The Pinkie Parallel

by SpaceCommie

Rating: everyone
Tags: Twilight Sparkle, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Alternate Universe, Original Character, Spike, Derpy Hooves, Pinkie Pie, Slice of Life
Length: 3070

Derpy Hooves is still trying to figure out just what happened to Pinkie Pie after the mess with the duplicates, because she wants to meet a friend. But when that friend is somewhere inside Pinkie's head, things are going to get complicated.

You don't have to read Paradox to enjoy this story, but it would be helpful.

Uh, hi, I guess. I’m Ditzy. You can call me Derpy though, it’s fine.

I guess I kinda got the idea for this thing—diary? Is this a diary? Anyways, I got the idea when my friend Pinkie Pie dropped off that book to my hospital room. Oh, I was in the hospital for a while. I probably should have mentioned that. I don’t remember a ton of it though, ‘cause I kinda got knocked out. Anyways, l'm trying to figure all of this stuff out.

Diane Pie, I'm going to find out what happened to you.

Published 2014-06-26 07:50:01 UTC
Last updated 2014-07-17 23:52:53 UTC

Different Different

Uh, hi, I guess. I’m Ditzy. You can call me Derpy though, it’s fine.

I guess I kinda got the idea for this thing—diary? Is this a diary? Anyways, I got the idea when my friend Pinkie Pie dropped off this book to my hospital room. Oh, I was in the hospital for a while. Probably should have mentioned that. I don’t remember a ton of it though, ‘cause I kinda got knocked out.

Let’s back all the way up.

~~When I was a filly, I wanted to be an astronaut.~~

Okay, not that far. Remember when Pinkie made a bunch of ~~duplecats~~ ~~dupilcates~~ copies of herself? They kind of ran me over on their way into town, and I didn’t wake up for a few months. Don’t worry though! I’m fine. The doctors said I could go home a few days ago, and all I have to do is get checked up every week for them to make sure there’s nothing wrong. No big deal.

Dinky’s been a trooper through all of this. I couldn’t be prouder of her.

But I guess it’s time to get to the point of this... thing. I’m just gonna call it a words-thing for now. Wait, that sounds silly. Letter. Let’s go with letter. I dunno if this will ever be read by somepony that isn’t me, but I guess...

I’m writing this letter because I’m confused. And not my normal “Oh, right, that’s not a mailbox” confused. Something really weird happened a while ago, and I’m not really sure what and who was involved.

Let me try this again? Thanks. Alright. So Pinkie gave me a... I guess you could call it a letter. I’d be lying if I said I understood it all, but the general... thing is that during all the craziness with the duplicates (Did I get it right this time? I got it right!), Twilight and the rest of them apparently got the wrong Pinkie. Or, well, one of the duplicates. She wasn’t really like the rest of them though. She was really scared of being found out, ran away to Manehatten, got brought back, and then...

Give me a second, would you?

Um. This is gonna sound stupid, but I swear it’s what happened. The duplicate turned out to not be a duplicate after all, if that makes any sense. She was Pinkie, she just didn’t really... remember it.

Sigh. Yeah, it sounded stupid. Anyways...

Things got sort of complicated when Twilight figured out that she was Pinkie. Because she couldn’t be herself and Pinkie at the same time. They had to... pick. And she decided to be Pinkie. So she’s gone now. She did it for me. I don't know why, but she cared about me. She cared enough to let Pinkie come back.

Her name was Diane. And Diane Pie, I’m going to find out what happened to you.

Love,

“I mean, it’s not like I don’t feel fine or anything—I feel great!—I just feel different, you know? It’s like there’s always something at the back of my mind that I’m just not getting,” Pinkie Pie said.

Twilight rubbed her eyes and looked curiously up at her. “Pinkie, why are you on my ceiling?”

“Oh, that,” Pinkie said, as if it were the most natural thing in the world for her to be suspended from the library’s ceiling by what appeared to be plungers attached to each of her hooves.

