A delightful grin clung to Soarin’s face while his mouth salivated over the decent-sized piece of pie he was carrying. It was the last slice of the last pie they’d had at Captain Thunder Trail’s retirement party. While it did leave him with a tiny, tiny sense of guilt for feeling that way about it, he was glad that not all of the party’s food had been enjoyed, since he’d appointed himself in charge of finishing off this particular leftover. In fact, he would have gone ahead and consumed it right then and there before he even left, but a smiling glare from Spitfire had held him back from doing so. His stomach had protested the hold-off pretty fiercely, but the combination of having enough manners to let other ponies have a chance at pie and not wanting to make Spitfire have to start pulling strings for him already, given it hadn’t even been a full two days since her promotion to their new Captain. Though, he had every intention of calling her in on the promise she’d made a long way back, especially since Captain Thunder Trail had been giving Soarin a hard time for eating so much pie so often, constantly telling him “I expect a tail trail, not stomach plummet!” The last time their now-former captain had said that was after he’d already announced Spitfire as the Wonderbolts’ new captain, and of course, Spitfire had indicated Soarin and promised the captain she’d keep his flight exercise regimen more than sufficient enough to keep off any pie-weight.

Soarin couldn’t help but smile as he laughed inside at that particular memory. It was undoubtedly true; when Spitfire was in charge of team workouts and flight-exercises she made thoroughly sure they were nothing short of exhausting. His best friend wasn’t satisfied if she wasn’t pushing limits, and she didn’t restrict that attitude to just herself. She always pushed everypony . . . and she’d been pushing him since they first became friends: through flight school, summer flight camp, their training before they applied to the Wonderbolts, their initial training and regimenting after they’d officially joined, always. Whenever he’d thought he was too slow or too sky-clutzy or even “not cool enough” she’d always been right there pushing forward and nudging him on. AND, whenever he was just being lazy she was there to boot him in the flank as well, which anypony who knew Soarin knew he needed regularly.

Spitfire was going to be an amazing Captain, Soarin wholeheartedly believed that just as much he did that he would never have made to where they’d come to now if she hadn’t been behind him.

Right after that belief he so strongly held came to mind, a thought followed in its wake that brought him to a stop. It left him staring down longingly at his big slice of pie, and for a good ten seconds too. But, eventually he made a slow turn with his head to look off to his left side. His eyes trained onto the cloud building a short distance off from him; it was Spitfire’s dormitory unit, along with her new office joint to it. Soarin’s eyelids fell part way as he looked on at his friend’s new residence. He turned his head back to his pie for a few more seconds and then let out a weak sigh through his nose, returning to a mild form of his dorky smile after he did.

Soarin detoured from his former path and instead walked toward Spitfire’s single dorm.

The walk wasn’t long, so it was little more than a minute before he was at the door. The thought that she might not be there only ran through his mind for a couple seconds once he actually reached the door. He hadn’t seen her at the party at the time that he left, so he’d assumed she’d already gone. So, he went ahead and knocked.

A minute passed without an answer, so he tried again, but with fewer knocks and a choice of words as well. “Uh-hey, Spitfire, it’s me. I . . . was wonderin if you felt like hanging out at all?” he spoke out to the clouds in front of him, though even after another moment there was still nothing.

A deal of disappointment did show on his face, but his gaze falling downward from such only served to land it upon his slice of pie again. His sight reached his stomach and his guiding organ started trying to tell him what to do, as it was well used to. But Soarin had another intention that sprung up right there and then. He reached a hoof out to Spitfire’s door; he knew that her living in a set of Captain’s quarters was definitively different than just in a room in the regular Wonderbolts’ dormitory, but on the other hoof he also knew that old habits died hard and he pushed the cloud door open without resistance, finding it unlocked as he could only have expected from her. He knelt down to just place the plate with his slice of pie just inside her doorway for her to find later, but he stopped reaching down when light coming from inside around the corner caught his eye.

Spitfire was there, and assumedly awake.

The realization kept Soarin’s head just off the ground for an extended moment while a decision worked itself out in his mind. It ended with him picking his head all the way back up and stepping inside.

“Spitfire?” he asked aloud once he was in, hoping to at least make sure to alert her to his presence. He pushed her door closed with his back leg and walked around the corner into the short hallway, looking around as he went, not having been in the small building all that often while it had still been Captain Thunder Trail’s quarters. The door directly at the end was open to what clearly his friend’s new bedroom, although to Soarin’s surprise that wasn’t where the light was coming from; it was actually coming out of the only other open door. Soarin even began to question whether Spitfire was actually there again as he didn’t hear anything at all while walking down the length of the hallway.

