For Every Answered Prayer

by LunaUsesCaps

Rating: teen
Tags: Sad, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Rainbow Dash, Slice of Life
Length: 12189

After another stunt gone wrong, Rainbow finds herself cooped up in a hospital room again. But when she ends up getting roomed with a nine-year-old colt, her stay at Ponyville General takes a turn she could have never seen coming.

After another stunt gone wrong, Rainbow finds herself cooped up in a hospital room again. But when she ends up getting roomed with a nine-year-old colt, her stay at Ponyville General takes a turn that's worth just a little more than reading a book about an archaeologist.

Published 2013-07-26 20:30:03 UTC
Last updated 2013-07-26 20:30:03 UTC

There's Not Enough Miracles to Go Around, Kid

Dear Twilight,

As you probably already know by now, I broke my wing. Again.

Rainbow Dash grinned, looking up at her doctor from her position on the gurney. “So, Doctor Stable, do I at least get an ‘A’ for radicalness?” she asked with wide eyes as she smiled up at him sheepishly. She was moving down to another hospital wing with Doctor Stable and two orderlies in tow, pushing her gurney along as they went.

Stable shot Rainbow a glance as they continued walking. “First of all, Miss Dash, radicalness—if that is even a word at all—starts with an ‘R’, not an ‘A’,” he criticized, fixing his gaze down to consider his chart further. “Secondly, you’ve managed yourself a Grade-B closed fracture. If you keep this up the way you’re going, you can forget another week here; soon enough you won’t be able to fly at all.”

“There’s no ‘A’ in ‘effort’ either,” Rainbow challenged, smirking. “But everyone’s okay with saying that.”

“We aren’t here to argue about proverbs, you know,” Stable pointed out. “I worry about you sometimes. You’re going to really hurt yourself one of these days, and there won’t be anything I can do to save you.”

“I’ll be alright, Doc,” Rainbow whispered, looking up at the moving ceiling as she rested her head back against the pillow. “I’ll be alright.”

For a while they carried on, the orderlies occasionally stopping to utter a half-hearted apology to somepony in their way as they took wide turns around the corners in the hospital. Rainbow Dash took note of every wing she passed: coronary unit, neurological, geriatric, maternity. The hospital was truly bigger on the inside than it was on the outside. With so many staff members and patients, Rainbow couldn’t help but wonder if the entire town was inside here waiting. It seemed almost surreal that this many ponies even lived in Ponyville, let alone be sick. It made her shiver, but only a little. Although it was only to calm herself, she settled on the rationalization that Ponyville General took in more patients from around Equestria than just where she lived. That made enough sense. Right?

The walk seemed to stretch on for hours, and Rainbow was getting more anxious by the minute. The hairs of her coat stood on end as she shuffled under her blankets, unable to find a comfortable position. Her eyes darted around, looking back and forth between bedrooms and odd-looking machines that were being operated silently by ponies in dark green scrubs. She glanced at every medical device there was; however, she never took the time to grasp what she was actually looking at before trying to fixate on something else. Frustrated, she closed her eyes and counted to herself. It wasn’t of much help.

Noticing her behavior, Doctor Stable placed a hoof on Rainbow’s shoulder. The contact alone calmed her, and she managed to take her mind off of the fact that she had been sweating for the past few minutes. “Rainbow Dash, I’m going to give you something to help you relax. Is that alright?”

No, it wasn’t alright. Rainbow Danger Dash was the strongest, coolest, most mentally-stable pony you’d ever meet. There was no way she was going to accept anything to make herself feel better, she was already at one hundred ten percent. Nothing made Rainbow Dash nervous, not even this. Not even hospitals. She could deal with anything on her own. There wasn’t any possibility of her agreeing. Awesome ponies aren’t scared of anything. Awesome ponies are completely chill. Awesome ponies don’t need drugs.

Rainbow nodded weakly. “Y-yeah, that would be cool, I guess...” she said softly. “Thanks.”

I guess I got banged up pretty bad this time, because they want to keep me in here for a while. I hope you and the girls come visit soon. That would be awesome.

Okay, I don’t really know why I’m writing you this. I just... I just trust you a little bit more than myself here. I think Princess Celestia would really like to hear what I have to say, but I don’t know how to write it to her myself, and I was hoping you could turn this into some kind of friendship report to her or whatever. It’s kind of lame, I know. I don’t get it either. I could just write it to the princess, but for some reason I really wanted you to hear it first. I’m sorry.

I swear Twilight, If you tell Applejack I said any of this, I’m going to punch you so hard your horn falls off.

Rainbow Dash tensed up as the syringe shot into her aching deltoid, announcing its presence as the needle cut through her expertly. Then, almost immediately after the medicine was released, every muscle in Rainbow Dash’s body all relaxed at once. She released a breath she had been holding, letting go a blissful sigh of relief.

“That’s good stuff, Doc,” Rainbow Dash said, smiling up at Stable. “I bet you charge tons for that.”

“On the topic of your insurance, Miss Dash,” Stable began, flipping his chart to a more relevant page. “You do understand that there cannot be any more of the displays we had last time, correct? No more barging into my office asking me to check the progress of a wing you didn’t break,” he said with a smirk. “It took me forever to explain to them how those fees were legitimate.”

Rainbow Dash laughed a little, drawing upon the memories of her first time here. “No funny business this time,” she said lightly. “I promise.”

Rainbow Dash, Doctor Stable, and the orderlies were met with a large, locked door as they came to the end of the hallway they were in. Stable stepped in front of the group, focusing his attention on a small black box on the door. Lighting up his horn with green energy, he magically pressed a seemingly random combination of buttons. A green light lit up on the box as he finished, signaling that he had entered the right code. A few seconds later, the doors slowly crept open by themselves, revealing them to the wing that stood before them.

It was absolutely dreadful.

Every room was made of glass sliding doors and thinly veiled curtains to give patients what the hospital claimed was adequate privacy. The floor was lined with red caution tape on either side of the hall that read: ‘must wear gowns from this point on’. The entire wing was a sickly silver, like the whole building was made of sterilized stainless steel. Inside each room was nearly a laboratory full of different machines and monitors, all of which were hooked up to the central nurses' station. All of which Rainbow Dash didn’t know the meaning of.

“Uhm...” Rainbow Dash began, trailing off as she looked around the wing. All of the patients were either asleep or hacking away in misery as they watched somepony on television lose at whatever game show was playing. It was morbid at best, making Rainbow consider whether or not she should have asked for a higher dose of sedative. “What is... is this where I...?”

“As I said, Rainbow Dash, your injuries are very severe,” Stable said, looking Rainbow in her worried eyes. “This is the progressive care unit, or ‘P.C.U’. It’s where ponies go if they need to be constantly monitored but aren’t sick enough to be in intensive care. Since the X-Rays haven’t been giving us a clear picture of what’s going on inside your wing, we have to assume that it is in a volatile state until we can open you up to take a look.”

“O-open me up?” Rainbow stuttered.

“From what I can tell right now, Surgery is our best option,” Stable explained, trying his best to keep his tone distant and factual. “The fuzzy pictures we’ve been getting may indicate that the bones in your wing have shattered. Can you tell me again how you got those injuries?”

“Well,” she began, taking a moment to draw on her thoughts. “I was up at Winsome Falls doing some aerobic exercises yesterday morning. I was just gliding along regularly, then all of a sudden, bam! My right shoulder cramps up.” Rainbow said, making an overdramatized jerking motion with her shoulder. “So while I’m dealing with that, I don’t even notice that I’ve stopped flapping my right wing. Now I’m in a corkscrew going down at just a perfect angle that I get caught in the downstream of one of the waterfalls. You have those two colts, right? I’m sure you’ve been camping up at Winsome Falls. I’m sure you’ve seen the rocks at the bottom. You can tell how this story ends.”