“Well, I wanted to see what rooms looked like upside down, and this seemed like the funnest option, and I was trying it out at Sugarcube Corner, but then Mr. Cake came down and started yelling at me. Something about it being three o’clock in the morning and me wandering around the building with plungers on my hooves, and it being a wonder that he hadn’t gone completely insane by this point. So... I decided to come see my bestest friend in the whole wide world! Well, not that Applejack and Rarity and Rainbow Dash and...”

Twilight was, at this point, searching frantically for something to stop Pinkie’s train of thought, which had ran off the rails and careened into realms yet unknown by ponykind. The only thing within easy reach was a copy of Starswirl’s Metaphysics. She paused for a moment, weighing the options. There was only one, really. Sacrifices had to be made, and besides, it was only a paperback. She hurriedly shoved it into Pinkie’s mouth.

Pinkie mumbled something about Rainbow Dash’s cloud house, and extracted Metaphysics. “Yes, Twilight?” she said politely, a wide grin on her face.

“You feel different?” Twilight asked carefully.

“Yeah.”

“Good different or bad different?”

Pinkie shrugged. “Different different. Kind of... I dunno.”

“Do you want to come down and talk about it?”

“Sure,” Pinkie said and with four popping noises and a graceful mid-air flip, landed on the floor.

“So when did you start... feeling different?” Twilight asked carefully.

"About two weeks ago, around when I threw that party for Derpy.”

I like Pinkie. She's really nice to everypony and makes ponies happy and smells pretty good...

Um. Anyways. It's just that she can be kind of hard to talk to. I wanted to find out what happened to you, so when she threw the "Hooray for Derpy Not Being A Vegetable Anymore Party" a couple of weeks ago, I tried to talk to her.

I'm not so good with remembering stuff like conversations, but it went something like this.

"Hi Pinkie!" I said. My voice was a little muffled because I was eating a muffin.

Heh. Muffle. Muffin. Anyways...

Anyways, she did her normal bouncy happy thing and turned towards me. “Hiya, Derpy! What’s up?”

“Um,” I said, “you remember that diary you gave me?”

“Yuppers! What about it?”

I’m not going to lie, I had no clue where to go from there. “Uh, could you maybe tell me more about that?"

"Hmm," she said, looking weirdly thoughtful. "Lemme see... red cloth binding, well-used, missing a page, and judging from the thickness and paper, about a hundred pages, most of them unused."

I blinked. "Um. What?"

"You asked me about the diary, silly!"

I did my best to glare at her, but, well. You know. "I was talking about what was in the diary."

"Oh, that. I think Twilight said it was important. You know how she is about this kinda stuff. Always so serious!"

Pinkie looked—not agitated, surely, but she was staring with an uncomfortable intensity... somewhere behind Twilight’s head, as if she had just realized that the 430s shelf was an unpleasant acquaintance from high school who she needed to figure out a way of avoiding, and fast.

Twilight didn’t like the idea of her upset over this. But it seemed like there weren’t any better words. The words of a hundred test prep books echoed in Twilight’s ears: Your first guess is most likely to be correct.

“Pinkie?” Twilight asked. “Are you okay?”

The intensity faded, and it was just Pinkie in front of her—as smiling and inscrutable as always. “Yup! What’s up, Twily?”

“You were going to say something about the party you threw for Derpy,” Twilight said, searching her face. What just happened here?

Pinkie took a second to respond. “Oh, right, that. Eh, It’s probably nothing. Sorry to bother you, Twilight!” She jumped up, and was back on the ceiling, somehow.

“Wait, but I thought you were...” Twilight said, but she was already gone. Twilight sighed.

I headed to the library. I mean, sometimes you can find Twilight if you hide in random bushes and leap out at the right moment, but that’s not a great idea. Trust me. I mean, not that I was trying to find Twilight that time, but...

I should probably stay on topic. I did end up going to the library, so that happened. I walked in and announced that I wanted to see Twilight. I got more than a couple glares. Oops. Spike walked over to me, hands on his hips. “Come on, Derpy. You know you’re supposed to be quiet in the library.”

“Sorry,” I said.

He waved it off. "That's okay, I know you didn't mean to. What's up?"

"I want to see Twilight."

"I can sign for a package," Spike said. "Well, sorta. Forging Twi's signature is pretty easy."

Something about that seemed sort of weird to me. "Isn't she a princess now?" I asked.

