Derpy stared down at the broken mess of gears and glass, biting her lip and hoping her slightly skewed vision was making the situation look worse than it actually was. She leaned down, peering at the thing more closely.
No, it was indeed as bad as it looked. Worse, actually.
She swallowed. The thing at her hooves was a watch. Or, at least, it had been a watch. It was the kind that one wore around one’s foreleg, rather than the kind one kept in one’s pockets like the engineers down at the train station were always checking.
The glass covering had been obliterated, the sword-like hands were bent and scattered, the spring had popped out and uncoiled, the gears were spilling out like the innards of a smashed pumpkin, and the black dial had been cracked in half.
“Oh no,” she whispered. “Oh no, oh gosh, oh jeez, oh no no no no no!”
Derpy was used to apologizing for mistakes, slip-ups, misunderstandings, and the occasional outright screw-up. This, on the other hoof, was a disaster that really took the muffin.
She looked around frantically for a dustpan or something else she could use to pick up the shattered remains of the watch. She stood in the middle of her friend Doctor Hooves’s laboratory. It was littered with scientific gadgets, bizarre inventions, and half-finished projects that probably would be brilliant, revolutionary creations that could shake the very foundations of society once they stopped exploding. She was always in awe of Doc’s inventiveness and did her best to listen to his occasionally rambling explanations, though most of the time she was less interested in the theories behind them and more impressed with simply watching them work.
When they worked, that is. At least he had the best of intentions, and Derpy of all ponies could appreciate good intentions, especially in the face of unexpected, disastrous outcomes.
Such as the one she was facing right now.
The point was, though, that all this clutter made it much harder to find an ordinary, everyday dustpan. A quick look through some of the shelves and compartments resulted in her getting buried under a pile of metal and wires, nearly electrocuted, and finally blasted across the room.
“Ugh,” she groaned, rubbing her aching head as she unsteadily got to her hooves. She licked her hoof and used it to extinguish the still-smoking tip of her mane. “M-maybe I should just fly home and find my own dustpan instead.”
The whole thing had started when Doc had come to her door a few nights ago, his tie hastily tied and his messy mane even messier than usual. She’d greeted him with a smile and tried to stifle a giggle at the sight of a cowlick that continually sprang up as he tried to smooth it down.
“Ah, so glad I caught you at home, my friend!” he’d exclaimed. “I’ve been called on a matter of some importance in Trottingham.”
Her skewed eyes widened. “In Trottingham? What is it?” she’d asked.
“It’s a rather large city in Equestria where I was born, but that’s not important right now!” he’d babbled. “You see, I’ve been asked to take care of a, ah, thing. Well, more like two things. Well, more like two things and a chimera… which itself is several more things, by my count.”
Derpy chuckled. “Okay, Doc!” she said. “I’d be glad to help! What can I do? Ooh, are you asking me to go on an epic adventure to stop the chimera from eating the world’s muffins as part of some nefarious plot?!”
“What? Oh, no, sorry,” he said hastily. “I just wanted you to watch my laboratory for a few days. Keep an eye on things, make sure nothing looks like it’s about to explode or catch on fire, watch for sudden tears in reality… oh, and if somepony with a goatee or a prissy dress and a nasty attitude shows up, don’t tell them I live there.”
Derpy shrugged but gave him a nod. “Okey-dokey, Doc! You can count on me!”
He thanked her with a sigh of relief and a smile that made her heart melt, and then he was off on another mad dash to face whatever it was that awaited him in Trottingham.
And so she’d gone to his place, somewhat thrilled at the idea of being alone in his house and getting to take a more leisurely look around. It was then that she discovered that Doctor Hooves was even messier than she’d first suspected.
“Oh my gosh!” she exclaimed, wrinkling her muzzle as she peeked into Doc’s bedroom, and seeing it in such a state of disarray that she’d missed the bed at first glance. “Well, this place could really use a mare’s touch!”
And so she’d taken her house-sitting duties to the next level, picking up a few things, placing books back on shelves, mopping a few floors, and doing some light dusting and laundry.
It was when she looked under Doc’s bed that she noticed a wooden box. Upon pulling it out, she saw that it contained a dozen watches of varying sizes and colors. Some were plain, some were polished and golden, some were on rubber straps, and some were on metal. Thrilled with her discovery, she saw that most of them had stopped. If the Doc was away for a few days, he’d need to wind them all when he got back, so she took it on herself to wind them up and reset them herself.
She dusted off the box and looked closely at their names: Jaeger-LeColt, Audemare Piguet, Oneighga, Blancpone, IWC Shaffhorsen, Patek Fillype… she had never really heard of them, but they sounded quite fancy, so she resolved to treat them with the utmost care and delicacy.
Doc’s going to be so impressed when he gets back! she thought to herself with a grin as she picked up the box and swiftly flew them to the main lab, intending to sync them all to Doc’s grandfather clock.
He’ll see the lab clean, his room clean, and all his watches running on time! He’ll be so happy and ask me to help out even more! She chuckled at the thought.
Doing all this stuff for him, it’s almost like I’m his wife or something!
She froze at that, her cheeks turning red as she suddenly set down on the floor of the lab. And then she’d continued sliding.
And that’s when she remembered that she’d been mopping earlier and the floor was still wet.
“W-whoa!” she’d cried, stumbling forward, the box of watches clattering on the floor and sending the timepieces within scattering.
