Rainbow Dash hid herself, poorly, in a small gathering of puffy clouds floating lazily above Sweet Apple Acres. She hadn’t hid here before, or before, so she thought she would be safe from herself. She was wrong.

Rainbow Dash crashed directly into Rainbow Dash, and as they tumbled across the surface of a cloud she put her hoof over the other mare’s mouth and made a shushing gesture.

“GAH! What the hay are you DOING here? We aren’t supposed to bump into each other because of the space time whatever!” one dash whispered somewhat loudly to the other.

“Usually no, but if I already did run into myself before, then I need to run into myself so that I’ll have been run into by myself! I think. Whatever, you know how stupid this is getting. It’s fine this time. When I was hiding here, I ran into me and I told me what I’m telling you now. You can’t talk to Applejack.”

“Huh? But why? Don’t I need to set her up for me to… uh… kiss? So she won’t freak out?”

“No, because you didn’t! You can’t set yourself up for something that you didn’t set yourself up for! You didn’t talk to her earlier and she wasn’t ready. You can’t go back and change that now. Everything that we’re doing has already been done. I stopped you from setting it up because I stopped me from setting it up!”

“So that means I have to go back to the future, to go back to the past to be you to stop me?”

“Yeah! At least I’m pretty sure… yeah that sounds right. Twilight’s started planning this all so each of us only does one thing. For every trip back, we hide until we’re needed, do whatever we’ve gotta do, and then hide until we can go back. She says this way there’s less chance for us to screw up.”

“What, she doesn’t think we can do this? Who made her mayor of time travel town?”

“I KNOW, right? As long as we understand what we’re doing, we’re just as capable as she is! And that’s not even the worst part! She’s not telling any of us the whole truth. Didn’t she tell you to come back here and see Applejack? Even though you can’t, because you didn’t? Why bother sending you to do it and me to stop you instead of just not sending either of us?”

“As much as I don’t like not knowing what’s going on, we probably should listen to Twilight. She’s the smartest pony we know. I trust her.”

“But it’s almost like SHE doesn’t trust US!”

Rainbow Dash landed softly next to Rainbow Dash and Rainbow Dash. The newest arrival of the multicolored multiples opened her mouth. “There you two are. Come on, we need to go find me. Er, you. Um… the one that hasn’t done any time travel yet!” Both of the conversing ponies faces contorted in confusion.

“What?”

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Twilight Sparkle sat alone… she glanced around anxiously… ALONE, for now. There were currently no rainbow maned pegusai impeding her progress. If time travel was simple enough that she could figure it out so quickly, then why was it so hard? What other combinations of magic and speed could there be? She had already run the numbers for hundreds of possibilities, but none of them turned up positive. There just didn’t seem to be any way to harness enough energy to manipulate the flow of time. But she couldn’t give up. She literally COULDN’T give up, because she already hadn’t. She had figured it out and sent Rainbow Dash back in time. She had to finish this so she could close the loop. There were a lot of smaller issues dealing with individual Dashes and Applejack’s feelings, but none of those mattered at all if she couldn’t send anypony back in time.

There was a knock at the door. Twilight did not try to hide the her exasperation at being interrupted - again. Upon opening the door, she was not surprised to see Rainbow Dash. Again.

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Applejack lay alone in her bed, trying desperately to fall asleep – hoping to wake up tomorrow and put this nonsense behind her. Even if she could have fallen asleep, there was no way she’d be able to forget a day like today. When that stupid, brash, STUPID, gorgeous mare had ruined half her farm, she was angry. She knew she’d get over it eventually. When Dash showed up again later and blurted out a confession of love, she was felt a deep confusion accompanied by a small warmth. All her worries and fears about whether or not the other mare felt the same feelings she did had melted away, knowing that she had just been having a difficult time admitting to the truth. Everything was going to be okay. No, better than okay. Everything was going to turn out amazing.

But that confusion turned back into a wave of anger and buried the warmth. Rainbow Dash came back. She came back and tried to pretend the confession hadn’t happened. Hadn’t meant anything. That there was nothing between the two mares and there wasn’t going to be. Applejack didn’t understand why.

Applejack didn't understand, and it hurt.