10 Moonlit Sonata

"I have directions... a recipe as it were, from Zecora, that will allow me to harvest some of the moon's power. Much like solar power can run... Oh, never mind" Beta finished a little sharply. But he could see the Doctor understood.

"You are a little harsh on their tech base here, Doctor" Beta gently chided. "If you look at what she has me doing, it's actually quite brilliant." Beta said almost offhandedly, as he read the recipe for that night's brew.

"Next you're going to tell me friendship truly is magic" the Doctor started but Beta cut him off.

"Yes... Yes it is Doctor. How you feel for Derpy... what it could drive you to do. What my feelings for the ponies I've befriended... or rather have befriended me. That's magical Doctor. Anything that can change how we act without us even considering it... that's magical. Love... " Beta paused, thinking over the myriad of ancient love poems. The story of the Iliad, the Odyssey, Romeo and Juliet, Persephone and Hades... "Yes Doctor... Love is a miracle. It can drive one to wage war, to heights never before thought of, a mother to lift a tree to save her child... one to harness the power of the vortex..." that brought the Doctor up short...

'My previous life...' The Doctor thought, before it was gone, like a puff of smoke on a summer's night. Just... gone. Vapor in the breeze.

"I choose to believe that friendship IS magic, Doctor." Beta continued, as he started to prepare the ingredients for the potion in the Doctor and Derpy's kitchen. He noticed things were a little haphazardly placed... until Beta screwed up his eyes like Derpy's, which hurt a great deal, THEN... the kitchen actually made sense.

'Huh... so that's how she sees the world. how... different.' Beta mused, and nodded in appreciation. Derpy was far more clever than anyone gave her credit for.

"Derpy, you really do have a unique way of looking at the world" Beta commented. This caused Derpy to smile very broadly, happy that SOMEONE could appreciate her... unique eye sight.

"Um... would you like some help Mister Beta?" Derpy offered. "I'm actually pretty good in the kitchen..." noticing the Doctor's half reaction "YES Doctor... with KNIVES..." Beta couldn't hold back a snigger at their domestic bickering. He found it... refreshing.

"Actually... yes my dear, you are in fact rather good in the kitchen" The Doctor said 'and a couple other places around the house' he didn't say. Beta could read his long equine face however and sniggered, breaking into a barking laugh, unable to contain himself. Then he caught himself... he was happy. He was genuinely happy to be around these people... er... ponies.

Beta and Derpy worked for the next couple hours, preparing the recipe. The Doctor watching and making snide comments about mumbo jumbo. Happily talking between the three of them.

Apple Berry stopped by about an hour before it was time for Beta to take the cauldron, the ingredients, and begin the ritual to the glen Zecora described. She had brought some apples and assorted groceries she hadn't been able to sell that day and gave them to the Hooves, as her customary thing to do.

"Oh NO!" Derpy exclaimed "My job! I have to go. I forgot that I'm on duty for the evening post today!" and with that she was off, kissing the Doctor on the cheek as she left.

"Will she get in trouble?" Apple Berry asked, walking to Beta to give him half a pomegranate, blushing. Reaching for the fruit half absent mindedly, Beta paused before he bit into it, and began to blush very red himself, the air leaving his lungs with shock, like air leaving an airlock in space. He was totally speechless. The seeming significance of this offering wasn't lost on Beta in the slightest. He slowly, with a trembling paw, put the piece down, shock coloring his face.

"I... I..." he shook his head slowly as to not offend Apple Berry "I... not now... not... here..." he apologized and busied himself with preparing his night's task of capturing the moon's power... so that he could live another day or two.

"What was that about?" Apple Berry asked, looking at the Doctor, who had been watching the entire scene quietly. He looked up at Apple Berry. 'So young still... how refreshing to see she is still ignorant on some things.'

"I um... I think he thought you were... um..." the Doctor blushed a little realizing what this next sentence could do... then for once decided to be quiet. "Oh, I'm sure he just doesn't care for pomegranates, is all" The Doctor lied. 'He thought you were proposing to him' He couldn't bring himself to say... because that would mean that he had just rejected his first proposal from Apple Berry. And based on how SHE smelled...

'He doesn't know...' The Doctor finally put together. 'What she thinks happened, and what Beta DOESN'T know happened... ' The Doctor went up to Beta and tried something. "Beta?"

"Yeah?" Beta replied, turning to look at the Doctor. And he went rigid. He knew what was happening... and damned if he was going to allow it. Beta then looked the Doctor back in the eyes with murderous determination, black slowly creeping into them.

The Doctor looked around. He was human again. He had his trench coat on. He looked and saw the lab where Beta was kept, where he was grown, trained, brutalized, sent on to missions from, healed, and... "Ahhhh here it is" The Doctor said to himself. A flash of Dobsin and the cruel scientists. His father at the back looking on with sadness and pity.

The Doctor then felt something on his shoulder. "Impossible" but then he turned. and faced a very angry, 6 foot tall furry. His eyes were completely black.

"Of course. That's part of why they couldn't use those neck plugy things on you" The Doctor said, trying not to show concern. "They are a kind of psychic invasion thing...ie... but of course that uses..." he rambled for a moment

"GET...OUT!" The tall furry growled. Yet this wasn't the Beta The Doctor came to know. This was... someone else. The part of him that was untouched by the world. The inner self.

"How?" The Doctor wondered

"Do you think Father left me unprotected?!" The furry growled, and an image of Professor Naspha passed around them throughout Beta's life.

"He gave me PROTECTION! Against psychic attacks" The furry growled loudly.