“Oh no no no!” she’d exclaimed, scrambling to pick them up. Luckily, they all seemed unharmed, not a single one scratched, but the last one had slid just a bit further and ended up under a workbench. She’d reached under it, digging blindly with her hoof, and pulled it out with satisfaction.
Only to see that she’d also managed to dig out a large, hairy spider that scrambled up her foreleg.
She shrieked, flapping her wings and flailing about before crashing into a shelf, dropping the watch and causing the overloaded shelf to teeter on its legs and finally come crashing down on her and the watch alike, bringing all the heavy instruments and devices with it.
When she’d finally managed to free herself and clear the debris, she’d found the watch under a large metal orb of some kind.
And the rest, as they say, was history. She just hoped the watch wasn’t.
“Oh, one of Doctor Hooves’s watches?” the jeweler pony said as she’d accepted the small box Derpy had presented her with. “We service his watches all the time! I’m sure we can help you fix OH SWEET CELESTIA!”
Derpy winced. “That bad?” she asked.
The jeweler pony stared at the broken watch in open-mouthed awe. She could safely say that this was the most broken she’d ever seen a watch in years. The last time she’d seen a watch this badly broken, it had been in a house fire… and that house had collapsed.
“W-well… it’s pretty bad, all right,” the jeweler replied, trying to soften her tone. “But maybe we can get some replacement parts. The case is still intact, the strap is cloth, so that’s fine… let’s take a look…”
She leaned in close, peering through a magnifying eyepiece.
She froze, a choked gasp escaping her throat. She slowly stood up and stared back at Derpy.
“Miss… this is a Ponex Submare-iner.”
Derpy blinked and tilted her head to the side. “Okay?”
The jeweler sighed. “Ponex watches are very expensive.”
Derpy gulped. “W-well, I want to take responsibility for this. S-so, if it’s a few hundred bits—”
The jeweler held up a hoof. “Let me stop you there,” she said. “A Submare-iner costs thousands of bits. Even the parts do.”
Derpy blanched.
“And this is no ordinary one,” she continued. “It’s a limited kind given to members of Equestria’s royal guard and agencies. They only made around 1,200 of ‘em, and that was years ago. This is a genuine Military Submare-iner: a Milsub. My stars, you’re lucky if you ever even see one in person. Why, some collectors will pay over one hundred and fifty thousand bits for—”
Derpy didn’t hear the rest, as, at that point, she’d simply fainted.
“So, that’s the whole story, Doc,” Derpy whispered, head downcast, unable to meet his eyes.
Doctor Hooves was holding the remnants of his watch. He’d come home and simply gushed about how clean and tidy the lab was, babbling about how he was almost sorry that it would just get messy again after his experiments continued, but then he’d finally noticed how utterly dejected Derpy looked.
And she’d given over the watch, lip trembling as he’d stared at his most valuable watch in abject horror.
“I… I know that you’re really upset,” Derpy stammered. “B-but I want you to know that I’ll do my best to replace it! E-even if it takes me the rest of my life, I swear I’ll pay it back! I always take responsibility for when I break stuff! But I… I understand if you’re mad at me, if you hate me, or if you never want me to come over again…”
She sniffled, feeling her eyes fill with tears.
“I j-just want you to know,” she managed to say between stifled sobs, “th-that I’m s-so sorry, Doc! I just don’t know what went wrong! I know I always say that, but I want you to know that—”
Suddenly a pair of forelegs were around her, holding her and smoothing down her mane gently.
“Oh, come now,” Doc said quietly. “No need to talk like that. It’s all right, really.”
Derpy blushed, squirming awkwardly in his embrace. “But… you aren’t mad?”
“Well… I suppose I am upset,” he said with a sigh, letting her go as he took a step back. “But this watch… well, I used to do some work for the Royal Guard. I made some inventions for them. Secret, specialized things that I… well, I’m afraid they’re classified, but the point is that I was proud of the work I did for them.”
He took hold of his broken watch and heaved a sigh.
“It was an important part of my life, but I’ve left it behind me. No, the days of the ‘War Doctor’ are over, my friend. Truth be told, I never really wore this watch anymore. It was just a memento, a keepsake… and I never intended to sell it, despite its value. So, in that respect, I don’t suppose that it matters that it’s broken.”
Derpy bit her lip. “But still, I feel like I owe you something, Doc!”
Doc grinned. “My dear, you know I love your company,” he said, causing her blush to deepen, “and I would rather have that than any watch or other compensation. But, if you truly want to compensate me…”
He took the watch over to his workbench and took out a set of tools. “...You’ll help me put it back together while I regale you of my time in Trottingham. Even if this watch never keeps time again, I’ll gladly value having it nonetheless.”
Derpy grinned. “Of course! I’d be glad to!”
And so the pair of them went to work, chatting into the evening, losing track of time, but gaining something far greater.
Author's Note
This story touches slightly on a more recent hobby of mine, watch collecting, and the watch mentioned here is real. The Rolex Military Submariner was produced for the British Special Forces in the 1970s; it was modified from the original version to be as legible and practical as possible for military divers. It was not made for civilian use and only around 180 of the original 1200 remain, which is why it is so prized by collectors (one sold in 2018 for $188,000).
For those wondering, my headcanon backstory for Doctor Hooves is that he worked for the same monster-hunting organization that Bon Bon worked for and was given this watch as a retirement present. I was originally going to include a scene where Derpy went to Bon Bon to ask for her watch to replace the Doc's, but I felt the scene distracted from the story's core theme and didn't really add much to the story overall.
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the story! Please leave a comment or feel free to ask a question if you have one. Thank you all for reading! 
