Lightning's eyes opened themselves after another horrible night. She'd tried to sleep, like anypony would, but it wasn't going to happen, at least not like it should. She'd awoken six times over the course of the night, probably without ever sleeping for more than an hour straight. The end result now: her eyes were burning, and her head felt . . . well, tight. It wasn't a headache, but it felt like it was leaning over that edge waiting for its chance to become one.

She should have just taken that other stuff that Keto Profen had given her. Those blue Esco-Ezo-something pills. There was an S and a Z in there somewhere, but whatever, they made her sleep the couple times she either remembered or willed herself to take one. And right then, even after laying in bed for over ten hours . . . sleep still sounded really nice.

“Mmhmg-ghnm . . .” She tried, but her eyes wouldn't stay closed anymore. She had to get up. She had to do something.

The thought only then struck her: working at the ice cream wagon like she'd agreed to would probably be the best idea. So, she slowly rolled over onto her other side. The tiny bedside clock she came to stare at said that it was a few minutes past nine. That was one thing that had really changed, or rather more ceased to exist: routine. Lightning's dream and end goal was gone, so the future was just . . . blank, and empty. Nothing to work toward anymore. It used to be bed by midnight, up by seven everyday. Fly, train, pull stunts, occasionally do her actual job. Like the hard angles of the lightning and sudden expulsion of dust in her cutie mark implied, she was talented, amazing, flawless at making abrupt sharp turns at high speed and halting herself, voiding all moment out of her body almost instantaneously. For that, her actual job had been to course through Cloudsdale perusing for, and clearing out any stray clouds that drifted into the city unwanted.

There wasn't going to be any more of that though; her stepping hoof in Cloudsdale again was about as likely as her going to Ponyville.

Nope, it was all gone.

But when she let herself slip out of bed, the floor struck more recent thoughts into her. A lot of stuff was gone, but there was new stuff too. She didn't think she was all that bad at handing out ice cream. Kids really seemed to like her. Actually they all seemed to think she was awesome, just looked awesome, or something along those lines. As her old self, her old self being her from three whole months ago, she honestly would have told them that she was, in fact. She'd stopped always telling them that she wasn't like she had her first day serving ice cream. In fact, all yesterday she'd tell them with a weak smile that she used to be. To them, apparently, she just gave off an air of awesomeness.

After the first few times a couple days ago she started to not really mind. It did boost her ego, if only enough just to make her able to smile those few times. But . . . it's not like she would vending ice cream forever. Fudge Pop would be back tomorrow, and that was going to be the end of it. She couldn't undo rejection from the Wonderbolts, and she couldn't undo that either. No sense in trying to push limits that couldn't be, at least now she didn't see any.

So, she turned about away from her clock, finally. The door was open and waiting right at the corner of the room, and she took a couple of full breaths as she walked up to and through it. She passed her bathroom by, the only other room on the short hallway apart from the bedroom at its end that she'd just come out of. Its opposite end rounded a right turn and led for only about a pony-length until it came to the narrow staircase, taking another right turn itself. The stairs led from one low-ceiling floor down to another, to the only other room in her unit. It was both a living room area and a kitchen, though its kitchen corner literally was a single-burner stove with a small oven underneath, a few cupboards around it and a tiny sink as well. That was the extent of it; that was thirty bits a month.

Lightning walked over to the cupboards at her newfound sluggish morning pace. She opened one to reveal the last box of the many high-nutrition cereals she used to always keep herself stocked and ready with. It was probably almost empty too; it's not like she'd been paying attention as she poured it out each morning.

She gave a quick shake before actually grabbing a bowl.

Yup, it was practically done. In fact there ended up being exactly enough left for her one single breakfast bowl, minus the crushed up dust that was always at the bottom of the box. She eyed the dust in the box for a moment, lifting her eyebrows for a portion of it.
Left at the bottom, crushed up into dust . . . just like her.

In the end though, she laid the box back down the counter and made herself eat.

She took notice as she ate though, that she was actually eating at what one would probably consider a normal pace.

