Hearth's Warming and The Doctor
T'was the night before Hearth's Warming, when all through Equestria, not a pony was stirring, not even a zebra.
"A zebra?" quizzed the Doctor. "You have zebras here, too?" the chocolate-coloured time-traveller looked puzzled. There were still many things he hadn't learned in his short time in Ponyville.
"Of course, silly." chirped Derpy. "She's called Zecora."
The Doctor's expression remained unchanged. "...and she's a zebra?"
Derpy giggled.
"So, what is Hearth's Warming, anyway?" enquired the Doctor.
The cute, grey mare smiled, "It's where we celebrate the time Equestria was founded."
"Oh. So, how do you celebrate it?"
"We spend time with our family and friends, giving each other gifts and celebrating love and harmony."
The Doctor's smile grew three sizes. "Like an Equestrian Christmas" he chuckled to himself.
There was a moment of peaceful silence between the Doctor and his bright-eyed companion. The ambient noise from the TARDIS hummed quietly in the background.
"Was there a particular Chr- uh, Hearth's Warming that you enjoyed the most?" The Doctor grinned, slyly. Derpy caught on to what he was suggesting immediately. Her eyes lit up.
"Oh, yes, there was!" She squeed. A thought passed her mind at that point. "but, Doctor; wouldn't two of me in the same place cause some kind of paradox?"
The Doctor produced a key from his pocket. It was on a necklace. He trotted over to Derpy and placed it around her neck. "I've crossed my timeline with a companion before. It almost destroyed an entire civilisation."
"The humans?"
The Doctor nodded.
"Doctor. Will I ever get the chance to meet a human?"
He stepped back from the cute mare and looked her deep in her eyes.
"If I could go there, I'd take you in an instant, but I still haven't figured out how I regenerated like this, and the TARDIS refuses to land anywhere other than Equestria, but I'll take you to Earth one day; I promise."
The blond-haired mare frowned.
"That can wait for another day, though." continued the Doctor. "Today, we're going back in time to Hearth's Warming!" he chimed, gleefully dancing around the TARDIS' console. "How long ago was it?"
Derpy thought long and hard about it. "From the day I left Ponyville with you, I'd say it was about 60 moons ago"
"60 moons! Right! Here we go!" the Doctor frantically pushed and pulled levers, fiddled switches and twisted knobs. The TARDIS began to whir. With a crash, clatter and a bang, the room jerked about, causing Derpy to lose her hoofing. She stumbled about trying to find her balance. The Doctor continued dashing around the console, and with a heave of a lever, everything stopped.
The Doctor turned to Derpy with an excited smile "Hearth's Warming Eve, 60 moons ago" he pointed to the TARDIS doors.
Derpy pushed open the doors slowly with her head. It was bitter. The sky was dark and it was snowing. The Doctor caught up to her and placed a scarf around her neck. The scarf was a little worn and tattered, and was reminiscent of the kind of things worn by disco-loving ponies when her grand-father was young.
A snowflake landed on Derpy's nose. She could almost see the beautifully unique pattern before it melted into a tiny droplet of water. She looked up at the endless sea of tiny white flakes falling from the sky. It was the middle of the night, but the reflection of the moonlight on the white snow made it so bright it almost looked like day, and the warmth of the scarf and the Doctor's body hugging her gently made the coldness seemingly disappear.
"So, where are we going, Derpy?" asked the Doctor.
Derpy trotted off ahead, leaving the Doctor to follow closely behind. The crunching snow underneath their hooves was the only sound to be heard. Everypony was asleep, or tucked up warm in their homes about to go to sleep.
The grey mare approached her own house, but stopped just short of looking through one of the windows.
"Doctor, are you sure this won't cause a paradox?"
The Doctor shook his head. "As long as you don't interact with yourself, you'll be fine. The key around your neck acts like a kind of cloaking device. It doesn't stop anypony from seeing you, but it just makes you..." he paused, taking another key from his pony pocket, and placing it around his neck.
"Woah." exclaimed a startled Derpy Hooves. "I can tell you're there, but it's like I don't want to know you're there. Weird!"
The Doctor grinned. "Eeyup. It's a perception filter, linked to the Chameleon Circuit of the TARDIS."
"Chame.. um?" Derpy looked confused.
"Chameleon Circuit. Whenever the TARDIS moves location, the Chameleon Circuit detects the immediate surroundings and selects an appropriate camouflage. Like if we went to the Arctic North, it might camouflage itself as an igloo. Or if we were in a forest, it could disguise itself as a tree."
