Happy Sunshine

I waited without tapping my pen on anything. I didn't click it without a functioning attention span. And I didn't use it like a drumstick like annoying schoolponies did. No, I waited and waited while making sure to stare awkwardly at my disgruntled patient. Her hooves never stopped moving. I could never count a moment in time from her arrival to her irritating silence in my fainting couch where she ever stopped fidgeting around like a crack-laced monkey. My own were almost bursting with spare pen parts. I wanted to strike her. My wandering eye stuck to my half-empty glass and all the ice inside. But what good was ice without Lethargy. What good was ice without a drink. What good was a psychiatrist without a god damn patient.

"Miss... Scootaloo." I finally whispered, pushing her name through all my teeth.

"Please use our time to talk about your depression."

I saw one glance from her. It was only one glance in twenty minutes of stone-cold silence. She didn't speak and neither did I in some horrific mutual vow of silence. So I crinkled my muzzle and asked her a question. Before I asked, her eyes were heavy with sleepiness and general apathy.

"Miss... Miss Scootaloo. It's time you and I have a chat. The bell will ring,"

It rattled awake as if to mock me.

"but we are still talking. You and me are still conversing because you will not slip away from my care that easily. Now, let's see. You don't like talking about your mother or your father. But you do show signs of accute attention deficit and post traumatic tendencies. I'll prescribe to you some Adderall and some higher end anti-psychotics. But if I do... will you please promise to have a picnic with me tomorrow afternoon...?"

That snapped her right awake. She struggled to focus her eyes as her right eyebrow raised far higher than the other. Scootaloo, or Scarlet Skates as she was legally named, had that look of a child told she was free to leave class early. A curious sense of wonder and whimsy entered her eyes as the impossible connected deep within her. Scarlet's words cracked her voice apart, as if she'd saved them for centuries beforehand and her throat was dry with phantom tension. The gravity of my words, I could tell, struck her blind to even her own ghastly depression.

"You... you wanna have a picnic? With me...?"

I tilted my head with a smirk and I chuckled after, amused at how... shocked she was. I showed my teeth in slight comfort, never knowing how cute a mare could be at that spoiled and young age.

"Of course I do. Why wouldn't I... ?"

Her lips parted and she glanced away. First with just her eyes, then with all her head.

"I... I thought you were just a quack. You're just my doctor and I'm just your patient, right? So... so you shouldn't care about me like that. Don't you need to be distant and professional or something?" She reasoned with herself.

I laughed uncomfortably at the raw force of her truth. We locked eyes for a minute and she glanced away sharper than the other times. It was almost like a jerk away from me, rather than some half-hidden gesture of subconscious focus.

"Well... that's true. I'm a doctorate and you're a patient, true. Just, I'm not like the others. I don't treat it like a job even though some of my patients are annoying. I'm two things at once in this office... I'm a psychological support expert that counsels you and provides you well-earned medication. But, underneath all that glam and paperwork, I'm also," I said, pouring myself Lethargy on the rocks.

"An equine being just like you."

I smiled shortly as she rubbed her forehooves together, uncomfortable, but not from me, but due to her social anxiety and stilted mannerisms.

"That's why I'm taking you on a picnic. So you can see I eat and sleep and drink just like the rest of you. And that's when you'll tell me all about yourself. Because I'm real, Scootaloo. I'm not a robot."

Officer Doo peaked in from behind my office door and shifted about her mismatched eyes. Her innocent charm forced giggle from me. She elated me. She elated everyone with how cheery and indominable she was. To Cloudsdale, she was Officer Doo. To her underlings and recruits, she was Derringer Doo, for her quick and bullet-like dash speed. But, to me...?

"Hey mom... Can I go now?" Scootaloo groaned, rubbing the back of her mane, hiding the blush on her cheeks.

"Yes, silly... You can. Thanks again Doctor Cosmos! You took real good care of her. I haven't seen her this happy since she was lookin' for a cutie mark-"

"Mom! I'm bored! N-now quit talkin' like I'm a baby, take me home...!" She groaned, shooting out her seat and dragging her mother away from my office.

I smiled brightly to think... this was the same girl I helped all those years ago. With her nightmares and illogical fears brittling her away, she used to be in the closet. In more ways than one, she'd molted more times than I could ever count. The same schoolgirl I met four years ago was all grown up, scoffing and rolling her eyes just like any other teen. She wasn't afraid of being a blank flank anymore. She was afraid of losing people and looking dumb in front of friends. Scarlet- no, Scootaloo... was learning how to grow and how to change.

To me, Officer Doo would always be the angel that saved Scootaloo.

And that was why everyone else had a hero full of superpowers and angst; but my hero, in all her glory, was a mother of two and the best police officer Cloudsdale could ask for.

I finished my cup and through the murky glasswork, I spotted a cotton candy mane and cigarette smoke billowing over her.

"Hey doc... It's me again. You ever wake up one day and feel like blowing your brains out in front of your mom?"

I stayed quiet and nodded.

"Yes. I have. But only because mother always called sister a 'no good whore.'"