Had she been doing that for any of the past few days? She wondered about it, only remembering each of her meals for the past three months being bitter, agonizing self-force-feeding. Was this . . . her getting a little more better? How long had it been since she went to Keto Profen the first time. Three weeks, maybe three and a half? Three and a half weeks since she started taking the medication he'd boosted up for her. He'd said it would take a while . . . and just now she realized she actually had been easing a small bit out of her depression, slowly. Really slowly, but still . . .

Why did she view it in the pretext of specifically being the first time she went to Keto? Well, who else had she actually even spoken to at all besides him until these past few days? No pony, it was just him. And, most of those times it was him who wanted to talk to her, or she thought so, then she was actually able to remember how she'd felt back then, as long ago as a mere count of weeks seemed to feel. It had been an ingrained reality to her that no pony cared and no pony was going to, until Keto made himself an exception.

She wondered about the next time she would see him as she ran some water over the inside of the bowl and then left it to dry before grabbing the key to the ice cream wagon.

***

Lightning Dust watched with genuine amusement as a young unicorn colt fiddled so furiously with his mane in front of the vending window. He pressed down and backward firmly with his hooves for what could've been the hundreth time before he finally managed to work his hair into parting around his horn and then rejoining right behind it. From there he swept it back into as much of a stream line as he could get, and then very cautiously let it go.

“There! See!” he exclaimed, “Now it looks like yours!”

He turned himself to directly face the vending window again, but the moment he moved the entirety of his mane shot back forward into a hanging set of bangs once again.

“Aaahh, come on!” He yelled out.

His yell drew a swift response from his mother nearby. “Neat Keeping, watch your volume! You're in public, and that poor mare is only a foreleg away, you don't need to deafen her.”

“Yes, mom.” He made about as much effort to withhold aggravation and annoyance from his voice as any foal would.

“Sorry.” He then said to Lightning Dust.

“Please kid,” she said right back, “when you've had super-sonic wind roaring past your ears you get a kinda different standard of loud than everypony else.”

The little unicorn looked up to her with apparent confusion. “Super-sonic?”

“Faster than sound.” She explained.

“How fast is sound?” He instantly asked.

Lightning responded with a quick shrug. “How fast do you hear something after somepony says it?”

He looked like he thought for a couple seconds before his eyes went huge. “Whoah . . .”

Lightning smiled, genuinely, while she finished the little unicorn's elaborate ice cream order. The shock of it only came in as the colt left with his treat, leaving three bits on the vending counter.

She’d just acted like her old self . . . no, she talked like her old self . . . like herself. She actually, however weakly, boasted. But, she hadn't intended to, not for the sake of it at least. Her intention in that moment had just been to lift up the little colt's spirits. And doing that . . . made her happy.

Everything was changing . . . she was standing back up.

“Hey.” A new voice greeted.

Lightning's head swung back to the window. It was Keto Profen, white pharmacy lab coat and all.

“You're here?” She couldn’t help but ask.

“Wh-yeah,” he responded and went on to somewhat explain, “eh-every now and then we all get something special for our lunch break at the Pharmacy. One of us takes a pool of bits from everypony and runs out to grab whatever we want. So-so this time I said we should all get ice cream.”

“Yeah, I can see it.” Lightning said after contemplating the idea of them having nothing but whatever they brought with them in the morning for days on end.

Though, she suddenly gave him an odd look. “Why ice cream?”

Keto’s hesitation before answering was noticeable, although far from lengthy. “Uh, well it's summer. An-and I knew you were p-probably still going to be the one here today, since Fudge Pop said three days, she'd be gone for three days.”

“You came cause I was still here?” She asked, initially surprised.

“Ah . . .” he started to answer, “i-it's—you told me you didn't really know anypony anymore, or just, I guess don't want to talk to some. But you've at least talked to me since you started your treatment, so I mean even though I'm pretty lame I still thought s-seeing somepony you kind of know might be nice, r-or help you . . . a tiny little bit, maybe.”

“Uh, but, so you did really come here just cause I was? To see if I was any happier?” She still questioned, now surprised that he’d done so on her part, for her sake.

