

“You all need to get out of here, based on the fact that nothing has happened yet, my theory was correct,” the other Doctor said, staring at his past self. “Events created by weeping angels can be altered without creating a paradox. It’s the angels themselves that are creating paradoxes. But there’s about to be a serious energy release from the timeline of the angels being altered. Go. Now.”

By now the rest were looking at the future Doctor and Minuette, in disbelief of what they were seeing.

“Thank you,” the Doctor said. He didn’t know why Jack wasn’t there, but he realized what would have happened to Paige had they been sent back in time far enough. “That was pretty risky wasn’t it? Could have torn apart time and space.”

“I know. But it was worth it.” Both Doctors smiled, and the future Doctor glanced at Paige, a tear coming to his eye from seeing her so young again. “It’s good to see you, Paige,” he said softly, grinning.

“Well, this has been great, but neither of you are going to exist in a bit and this temple is also about to receive an energy surge. Should we get out of here?” Jack said.

“Yes,” both Doctors said, which caused them to laugh.

Minuette looked at her future self, who looked back. “Impressive magic,” she said, the others beginning to run off.

“You can get there with practice,” the other Minuette replied. “There’s something you need to know. Someday, there may come a time when the Doctor needs to hear these words. He won’t remember that I’ve told him. Say this only when it needs to be said.”

Minuette whispered in to her past self’s ear, then both nodded. Paige called out for Minuette, and she turned, running to catch up.

Now all that were left in the room were the angels, the future Minuette, and the future Doctor. Both sat, and the Doctor sighed. “Thank you for helping and agreeing to my plan. There are still risks to come in the path to defeat Chaos, but maybe Paige will have a chance to live the life of her choice, not the one she gets stuck with.”

“I’ll miss not remembering the past century,” Minuette replied. “Nice to get my life back, but at the same time… after the time war, everything on Gallifrey… It was nice to relax, the only two time lords left in the universe, living out our lives in a little house in the desert.”

“Indeed,” the Doctor said. “Well, the time is about to arrive. Our timeline no longer exists, so I bid you farewell Minuette. We’ll see each other back on the TARDIS, but for now, we just wait for-“

Before the Doctor could finish his sentence, the two disappeared. The angels began to tremble, and time energy spilled out. Within moments, the room collapsed, along with many more halls and chambers.

***

The four travelers panted as they reached the outside once more. The statues they had seen on the way in were now gone, inside somewhere. They had found a path up after tracing their steps all the way back to where they had fallen through the floor. Eventually hallways led them out, and now they were safe. They walked to the TARDIS, getting inside and taking a moment to breath.

“I wonder how far back we were sent in to the past when it happened before,” Jack said, curious.

“We’ll never know, but let’s not dwell on it,” the Doctor replied. “Is everyone alright? Paige, are you ok?”

Paige smiled when the Doctor turned to her. “I’m a bit shaken up, but I’ll be fine,” she told him. “That was, however, the scariest thing we’ve ever done.”

The Doctor gave Paige a quick hug. He didn’t have to, but he saw the look in the other Doctor’s eyes when he looked at Paige. His future self gave him a second chance, and he would do everything he could to keep Paige safe.

Meanwhile, Minuette had been messing with controls on the TARDIS, continuing to levitate the void drive. Before setting it down anywhere she needed to have a proper receptor for it; the technology was too unstable to just let it sit around. After a few more seconds, the large hollow cylinder in the center of the consol slid downwards, opening up the inside. She rose the sphere up to the top, then deactivated her magic. The TARDIS machinery got a hold of the drive, and it rose up until it was out of sight. The hollow cylinder closed once again. “The TARDIS should now be able to fly into the void. We can take all the data we’ve gotten from going after events caused by Chaos in his path to charge power and find him. We can also go back and forth between universes.”

The other three joined Minuette at the consol, all just staring at it. “I don’t like how often the possible destruction of all existence was mentioned in these prophecies,” the Doctor said. “But we can do this. One last fight to stop Chaos, and save everything.”

A long pause made the room silent for a moment. “I’m ready,” Paige spoke up, turning to face the Doctor.

“Me too,” Jack added, doing the same.

“You’re right Doctor, we can do this. Let’s stop him before it’s too late. All of creation is at stake.” After Minuette spoke, all four were looking at each other, nodding at the confidence and trust between them.

“Then we haven’t got a moment to lose,” the Doctor said. “Let’s go.”