“Yes I have, and that I can,” Stable agreed, sighing as he turned to another page in Rainbow Dash’s chart. “Ninety of morphine upon admission, another eighty this morning, and six of fospropofol disodium just now. Rainbow Dash, this jetset life is going to kill you,” he concluded.

“So could surgery,” she muttered under her breath, breaking eye contact with her doctor.

Doctor Stable smirked a little, nudging Rainbow Dash on the side. “Now don’t be like that,” he said. “Doctor Steady Hooves is the single greatest neurosurgeon in all of Equestria. World famous, I tell you. Rumor has it she even operated on one of the Wonderbolts after a training accident.”

“The Wonderbolts?!” Rainbow squeaked out, her face lighting up in excitement. She turned back to Stable, grabbing him on the foreleg desperately. “Which one was it? Were they injured bad? Did the press cover the story? Did they have to retire after the accident? Did the operation work? Did she kill a Wonderbolt?” Rainbow barraged, assaulting the poor doctor with question after question.

Then it hit her.

“Doc...” Rainbow began, her enthusiasm draining as she looked up at Stable with a concerned expression. “What kind of surgeon did you say she was?”

“A neurosurgeon,” he answered matter-of-factly.

“If all I have is a broken wing, then why do I need a neurosurgeon?” Rainbow asked, bracing herself for the worst news.

Doctor Stable sighed, stopping the orderlies from continuing on. “Rainbow Dash, if you shattered your wing the way I think you did, then it is very possible that you have damaged many of your finer, peripheral nerve endings in the wing. While you would still be able to move it after a routine orthopaedic procedure, we want to give you the best chance of getting back to your old self. That requires having someone perform the surgery who knows how to fix any damaged nerve endings should they be discovered.”

Rainbow Dash deflated, sinking into her bed. “So you’re telling me there’s a chance that I’ll never fly again?”

Stable considered himself for a moment. “I don’t believe the odds of that particular outcome are high; however...” he trailed off. “If you need to talk to anyone at all, the hospital staffs an excellent psychiatric team.”

Rainbow Dash simply stared at him.

“Hey, Doctor Stable?” she said after a moment of thought. “Is there any way I could have a bit more of that floppy discoball stuff you gave me earlier?”

I’m not gonna lie. I was pretty scared. I still am now, but I’ll get over it. Doctor Steady Hooves told me that there’s no room for fear in the O.R., so I’ll get it out of me. Hehe, must be weird to hear me of all pegasuses say that, right? Hospitals kinda freak me out. So does all of this. I mean, death-defying stunts I can handle no problem. This? This is all really weird.

No sweat for the most awesomazing pegasus in all of Equestria, though. I have a feeling in my gut, Twi’, I’m going to kick some serious surgery flank! It’ll be so easy that I could do it in my sleep!

Get it? Because I’m... oh, whatever.

When Doctor Stable told me that my flying might be in trouble, I was kinda bummed out. Well, no, that’s kinda downplaying it a bit. I was really, really upset. I wish you had been there. I never took up on his offer to see a shrink though. That’s for crazy, depressed ponies. I’m way too cool for any of that stuff.

Besides, I kind of... got a little sidetracked.

“Here’s our stop,” announced Stable, reaching out his hoof to slide the door open. As they made their way in, Rainbow Dash was surprised to discover that she wasn’t the only occupant. The room was laid out so that two opposing beds lay facing each other, only separated by an optional privacy curtain which was currently drawn back, leaving nothing between the two beds. In the bed closest to the door sat a young, dark blue pegasus colt with a mixed mane of both bright and dull shades of yellow. He was ignoring the entering ponies, instead keeping his eyes focused on the book he was reading, studying it intently. In one of his forelegs was an IV line that lead to a bag of clear fluids that was marked with symbols that Rainbow couldn’t read.

The orderlies moved Rainbow Dash from the gurney to her hospital bed where a nurse was waiting to start an IV for her. She had assured Rainbow that it was “only the morphine drip that Doctor Stable had ordered,” but that didn’t mean Rainbow wasn’t going to check with the big boss. She turned to her doctor, who only smiled and nodded. Rainbow then relaxed, letting the nurse do her work on her while the orderlies made sure she was comfortable in her new bed. Satisfied, Rainbow thanked the hospital staff and allowed them to get back to their other patients.

That left her and the colt.

It was an odd sight for Rainbow. He just sat there reading silently. At first, she didn’t understand it. Most kids his age would be at least playing video games or something if they were in his situation, right? That totally wasn’t what she herself did whenever she had any downtime. No sir-ee, but a colt might be into that kind of stuff.

All in all, she didn’t know what to expect. Here she was, going through what may have been the single most stressful day of her life alone, and to top it all off she now had to share a room with a most-likely depressed child. That didn’t fly too well with Rainbow. First of all, she didn’t know the first thing about how to interact with kids as an adult herself. Sure, she had friends when she was little, but it was different now. Now she had to be a positive influence, a role model, a friend, and a confidant all in one for every child she met. It was part of the job of being a grown-up, and in this case, she wasn’t looking forward to it, not one bit.

Though, she did have to admit, he looked pretty sweet. A lonely colt wrapped in blankets reading to himself made Rainbow’s long-dormant maternal instincts kick in. Although she would never admit it, just looking at him made her want to go over there and give him a hug. A colt in need with no parents in sight. No matter how awesome or cool Rainbow Dash was, this was something that could hit a pony hard. No kid should have to experience being in a place like this, especially not all by themselves. His sad, apathetic eyes nearly made her heart break right then an—

“You gay or somethin’?” the colt asked.

Rainbow did a double take. “W-what?” she asked, stuttering with her reply.

“I asked, are you gay or something,” he repeated, slowly drawing out the statement to make sure Rainbow heard every word of it clearly. His voice cracked due to his age, producing a somewhat rough but higher pitched voice that strikingly resembled Rainbow’s own. The colt, who had now put his book down, was staring at Rainbow impatiently with a cocked eyebrow as he tapped his hoof on the bed frame.

“What makes you think that?” Rainbow Dash retorted, putting more than a little bit of ice into the last word.

The colt shrugged her response off and pointed at her. “You dyed your mane rainbow. What’s everypony supposed to think?”

Rainbow Dash took some of her own mane in her hoof and stared at it for a few moments. “That’s not what it means,” she finally said, releasing her hair. “I was born with this mane. As a matter of fact, my dad had the same kind. It runs in the family.”

The colt smirked. “Which dad?” he asked.

“Oh you little—”

He wasn’t really at all what I would have expected. It’s not the image those charity commercials give you of sick kids in hospitals, but I guess you don’t really know until you meet one. I just happened to get the most annoying one of all.

That reminds me, would you mind checking up on Squirt? Erm, I mean, Scootaloo. She probably doesn’t know why I haven’t been around town the past couple days. Let her know that the most rad pony ever got into a fight with nature and won. I’m just working out the terms of engagement for our rematch is all.

I’m not sure I want her visiting just yet, though. She kind of... looks up to me, you know? I don’t want her to see me like this. She needs to know me as the awesome Rainbow Dash, the greatest flier in Equestria, sole pony to ever perform the legendary sonic rainboom. She shouldn’t see Rainbow Dash, patient fifty-two with the beat up wing. Would hurt her too much, you know? And uh... it would hurt me a little too.