When he finally reached that open doorway, however, Soarin found the reason for that: there was his best friend, his oldest friend, crashed asleep with her face planted down right in the center of her form and paperwork-strewn desk.

The blue stallion only spent a single second in a state of surprise before his face just jumped straight into a sympathetic look. Though she had never literally fallen asleep on a desk in the middle of filling out any kind of papers before, it was far from the first time Soarin had seen Spitfire in a state somewhat like this. She’d always pushed everypony, especially Soarin, though she did herself more so than anypony else, and somehow it always ended up with her vastly overworking herself every so often.

Soarin sighed nasally and stepped up to the desk, setting his plate and accompanying slice of pie down on the clearest space he could find. The movement so near to her apparently held more waking power over Spitfire than Soarin’s own voice had, as the mare began to open up her eyes right after Soarin had set the plate down.

“. . . h-uh . . . huh-gh, Soarin?” she took full four seconds to force out her one word, one name question, not coming smoothly out of unconsciousness.

“Huh? Ah-yeah, it’s me,” he answered his groggy friend with a dorky smile.

Spitfire made an attempt to lift her head off of its resting place on the desk in front of her, but only wound up partly successful, picking it up by no more than a hoof. “hmh, what are you doing here?” she asked him, only just getting volume into her voice right as she finished. She blinked continuously while waiting for him to respond, trying somewhat to wake herself up.

Soarin tossed one of his front hooves back behind his head, awkwardly rubbing the back of his head and neck every few seconds. “Uh, I was kind of hoping you’d be around, and . . . uh, awake,” he answered her and watching her facial response right after he did. Spitfire rolled her eyes a quarter of the way, but then just let them drop into looking straight down, something Soarin had seen more than once before. He knew it was her way of rolling her eyes at herself, “Ah-I even brought the last slice of pie,” he spoke up again, removing his hoof from behind his head to indicate the delicious baked apple goodness, “I waited for everypony else to get some, I promise, but nopony wanted the last slice, so I figured it was mine. But when I was heading back to the dorm, I passed by and . . . kind of felt like hanging out with you for a while,” he stopped for a moment again, long enough for her to come around into some form of being fully conscious, and to sit the rest of the way up and return a very groggy version of her friend’s sincere smile. “And,” Soarin began to go on once more, “I figured I should let you get the slice, since it’s your promotion, and you didn’t get eat any at the Captain’s retirement party.” At that one Spitfire managed to raise her eyebrows even in her exhausted state. “Hey,” he assured her, “I had my eyes on that pastry table the whole night, trust me, I know who ate pie and who didn’t.”

Soarin held the proudest smile Spitfire had seen from him in a long time, and he kept it up . . . until she let her face fall straight down into the desk. At that his smile broke and his expression almost instantly shifted into displaying concern, until Spitfire began picking her head back up again, and Soarin saw that she was laughing. “You never change,” she told him right as she brought her eyes back into contact with his.

“H’yeah, growing up’s boring anyways,” Soarin agreed with her, which only served to further her amusement, resulting in an actual full bout of laughter from the golden mare. She sighed once she calmed down, and shook her head a few times before she said anything back. “Well, I could probably use you here to make sure I don’t pass out again,” she offered the opportunity for him to stick around, for which she received his unmistakeable dorky, but happy smile. “Will do,” he responded with a nonchalant salute. “And,” she added on the instant he’d finished his two words, “since you’re going to be here, would you mind making me some coffee?”

***

Soarin’s eyes opened fully with anticipation as he came to the open doorway of Spitfire’s office with the cup of coffee he’d made for her, Right as he stepped into her office again, though, his eyelids relaxed again out of his relief at finding her still awake. She was holding her head between her hooves and staring with a hollow gaze down at the mess of signed, unsigned, complete and incomplete forms strewn across her desk. Her head didn’t even move until Soarin had practically stepped right up to the desk.

“Here,” Soarin said with a sympathetic smile as he put down the coffee and slid it to her side of the desk, “you definitely need it.”

Spitfire’s eyes opened up a good way as she took a few sniffs of the coffee aroma rising up from the cup, and after a moment she finally grabbed ahold of it took her first few sips. Soarin took a seat himself, sitting over at the corner of her desk, making sure he would be mostly out of her way.