“Well, yg-yeah,” he started, yet more nervousness working into his voice, “I probably didn't exactly make that sound ri-right in any way, but-“

“Nah,” she tried to dismiss the notion for him, “I don't . . . or, didn't always care how anypony says stuff. I still don't, but I don't know if that's just not something that's changed or I'm just not better enough yet to. “It kinda just was a little too much of a surprise, the stuff you said.” Her eyes drifted off as she spoke up again. “Nopony ever really wanted to hang out with me before . . . everything. Who could guess why?” She ended with a mellow sarcasm.

Keto looked surprised at that revelation, though his own anxiety refrained his expression. “You're an amazing flyer right? I thi-think you said it was Cloudsdale you were the best in. Some ponies had to have thought you were cool? Even if ponies can get socially intimidated by ponies they hold high up some of them will still try to get close to them anyways.”

“Yeah,” she answered, as her eyes then fell downward and her depressed tone began to creep back into her voice, “for a little while it kinda felt like that, but . . . my attitude just kinda took over everything.”

“You-you don't have an attitude,” he tried to counter her, “or—not anymore. I mean, I didn't know you before, but I do now. I-I like knowing the you now.”

That did at least provoke the desire in her to smile. And she did, weakly. “Yeah,” she said, “kinda got that.”

Keto's own nervous smile slipped into to a straight line and his eyes shifted just a bit off contact from hers.

“Thanks for setting me up here. Kinda, I mean,” she said, with an initial look of confusion resulting from him, “With the ice cream wagon.”

“Oh, yeah,” he said once he understood, “it wa-w-was just an idea. It's not like I actually really thought a b-bunch of-of stuff out or anything. That was more of just a blind chance with asking her if she'd let you.”

“Yeah,” Lightning led, “but you still did it, didn't you?”

“W-what . . . ah-what was I supposed to do? I thought it might help you; I want you to feel better. Why wouldn't I?” He asked back.

“Thanks . . .” she said, really considering it for a moment, “Uh, and I actually have been feeling better, for the past few days. For whatever reason or whatever all of them, the colts and fillies, they love coming up to me. They all think I'm . . . cool and awesome.”

“Ah-yeah, kids are usually decent at pointing out the obvious.” Keto said plainly, trying his best to convey that he viewed what they were telling her as a fact.

Lightning actually took that in for a moment, but the compelling of her depression still told her to deny it. “Uh, sure. They've never even seen me leave this wagon let alone fly, even if some of them did ask about what I used to do. And I'm not the only pony in all of Equestria with a swept-back streak mane.”

“Yeah,” he still kept up, “but you . . . are, awesome. I-I mean . . . I won't make anything sound right, but you just . . . kind of can tell that you're awesome, even just from the start.”

“Um . . . thanks . . . I haven't had anypony say that kind of stuff about me in a while, anypony older than eight.” She said.

They both laughed just a little at the last part of what she'd said, and at the end of it she leaned onto the counter lazily, propping her head with one hoof.

“Lyra used to say stuff like that too,” she told him, breaking eye contact upon recallin memories, “only it was a little bit different. Or, it was kinda the same, but she's my sister, and you're . . .” Lightning's speech dropped off when the realization struck that she didn't exactly know what she was about to say. Keto even felt the same awkwardness, wondering where she had been going, only with his severe anxiety it was significantly amplified.

“She lives pretty close, right?” He asked, trying to keep her going solely in her sister's direction. “Di-d-didn't you say the other day you really want to go see her again?”

“Yeah,” Lightning’s voice carried all her mixed sentiments at the moment, “Ponyville . . . I'm not about to go there.”

Keto did hesitate to ask, but, that strong of a sentiment left too much of desire to know. “Ah-t, why not?”

Lightning responded with a deep expression of annoyance, and bitter, narrowed eyes. She slumped herself down onto the vending counter, no longer propping up her head but instead now resting in on top of her front forelegs.

“. . . sorry . . .” Keto retracted himself.

“It's fine.” She said, after a moment, her head still facing him but her eyes looking away to the side. “It's cause SHE lives there too.”