I’m not doing so well, Twi’.

After their altercation, Rainbow Dash had left the colt well enough alone. She had little patience to be in an argument over what ponies she liked with a kid who probably didn’t even think of fillies like that yet anyways. However, on a list of Rainbow Dash’s troubles, the colt’s comments didn’t even make the first book. He was just a colt after all, and there wasn’t any reason Rainbow should hold his curiosity against him.

“Hey, kid, what’s your name?” Rainbow Dash asked, trying her best to crack the colt a smile.

“Your,” he replied, looking up from his book for the second time that day. “My name’s Your.”

“Your? What kind of a name is Your?” Rainbow Dash asked, uncaring of how that may have come across.

“Your as in Your Mom,” he replied. Rainbow facehoofed.

“Seriously, what’s your name? I wanna know,” Rainbow insisted. To her surprise, the colt simply sighed and put his book down. He looked out of the window momentarily, thinking to himself. Rainbow didn’t really know how to take in the sight. She had known this kid for the better part of two hours and she already found that he was full of surprises at every turn.

“What are you in for?” he asked, still staring out of the window.

“Broken wing,” she said. “You?”

“Headaches,” he replied, turning back to Rainbow Dash. “My name’s Lightning, by the way. I already know yours, though. The doctor called you Rainbow something when you came in.”

“Dash,” she completed for him with a small smile. “My name is Rainbow Dash.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Rainbow Da—”

With a gust of air that blew Lightning’s mane off to the side, the door to their room swung open to reveal a blonde-coated pegasus mare with a straight, silky brunette mane in a white lab coat sitting in a rolling doctor’s stool. Whistling loudly and terribly, the mare pushed off with her wings, sending her sliding off in Rainbow Dash’s general direction. She spun around in her stool a few times before standing up and kicking it aside suddenly, revealing her cutie mark: a blue scepter with outstretched wings. Around the base of the scepter were two snakes, coiling up until they reached a point just under the wings. Above the entire symbol was a bright pink brain, resting in the central area between both wings.

“Well lookie what I’ve got here,” the mare said, grinning as she looked back and forth between Rainbow and Lightning. Her voice was clear and feminine, carrying just an edge of childlike excitement. “My two favourite patients in the same room? What are the odds! It must be my lucky day.”

While Lightning laughed a knowing laugh, Rainbow looked at the new pony incredulously. “Favourite patients?” she asked, cocking her head sideways. “But I’ve never met you before.”

The mare’s smile only grew wider. “Oh, well we can’t have that, can we?” she asked, stepping over to Rainbow’s bedside and causing the other mare to tense up slightly. “I’m Doctor Steady Hooves, practicing neurosurgeon and amateur skateboarding enthusiast,” she said, halting her monologue to flick at Rainbow’s mane with her hoof. “And I’m guessing by that colorful noggin you got over there, you must be Rainbow Dash.”

“How long it take you to figure that one out, Doctor Steads?” Lighting chirped from across the room.

Steady Hooves laughed blissfully, filling the room with her positive energy. She leaned in close to Rainbow Dash, putting a hoof in front of her ear. “Be careful with that one,” she said in a loud, exaggerated whisper. “One minute he’s your best friend, then bam! He steals your stethoscope right out from under you. Uses it to try and get into the doctor’s lounge. You can call me Steads, by the way.”

“One time!” Lightning said, now on the verge of crying from laughter.

Rainbow Dash couldn’t help but give in to Steads’ infectious smile. Her presence alone and the mood she brought with her was already making Rainbow feel a lot better than she had been feeling just a couple minutes ago. She found herself looking into Steads’ deep brown eyes, their soft and fun expression matching the playful smile on her face. Her mane, which looked smooth enough to swim in, fell down past her shoulders and onto the side of Rainbow Dash’s bed. It was then that Rainbow noticed that Steads smelled a bit like cinnamon. Rainbow liked cinnamon. A lot. It was safe to say that Rainbow Dash wasn’t all that nervous around Steads anymore.

That, and Rainbow was staring at her.

It was safe to say that Rainbow Dash was nervous around Steads again.

Rainbow darted her face away from Steads, blushing lightly. Much to her further embarrassment, she saw Lightning reviewing the scene skeptically from his own side of the room; an occurrence that only made her blush even harder.

Oblivious, Steads smiled softly and placed a hoof on Rainbow’s shoulder. This time when she spoke, it was a much quieter, more caring tone. “Rainbow, if it’s alright with you, I’d like to check the wing you hurt to make sure all of your nerves are working properly. Would that be okay?”

Rainbow retracted a little from Steads’ touch. “Is it... going to hurt?” she asked. She had never felt more powerless in her life. She had never felt so un-Rainbow Dash before. She didn’t like it one bit.

Steads reaffirmed her touch, stroking Rainbow’s coat gently. “I promise it won’t hurt a bit.”

“Okay then,” Rainbow said. Steads reassurance brought up Rainbow’s much-dwindled confidence. She didn’t need any further explanation or proof. She trusted this pony who she had only known for a few minutes. It was weird. It was as if Steads was making her feel... safe, almost.

Steads carefully helped Rainbow lift herself into a sitting position on the bed before propping open her bad wing. Rainbow shivered as she extended the appendage, feeling every loose bone twist and turn. If she hadn’t been sky high on morphine at that moment, she would have been saying some words that would have made the hospital relocate Lightning into another room for the rest of his time there.

As Steads’ hoof began to draw closer to Rainbow Dash, she spoke up. “Look, Doctor Steads,” she began, her body quivering in nervousness and unknowing anticipation. “I know you said you had it under control and all but I’m having second thoughts about this and ohmygoshyourhoovesaresowarm—”

Rainbow practically melted as Steads' expert hooves kneaded into the base of her wing, eliciting sharp squeaks for every feather she touched. Rainbow Dash was in heaven, and the blush on her cheeks made that obvious. She had no idea how she looked to Steads at that moment, but she knew that Steads must have been a true professional, because any comment she had she managed to keep to herself. The same couldn’t be said for Lightning, who was now on his back laughing at the display in front of him.

Rainbow Dash shot him a hard glare, growling as she looked on at him. “Listen here you little twerp, when I’m done here I’m going to come over and—”

“Rainbow Dash, can you tell me if you are feeling this?” interrupted Steads, her voice full of concern.

Rainbow snapped out of her moment. “Feeling what?” she asked, only to look back and see Steads fidgeting with an unresponsive feather. Rainbow’s heart sank immediately, her eyes becoming the size of pebbles. “No, no no no!” she exclaimed, wrenching her wing back. The sudden strain on her injuries flooded Rainbow with a surreal, electric pain. She screamed, causing both other ponies in the room to jump back.

“Rainbow Dash, calm down!” Doctor Steads said, pushing Rainbow back down onto her bed as she writhed in agony. “Listen to me! This is normal, alright? Everything is okay. You’re going to be okay. It’s only one of your secondaries, you lose them when you molt, remember? It's not one of the pinion feathers you grow when you start to fly as a filly.”

Rainbow breathed in hard, her chest pushing up against Steads’ hoof. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“It’s okay, Rainbow Dash,” Steads said, hopping up to sit on Rainbow’s bedside. “Everything is going to be fine. I’m going to order you a bit more of that nice stuff that Doctor Stable gave you to calm you down, alright?” Rainbow nodded vigorously. “All of your primary feathers responded perfectly to the physical. I will get you in the air again, don’t you worry. Okay?”

“Okay,” Rainbow said, letting a small, hesitant smile form on her features.

