Author's Notes:

Further ruminations on identity.

And then that stops.

So. That was that.

Twilight took a while coming back and when she did it was pretty obvious - even to me! Emotionally barren lump of gristle that I am - that she had been crying.

“You alright there, Twilight?” I’d asked.

“F-fine!” She’d sniffled.

She’d forgotten to bring any water, too. Kind of a shame but worse things have happened.

There wasn’t anything else we had to do and so there wasn’t any compelling reason to continue hanging around the hospital. So we didn’t. I changed and we left, Twilight moping and subdued the whole way back.

Kind of felt like I was letting the side down also not being morose about recent events, but I couldn’t help it. The weight of it still didn’t strike me as especially real, and it was difficult to concentrate and really get stuck in when many of the ponies I’d taken to waving to were now waving at me first, forcing me by iron chains of politeness to wave back.

Made it a bit hard to focus. So I didn’t bother.

We made our shellshocked way back to the castle in dour silence. When we arrived the doors closed behind us with a kind of sepulchral finality that just seemed to be over egging it, if anyone felt like asking me. Which they didn’t.

Spike just strolling in kind of took the wind out of the moment though, for which I was grateful.

“Hey guys. Where’d you go?” He asked.

“Hospital,” Twilight said, thickly. This raised more questions and I could tell Spike was going to ask them, so I headed him off at the pass.

“Went to see a man about a dog. And another man about a machine to look inside my head to check what was up,” I said.

“Oh yeah. How’d that go?” He asked. Guess he’d known about that happening ahead of time, then. Figures.

“Could have gone better,” I said, filling in the void when Twilight didn’t immediately answer.

She then dashed off and already I could hear the sniffles starting up again. Spike and I watched her go.

“What’s up with Twilight?” He asked. I shrugged.

“Tough day, I guess.”

Kind of odd when someone is sadder about something that concerns you than you are, but we’re all different, I suppose. All precious and unique flowerchildren. Not really my place telling people how they should be feeling about stuff, is it? Especially given that I barely seemed to feel anything at all.

“Should we go after her or something?” Spike asked, scratching his head.

“Probably not. Probably best she have some space. Oh, hey, how’d your by-genre organising go?”

Seamless! Lord of the subject change! Perfect and flawless like an AI!

Surprisingly, it actually worked.

“Not great. The system was a bit too clunky. I got to sit down and come up with something more elegant,” he said seriously, frowning.

“That going to take all day, you reckon?”

“Probably. Maybe two.”

I was very close to suggesting to Spike that maybe he needed a hobby before remembering that this was his hobby, and that I was in no position to judge. Whatever works for you, son.

“I’ll leave you to that, then. I need a lie down.”

“Sure, sure…” Spike said, running his talons down his chin, deep in thought as he padded off. Evidently I’d sparked something in him. Well, good for Spike. I wished him the very best in his endeavours.

Turning, I headed in the opposite direction and wandered. Wandering was good. Gave your body something to do while the mind could idle. Lying down could happen later, right now: wandering. And wandering with a specific purpose.

A cup of tea would really hit the spot, and I was fairly confident that making one was within my capabilities. Just had to find one of those many kitchens. So that was why I was wandering.

Eventually, I was rewarded. I discovered the more modest dining room and kitchen combo we’d eaten breakfast in the other day. This I could work with.

No teabags, just loose tea, and all in boxes with gibberish on them. Probably should have seen that coming. Still, no matter - I could nose out proper tea without a huge effort and there was a strainer in a drawer so it hardly mattered. No power in the verse can stop me.

Much to my delight there was a kettle, as I’d been fearing some magical water-boiling apparatus or what have you. though it was one of those pop-it-on-the-hob type ones. Very old-school. When it whistled I clapped.

Pouring out and stirring I took a steamy faceful. So to speak.

Fuck knew where the milk was. Some magic fridge somewhere? Some larder on a cool marble slab? I didn’t know and I didn’t have the energy to find out. Black tea it was. Like a barbarian.