“. . . Um . . ?” Keto found he had to keep faintly encouraging her to continue.

“Rainbow Dash—“ Her mentioning of the name, and the particularly resentful way with which she said sparked up Keto's the memory from three days prior, when she'd exploded at him for just saying the word "rainbow" itself. “—She got me kicked out.” Lightning finished with the one-line explanation. It left Keto’s eyes widening, and didn’t exactly leave him feeling like he could say anything. But she still said more just a few seconds after that, “. . . it was my fault . . .”

Those words threw Keto into mental shock. That had defied everything that Lightning had been saying since he'd met her. It went completely inverse to what he thought was her affirmed mentality. Which meant . . . she had to be changing inside, maybe even finally beginning to lift out of the lowest point of her depression for good . . . if she'd left the stage of self-pitying that most went through . . .

“But,” Lightning went on still, “she's the one who called me out on everything . . . and told them what I was really like.”

That, allowed Keto Profen to finally piece together a more detailed, but still blurry outline of what must have happened to her.

“I'm not taking the chance of running into her.” Lightning declared firmly.

Keto waited a minute, to see if she was still going to go any further. When it decisively seemed that Lightning had no more to say after affirming her own refusal to travel to Ponyville, the only thing Keto felt he could and should do was identify with her. “Well, that—the awkwardness I think you're probably talking about, I'm-I’m pretty well familiar with that.” He said.

Lightning lifted her eyes back up to look him in the face again, although she still didn't pick her head up off the counter, but it was enough to give away the faintest curiosity.

“Severe anxiety,” Keto explained, “Really, really . . . bad anxiety. It’s-ss even the reason I stutter.”

He reached into his pony pocket with a wing and pulled out a thin, transparent pharmacy-orange prescription bottle and showed it to her for a second.

Lorazepam

For some reason, the realization that Keto also had some problem so severe that he constantly needed medication made Lightning pick up her head again. Actually, it also made her reflect in that moment about what she'd initially thought of him, not that the state of her depression at the time she’d first met him a month ago had granted the thought any more than a second. Shy, quiet, seemingly inactive; not just Keto, obviously, anypony like that, she'd always just cast them off as weird . . . and weak. And now here she was feeling guilty.

“I just thought you were one of those ponies.” She even admitted to him, though her admitting guilt in herself required her breaking eye contact for the moment she said so.

“I—no I can probably guess what that means,” he took onto what she meant pretty quickly, “But, ah-anyways, don’t you really want to see your sister again though?”

Her response was heated, although she didn’t actually raise her volume by all that much. “Of course I do! I just don't wanna have to have anything to do with HER, the other her.”

A concept came to mind for Keto, but . . . he wasn't sure . . . he really wasn’t sure. It was how it would sound that he was afraid of, and to some extent he was suspicious of himself for coming up with it, but . . . he genuinely wanted her to get to see her sister again, since he thought of all things that could only help her.

“Ah-we could both go-or I mean I can come too,” he started up, praying incessantly inside that it wouldn’t come across the way could, and the way it was probably going to, “You just don't want to run into the other her, whi-which I guess you mean you don't want to have to interact with her. Ponies are—are a lot less likely to go up to somepony they don't like if the pony they don't like isn't alone. There’s real psychology behind it—“

“Wait what?” she abruptly cut in, “So you, wanna go with me down to Ponyville, and what?”

And there it was, as far as Keto could guess. He felt his temperature start to climb, even as he tried to explain what he really meant. “Uh-I'd just basically be there as like, a wall. It's-it’s like I just said, about her probably not bothering you if both of us are together when you’re, you know, w-walking around. You can get to visit your sister finally, and I'll just . . . uh, there's a bakery down there that's basically the best in Equestria. I'm always running over my mirconutrient and vitamin intake when I eat, so I could probably just go stuff my face for a while and take a break . . . from myself.”

“Um . . . so—“ Lightning was about to start with a conspicuous look on her face, but they were both interrupted suddenly by a mother standing with her little filly behind Keto Profen.

“Excuse me,” the mother asked, clearly irritated, but still actually coming off as polite, “but could you two please wait to flirt with each other until there's not a line waiting patiently?”