“I’ll be in to check up on you later tonight, okay?” Steads said, picking up Rainbow’s chart. She turned to one of the back pages, scribbling down a few paragraphs before looking back up to see Rainbow’s expectant face. “Everything is going to be alright, believe you me. Don’t you doubt that for a second. Doctor Lightning will make sure of it too, so long as he isn’t too busy trying to get into the staff snack cupboard, won’t you, Doctor Lightning?”

“Yes, ma’am!” Lightning said, giving Steads a mock salute.

With her own salute in return, Steads made her way out of the room, leaving Rainbow Dash and Lightning alone again. On her part, Rainbow was content with falling asleep right then and there. It had been a good fifty or so hours since she had so much as thought about sleep, much less managed to squeeze any in. Her entire day and night up to this point had been filled with poking, prodding, and getting her picture taken by a giant metal box. Although it was barely eleven in the morning, Rainbow Dash was exhausted, and she couldn’t think of anything better to do that shut her eyes and get some well-deserved rest.

Unfortunately, her roommate had other plans. “So that’s a yes then?”

Rainbow blinked one eye open in annoyance. “A yes to what?” she asked.

“You’re totally gay,” he said triumphantly.

Rainbow Dash calmly lifted her pillow from behind her head and rested herself down on the bare mattress. She then proceeded to take the pillow, place it in a snug position above her muzzle and scream bloody murder into the vast expanse of pale blue linens. She sighed as she moved herself to the edge of the bed, carefully crawling into her wheelchair. With a lack of energy that would have made Steads shake her head in disappointment, she rolled over to Lightning’s bedside, dragging her IV along with her as she went.

“What do you know about that stuff anyways, kid?” she asked, resting her arm on the unoccupied portion of his comforter. “How old are you? Eight?”

“Nine,” he corrected, sticking his tongue out. “There’s this weird girl I know. She’s fifteen, and you just acted like she does whenever she gets close to a colt at school.”

“You’re comparing me to a weird girl? I wasn’t acting like anything!” Rainbow protested.

“Oh, Doctor Steads,” Lightning started, doing one of the worst mare voices Rainbow had ever heard. “Your hooves are so warm... I bet your lips are even warmer,” he said, puckering his lips.

“I-I didn’t do any of that!” Rainbow stammered, blushing as she turned away from Lightning. “Steady Hooves is my doctor! Your doctor!”

“Oh, calm down, you,” Lightning said, punching Rainbow Dash lightly on the shoulder. “I’m only kidding. If it cools your jets, I think you’d look good together. You think she’s hot, yeah?”

Rainbow Dash broke right then, laughter bursting out of her every pore. “How old did you say you were again?”

For a while, Lightning and Rainbow sat like that, laughing and hitting each other like some sort of bad old-timey sitcom. Rainbow leaned back in her chair, smiling warmly up at the ceiling as Lightning picked his book back up. Now getting a better look at it, Rainbow saw that it lacked both a title and cover.

Intrigued, she pushed the book back down, forcing Lightning to look at her. “So, whatcha reading there?”

“What are you? Some kind of egghead?” he asked.

“Show me the stupid book,” Rainbow Dash demanded.

“It’s a new one, they haven’t released it in stores yet,” he boasted, showing her the title page. “Daring Do and the Phoenix Pool. Pretty awesome, right?”

“Awesome!?” Rainbow asked, grabbing the book from him to see it with her own eyes. A liar hadn’t been made out of him yet. “No way! How did you get your hooves on something like this!? I’ve been waiting months for the release date, and you’re sitting here holding it!”

Lightning shrugged, something about it coming off as uneasy. “My father wrote a letter to the guy who writes them. He sent me over a free copy a couple weeks ago. I know this might be wrong, but aren’t you a little old for Daring Do anyways?”

“Old for Daring Do?” Rainbow asked, shocked. “That’s like being too old for water!”

Lightning smiled. “Would you... like to read it with me? I’m not that far in yet, I just started today and you kept interrupting me. We can start from the beginning if you want?”

Rainbow Dash let her own grin rise up. She clambered up into Lightning’s bed, scooting him over a bit as she did so. “Yeah,” she said, wrapping her foreleg around the colt. “I’d love to read it with you.”

I don’t really feel like myself anymore. I’m still me of course, but I just feel... different now. Older somehow? I don’t know. All I know is that I don’t like it. The entire time I’ve spent here so far I’ve been acting like a filly trapped in a dark room.

Well, at least I did until I really got to know Lightning. That’s his name, by the way. He reads Daring Do just like me, can you believe that? He’s one awesome colt if you ask me. Then again, he’s still kind of a little dweeb. He can’t keep to himself at all; he didn’t even cut me a break after what happened with Steads.

Oh. Right. You still don’t really know who that is.

Well, as I told you before, I need pretty major wing surgery. Invasive stuff, you get the drill. Basically they needed someone who knew a lot about the nerves in your wings, so they brought Doctor Steads in. She’s nice. Really nice. Fun, too. She came in talking about how she was a skateboarder. How awesome is that? Don’t peg her wrong though, she’s great at her job. She’s sweet, warm, and comforting. I like having her as my doctor a lot. She makes me feel like I’m welcome here. Like I don’t have to worry about anything, because she’s going to make it all okay. She’s really smart too, but I guess you have to be to become a doctor. And she’s pretty. Really, really pretty.

Stop giving me that look, Twilight. I don’t like my doctor like that.

Seriously, Twilight.

Stop.

“Well isn’t this just the most adorable...” Steads swooned, losing her train of thought in the moment.

Upon hearing her doctor, Rainbow Dash stirred a little in her place. Slowly, she wiped the crust off of her eyes, blinking them open as the room came into view. She looked out of the window, seeing a pale blue, slightly orange backdrop. She didn’t need to look at a clock to know that it was around Twilight. She turned to Steads, who was now staring at her with half lidded eyes the way a filly stares at a newborn puppy. As she continued adjusting to the living world, Rainbow noticed that her arm was still wrapped around Lightning’s shoulders. The book they had been reading now lay sprawled out against the comforter, opened to a random page.

Rainbow Dash cleared her throat, blushing as she scratched the back of her head with her free arm. “Hey, Doctor Steads,” she whispered, making sure not to wake Lightning. “Here for that check up?”

Steads walked around the bed, jumping up to sit on the foot next to Rainbow. “No procedures tonight,” she said, smiling as she made eye contact with Rainbow. “Just thought you might like some company.”

“Thank you,” Rainbow said, returning the smile. “I know your schedule is... is...”

Rainbow cut herself off as she caught sight of a bald spot on Lightning's head that had been bandaged up with gauze and medical tape.

“Where did he get this?” Rainbow asked, brushing Lightning's mane away ever so carefully to get a better look. “Did he get in an accident like me?” she laughed a little, breaking the mood she had created. “Bet he did, too. He must be a stunt flier himself. Probably a solid eight on the radicalness scale.”

“Rainbow Dash, you know I can’t talk about other patients’ medical information,” Steads said, pawing at Rainbow to draw her focus off of Lightning’s head. “He’s in the best hooves Equestria has right now. We’re taking great care of him.”

“I know, I know,” Rainbow said, turning away from him in defeat. “So, why did you really come out here?”

“A very boring birdie told me that you may have some things on your mind,” Steads said, moving closer to Rainbow Dash as she spoke. She placed a hoof on Rainbow’s side, giving her a reassuring look. “How have you been feeling, Rainbow?”

