ER

The Intensive Care Unit

As Rainbow Dash pushes the double doors wide open, she makes her way down the marble hallway with her saddlebag hunched over her back. Reaching the rotunda at the end of the corridor, she stops by the nurses station to drop off the documents, given to her from Twilight, along with a form permitting her visit with Scootaloo. Afterwards, see proceeds to room “A113.”

Finding the correct combination of letters and digits, time began to feel frozen to Rainbow Dash as she finds herself standing in front of the slide door wanting to go in. However, thinking she was rid of her despair, the weight of the situation provided a new mental barrier. This prevented her from immediately entering the room.

Can I really do this? she thought to herself. Can I really bare to see Scootaloo in her state of condition? Or am I really afraid of hurting her feelings by not showing enough support for her? A moment goes by and Rainbow Dash makes her choice. You know what, forget it. I always need to be there for her and nothing is going to stop me.

She slides open the door.

Walking into the brightly lit unit, Rainbow Dash surpasses the patient’s bathroom as she exposes herself to the main chamber. Finding Scootaloo asleep on her bed, Dash moves herself quietly over towards the recliner to set her saddlebag down beside it. She then sits in the chair and begins to lightly poke Scootaloo.

Rainbow Dash whispers in her ear, “Wake up buddy!”

Opening her eyes to see the overhead light hanging above her, Scoots, drowsy from her nap, turns her head to side. Wondering about who's poking her, she was delighted to see Rainbow Dash as her heart monitor jumped from 62 BPM to 65 BPM. However due to the air mask covering her mouth, rendering her unable to properly communicate, she wasn’t able to tell Rainbow Dash to immediately give her a hug. Therefore, Scootaloo stuck out her arms while trying to reach for Rainbow Dash’s neck. Understanding her intentions, Rainbow Dash leaned in to let her arms wrap around while Dash extended her left hoof across Scootaloo’s blanketed body. In the end, this created a makeshift embrace that they both knew would suffice the purpose of what they were trying to do.

“Hey buddy, it’s great to see you,” said Rainbow Dash as she lets go of Scootaloo. “And from the force of that hug, I guess I can assume you are getting stronger!”

Scootaloo smiles as she raises her left arm and flexes it, signifying her arm strength recovery. However as she places it back down, she coughs into the mask.

Rainbow Dash reacts with slight concern, “Hey don’t start coughing on me now. We want to get you out of here faster… Not have you staying here forever!”

Pinkie Pie comes out of the roof exclaiming, “FOREVER!” as the popped ceiling tile falls to the floor. Immediately, Pinkie doesn’t waste any time pulling herself back up into the canopy while winking into the void. Meanwhile, the sudden appearance of their friend left Rainbow Dash and Scootaloo in a state of confusion and laughter for about five minutes. Afterwards, it took themselves about two minutes to settle down from their pleasurable chuckle to dead quiet.

***

After being secluded for less than thirty seconds, this time period took Rainbow Dash long enough to go from entertained to bored.

She gives Scootaloo a slight bump, “Hey. Hey, Scootaloo.”

Scoot tilts her head over to Rainbow Dash.

She whispers, “What do you do for fun around here?”

Scootaloo points to a colored box resting on a table over by the restroom. Getting out of her seat, Rainbow Dash walks over to investigate the cardboard container. To her delight, it was her favorite game, Battle Clouds.

Rainbow Dash’s voice cracked as she quietly shouted, “Oh my gosh! I love this game.” She then sarcastically boasted, “erm… I mean. I am the best at it and I suppose no PONY can beat me.” She grins and winks towards Scootaloo.

Accepting it as a challenge, Scootaloo puts her hoofs out as if to say, “Bring it on.”

Rainbow Dash laughs, “Ha! So you think you can beat me Scootaloo?”

She waves her head up and down, signaling, “Yes.”

“You are so on!”

While Scootaloo sets up the game on an overbed table, Rainbow Dash grabs a piece of paper, a quill, and ink from her saddlebag. Giving the items to Scootaloo, they soon positioned their Cumulus, Bumblebees, Weather Ponies, Seagulls, and Thunderbolts on the game board. Afterwards, Rainbow Dash lets Scootaloo take the first shot.

She writes on the piece of paper: Sky 8

It was a miss, but Rainbow Dash takes her Seagull and tells Scootaloo, “Aww, man! You hit my bird!” She says aloud, “grrrrrrrrr… Go again!”