Both of them were taken by complete surprise, and when Keto turned around, and Lightning actually looked past him, they both found a line of probably ten ponies waiting with all of their eyes on the two of them. For Keto in particular, the flirting comment and the amount of stares spiked his blood pressure fast, and as blood pooled into the vessels just beneath his skin to compensate, he heated just as quick, way more so than he already had from talking to Lightning Dust.

“Yyyeah,” Lightning said to him quickly, “ah, I'm gonna have to take care of this.”

“I'm sorry,” he said just as quick, stepping out of the way as he did so, “n-nn-nevermind what I said—r wherever I was going.”

“Huh? No, just—“ she stopped him, in a slight amount of surprise at his simple abandonment of everything he’d been saying. She paused for a half-second, checking the line again. “—come back after.”

***

Lightning Dust locked the wagon door at day's end. It was the third time, and the last time. As of tomorrow, she had nothing to do again. Nothing . . .

She'd been surprised, or perhaps confused, she couldn't exactly identify it, when Keto Profen didn't walk back up after the line had cleared. But then, she'd remembered that he had a job to get back to, though that led to her also remembering he'd come there for ice cream for himself and his coworkers and hadn't left with any. Which, somehow still going, led into wondering if showing back up without anything might have put off his coworkers a bit, which she only really thought about because her mind had held onto what he'd told her earlier about himself having severe anxiety.

Her thoughts ended though, when she saw that he was actually waiting nearby. He looked like he might have been waiting for a little bit; he wasn't exactly pacing, more like taking a couple steps every so often but nothing repetitive. He ceased once he saw her, obviously, and slowly came up.

“Hey.” She said as she stepped down from the wagon door.

“H-sorry for causing you problems, earlier.” He just regretfully apologized.

“Yeah that's fine,” she said, and even found she had the energy and motivation to wave a hoof when she tried to convince him to just forget, “It was just handing out cones to a lot more ponies than a usual line. Uh . . . dude, don't worry.” She felt like she had to say at the end, once she actually took notice of just how distressed the thought that he’d caused her trouble apparently made him.

As simple as her not-worrying statement was, it was enough for him. Well, emotionally, not in terms of his actual anxiety over the matter subsiding. “You told me to come back?” He asked, or rather reminded her, with his face lightening up.

“Yeah . . .” she started to say back, and went into alluding to her own thoughts, “after the line was gone, I did think for the rest of the afternoon. I really do wanna see Lyra again. And, I was going to ask,” she paused for a second, just to change her expression over to a light, but thankful smile, “You said you'd go down with me? You've been trying help me get better since I first came into your pharmacy. But, the whole going to Ponyville, and back: that's an awful lot of time . . . with another pony. The trip down, walking around the place, the trip back,” she took one more pause, but this time it was to look away from him . . . and to add just the faintest smirk to her own face, “probably eating somewhere afterwards.”

Keto's blood froze . . . and it didn't, but it felt like it, and it stalled any response he possibly could have made.

“You're asking me out.” Lightning Dust rather blatantly declared to him.

Full-reverse, Keto's heart shot as much blood just beneath his skin as it possibly could, but the uncontrollable amount of epinephrine blasting into his system kept him from perceiving any physical feeling. All it allowed him to comprehend was the blinding progression from one thought to the next, one kind of thought to the next, one emotion to the next though whilst still existing under a blanket of fear.

What had he done? She thought he liked her? Of course he did! He couldn't lie to himself about something so obvious! But he shouldn't have made it so obvious. He shouldn't have even have let any of it show. She was depressed! He was supposed to be helping her, not leading her into something that could only end badly! But that slight smirk on her face suggested she liked the idea. Maybe it wouldn't end badly? What? Her, with him? Any mare with him! Of course it would end badly, if it even started! He could barely talk to ponies as it is, let alone try to avoid stuttering. And he could only manage that because he was medicated on the job! Forget mares, it was a miracle they even let him out of Pharmacy School. He could he have been so obvious to give this much away to her? How could he even come to the point of allowing thoughts about what was meant to be forever beyond his reach stick around in his mind? He should've just gone somewhere else for the staff's lunch. He should've just waited and let her come in for her refill when her prescription ran out. But . . . but . . .
Panic

“I've had stallions interested in me before, you know, with how awesome you said I was. Course I blew em all off though, cause I didn't care,” she shrugged at the end just before she resumed looking at him again, “But . . .”