Rainbow sighed. There went Steads being herself again. The soft, pale moonlight bathed her tan coat like a blanket of shining silver atop pure gold. Her brunette mane glistened, drawing Rainbow into her matching brown eyes. Her lab coat draped over her back fittingly, a stethoscope hanging down from her neck. She looked tired yet serene. Stressed, but happy she was there. Rainbow couldn’t take her eyes off of this mare for that reason alone: she found joy in something so distressing to others and spreading that joy to everypony around her. It was a quality Rainbow admired. It was selfless, how she stuck by her patients like she was doing right now. Some may have even called it loyalty.

For one short moment, frozen in time, Rainbow let her guard down.

“Not my best, Steads,” she said, taking comfort in their first name basis. “I really don’t like hospitals. I was here once and I felt really alone. My friends came to visit a few times, yeah, but not enough. Most of the time I spent to myself reading, but...”

“... but you were in the trauma wing,” Steads finished, a disheartened expression taking over her features. “I read your medical history. The things you must have seen... I’m so sorry, Rainbow Dash.”

“Nah, don’t sweat it,” Rainbow said, waving her off with a hoof. “It was just a little scary, you know? Sleeping somewhere where every other minute there’s somepony being rushed down the hall with blood all over them. I never.... I never really got over all of that. I just haven’t like hospitals ever since. I get pretty nervous. The drugs help, though. I would probably be huddled in a corner if it wasn’t for that stuff you gave me.”

Steads laughed entrancingly, punching Rainbow on the shoulder lightly. “You? Huddled up in a corner? Nah, you’re way too cool for that. I couldn’t picture it.”

Despite herself, Rainbow laughed a little too. “Isn’t the first rule of therapy not to laugh at your patients?” she asked with only half-seriousness.

“Lucky for both you and my medical license, I’m not a psychiatrist,” Steads said. “Just a pony who doesn’t mind lending an ear.”

“Well, the truth is, that whole ‘huddling up in a corner’ thing isn’t so far off,” Rainbow clarified, withdrawing into herself slightly as she elaborated. “I get kind of anxious sometimes. Like, there was this one time where I had to perform at a young fliers' competition, right? Well, I got stage fright. Bad stage fright. I resembled this really shy friend of mine more than I did myself, and when I wasn’t rocking myself back and forth whispering, I was trying to avoid all of my friends. I didn’t want them to think of me as a failure, or as somepony who was weak like that.”

“So, what happened?” Steads asked with genuine interest in the story. “Did you ever perform?”

“Uh, not exactly,” Rainbow Dash said, shuffling her hooves as she shifted in place. “My best friend kind of fell to her imminent death right before I was about to go on.”

“What?” Steads asked, her jaw hanging way down from the rest of her mouth.

“It’s okay though, I sort of ended up saving her,” Rainbow continued, growing a little more confident as she went along. “She had fake wings that burnt up from the heat, and when she fell, Spitfire, Soarin, and Fleetfoot flew down to save her. Her legs were flailing, and she accidentally knocked them all out. So right in the middle of my performance I saw all of this and flew down to save her. I almost didn’t make it, and I wouldn’t have if it didn’t happen.”

“If what didn’t happen?” Steads asked.

“The sonic rainboom,” Rainbow Dash said. “I broke the sound barrier on my descent, and it exploded with color. I managed to catch all four ponies just before they hit the ground, and I brought them all the way back up to the Cloudsdale colosseum. Princess Celestia saw the whole thing, and so did my other friends.”

“Rainbow Dash, that’s amazing!” Steads gaped, her jaw still having yet to return to a healthy position. “You’re a hero! You saved your friend and three members of the Wonderbolts!”

“Yeah, I am pretty awesome, aren’t I?” Rainbow boasted.

“You really are,” Steads said in an almost song-like tone. She brought a hoof to her mane, flipping her hair back from in front of her eyes as she spoke. Rainbow Dash visioned it in slow motion. Rainbow Dash nearly choked. “But Rainbow, after the competition, how often have you had these panic attacks?” Steads asked.

Rainbow shrugged. “They come and go in waves,” she replied, trying her best to phrase that correctly. “Some days I feel anxious for one reason or another, other days I don’t. When I got here though, I felt like all of my stress was just piling on and on,” she said.

Steads nodded as she thought for a moment. “You know,” she began, a grin forming on her muzzle. “I used to be afraid of hospitals too.”

“You... you did?” Rainbow asked.

“Yep,” Steads confirmed. “It wasn’t just a little fear either. I wouldn’t even step into the place! My dad always had to ask the pediatrician to make house calls for me. When I was really little, my mother got sick and passed away in a hospital, so I never wanted to even look at one from that point on.”

“I’m really sorry to hear that,” Rainbow said, placing her own hoof on Steads for a change. “I lost my mother when I was young too. What made you change your mind?”

“When my father remarried and my stepmother had my little sister, I learned a very important lesson about hospitals,” Steads said, drawing on her old memories. “They weren’t a place about death. Death is just something that comes to them on its own. Hospitals are all about life. Not just new life either, older life too. Hospitals are giving ponies a chance to live again. I wanted to take part in that. I wanted to give ponies a second chance at life. That’s why I became a surgeon,” she finished.

Rainbow closed her eyes, smiling softly to herself. “I don’t think I’m scared anymore.”

“Of hospitals?” Steads asked, tilting her head sideways.

“No,” Rainbow corrected, looking back up at Steads. “Of the surgery. I was afraid something would happen and I wouldn’t be able to fly again. But... I think I trust you. I want the surgery, Doctor Steads. I want you to fix my wing. I want to try.”

“That’s so good to hear, Rainbow,” Steads said, grasping Rainbow’s hoof in both of her own. “When I was a neurosurgical fellow at Trottingham University, our chief of surgery, Doctor Clean Cut, always told us that there was no room for fear in the O.R.. Not from patients, not from surgeons, not from anyone. He said we have to have confidence, because if we let fear of failure into us, we will fail fearfully.”

“I hope you would start already,” Lightning grumbled from next to Rainbow Dash, rolling over as he attempted to will himself back to sleep. “Maybe if you gave Rainbow some anesthesia I'd actually get some quiet around here. You’re both just as bad as that weird girl.”

Rainbow Dash and Steads looked at each other briefly before simultaneously breaking into uncontrolled, heartfelt laughter.

I think that was the best night I had in this place. We all just sat and talked for hours. It ended up that Steads’ shift had actually ended before she even came into the room. Knowing that made me feel even better I think. To know that she cared enough to come see me even when she didn’t have to. That made me happy. She's a really good pony, Twilight.

I miss you girls a lot. I know I’ve said it enough in this letter, and I know it’s only been a few days. I meant to write you earlier, but some things came up. I’m going to get to those, even though I don’t really want to. But that’s really why I wrote you this letter, so it’s happening.

Lightning is probably the single coolest colt I’ve ever met. He’s just like me, Twi’. Just like me. I know, I’m repeating myself, but you have to hear it. Some ponies literally got down to it with a stick of dynamite and made a second me in dude form. He tells me all of these stories about his family, they’re all crazy. In a good way, that is. I haven’t gotten to meet them yet. For some reason, I don’t think I will.

By the way, it took me two days to figure out that that weird girl he talks about... is his sister.

He told me it took him two hours after she left the first day for him to figure out he missed her.

Steads took another elegant swig of her wine, sighing blissfully as she brought the glass to her lips. “Mmh,” she hummed, relishing in the relaxing burn of the alcohol as it ran down her throat. “This is really wonderful,” she commented.