Once all that had been done and I’d given my level best of tidying up after myself I set the cup down to cool and sat on a pony-sized chair and then started worrying again.

Kind of a big deal, this stuff.

Stuck forever! My past more-or-less shrouded in mystery! My very identity composed of whatever scraps survived the trip here! My leg forever gammy! Hand forever trembling!

Not great, on the face of things. The rattle of the teaspoon against the side of the cup as I’d been stirring had been particularly sobering.

So why was I finding it so very hard to care?

I fear tomorrow I’ll be crying. Or screaming. Or something between those. Shock works like that, doesn’t it? Numb at first and then a hit later? It could be that. But I didn’t really feel numb, I thought, it was just that where there should have been some sort of turmoil there wasn’t anything. Just perplexity.

And the feeling that I should have been feeling something else. Some kind of odd feedback-loop going on there.

Maybe I really was just storing up some kind of horrendous delayed reaction, but it didn’t feel like it. My connection to home and whoever I’d been back there was so loose that having it cut barely stung at all. Was that normal? I didn’t know.

And this place wasn’t so bad.

Sure, this or that thing stuck out to me as odd, but on the whole it made sense. Down was down, water was wet, I inexplicably spoke the language - life was pretty good. A world that can be explained even with bad reasons is a familiar one, right?

I tried the tea but it was still a little hot for my tastes.

Just have to keep going, keep making the best of things. Would just sit around moping otherwise and be miserable, and it’s better to be alive and laughing at the inexplicable than alive and moping at things that don’t make sense, surely?

So what if none of it made sense and I probably wasn’t meant to be here? The struggle towards the heights is enough to fill my heart, isn’t it? Each atom and flake of the stone on its way up its own story?

I can at least imagine myself happy.

This was getting too deep.

I could - and was obviously trying to - ruminate on the hand I’d been dealt until I was blue in the face, but it wouldn’t help me. I knew this, but it couldn’t stop my mental train from carrying on along its merry way. It’s like telling someone to relax.

What I needed was to not be on my own.

Taking the tea and Applejack’s handy-dandy farm-tool walking stick thing which was my near-constant companion I got up and went to bother Twilight. I knew where she slept now! There was no escape!

Doing my best Black Rod impression on Twilight’s door I stood back and waited for a response.

“I just need a m-minute, Spike!” Came a muffled voice.

“It ain’t Spike.”

Spike was balls-deep in organisation, but she didn’t need to know the details.

A pause, then the door opened, and there was Twilight looking up at me. More crying from her. How did she have enough moisture in her tiny little body?

“John?”

You know, I really had meant the John Doe thing as a joke and - at the time - just something to get Rainbow off my back. Was definitely stuck with it now. Maybe eventually it’d stop feeling so weird to hear.

“Yes, it’s me. Hi,” I said.

“What are you doing here? I thought you’d be…” She said, before realising she hadn’t thought that far ahead.

“I felt like some company. Thought you might appreciate some too. I can bugger off if you’d prefer?”

Her eyes widened at the risk of appearing insensitive and she quickly stood aside, throwing the door open wider.

“No, no, come in.”

I did and made a beeline for Twilight’s bed again, given that it was about the only thing in the room that looked good for sitting on. Other than the chair at the desk. Or the other chair in the corner. Those were probably there for decoration anyway. It’s bed-sitting for me!

There were a lot of tissues strewn about across the duvet. They bounced as I sat, the bed creaking again. I should probably be a little mindful of my weight. This world wasn’t built with me in mind.

“Someone dying?” I asked, waving a hand to indicate the emotional debris as she trotted on over and hopped up beside me.

“You don’t have to make jokes about this,” she said, wiping a foreleg across her face.

I kind of did. It’s how the wiring worked. I held up a finger so as to better proclaim:

“Laugh and the world laughs with you, cry and you cry alone. Well, not really because I’m here with you right now and you’ve been crying but, uh, well you get it.”

