Changing Time

When I woke up, John was gone. I assumed he went to another room, but something told me I should go look for him. I went into one of the hallways, and it was the longest hallway I had ever seen!!! On my left was a brown, metal door, and the surrounding wall was covered in circles.

"Well I usually see colorful circles when changing into John," I thought out loud, "maybe that's his room!" I opened the door.

I found a bed, wood cabinets with three containers, the top two tables stuff and more stuff. The bottom one had nothing on it, in the corner I saw a toy metal pony with a winder in its back, and some paper on the walls with the decorative circles I saw in his head, but each one different. This HAD to be John's room, I couldn't guess what else it would be. the whole room was grey, and metal. It had brown carpeting on the floor.

"Well, John isn't here, better check the next room." I thought out loud, I then saw a blue door that wasn't there before, however, when I went to open it I found it was locked. I decided to go back to the main room to wait for John or Doc.

Once I entered the main room I saw Doc standing there.

"Oh hi Doc!" I said, happy to see him.

"Hi, do you know where John is?" Doc asked. I just remembered why I left my spot.

"I thought he might be in another room, or maybe even out with you." I explained.

"Is he not?" Doc asked.

"Not that I've seen, but you know your way around here and I've only been in one room." I laughed.

"A little question, is your time machine missing?" Doc asked me.

"Of course not! It's right over, WHERE IS MY TIME MACHINE?!" I was shocked to see that the edge that once held my time machine, was empty.

"Then we know where is is. He should be fine, it's only a time machine, and he knows the rules of time travel." Doc said in what sounded to be a bit of a relieved tone. I was about to ask what he was talking about, when John fell on top of my still sore body. He was crying, hugging me, and muffling something into my back, and a bit damaged, but no bleeding. All I could do, aside from moan from the pain, was think to myself. What had he done??

When I finally managed to get a couple words out, they were, "John....please get off of me." I said, still moaning and starting to cry from my own pain. John got off but was still hugging and crying into me. "What...happened??" I managed to ask him still hurting a lot. He just hugged me tighter and talked into me. It was too muffled for me to understand him, "What happened John??" I asked again, using my free hoof to rub my head. He just kept on sobbing and hugging me. I knew I wasn't getting anything out of him this way, so I looked up at Doc, "Help....me." I muttered.

"I don't know how, but obviously it has something to do with you and your time machine." Doc said, "He hasn't done this before."

I face hoofed myself, "No, I mean get him off please." I said, getting annoyed at his hugging causing me so much pain.

"Oh, well I can try." Doc said, then he pulled out a shot and it knocked out John. That gave Doc enough time to pull John off of me. I moaned from the pain, relieved that it was over. I felt guilty, however, from having Doc take John away when he was obviously upset. After a minute of me moaning and John knocked out, I heard John whimper and say my name. He then went on to say something that scared me a little.

"Not Candy..." He moaned, while starting to cry again. I shuddered, what had John seen??

"If you want Candy I can take him to his room." Doc offered.

"No...I think he's fine out here with me." I said.

"I'm sorry..." John mumbled, still crying, and still asleep.

"Actually...I think he needs to be out here with me." I said, curling up next to him on the floor.

After about an hour, I woke up to John starting to wake up next to me. I had fallen asleep myself, hugging him. I wasn't as sore as before, but something told me I'd be getting into a world of hugs and pain soon.

"John, you awake?" I asked him.

"Candy!! You're alive!!!" John exclaimed as he hugged me tightly and cried into me. I was shuddering, and John noticed. "The dreams...were real." John said.

"What...did you see??" I asked.

"Your nightmares, with the masked one, they were real, but not real. You died, I saw you die so many times." John said. I thought for a second, but then it hit me.

"You....saw me in the rainbow factory.....didn't you." I said, shuddering even more. I remembered exactly what happened that night, how I had to leave behind every pony there except for Starburst in order to escape. It was horrible.

"Separate timelines! They were multiple timelines! In some of them I killed you. In some of them you died. It was terrible! Please, don't use that thing again!" John sobbed into me.

"John...listen to me," I tried holding back tears from the awful memories, but it was a fight I was losing, "all of the timelines you saw, weren't even close to what I experienced for real...but I made it out." I sighed, knowing what I had to do to show John why I was having those nightmares. I grabbed John's hoof, and before he could stop me, entered the date and location, and pressed the button.

We appeared in one of the empty offices on the top floor of the factory, luckily I had installed a cloaking device on my machine, so no pony could see nor hear us unless we took off the cloaking feature.

"Candy, that thing is a timeline jumper, not a time machine, that's why when you tried to stop my injuries nothing changed! Please, take us back home." John pleaded. I was puzzled, but when I opened my mouth to say something, I heard a commotion from the main area. I went over to the window, and I instantly knew it was the right timeline.

"John, look." I pointed out the window, and after John came over, he saw it all happen. I was in Sunburst's form, next to Starburst and a guard. When the guard looked towards the kid who was in the machine, I looked around and changed into a different guard. I then gave Starburst a potion that allowed her to change into a guard temporarily, and after she drank it she changed into another guard. By the time we reached the window Starburst's potion had worn off, and a guard flew up to us as quickly as possible. We made it out just in time, and the guard went back to work.

"This is what I agreed to help?" John said after watching it all unfold.

"In my dream...yes." I started to cry after pressing the button and returning us to the tardis.

"Not just in the dream, multiple versions of me agreed to this." John said. I was so upset after seeing that horrible memory that I didn't even hear John. I hugged John tightly as I sobbed into him.

"Candy, I need you to stay here." John said. All I did was hug him tighter, before he teleported out of the room.