Scootaloo writes down: Cloud 2. It coincidentally hit Rainbow Dash’s Weather Pony.

Dash pretended to wine, “Well this sucks! You killed me! He he… Go again buddy!”

Scootaloo scribbles: Atmosphere 1

“Crap! You stung my Bumblebee!”

Mesosphere 10

“Woah! There goes my Thunderbolt!” Rainbow Dash tosses the game piece onto the floor. “Well Scootaloo, It seems like my cumulus is all that remains. Therefore, make this shot count!”

She nods her head, although thinking, Rainbow Dash is going to let me win anyway… Which, that is incredibly nice of her. She slips a single tear while wheezing.

Proceeding to write down her next, and possibly last, shot, there was a sudden knock on the glass door. This was followed by three doctors entering the room and interrupting and the game. To the surprise of Rainbow Dash, one of the doctors was Dr. Red Heart.

He speaks in the direction towards Scootaloo, “Oh my! Sorry to interrupt the game that you got going on here. Who’s winning?”

Dash points at Scootaloo while curling her lip.

The Doctor laughs, “Ha! Wow, really?!” He looks down at the gameboard, “Yikes! What is it? Five… to… One. Ah! Well,” he clears his throat, “It seems like you were about to win Scootaloo. Right?”

She motions her head up and down.

“Well… I’m sorry to rain your parade Scootaloo,” said the Doctor. “But I am going to need to speak with Rainbow Dash.”

Dash was shocked, “Wait... me?”

“Yeah, I have some business I need to talk to you about.”

Rainbow Dash wasn’t sure on what he meant by “business” as she says, “Alright?”

“Fantastic!” he extends his arm out, “Please follow me and we will get some things taken care of.” He then waves goodbye to Scootaloo while escorting Rainbow Dash out of the room.

“I guess I’ll see you in a little bit, buddy!” said Rainbow Dash as she shuts the slide door close.

What just happened? thought Scootaloo.

***

A couple of hours pass by and Scootaloo remained alone in her room without the company of Rainbow Dash. Getting bored by those hours, she finally raises her head and flops it back down on the pillow while letting out a brief grunt. Wondering why it’s taking so long for her to return, she thinks to herself, Oh, come on! What in Celestia do those Doctor’s want with… She chokes, enabling her from finishing her thought.  Oh, forget it.

She then turns her head towards the ceiling while releasing a long yawn. Making her vision fade, she slowly relaxes herself with the mental image of Rainbow Dash wishing her a goodnight. Falling asleep, she entered a cycle of peaceful rest until it was interrupted by Rainbow Dash attempting to crept back into the room. Sitting down on the recliner and letting out a huge excess of air, Scootaloo awoke from her short nap.

Immediately adjusting her head towards the direction of the sound, the dimly lit room was able to flood enough light for her to see Rainbow Dash sitting beside her. However, she couldn’t see Dash quietly sobbing to herself until she clicked a button on her bed to turn on the unit’s main lights. Revealing Rainbow’s excessive crying without any reason known to Scootaloo, this bizarre display of emotion compelled Scoots to extend her arm out and lean into Rainbow Dash. She touched her on the right shoulder.

Dash batted Scoots arm off.

Retreating her arm towards her side, Scootaloo, still confused as to why Rainbow Dash is weeping, laid on her bed thinking, Why did she hit me? I mean… What did I do wrong? She looked back at her before Dash turned her head in the direction of Scootaloo, to which she readjusted her face to look up at the ceiling.

“Scoots?” said Rainbow Dash with slight concern. “Buddy?”

Scootaloo ignored Rainbow Dash in hopes of getting an explanation as to why she hit her.

Being apologetic, “Hey, look. I’m sorry for swatting your hand. I mean, I really didn’t want too.” Dash stuttered, “Because I’m just... just.”

She struggled to speak since her mind concentrated on Scootaloo not forgiving her. Therefore, she mentally skipped over what she was going to say.

Shaking her head, Dash whimpers, “Hey look, I know what I did was wrong,” the rainbow pony slumps her shoulders down while closing her eyes, “And I understand if you don’t want to forgive me for being malicious.’’

No actions or movements came from her friend.

Reverting back to her original thought, “I’m just… Hoping that you would understand something that I have been meaning to tell you.”