“Hey,” she suddenly said, regaining his attention, “you know, since you were so nice you wanted to give it to me, and since I know you were hoping for a second piece all night, you go ahead have it,” she offered, pushing the plate he’d brought with the last slice of pie over to him.

“You serious?” he asked with utter delight. She just nodded. “Alright!” his dorkiness prevailed in his voice as he nearly shouted. His volume made her flinch for a second, and then him cringe at his making her flinch. “I’m still barely awake, remember,” she reminded him before lifting her cup for a few more sips of coffee. “H’yeah, sorry about that . . .” he said, slightly red under his fur.

Soarin ate away while Spitfire sighed and picked up her quill with her mouth to begin filling out and signing forms once more.

Soarin did occasionally glance at all the paper sheets before the tired mare, noticing what he’d mostly already suspected: they were collectively a single giant mess all having to do with her assuming the position as The Wonderbolts’ new Captain, though it made no sense to him why there was so much of it.

Spitfire nearly drifted off a few more times, and Soarin had to keep nudging her with her own coffee cup to snap her out of it before she actually fell asleep. Ironically though, he actually spent a majority of the time insisting that she should just go to bed, which she refused to do until every last paper had been filled out and signed.

When she actually came to the very last form, Spitfire began to lose consciousness yet again, but instead of this time just snapping her back to, Soarin decided to just dart his head in quickly and sign the final line for her. “Hwhuh?” she mumbled as caught him, barely withholding herself from passing out like she had seemed about to. “Uh . . . just finishing that off for you since you looked like you were heading for a crash-landing again. Don’t worry, I’m sure it matches yours perfectly by now, I mean it’s not like I’ve been doing anything but watching you sign stuff all night anyways,” Soarin explain with such passive smile that Spitfire just let her head fall back onto the desk again. “You know you could get permanently discharged from the team for forging your superior officer’s signature, right?” she teased the threat, though his easy expression stayed unchanged. “H’yeah that COULD happen, buuutt I kind of suspect my superior officer wasn’t all that wide awake when she was signing her forms, so I wouldn’t be too sure about her claiming she SAW one of her subordinates forging her signature,” he playfully worded her back into a corner, and then saw from the faint convulsions her upper body went through that she was laughing as much as she still had the waking energy to.

After a quiet moment, Spitfire began aimlessly flapping her wing in Soarin’s general direction without once picking up her head from the desk. “Go on,” she struggled to say above a mumble, “that’s everything . . .” Her wing stilled and drooped back down weakly onto the desk beside her resting head, and she began to drift off completely into sleep without Soarin snapping her too that time.

Soarin remained for a minute longer, looking down at his passed-out friend, and picked up a hoof to begin turning around . . . but he never made it that far. He woke her again, this time as he slid his head and neck under her just behind her forelegs and lifted her up. “Come on,” he said in soft, but still encouraging voice, despite the fact that it was him who was moving. “Wha-hgh . . . hm—” she produced indiscernible, exhausted sounds, but nothing else. “Yeah—naw, I wasn’t about to leave you like that,” he told her as he carried her out and around the corner into her room, finally tipping himself to set her down on her own bed when they got there.

Just as he was about to lean back away from setting her down, Soarin suddenly felt Spitfire’s hooves wrap around his neck more snugly and with more strength than her tired state should have allowed. He froze in the moment and held still. It was a hug . . . the first in so long too, the last full and real one being the day they’d been teamed together at the academy . . .

“You’re always the best, Pie Head,” she said to him barely over a whisper; the use of her forelegs to hug him had left little strength for her voice.

Soarin laughed, mouth closed. Were it anypony else he’d have taken the insult as . . . just that, an insult. But, from her he laughed and smiled, and then he hugged her back for the few seconds he thought she could still remain awake.

“Only for you,” he said back just before he let her go and gently pushed her off until she’d lied completely down on her mattress. “Good night Spitty,” he said as he finally turned and left. And as he had with his, she smiled, eyes still closed, at his calling her by her oldest tease.

Author's Note

Finally, I've posted something up again. I'm so horribly sorry for all my delay-extensions. I'll probably try to explain everything in my next blog post, but for now, everypony have chapter 2 of this.

It's a jump several years after the last chapter, to when Spitfire makes Captain.