Oh ponyfeathers! It's raining.

After the little incident at Sugar Cube Corner, Rainbow and Soarin had decided to walk down to the park as its a lovely place to stop and hang out. But as fate would have it, rain. Luckily there was a large tree, under which they could shelter.

This date was not going well at all.

Soarin turned to Rainbow Dash who had taken off her dress. In the mad rush they made to get to the tree, mud had splattered up the back of it, making an ugly contrast to the decorative lightning bolts that shone beneath. The mud had also found its way onto her face and in her hair too. It no longer held the pristine curls and colour that it began with; now it was more of a tangled mess.

She sat running her hooves through the trail on her outfit.

"Rarity is going to kill me!" He heard her mumble.

Soarin let out a deep sigh. It wasn't meant to be like this. He thought it was going to be like in the movies where they run toward each other in slow motion, hearts beating as one, to finally lock each other's muzzles in a deep kiss.

And then, reality kicked in.

He looked back to the frazzled mare to his side. She didn't look like was having a particularly good time either. Her eyebrows were knitted together in a thoughtful expression which drew together with her half closed eyes. Even in this state Soarin couldn't help but think of her as cute.

Looking back out at the scenery, he found himself pulling the exact same expression.

The clouds were great and black, spewing water onto the shimmering ground. The difference in temperature between the sky's tears and the ground caused a slight mist to erupt, rising into the ever darker sky.

He had completely wrecked this date. If he had just remembered to remove the tickets from his blazer, they would be on the train right now. But noooooo! He just had to forget one of the main events of the evening sat in his pocket, waiting to be wrecked by who? Him!

"I'm sorry about this."

That voice snapped him out of his thoughts and brought his gaze back to the mare beside him.

Why is she sorry? She has nothing to be sorry for!

"What do yo-"

He was silenced by a hoof.

"If I had just ignored my friends on the table behind us it wouldn't have ended up this way." She looked him directly in the eye, sending a shiver down his spine. "I am so sorry."

At this, she snapped her eyes back to look at the dress in her hooves, getting to work on the mud that ran along it.

"It's not your fault, it's mine. If I had just taken the tickets out of my pocket in the first place, I would've been able to get us onto the train. This, being my first date, has actually been one of the worst days of my life. Not that it has anything to do with you of course."

Something about his apology caught Rainbow's attention.

"Your first date?" She raised a eyebrow to look at him.

"Y-yeah."

"Hm, that's surprising."

Soarin turned to her. "What do you mean?"

"Well, seen as your a Wonderbolt and all, I would've expected the mares to be all over you."

He blushed and replied cheesly. "Yeah but none of them can compare to you."

Trying to compose himself again, he looked away from the rainbow maned mare and scuffed a hoof across the ground.

"So I take it you have dated before?"

"Yeah, but it didn't end well."

He perked his ears.

"What do you mean 'didn't end well'?"

Rainbow's attention was finally away from the dress. Her posture went rigid and she dropped the cloth to the ground adding more brown blotches to the already ruined fabric.

Her mouth seemed to be saying something yet no sound came out. She was stumbling over her own words. After a while she shut her eyes and her posture dropped.

"He... He was a bastard!" She screamed into the rain adding a few of her own tears to the ground. He body shook from holding back her emotions. She obviously didn't want to cry.

It hurt to see her like this. She was normally so strong and independent but this... guy had obviously got through to the more sensitive side of her.

Carefully, Soarin placed a wing over her back and pulled her a little closer to him. This sudden action caught both of them by surprise and, though she still looked hurt, a slight crimson tinted her cheeks.

"Do you mind telling me what he did?"

She sniffed slightly but a soft movement stroking up and down from Soarin's wing soothed her. Dash took a deep breath to begin the story.

"He was very sweet at first. I mean, he was good looking and smart with a good sense of humour too..." She trailed off looking out at the sodden grass as if she could see him.

"I thought for a while that he was perfect. He always showed up at my house with a present or some flowers to greet me." Smiling a little she looked back up to where Soarin's warm green eyes met hers.

"He told me that I was the one." She yelled, her smile fading from her face. "He told me he loved me! He'd be the first stallion to, apart from my father of course. A true heartthrob."

Soarin shuffled a little closer to her. She had obviously been head over hooves for this stallion.

"He seems like quite a nice guy!" He commented, immediately regretting it as he saw her visibly wince.

"His wife seemed to think so." Rainbow answered through gritted teeth. Her forelegs tensed to twist her already mud coated hoof further into the ground.