That didn’t work the way I’d meant it to.

“It’s not even about me! It’s about you! You should be sad and I should be there for you!” She said.

She had a point. But this was the way things were. Ponies, I had a feeling, were a soft bunch.

“There there,” I said, petting her as she broke out into another minor bout of the sniffles.

“It’s just so s-sad!”

She flopped forward into my lap and I stopped petting as it kind of felt a little weird to keep doing it with her there. Instead I gave her a single pat. For support.

“Guess it’s pretty sad,”I conceded.

Wriggling, she rolled over onto her back, hooves in the air, head still on my lip and bottom lip trembling.

Why didn’t she just shoot me? It’d be quicker.

“I couldn’t even imagine never seeing home again,” she said.

I swallowed, thought, and gave her a nervous grin.

“Yeah, but, that’s because you can remember home. The closest I’ve come to a proper memory of home was telling Celestia about a Monday, and even that was pretty light on detail. As far as I know I could have just imagined the whole thing, pulled it out from somewhere else in my head. How would I know?”

“You must miss it though. Even with just that you must miss it.”

I thought some more. Couldn’t really deny it. Something was there when I poked at it. Just couldn’t work out what or what I should do with it.

“Well, yeah. I just can’t really tell you why.”

“And I - we - we can’t even help you! We might hurt you more.”

She was telling me things I already knew, but that was fine. Sometimes you just need to vent, and that’s fine. I’m a big lad, I can be a good sounding board.

“Things could always be worse,” I said, more as a way of showing I Was listening than to actually put forth an opinion.

“Doesn’t mean they’re not bad. Doesn’t mean you can’t be unhappy about it.”

In my book being unhappy would have got me nowhere. In my book it was fine for other people to get hung over things because, hey, their things were probably more serious. As long as I was keeping going I had little reason to complain. In my book. But whose book was that, exactly? Book of John!

Urgh, easily the weakest.

A hoof coming to rest on my chest snapped me out of that peculiarly theological tangent and got me to look down. There I found Twilight looking up, big, slightly-red-from-crying eyes meeting mine.

“You know you can take all the time you need, right?” She said.

I gave the hoof a pat and then her hair a ruffle.

“I know and that’s very kind of you, but if I sit around on my tod for much longer I may well crawl so far up my own arse on some philosophical tangent they’ll never be able to coax me back out again. Have to wiggle me out with a pencil or something, and even then it’d be dicey.”

“Graphic,” Twilight said, sticking out her tongue and wrinkling her muzzle.

“But true. And so here I am, with you, my rock of sanity.”

That got her blushing, which instantly made everything considerably better.

I tried the tea. The tea was now cold. Oh well.

“How about some lunch?”

A capital idea, it was mutually agreed. I continued sitting on the bed while Twilight popped into an ensuite to freshen herself up and then we were off.

“You know you’re remarkably calm about this whole thing. Are you sure you’re okay?” She asked as we walked, peering up at me uncertainly.

“You’re not the first person to call me that. Maybe I’m just a calm person. I mean, it doesn’t matter if we turn to dust, Twilight. Turn and turn and turn we must.”

This foxed her. Foxed me, too.

“That some sort of...human...proverb?” She asked, brows knotting.

“I’m not sure,” I said, thinking about what the hell I’d just said and getting so, so close to remembering what it was. But not close enough. “I don’t know.”

We’d taken a shortcut - of sorts - through one of the castle’s many, many redundant function halls and while it looked about as empty and about as useless as any of the others had looked to me something gave me pause.

The hairs on the back of my neck stood up.

“There’s a certain tension in the air, or is that my imagination?”

We both stopped and listened. All was quiet and still but yet there did seem to be something. Some hint, some suggestion, something just out of reach...

“Surprise!” Pinkie yelled, appearing from the aether in a blaze of confetti as streamers and banners unfurled from places too impossible for them to have fitted into.

“Fuck!” I yelled, falling over backwards.