“Thanks,” Rainbow Dash said, offering her a contented smile as she drank from her own glass. “It’s a really old piece. Princess Luna gave it to me as a token of gratitude after the Vanhoover incident,” she explained.

“I wasn’t talking about the wine,” Steads said, a playful smile tugging at her lips.

Rainbow blushed, looking deep into Steads’ eyes. Steads was cuddled up against Rainbow, her mane falling back onto Rainbow’s shoulder as she sat. She was soft and warm, and for some reason, Rainbow’s couch was at least ten thousand times more comfortable tonight than it had ever been in her entire life. Rainbow outstretched a hoof, running it through Steads’ silky mane and coat, eliciting another pleased sigh from the doctor. Steads looked back at Rainbow, a strong blush now forming on her face as she met Rainbow’s own rose-colored eyes. She softly bit at her bottom lip, succeeding to make what Rainbow would later call the most adorable expression to ever be invented by pony kind.

Steads brought her hoof to Rainbow, lightly brushing the mane out from in front of her face. She slowly brought her muzzle closer to Rainbow’s, tension building in both mares as they began to feel the other’s breath on their lips. Rainbow closed her eyes as her entire emotional being jumped frantically about inside her body, threatening to overflow and escape.

As Steads made it to within a inch of Rainbow’s mouth, she stopped suddenly. “I got her stethoscope,” she said.

“Wh... what?” Rainbow asked, opening her eyes as her face contorted in utter confusion.

“I said,” Steads began, her voice now a lot rougher and squeakier than Rainbow Dash remembered. “I got her stethoscope again. We can go sneak into the doctor’s lounge,” she said.

Rainbow groaned as her eyes inadvertently cracked open, revealing a colt that was way too enthusiastic for however early it was that morning. She rolled over in bed, adjusting herself to the waking world as she searched for the wall clock. As it came into vision, she let out another grumble. Five thirty. What nine-year-old gets up at five thirty?

“Am I ever going to get some sleep without one of you waking me up,” Rainbow asked, turning back around to Lightning. “I was having a really good dream.”

“Yeah, whatever, look” he replied, shrugging off Rainbow’s complaints as he held up Steads’ stethoscope. “I grabbed it from her last night when she was talking to you. That mare’s eyes were glued to you, she didn’t even feel a thing! Great teamwork, by the way.”

Rainbow, now fully awake, sat up in her bed and looked at lightning. She tapped her hoof on the bed anxiously, clearing her throat before she spoke. “How much of that conversation did you actually hear, buddy?” she asked.

“Enough to know you saved some filly from becoming an omelette,” he said, causing Rainbow to squinch up her face in disgust as she pictured the scene. “You’re like, the most awesome pony I’ve ever met. I didn’t even like you at first. Really goes to show that you can’t judge a book by how gay it is,” he concluded.

“Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's not how that saying goes,” Rainbow said, laughing as she ruffled Lightning’s mane. “Now remind me again why we would want to break into the doctor’s lounge?”

“Taffy,” Lightning explained.

“Taffy?”

“Taffy.”

“Forgive me for questioning this well thought-out scheme,” Rainbow said, staring at Lightning incredulously. “But wouldn’t it be easier to just buy taffy from the candy machine next to the nurses station? A place we sort of, you know, have access to.”

“You don’t understand,” he argued, giving her a hard glare. “This isn’t just any taffy. This is Baltimare saltwater taffy.”

“Baltimare saltwater taffy?” Rainbow asked.

“It’s also known as the best thing you’ll ever eat in your life,” he explained. “And it doesn’t come around often. The only time the doctors get their hooves on it is when Doctor Steads calls in one of her old friends from med school in for a consult. He comes all the way from Johns Hoofkins, can you believe it? Anyways, he has tons of the stuff since he lives in Baltimare, and he brings it here whenever he comes. I’m not letting this opportunity pass me by, and I need your help to get in.”

Unbeknownst to Lightning, Rainbow had stopped listening, her mind fixated on something he had said. “Steads called him in for a consult? Who is he? Have you met him before? What does he practice?”

“I used to be at Johns Hoofkins,” Lightning said, shrugging. “But Doctor Steads says I’ve never met him before. I do know that he’s an oncologist, though. For some reason I’ve never heard of him talking to someone else at Ponyville General. He just comes here once a month or so then leaves with a trail of taffy. Which, if I may remind you, might be gone if we don’t book it soon.”

“Yeah yeah, we’ll get the taffy, kid,” Rainbow assured halfheartedly, brushing herself off as she jumped out of bed. “What’s your master plan?”

“Okay, well, there’s something in hospitals called contact isolation,” Lightning said, placing his hooves on the bed in concentration. “It’s what they put ponies on when touching them can make them really sick. Outside of every isolation room is a box of protective gowns that the doctors and nurses wear when they enter one of the rooms. All you need to do is take one of those gowns, and with Steads’ stethoscope around your neck, you’ll look like an M.D. for sure.”

“Dash, M.D.?” Rainbow asked to nopony in particular. “I like the sound of that. I could barge into rooms looking all cool and professional or something. Just one problem: how are we going to dress you up? I think being a doctor has a... height requirement,” she said.

“Already thought of that,” Lightning said. “I’ll be your patient. You can look like you’re walking me to somewhere, I’ll point you in the direction of the doctor’s lounge. You ready to move out?

Rainbow saluted. “Yes sir, Major Lightning, sir!”

And they were off. Rainbow slowly crept out of the room with Steads’ stethoscope around her neck, scanning the hallway for one of those contact gowns. Spotting one a few rooms away, Rainbow went prone, inching along towards the doorway in an attempt to remain under the radar. She was suddenly overcome with the most profound sense of deja vu as she remembered the Daring-Do-driven actions she had made the last time she had been a patient at Ponyville general. She grabbed the gown, throwing it over her as she stood up and tried to save face. She looked around, only to see that nopony was paying her any mind.

“So much for round the clock supervision,” Rainbow muttered under her breath as she walked back to her own doorway. She pushed Lightning’s wheelchair with one hoof, moving out into the hallway past the nurses station. None of them even batted an eyelash. They continued, rounding corners as Lightning pointed Rainbow Dash in the direction of the lounge. In the early hours of the morning like those, there were rarely any doctors around. Usually, they came in around eight or nine, and the only physicians in the hospital were the residents and emergency surgeons.

Usually.

Rainbow turned the knob carefully when she found the door to the doctor’s lounge, peeking her head inside to see if the coast was clear. Looking safe enough to her, Rainbow Dash entered the room slowly, trying to find any sign of the so-called greatest taffy ever. It wasn’t long before her eyes met a bowl of the snow white candy in individual plastic wraps, just waiting to be ripped open and devoured with gusto. Rainbow could feel her mouth watering already.

Then she heard the door open behind her. Without any thought or hesitation, Rainbow dove under a nearby counter, out of sight from the entering ponies. She held her breath, trying her hardest not to be noticed as the ponies began talking.

“What was the tumor's preoperative diameter?” asked a gruff male voice. Rainbow heard the shuffling of what sounded sort of like plastic in his hooves. “You only gave me his postop scans.”

“Three and a quarter centimeters,” replied a familiar female voice that Rainbow identified as Doctor Steads. “The chemo wasn’t giving us the results that onco hoped for, so I made a tough call and went in anyways.”

“A very tough call it seems,” he commented wryly. “By the looks of these, the postoperative tumor size was just around—”

“Three and a quarter centimeters,” Steads interrupted, finishing his thought. “When I opened him up and got a better look of things, I took note that the tumor had wrapped itself around his medulla oblongata as it grew, something I couldn’t see from just looking at the M.R.I.,” she explained.

