Fluttershy had been trotting away from the school for what she estimated to be about a half an hour, toward Rainbow Dash's house. Having no idea that a certain yellow pegasus with a fiery orange mane was gaining on her, she got complacent and slowed her pace, slightly, to allow herself a chance to breathe easier. She had no idea she was slowing down, because if it was up to her, she would run as fast as she can for as long as she needed to, but her lungs had other plan. Little by little, Fluttershy had slowed from a dead sprint to a slow jog, borderline limping. Chest tightening, she had to stop running all together, hating herself for stopping. Coughing and wheezing, she tried to carry on, but only made it a few more feet before she eventually collapsed and blacked out.

"FLUTTERSHY!" Spitfire screamed, concerned for her friend. She leapt forward to try to catch Fluttershy but was a little bit too late. Fluttershy's unconcious body slipped in between Spitfire's hooves and her head smacked the pavement with a loud, cringeworthy THUD! Spitfire's heart stopped for a minute, tears threatening to spill out. Worried, she held a shaking hoof against the unconscious pegasus's neck. Spitfire let an audible sigh of relief as she felt a pulse. A dangerously rapid pulse. But still a pulse.

Spitfire scooped up Fluttershy's body, debating whether she should take her back to the school so she could get her to the nurse, or to Rainbow Dash's house. Rainbow Dash only lived a couple miles away and Spitfire knew she had some medical supplies somewhere in her house, but ultimately decided to take Fluttershy to the school, being as how the nurse was actually a trained professional with a medical license and everything. It was just as much, that reason, as it was that Spitfire was now furious at Rainbow for putting Fluttershy through this and couldn't trust herself not to start a fight. She looked back at Fluttershy, who had a nasty bruise already forming on the side of her face. Spitfire flinched a little, and decided that had made it all the more urgent that she hurry to the school nurse. She composed herself and collected as much breath as she could, then took the skies.

**********

Spitfire had arrived to the nurse and explained, to the best of her memory, what had happened to Nurse Angel, who looked more and more worried with every detail. "...and for some reason, she just stopped and fell, Nurse! She fell and hit her head hard and she got a bad bruise and she's been unconscious since and she-" Spitfire tried to go on but she burst into tears. It was bad enough seeing something so terrible happen right in front of her, but to have to relive it in front of others? A teenage mare's heart could only take so much, The nurse understood exactly what was going on and pulled Spitfire in close for a friendly embrace. Nurse Angel had a friendly face, that went well with his turquoise eyes, and electric blue mane and tail. His cutie mark composed of a book and quill, with a globe as a background. Spitfire assumed it represented his experience in the medical field around the world. Though she could be wrong.

"Shh, shh, shh! It's ok, Spitfire! Your friend's going to be fine, don't worry!" he said in a soft, comforting voice,

"I know!" Spitfire said as she sniffled. "I know!"

The nurse broke the embrace so he could place Fluttershy up on the bed. He quickly checked her vitals, as was standard procedure, asking Spitfire questions about Fluttershy. Not the "incident" but Fluttershy herself. "Can you tell me this pony's name again?"

"Fluttershy!"

"Ok, Fluttershy!" the nurse mumbled to himself as he looked through a file cabinet of what Spitfire assumed to be the school's student medical files. "Let's see... f... Fleetfoot... Flitter... Fluttershy! Here we are!" The nurse exclaimed as he lifted a file out of the cabinet. He opened it and quickly skimmed, only to come to a chilling realization. He quickly went through Fluttershy's vitals again, hoping his suspicion was wrong. Only to find it was 100% accurate. Wheezing, shortness of breath, incessant coughing, and chest tightness. These were all symptoms of a serious asthma attack! The nurse wanted to tell Spitfire this, for she had a right to know, but at the same time, it was probably smarter to withhold that information, as she was worried enough as it was. Thinking quick on his hooves, he decided to give Spitfire a vague explanation, then send her to class. "Spitfire, honey! I think it's time you get back to class! Don't worry about your friend, she's in good hooves. Thank Celestia you brought her when you did, so we need to get started treating her immediately. I'll write you a pass."

Spitfire let her breath out in another relived sigh, unaware that she was holding her breath in the first place. "You sure she's gonna be ok?" Spitfire asked in a shaky voice.

The nurse nodded, "Yes, we're certain! She just needs to rest for the remainder of the day. If you want, you can come check on her after school." He concluded as he ripped a late pass out of his notepad and gave it to Spitfire.

Confident in the nurse's abilities, Spitfire calmed down enough to take the note and return to class. As she left, the nurse got to work immediately.

Nurse Angel had worked at the school for many years and had seen few asthma attacks, but nevertheless, he knew exaclty what to do. When a pony had asthma as bad as Fluttershy's her parents get a special breathing machine from the hospital called a nebulizer and medicine to go with it, since asthma posed a constant risk, a second nebulizer had to be delivered to every school that had students with asthma. It had been years since the nurse had used one of those machines, but that didn't hinder his ability to. He quickly got the nebulizer from atop a shelf and attached the mask to the tube on it. He tore open a pouch of the medicine and poured it into the correct receptacle, then secured the mask around Fluttershy's head. He flipped the switch to power the machine, which made a loud, constant buzzing noise as it worked to allow Fluttershy to inhale the medictaion, which then went to work in Fluttershy's lungs. As the nebulizer did its thing, the nurse put an ice pack over Fluttershy's eye, the one with the bruise, to help the swelling go down. He then monitored the machine to make sure Fluttershy got all the medicine into her system.

**********

Spitfire had returned to class, gave the teacher her note, then took her seat, in between Derpy and what would be Rainbow Dash's seat, had she been in school that day. "What happened? Is Fluttershy okay?" Derpy whispered.

"There's too many details to explain right now. New stuff has come to light, a lotta ins, a lotta outs, a lotta what-have-yous. And, uh, a lotta strands to keep in my head, man. I'll explain after class." She whispered back.

There wasn't actually that much to explain and Spitfire knew that. Fluttershy had an asthma attack and fell and smacked her head. But she's fine now. Saying it was too much to explain at once was just a copout so she wouldn't have to worry about crying in the middle of class. Though, considering it was Derpy, if Spitfire spelled it out enough, it would at least seem complicated. That's not to say Derpy was dumb, however, quite the opposite in fact. Derpy had a higher IQ than most ponies at the school, including a few teachers, but being as smart as she was, she sometimes overthought, even the simplest tasks and messes it up somehow, giving the illusion of dumb.

Satisfied with Spitfire's copout, Derpy nodded and waited until after class to receive the details. "I've got something to tel you, too!" She whispered. "It's about the letter!" Then Derpy continued her work.

Spitfire froze as she remembered the letter. She hated that thing. Hasn't that damned piece of paper caused enough trouble? Spitfire swallowed her anger, so as to not seem aloof, but it still dominated the back of her mind, making it hard to concentrate, but she soldiered on. This had better be good! She thought to herself.

Author's Note

sorry this chapter took so long erryponeh! got caught up with all this new stuff i got for my birthday, which was a couple weeks after the day the last chapter was published, anyway this chapter has a big lebowski reference (which btw, is one of my favorite movies) if youve seen it as often as i have, it would be fairly obvious and also, Angel_Bunny found the tf2 reference from the last chapter! :D so now that ive finally got this chapter up, maybe ill have the rest up faster than this one!