Derpy obviously got what the Doctor was saying, but that didn't remove the puzzled look from her face. "So... why is your's always a blue box?"
"The Chameleon Circuit broke one time when I visited London in the 1960s. It became a Police Box and got stuck like that. Although, I have noticed it decided to call itself a "Pony Box" ever since I landed in Equestria"
"Can't you fix it?"
"Well, yeah, but... I like it like this. Don't you?"
Derpy's attention was suddenly grabbed by movement she saw on the other side of the window. Decorations lined the house, the fire burned brightly from the fireplace, and in the middle of the room was a gorgeous little purple unicorn. She was taken aback when she realised she was watching herself and her family in her own living room.
"Dinky" whispered Derpy; a tear falling from her eye.
The Doctor realised why she chose to come back here. He approached her, and embraced her lovingly. "We'll find her one day, Derpy. I promise." Derpy collapsed, sobbing. The Doctor knelt down in the snow with her, trying to console her. "If I have to search every corner of the universe for her, I will. If I have to tear down the very fabric of existance to reunite you with your daughter, Derpy, I swear to you, I will. If it takes me my whole life, it'd be worth it just so you can be with her again." Derpy grabbed the Doctor and pulled him in for an overly squeezy hug.
Ahem! "Hello?" a tall, grey stallion called out. Derpy and the Doctor turned around and immediately shot up from the ground.
A purple unicorn with a scruffy blonde mane was stood next to the myserious stallion. He stood tall with his grey coat, black mane, deep blue eyes and sporting a navy blue bow tie. Both ponies shared the same hourglass cutie mark. "Mom?" The purple unicorn began to tear up, whilst Derpy looked on, baffled.
"It's me, mom. Your daughter, Dinky..."
Derpy was stunned. This beautiful young mare stood much taller than the pint-sized filly she saw just moments ago by the warm glow of the welcoming Hearth's Warming fire. Her daughter's lip was quivering, awaiting a response, whilst her bright-eyed mother took a minute to let the reality of the moment sink in.
And just like that, a wave of emotion flooded Derpy's eyes. Tears rolled down her face as she galloped over to embrace the daughter she was now reunited with. Despite this, she couldn't quite escape the fact that there seemed to be something different about her. "I missed you so much! I thought you were gone forever! How long has it been for you?"
"I'm not sure. It must have been about a year or so. It's quite hard to tell when you've been time-travelling." Dinky hugged her mom with all her strength. "I've been searching for you for so long. I thought I'd never see you again. I narrowly escaped the Daleks with a little help from the Doctor."
Derpy looked confused "Daleks?"
The strange, bow-tied stallion stepped forward "Um, yes, the Daleks. About 10 years after I arrived here in Equestria, I discovered the Daleks had been... 'observing' for a while. They took a keen interest in the magic your species posseses. Dinky, being a unicorn like her dad, was of particular interest to them. They had her and a number of other ponies in stasis until I intervened."
Dinky interrupted "He got shot trying to save me. I thought he was going to die until he told me about how he could regenerate."
Derpy looked on, confused, and slightly horrified.
The strange stallion continued to explain, "I'm the Doctor, Derpy. I'm him from the future." The grey stallion pointed a hoof at the Doctor. In turn, the Doctor turned to Derpy and nodded in agreement with the statement. "When a Time Lord dies, he doesn't just die: he regenerates. We cure our bodies, but it sort of re-writes us. The old version of us dies, but our memories live. In fact, I sort of remember being here, because up until this point, I wasn't sure whether I'd actually regenerate in this form."
"So you're both the same person?"
Both Doctors nodded. The future Doctor began to look a little concerned "Unfortunately, though, I've stayed here long enough. If I stay here much longer, bad things will start to happen - paradox and whatnot - so I have to go. Enjoy Hearth's Warming." and, just as quickly as he'd appeared, he was gone, trotting off into the starlight.
Dinky and Derpy snuggled into each other as they watched the roaring fire from the other side of the window. For a moment, the three of them shared the calm and the quiet: mother and daughter reunited, just in time for Hearth's Warming.
Author's Note
I originally wrote this at 4am on Christmas morning, 2012. It intertwines with a much bigger Doctor Whooves project I've been working on (on and off) since that time.
It was originally posted to the MLPLounge on Reddit. The ending has been edited heavily as I felt it was weak, and focussed too much on the Doctor rather than Derpy/Dinky.