“The area of the brain that controls the heart and lungs,” the stallion said to himself, sighing. “So what did you do next?”

Steads paused for a moment. “I closed him up,” she said monotonously. It was as if that single line had ripped all of the life from her body, draining her of all emotion. “There was no safe cut I could make there without killing him on the spot.”

“I understand,” he assured Steads, his tone growing deeper. “What is your planned course of action now? Does the colt know I'm here?” he asked.

“Palliative,” Steads said, letting out a heavy sigh. “And no, I didn't tell him. I never tell him when you're coming around. There’s nothing more we can do here, Heartsong. I don’t know why you sent me a kid with a D.N.R. in the first place. You knew how bad his condition was, you’ve been his doctor for the past two years. All it did was cause his family stress and give them false hope. They haven’t been here in days, you know, and they’re probably going to blame me for all of this. Can you at least tell me what was the point?” she asked with more than a little anger present in her voice.

“You’re Doctor Steady Hooves,” he said as if that somehow explained everything. “I was hoping you could pull off a miracle.”

“A miracle? That’s why you gave him to me?” Steads asked in an accusatory tone. Rainbow could feel her staring daggers into Heart’s very soul. “You wanted a miracle. So what the hell am I supposed to say to Lightning now? Somehow I doubt that telling him 'Sorry, but there’s not enough miracles to go around, kid,' is going to fly so well.”

Both Steads and Heartsong looked up suddenly as they heard the lounge door open and close, but by the time they got a glimpse of the door clicking shut, there was nopony in sight.

Headaches. That’s what he told he had, Twi. Headaches. Yeah. I bet he’s got a pretty killer headache going on with that too-big-to-cut tumor growing under his skull.

I know. I’m a horrible pony. I shouldn’t be angry at some kid for lying to me. I just... I don’t know, Twilight. I just thought he could trust me more, okay? I don’t know what you expect from me. I don’t know what anyone expects from me anymore. I can’t do this like you all think I can. I’m not this strong. I’m not the Rainbow Dash I thought I was.

I’m scared of how I’m supposed to handle this, Twilight. What would you do? How do you even talk to him after hearing that? What will Steads think of me when she finds out that I listened in on her private conversation? I don’t know what to do. I need some help and the drugs aren’t working anymore. I wish that I could go back to Winsome Falls and tell myself to never jump off that cliff. To never have gotten into any of this. It’s an awful thing to say, but I wish that I could have just never met Lightning. I keep saying this because I need you to get it through your head: I don’t know. I just don’t know. Anything. What to do, what to say, any of it. I need help. I can’t do this alone, Twilight. I can’t even look at Lightning the same anymore.

The worst part about it all is how optimistic he is. You would have never guessed it if you met him, Twi’, he’s the greatest colt ever. I feel such a connection with him whenever I’m with him. He’s daring, adventurous, and just plain old awesome. When Lightning and I are left alone he tells me stories. His drawer is filled with every knick knack you could imagine. He would say ‘See, this is from a gold mine’ or ‘See, this is from my brother’ or ‘See, this is from my father,’. He never stops talking to me, and when we aren’t talking, we’re reading together, or just being. I do that now. I just be.

I’ve been with Lightning for three days and all I really know is that he really likes to steal things from the doctors and wait until they notice it’s gone. Like he’s some great philosopher combined with the petty thief speaking great words of wisdom that we had never thought about. Silent words that change our lives in ways we sometimes just don’t understand. He steals from them and speaks in a language only I understand the translation of.

You’d never think to miss something unless you knew that one day it might be gone.

“Man, I wish we had gotten some taffy,” Lightning complained as he hopped up onto his bed and tucked himself in. “Too bad Steads and her friend came in. You got out of there without either of them seeing you, right?”

“Yeah...” Rainbow Dash said, drawing out her unfocused response. She jumped up next to him on his bed, staring down at her own hooves instead of Lightning. “Sorry about that, Sport.”

“It’s no big deal,” he said, shrugging. “Doctor Steads usually brings me a couple pieces anyways,” he explained.

Rainbow Dash lifted her head up to look at Lightning. He had a relaxed smile on his face as if the world's problems didn’t mean a thing to him. His forelegs were behind his neck in a kicked back position, a few strands of his mane getting in the way of his eyes. Rainbow hadn’t noticed it before, but now she did: Lightning was breathing through his mouth. She dared to say that he had been breathing manually whenever he was awake. It wasn’t that big of a revelation, but after hearing what Doctor Heartsong had claimed about Lightning’s situation, it made her all the more nervous. It made her want to pack up and leave this behind, or just ignore the subject until one of them was discharged.

But she knew she had to bite the bullet on this one, so she did.

“Lightning,” Rainbow Dash began, speaking in a soft and low tone. Lightning’s ears perked up as she mentioned his name. “Can I ask you something important?”

“Yeah,” he said, fearless of the unknown question. “Anything for you, Dash.”

Rainbow swallowed hard. That might not still apply in a minute. “Where did you get the scar in the back of your head?” she asked.

In one moment, frozen in time, all of the blood drained from Lightning’s face.

“W-what?” he asked.

“Lightning, please answer me,” Rainbow insisted, tilting her head as her eyes became more concerned.

“Rainbow Dash, I—”

“It was Doctor Heartsong, Lightning,” Rainbow said, letting out a heavy sigh. “That’s who Steads called in for a consult. That’s who was in the doctor’s lounge with her.”

Lightning looked at Rainbow with a mixture of remorse and hurt. His mouth was half open, moving every now and again to try and form words that never spoke. He looked down, staring at his own hooves as he became completely lost in the moment, unable to so much as conjure up a coherent thought. His breathing slowed as he looked back up at Rainbow, nothing but confusion remaining on his features.

“How much did you hear?” he asked, his voice cracking even more than usual.

Despite herself, Rainbow allowed a small smile to grace her muzzle before softly brushing Lightning’s mane out of his eyes. “Enough to know that you’re the most awesome pony I’ve ever met,” she said.

He stared at her, mouth agape in utter shock. “You... you don’t hate me?” he asked in disbelief.

“Come on, kid, how could I hate you?” Rainbow replied, scooting over to be closer to Lightning. “You’re like, at least half as radical as I am. Maybe even sixty percent, but that might be pushing it,” she mused.

“I thought...” he began, shuffling his hooves as he spoke. “I thought you wouldn’t want to hang out with me if you knew that I was like this. Every time I get a new roommate, they want to leave the second they find out about me. It’s too hard for them, or to depressing, or something of the sort. And all they ever care about is themselves. They just want their meds or to get out of here. You were different. You actually wanted to spend time with me, you didn’t care that I was really young or that I was mean to you. I didn’t want to tell you this because... I didn’t want you to leave me. Please don’t leave me, Rainbow Dash.”

Rainbow grabbed Lightning with all her might, pulling him into a tight embrace. “I will never leave you,” she said.

When the hug broke, Lightning pulled away and smiled, rubbing his hoof against his eyes. “You know, the worst part about being sick,” he started, looking out of the room toward the nurses station. “Is that they give you all the free ice cream you ask for. The worst part about that is realizing that there’s nothing more they can do for you. Ice cream can’t make everything okay.”

Rainbow didn’t respond, choosing only to look into Lightning’s eyes as he spoke. She lightly stroked his mane with her hoof, trying everything she could to comfort him while attempting to avoid touching the scar on the back of his head.

After a moment, Lightning spoke again. “Do you believe in angels, Rainbow Dash?”

Before she realized she didn’t have the heart to tell him, she told him, “Not lately.”