Soarin finally understood. He had been using her. Lying to her. He had hurt her. Why if he ever saw the likes of him around her ever again he wou-

"I was too in love to see it. He played his part well. The sweet knight in shining armour kept coming to the rescue. Until, I finally met her! Then it all backfired. As it turns out, he not only had a wife, but two foals as well. She tracked us down on a date and gave him and me a piece of her mind. She completely went all out on me. Called me a slut and... a few worse names. She was hurting too." She looked back out at the grass before closing her eyes tight. Her voice strained as she finally confessed to what had hurt her the most. "I tore their family apart, Soarin. He did too but, because I ignored the signs, I helped."

Right then and right there, she burst into tears before him. Her body racked with heartfelt sobs as she shook under the strain of her cries. This couldn't go on like this.

When she hurt, he did too.

In response to this, he turned her to face him, holding her close with his wings. She placed her head on his chest and buried her muzzle into his fur while he put his chin on top of her head. Soon enough, he started to stroke her back with his wing.

"Shhhh, it's ok. It's not your fault. You didn't see any of this coming. It was his fault for not telling you, not for you to not spot it yourself. You can't be expected to know what your not told."

She stopped wailing as such. Her tears dried to small murmurs that came out of her mouth in withdrawal to the crying.

"After my parents divorced it hurt though. I used to cry because I just wanted to sit with my family in one room without them fighting with one another. It's the fact that I have caused his innocent children grief because I was too dumb to spot the obvious."

A shuddering gasp stopped her from continuing as she tried to hold back more tears. Her expression made it look as though she was in physical pain, holding her mouth open to supply herself with the great amount of air her body was deprived of in its pitiful state.

"I beat myself up bad over it. That's when I just stayed around my house for a week. My friends told me exactly what you were just telling me. 'Oh, it's not your fault Rainbow!' But it takes two to have an affair. Wether they knew about it or not." She took another shaky breath and looked back up at him. "That's why they were looking out for me tonight. They didn't want me to get hurt again so as soon as they saw us walk into the bakery, they started to observe you. That's also what happened with Scootaloo too. She was seeing wether you were loyal or not. I appreciate all of their help but I just wanted to forget about it and have a good night with you. I guess that's ruined now too."

Soarin stood still, shocked about all of this new information that he had been bombarded with. It all fell into place. The quiz, the whispering at the table, Mrs Cake conferring with them as she passed by. They were protecting Rainbow Dash from none other than himself. The thought of it made him feel sick. He loved her truly, not like the other guy, and he couldn't stand to see her like this for much longer.

Looking up at the sky he saw a small opening between the black veil that coated the sky.

"Do you trust me?" Soarin asked the mare in his wings.

"What? What has that got to do with any of this?"

"I said, do you trust me?" He said, holding a hoof out for her to grasp.

She looked from the extended limb to the stallion who owned it. Slowly, she placed her own within his. "I do."

No sooner had she uttered the words, Soarin dragged her out into the rain taking off at a great speed and picking her up so that she lay in his forelegs. He stopped just underneath the skyline to look at the city below.

"Listen here, um... er... What was his name?"

"Citrus burst." She said giggling at the sudden change in the stallions attitude.

The rain continued to trickle down their bodies but they didn't care.

"Oh, yeah, so listen Citrus burst, you screwed up. You get only one chance with the Dash and, as Celestia is my witness, if you ever come near her again, I will personally and professionally shove your lies where the sun don't shine." He stopped shouting out at the city below him and looked at the mare in his hooves. "And I also want you to know that you have missed out too. Because right now... I am the luckiest stallion in the world."

Finishing with a smile, he flew between the gap in the clouds to the sky above. The sun cast a pink and yellow glow across the entire expanse of cotton that lay beneath them. It was like the sea of a new day.

Soarin lowered himself and Dash to the clouds below, his eyes never leaving hers for a second. She was the one for him wether she knew it or not.

"Rainbow Dash," he said becoming lost in the magenta glow that shone from her eyes. "since the day that you said yes to going out with me, I have been planning the 'perfect date' and, as you can see it didn't work out too well."

A smirk formed on his face when he heard her giggle. Boy, was she adorable. The sun illuminated her face and made her eyes glitter in the light. Her hair was now, more or less, what she normally had. Wind blown, tangled and messy. Just how he liked it. Formalities didn't matter to him, more the pony inside. It was just lucky that she was cute too.

He continued. "But it would honour me if you could let me have you as my marefriend and to call you mine. Just because I know just how much you love super cheesy things like this soooooo much!"

She looked at him with wide eyes grinning madly as if Hearts Warming had come early.

In a swift movement she lifted her head up to peck him on the lips, sending a blush across both of their faces.

"I would like that."

Maybe the date didn't go that bad after all.

Author's Note

Finally got the new chapter out!

I always write a plan before writing the story so I really was looking forward to this chapter.

Hope you guys liked it and feel free to comment below!

(There is one more chapter after this... you haven't quite gotten rid of me yet...!)