Keto just breathed. He tried so hard to force through as close to normal breaths as he could get. And it didn't go unnoticed, though it wasn’t as if his lack of saying anything would have either.

Lightning saw Keto's chest tensing numerous times in the middle of each inhale and exhale he made and took. She could also plainly see his fur damp with sweat, but she'd kind of expected that much. The thing with his breathing though . . . and his face looked like somepony struggling to hold themselves together. He shouldn't have been that terrified . . .

“Uh, hey, dude,” she asked, “are you alright?”

It was only after she spoke that her memory struck her about his anxiety. Severe, he'd included that word.

He was so stupid for being afraid of stuff!

That mode of thinking had been so intrinsic, so natural to her for so long that that was the first line of thought to cross through her head. She didn't think it consciously, at least not really. She didn't literally think that of him right there and then . . . but she realized that she would have, only a few months ago. That, and the fact that she didn't even initially remember his anxiety problem brought the realization of just how little she really did use to care about anypony else. It brought it more to light for her now than ever.

“Agh, I'm sorry. Uh, I shouldn't have gone like that—“ She started, not honestly sure how to go about a real apology, not exactly having made many previously. However, for what might have been the first time, Keto Profen actually cut her off.

“No . . . it's-it's-it's fine. I'm fine. I'm . . . not,” he started going, and then realized the pointlessness of lying right then and there at that point.

He shook his head, although it honestly looked more like a shiver, or a brief, violent tremor. “I really shouln't even have been doing all this,” he began again, “But . . . I really did want to help you. Any time I did something, I wanted to help you . . . but yeah, you're right—not that I'm, or was asking you out, but I like you, definitely enough I probably would ask you out if I was a normal pony,” he paused for couple of seconds in his admission, coming to a completely different realization, “Hah, I'm not stuttering . . . I guess I can only say straight words when I'm this terrified. That’s probably what I like about you the most; you can tell even through the depression, you’re not afraid of anything.” He stopped, after referring to her overall, underlying nature.

Lightning didn’t know whether Keto was only pausing, or if he was actually done, so she just took her own chance while the silence lasted.
“Hey, Keto Profen.” She said.

His attention directly returned to her.

And then she went ahead with it. “Ya'know, if that was you asking to go out with me, I'd say yes.”

Author's Note

Whoah, it's almost like I'm having some kind of confession-of-feelings week or something. First the latest chapter of Hurricane Paradigm and now this?

Firstly, the concept of Lyra being Lightning Dust's sister I originally got from this guy . Albeit, my backstory of LD and Lyra and their growing up is obviously different from his, but I promised I would credit him with the inspiration for the idea.

You should already know from chapter one, Keto Profen's name is literally a bi-worded version of Ketoprofen, which is a strong prescription anti-inflammatory medication.
But, to add in my tie-ins and references, both the medication he takes ( Lorazepam, a potent sedative ), and the medication Lightning Dust takes ( Venlafaxaine, a Seretonin&Norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor, commonly known to the public as "anti-depressants") both are medications I take in real life :D
SSRIs, while known mostly just for their use in treating chronic depression, suppress chronic, severe anxiety via the same chemical mechanism, so they are also used just as frequently for people like myself with severe anxiety disorders who basically couldn't function normally anyways. So I take 150mg of Venlafaxine every night with my dinner.
Lorazepam, I obviously don't take every day, and not even frequently. As it's a sedative, I really only use it when I'm exceptionally distressed, plus it's a strictly-regulated substance due to drug abuse issues, so I never actually even get a refill, I ask for more at one of my appointments, and I seem to only go through a bottle of 20 every six months or so.

So, now you needlessly know a bit of information about me, so here I'll stop.

Please enjoy reading everypony :)