And I just lay there waiting for him to hate me. But he doesn’t know how to.

So he never does.

“My parents pray for me a lot,” Lightning said, his focus drifting elsewhere in the room. “They think that somehow it will make me better. That somepony will hear them. All it ever does is make them even sadder,” he said.

“I get what that’s like. I lost my mom when I was your age,” Rainbow Dash said, returning her gaze to the floor. “It was really hard for both me and my dad. My grades dropped to their lowest ever, and I just got really depressed. Every night I would go to my room and pray to whatever god I could think of to get her back, or to at least just be saved from everything I was feeling.”

“So what happened to you?” he asked, eyes fixed on Rainbow. “Did they answer?”

“No, but my father did,” Rainbow explained. “He came into my room one night while I was in the middle of praying. He held me, looked into my eyes and told me that I needed to let go. I didn’t understand it at first. I mean, how could any filly want to let go of their mother?” she asked herself, reanimating the memories inside of her. “But then he told me something really important: that for every answered prayer there’s a cricket with arthritis. He said that if we can’t find answers then its because the search party didn’t invite us, and Rainbow, the crickets have arthritis. So even if we got what we wanted, there’s no music, because at the end of the day there’s still a dying nine-year-old that’s ready to take her place should she come back to us.”

Rainbow and Lightning just sat for awhile, staring at each other. So much was spoken silently right then that Rainbow didn’t even know why she asked it other than the fact that she thought he needed to say it so she asked him: “Are you scared?”

Lightning didn’t even lower his voice when he said: “Fuck yeah.”

I listened to a nine-year-old colt say the word ‘fuck’. Like he’s a battle hardened soldier smoking a cigarette as he’s about to go to war against an army of angry griffons with flamethrowers he’s gonna write to it, and if it takes him a curse word to help him get through it, then I’ll teach him to swear like Gilda’s sitting there taking notes from him as he goes.

Don’t mind me, Twilight. I’ll be out of here in a couple of weeks jumping off cliffs and taking my life for granted, and he’ll still be planted in his bed like a flower that refuses to grow. It’s not like it matters. The way I’ll live, I’ll probably meet up with Lightning again soon enough. It’s just as Doctor Stable said: this jetset life is going to kill me, and now more than ever I’m going to do everything I can to keep it up. I’m not slowing down. I’m living until I die.

But I swear to whatever god I can find in the time I have left I’m gonna remember you, kid. Gonna tell your story as often as every story you told me and every time I tell it I’ll say “See, Twilight? There’s bravery in this world. There’s a billion ponies out there huddled up in a corner protesting death.”

I’m not going to claim that I’ve learned anything other than the fact that I’m not invincible and if that’s enough to send the princess a letter then tie a yellow ribbon around it and stamp it in blue. Make it good, make it the best thing you've ever written because this time there's no editor. There's no one to give you a second chance. If I could hold my breath and stop this, I would. If I could pause time by not breathing, if we could all just take a minute, then I wouldn't gasp for air. Not once.

So hold your breath, Twilight.

“Signed... Rainbow Dash,” Rainbow said aloud, placing the quill on her nightstand as she finished. She looked up at Lightning and smiled. “You’d like Twilight, you know. She’s a librarian, I bet she has every Daring Do book five times over.”

“Will she ever come to visit?” Lightning asked.

Rainbow shrugged in response. “Don’t know, she’s kinda busy, being a princess and stuff. I hope she’ll come around.”

Rainbow and Lightning turned to look as the door slid open, revealing Doctor Steads and a team of three orderlies behind her. She was smiling as she stood, but Rainbow could see through her. Her smile was pained. Tired. Practiced. She held a dark blue chart in her foreleg which at the top had only three words in all capitals: TRANSFER TO HOSPICE.

“Hey there,” she said in a much quieter voice than usual. “Looks like I get to see my two favorite patients again, huh?”

Rainbow could hear her crack.

“Lightning,” she began, walking toward his bed. She took his hoof in hers, getting down on his level to make eye contact with him. “These nice ponies are going to bring you to a new room, okay? A whole new place in the hospital that’s going to make you feel very good. You’ll have a new doctor now, but I promise to visit you every single day, alright?”

Rainbow couldn’t watch this any longer. Much to the surprise of everypony into the room, she struggled out of bed and got to her hooves, walking over to where Steads and Lightning were seated. Steads turned to her, and Rainbow met her gaze with a hard stare. She felt betrayed, hurt that Steads could ever let this happen. Hurt that Stable could bunk her with a dying child. Hurt that she was about to lose someone she had grown so much closer to than any of her friends back at home save for Twilight. Rainbow kept her angered expression, trying her hardest to formulate her protests in her head. Her cries to Steads to not give up. Her begs and pleads for them to do everything they could to try and save Lightning. She imagined how she would bring it to the top of the hospital food chain, even the princesses. She knew that if she wanted to she could make them try harder, even if the chances were slim.

Rainbow knew exactly what she had to do. She moved painstakingly closer to Steads, opening her mouth to speak as her emotions began to boil over inside her.

Then she turned away, lowering herself down as she pressed her lips to Lightning’s forehead. She stayed there for what felt like hours, driving every ounce of love she had into his skull. She wrapped her hooves around him, burying her face into his mane as she released from the kiss.

“Be strong, kid,” she said, her voice cracking on every syllable. “There’s no room for fear where you’re going.”

“I don’t want to leave you, Rainbow Dash...” he breathed out, returning her hug.

“No. You aren’t leaving me,” she said, tightening her grip around him. “You will never leave me, just like I will never leave you. I’ll never forget you so long as I live, do you understand that? You’re the most important pony in my entire life. And by the way Lightning, you were right. I’m gay. Really, really gay. And I can prove it.”

Rainbow turned from Lightning, planting a passionate kiss on the lips of a now extremely confused Steads. Steads closed her eyes, making a few short, confused groans before finally giving up and letting whatever was happening happen.

Rainbow looked at Lightning again as she broke the kiss. “Because of you, I’m never going to live in fear of what might happen to me. I’m going to do what I want and love who I love,” she said, looking back at a now furiously blushing Doctor Steads before continuing. “And I love you, Lightning. I love you both.”

Steads couldn’t help but interrupt. “Rainbow Dash, what in the name of Celestia—”

Rainbow Dash put a hoof to Steads’ mouth before she could continue. “You’re really hot, and maybe when I get out of here if it’s not illegal or unethical or something my friend Pinkie Pie owns this really great coffee place.”

Steads sighed, rolling her eyes in defeat. After viewing the scene from the outside, Lightning began to laugh. Soon enough, Rainbow Dash and Steads joined in, closely followed by the orderlies. They laughed and laughed for a moment. A moment frozen in time.

It was Lightning who ended the laughing fit. “Here, Rainbow Dash,” he said, pulling out a large, dark blue feather from under his covers. “This is for you.”

Rainbow’s facial expression dropped when she noticed what he was holding. “Lightning, buddy,” she said, her tone growing concerned. “That’s... that’s your pinion,” she said. “You’ll never be able to fly without that.”

Lightning closed his eyes for a moment, giving Rainbow his own soft smile. He opened Rainbow’s forearms, placing the feather into her grasp. Rainbow could feel her chest crushing under her as he closed her hooves together, releasing what made him a pegasus to someone he had only known for a few days. Right then, the room was gone. She and Lightning stood alone.

“Don’t you see?” Lightning asked, letting out a soft chuckle as he looked up to Rainbow Dash with gleaming eyes.

“This is the first one I grew.”