Spike scratched the back of his head. "Well, yeah."

"So you could, uh..."

He pressed a finger to his lips. "Say nothing and I'll make sure you're rewarded."

I chuckled nervously. "Um, you're kidding, right?"

"Course. So what do ya want Twi for anyways?"

"I want to talk to her," I said. "About Pinkie. Sort of."

"Sort of?" He raised an eyebrow. "What do you know about what happened to Pinkie?"

"Um." I started looking through my pack, and pulled out your diary with my mouth. "A lot." I offered him the diary.

He took it, but only held onto it by one corner while he wiped it off. "To Derpy," he read out loud. "So this was hers?"

I nodded.

"You mind if I read it?" Spike asked.

I shrugged. "Go ahead."

"Thanks. So anyways, Twilight's in Canterlot, doing princess stuff. You wanna come up and talk?"

"About what?"

Spike looked at me very seriously. "Diane."

"It's weird to miss her, right?" Spike said. He was pacing around the room. I looked at the window. There were heavy iron bars over it.

"What was this room used for?" I asked.

He stopped pacing. "Oh, this? This was where we kept her.”

"Oh," I said. "Right." That must have been terrible for you, Diane... I wonder what it's like in Pinkie's head now.

Now that I think about it, a lot of ponies probably wonder what it’s like inside Pinkie’s head. But still. Do you have your own little room in there somewhere?

"Yeah, so... I mean, heck, you probably know her better than I do with that diary. Are you sure you don't mind me reading it, Derpy?" Spike asked.

"I don't," I said. "I mean, it's not like it's mine. And besides, you were her friend, right?"

"Sort of, I guess. But can you answer my question?"

I had completely forgotten about it. It bothers me when I do that, it really does. You probably don't want to hear about that though. I told Spike I forgot what he asked.

"Never mind. It's not important," he muttered.

"I want to know," I said.

"I wondered," he said, "whether it's weird that I miss her."

I thought about that for a little bit. "Why would it be?"

Spike sighed and dragged a hand across his face. "To start with, I barely knew her. We talked when I brought her food sometimes, but it's not like we were close."

I didn't say anything about that. He tried to meet my gaze, but well, you know. "I don't even know her," I said. "If you're weird, I am too."

He looked kind of funnily at me. "Sure, Derpy. Anyways, uh, what do you want to know?"

I shrugged. "Oh heck, I dunno. What did she look like?”

“Like Pinkie, I guess.”

I should have figured, huh? “It’s weird,” I said. “She doesn’t... sound like her.”

Spike chuckled, but didn’t smile. “Heh. I’d ask which pronoun was which, but...”

“It doesn’t matter which one is which,” I said.

His mouth opened for a second. “That too, I guess. But yeah, you’re right. Don’t get me wrong, I love Pinkie, but she can be a little...”

“Bouncy,” I finished.

“That’s a good way to put it. Bouncing from one thing to another, all the time.”

“Bouncing past, sometimes,” I said.

“She doesn’t mean anything by it.”

“I know,” I said. “And I mean, you know how she helped me out when—” I stopped talking.

Spike nodded. “Vaguely.”

“I was really down, and Pinkie—well, picked me up. You know what she does."

"Right."

"And then she was just, um... Pinkie. again. 'Hi, Derpy!' It’s like nothing had ever happened. She saw what was wrong, fixed it, and it’s over. You know?” I said.

Spike looked kind of unsure for a second, but he nodded. “So. You want to help Diane.”

“Yeah,” I said quietly.

“But she’s inside Pinkie’s head, if she’s anywhere.”

“Right.”

“And obviously we care a lot about Pinkie and don’t want her to get hurt.”

“Yes.”

“So getting her to hit her head on the ceiling of Rarity’s boutique again isn’t really a good idea.”

“Uh. Probably not,” I said.

Spike paused a second. “Twilight’s got a bunch of books about psychology and stuff like that. We could probably look through those. I just finished reshelving everything, so Twilight will probably be happy with me for like a week and a half before she gets antsy about which section the Daring Do books should be in.”

I was confused, and said so.