Scoots became intrigued by the phrase, inhaling and exhaling while rolling her head over to Rainbow Dash.

She reminisces, “Do you remember that day when we went camping with Applejack, Rarity, and your friends? And that after I saved you from that waterfall, I said that I would take you under my wing?”

Scootaloo shakes her head, as to say “Yes,” while centralizing her thoughts on that moment. Suddenly, it’s emotional power made her think about how important that memory was to her. For it was the very moment that her idol accepted to care and help her. Tearing up over that fact, Scoots facial expression changed from a blank stare to a slight display of being overwhelmed by her own anamnesis.

Rainbow Dash continues, “And that I also told you my secret? About the fact that I was scared of the same stories you got spooked over,” she pauses, “Well, I might have forgotten to tell you one more thing.”

Dash takes a deep breath of air while mustering up her courage to tell a deep truth.

She admits, “I never had a sibling of my own either, so I kinda know how you felt when you were excited to have me take you under my wing… Because it also made me feel overjoyed to fill a long lost desire of mine.’’

Scootaloo was surprised to hear this information as she thought, Really?

Meanwhile, Dash says, “You see when I grew up in Cloudsdale, my parents never had any little brothers or sisters for me to play with. Therefore, I usually had to just rely on my friends to hang out with… and even to this day I still have five amazing friends that I share adventures with. Kinda like your two best friends Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle. Right?”

Scoots puts out her left arm and curls the hoof to represent a “thumbs up.” Dash reacts by quickly snorting and grinning at her gesture.

Afterwards, she makes her point, “But anyway, that is what they feel to me as… just great friends. For you see, I felt, for the most part, robbed of the chance to have a unique relationship with sibling that I could call...” Dash sighs, “my sister.”

She hangs her head low for about five seconds, only to raise it back up as she enthusiastically, but calmly, states, “But then something awesome happened life in my life after I moved to Ponyville…”

Rainbow Dash reaches out and grabs Scootaloo’s arm with both of her hoofs as she tips  into her and says, “You flew into the picture… or rode into it…”

Scootaloo giggled into her mask.

Dash smiled, “...and amazed me with how you were able to cope with your incapability of flight. Something of which I never had to deal with...”

Rainbow Dash paused while inhaling another deep breath of air, squeezing Scootaloo’s hoof in the process.

As she restrain her intentions of not revealing anything she considers to be “very, very personal,” she clenches her face and exhales before saying, “...But going back on that night I rescued you, when you said that you wanted to be like my little sister. Honestly,” Dash gulps as she strains her neck, “I was immortalized since I couldn’t believe what you said. To which,” she chokes, “That is why I opened up to you… Because you showed me something special, Scoots. Something that I never saw from my friends, but only from you.”

Rainbow Dash hangs her head low while breaking out into tears, finally submitting to the feeling of insurmountable sadness that has been plaguing her mind since she knew what was coming next.

So did Scootaloo, beginning to sob as well.

For Dash had do it, she had to say, “For you showed me and eternal bond the will forever connect us... Defined by a single phrase-”

Scootaloo ripped off her air mask and shouted, ‘’Sister, I love you!’’

“I love you too, Scootaloo,” Dash cried, “I love you too.”

Embracing each other for a final time, a team of physicians, nurses, and respiratory therapists, whom been waiting outside for Rainbow Dash’s physical “hug signal,” flooded the room to commence the process of Scootaloo’s withdrawal from life support. Starting with the unplugging of her mechanical ventilator, the action was carried out by Rainbow Dash after she was pried away from Scootaloo by the force of the assistances. Then, Dash was escorted out of the room with a nurse handing her a clipboard containing two copies of the same papers she placed on the front desk prior to finding “A113.”

Scanning the first document entitled “Certificate of Waiver for Advanced Life Support Services,” Dash hasty re-reads the same procedures she memorized while waiting alone to visit Scoots. Picturing her final moments of being “Monitored for any signs of discomfort and distress by a staff of administers able to provide additional sedative/pain medication as needed for Scootaloo’s comfort,” she places her body up against the glass door and slides down to the floor. There, she tries to contain the her emotions.

However, she lifted the waiver and left herself to bawling a mess of tears. Revealing a letter from The Ponyville Adoption Agency, congratulating her on accepting a little pegasus with an orange coat and moderate cerise mane.