"Of course... the... 'mistake'" The Doctor said. The furry nodded.

"What you don't understand Doctor... is that you are no longer a proper Time Lord. What little psychic powers you have are shadows, echoes of your former glory. What you don't realize is that you are in MY WORLD NOW!" and with that, the furry disappeared, the world went white and all of a sudden, they were in the Doctor's mind.

“Aaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!!!” The Doctor howled in pain. Beta opened his eyes, they were blacker than midnight. He spoke in a primal,growling, almost otherworldly voice.

“No one is allowed in my mind. NO ONE!”. Beta said in a deep, dangerous whisper.

"Now you!" Beta said both inside their minds and outside, as Beta began pushing back psychically. Beta and The Doctor saw a blue police box... elsewhere in the nebulous jumble of thoughts was a pony in a cage kicking against bars of a simple cage, howling for his "Dee Dee".

‘Who is that? Beta thought. ‘is that the original pony this body belonged to? The Doctor took over his body?!’

“Noooooo!!!!” the Doctor howled in misery as he reached for the image of the blue box before it vanished from his mind.

“I am no threat, but I am NOT to be fucked with chrononaught!” A moment later the black gone. Beta dropped to his knees while tears welled and spilled over and down his maw, soaking his furr.

“Th-the drain ....” he looked at the Doctor, who was recovering from the psychic rebuke, eyeing Beta differently now.

“I'm sorry" the Doctor said. "I... I didn't realize how abused you've been. I'll never press you like that again. I promise.”

“They took away my... my" Beta fumbled but couldn't think of another word... "humanity!” Beta wailed.  “I can never be normal! I can never....” he paused, and noticed Apple Berry next to him, holding onto him for dear life. She was willing him to 'be better'... willing her love into him. She wanted him to feel how much she cared for him. It was enough to stop him, and return him to his senses.

“You can, here.” The Doctor said. “Well... more normal than where you came from.”  Beta looked up, tears still in his eyes

“I just want a home, Doctor.” Beta said weakly, as a child who has just been rebuked might say, half weeping, begging his mother for forgiveness.

“That may take you a while to do, my young furry friend. But I sense you will find it here. “ The Doctor said consolingly. And looked pointedly at Apple Berry, who was still holding on to Beta as if he might slip away into the abyss any moment. Beta was beginning to wonder what pony he should be chasing.

"What about you, Doctor?." Beta asked, pulling himself together.

"I'm... this is my home now. This was my reward." he said in a mix of sadness, gratitude and bitterness. "Save the universe.... again, die... again. Come here, I suppose. I would have ceased to exist otherwise. It's just... I've lost knowledge I used to have. Skills that are no longer there. I'm... stuck. I'll have a normalish life here. Then..." he let out a heavy sigh. "I just don't know."

"Then you die like every man... pony does. Old, surrounded by family and friends. Able to spend eternity with your beloved Derpy" Beta said, not coldly, but honesty, almost optimistically.

"Anyway, we'll get you up there" The Doctor said, rapidly changing topics, pointing heaven ward with a hoof. Beta smiled in gratitude. He wanted to give Rainbow Dash a happy surprise. He missed the dark, mildly depressed look that crossed Apple Berry's face that seemed to say 'but... you're mine... aren't you?'

"However," the Doctor said with all the warmth of a cold winter shower. "You still need to learn how to fly."

"Are you going to show me?" Beta asked with an air of the blind leading the blind.

"Oh goodness no. Derpy will!" The Doctor said with a wide, manic grin.

"Um... Doc... are you sure about this?" Beta's confidence in the Doctor's sanity suddenly dove faster than his stomach.

Laughing loudly, the Doctor reassured. "Um... Derpy has her own special way of teaching. I've known her since she was a foal. Actually we're something of foalhood friends. I didn't get my... other memories back until a few years ago. You can trust her even if it doesn't immediately make sense." he finished with an air of unvented frustrations.

'He truly cares for her' Beta realized and smiled. 'His eternal reward... happiness and love. Not a bad prize. I hope he sees it as that, though.'

"Um... when should I start my flying lessons?" Beta asked with a little trepidation in his voice.

"Tomorrow, after you get your moo moo juice." The Doctor taunted. "You should get your suit and come back here as early as you can manage."

Derpy was different from Fluttershy, Beta pondered, as he and Apple Berry walked to the clearing. Fluttershy only had self esteem issues. Derpy seemed to have deeper issues that made Fluttershy seem outward and popular in contrast. It was clear the Doctor had faith in her so Beta would as well.

"Why ah you goin up ta Cloudsdale?" Apple Berry asked in her sweet accent, giving words to what she had been thinking for some time. 'Didn't the other night mean anythin to ya?' she wondered sadly 'it's like ya dohn even remember it'

Beta blushed, realizing that was probably not something he should go into detail with Apple Berry... though even he was starting to wonder why... 'would it be worth endangering a relationship with Apple Berry' Beta began to wonder.

"Because they say I can't" he said finally as they began to place the items in the clearing. The fire was set, the cauldron was boiling and the ingredients were being fed into it. Once they finished, Beta looked up to the full moon, then down into it's reflection in the cauldron and recited the prayer.

"Oh, my sweet goddess Luna. Please share but a tiny drop of your power with me so that I may live yet another day, spreading the word of your love and watchful eye over your children as they sleep."

Seeing his need, she did. She saw the pony next to him, looked into her heart and dreams, and nodded her favor this time. This mare may just be what he truly needs. So she gave her a tiny blessing as well.

In the morning, Beta collected about two bottles of "well... it is... Moon Juice" He said sheepishly.