“Don’t ask. At least not about the Daring Do thing, Twilight’s still working through that. But yeah. Psychology. I’ll try to figure something out.”

“Can I help?” I asked.

Spike blinked a couple times. “Uh... I dunno. I mean, you can come over and try if you want, but...”

I sighed. Of course he didn’t think I could help. Why did I think he would? “Okay. Bye, Spike.”

“Oh. Okay. Bye, Derpy!” he said.

That Smile

Dear Diane,

I've gotten used to the tests by now. The ones during my checkups, I mean.

I have one every Tuesday. Nurse Redheart usually does them. She says that once a week is more than normal, but she wants to be extra careful because I got hurt.

I'm okay with that.

Ponyville isn't really that big a town, so there's this nice cozy feel to the hospital. Miss Redheart sometimes calls it a glorified clinic, which I don't really get.

Anyway, I sit down on one of those weird cushy things you find in examination rooms and wait for Nurse Redheart to come in. There are a couple of hoofpaintings on the wall. They look like something Dinky would have done a few years ago when she was little. Or littler, anyways. Though it feels like she grew up a lot when I was ~~unconcious~~ unconscious. That makes me a little sad.

One of them says "THANK YOU MS REDHEART" in big blue letters. There's a red smear in the middle of the paper. I guess it's supposed to be a heart.

Nurse Redheart comes in. Her uniform is white and perfect just like it always is. And her smile is like that too.

It's a real smile. I've gotten good at telling when somepony means a smile.

And when they don't.

But she means it, and says, "How is my number one patient today?"

I bet she says that to all her patients, but I don't mind, because I know she means it when she says it to me (and Dinky, when I bring her in for her checkup every six months).

"I'm good, Miss Redheart," I say.

There's another thing I like about Miss Redheart. When she’s talking to me, she looks at my eyes.

I mean, not like the way ponies do when I’m talking to them for the first time, when they’re trying to figure out what’s wrong with me.

I hate that.

Miss Redheart, though, she watches my eyes like she does with anyone else. I feel normal. It feels good.

She asks me if I’ve been feeling alright.

“I’m okay,” I say.

She says that’s good. “I noticed you looking at my paintings.”

I nod, up and down and up and down. “They’re very nice,” I say, because I want to be polite and she must like them if they have them hung up in here. “Maybe I’ll make you one,” I say. It’s a joke, I know hoofpainting is for foals.

But she doesn’t laugh, she just smiles at me.I don’t like that smile. It’s that polite smile ponies use when they want to make sure they don’t hurt my feelings.

I know what that smile means, even if nopony ever thinks that I do. It means they think I’m being dumb.

But Nurse Redheart is a nice mare, so I don’t get mad or anything. I wouldn’t say anything even if I did. I never say anything.

So I smile back and don’t tell her I was making a joke. I don’t really know if she would believe me if I did.

“Can you tell me where you are, Ditzy?” she asks.

Of course I do, but it’s part of the tests, so I say, “The hospital, in Ponyville, in Equestria.” I think maybe I can make up for the hoofpainting thing, so I add, “In the world.”

She writes something down on her clipboard and says, “Very good, Derpy,” but she always says that, so I don’t think it worked.

“Can you tell me what time it is?” she asks.

I know how this part goes, so I say that it’s 12:15 on a Tuesday and then say the date. “Very good, Ditzy,” and then she writes something down again.

She tells me to spell “clock” backwards.

It takes me a couple seconds, but I figure it out and spell it—K, C, O, L, C.

Then she asks me to repeat some random words, then waits a couple minutes and tells me to repeat them again.

I forget two or three of them, but Miss Redheart says that’s okay.

There’s a bunch of other tests, but they’re all just as easy and you don’t need to hear about them.

When I finish, Nurse Redheart tells me my recovery is going very well. She’s said that for a few weeks now.

So then she asks me how Dinky’s doing.

I say she’s been doing good, especially at school. You met Dinky, right Diane? She’s smart. Not like me. She does really well in school. I’m proud of her.

Ponies say that she gets that from her dad, which I guess is good, because she doesn’t get a lot else from him anymore.

And then I leave, since I have to go to the post office and sort mail. I like sorting mail. I think I’m pretty good at it.