Different

For some reason, there seemed to be a lot of talking near you, but it was...well, zoned out. You couldn’t make sense of a word of it, and now that you thought about it, your left leg hurt, with a passive ‘pins and needles’ type pain. What could-

Oh, right. Pole.

It comes rushing back to you in an instant, and for a second, you fear that you’re still trapped under that dastardly thing, and so you begin flailing your forehooves frantically, desperately grabbing at the ground, which isn’t there. Wait-isn’t the ground...the ground?

Realizing that you aren’t on your stomach, but rather your back, you can already tell that something has, quite obviously changed. You risk creaking your eyes open, and that’s pretty much what sets everything off.

From the one second you have, you can see that you’re in a hospital, which likely meant that you’d been hurt badly, or under severe suspicion of the same thing. The feel of a mattress below you confirms that you’re in a bed, and the nostril-piercing smell of cleanliness in general only reminds you more of where you are. However, that’s nothing compared to what happens a mere instant after you open your eyes.

You catch sight of a blur, and suddenly you can feel the air being crushed from your lungs, and some very, very fast talking. “Oh, thank Celestia, you’re all right! I thought you’d died or something because you collapsed, and I don’t want anypony dying, and...”

You manage to cough, before wheezing: “Can’t...breathe...”

The pressure is released, and you can see Rainbow Dash step into your vision, smiling apologetically. “Sorry. I’m normally not like that. It’s just...”

She doesn’t finish her sentence, but you get exactly what she means: the whole, ‘pony gets crushed by a pole while saving you from said pole’, admittedly, would likely drive you a bit crazy if they weren’t waking up. The guilt, the sense of, “I could have helped”...

Thinking about random poles crushing ponies brought you back to what bothered you most at the moment, something you’d actually half considered before you blacked out. “...so what’s the final outcome?”

You can see her look around, as if checking the room, before her gaze drops. “Yeeah...doc said you had a ‘clean break’ in your left hind leg.” A quick glance reveals a sort of sling around the mentioned leg, lifted slightly above the rest of yourself, and you wonder why you didn’t notice it before.

Rainbow continues. “Listen, I’m really sorry about this whole thing,” she manages. “I probably should have paid a bit more attention, and then we could have avoided...” She seems at a loss of words, and finishes weakly with a wave of the hoof. “This.”

“It’s not your fault,” You reassure her-though in a way, it’s both of yours, but you have a feeling telling her that won’t cheer her up any. “I...should probably stay away from poles, since I smacked into one. You don’t really have anything to apologize for.”

She shuffles around, as if reluctant to accept that it wasn’t all her; she seemed to have a notable grudge against not taking responsibility, which was odd-she did seem to have an affinity for naps and jokes. Good humored jokes, yes, but still...playful, nonetheless, which happened to be opposite of responsible. “I guess not...” she mumbles eventually.

The silence that follows is one of the most awkward in your life: you’re confined to a hospital bed, absolutely nothing to do, and Rainbow Dash refuses to look at you, yet when she does...she looks at you entirely different than before. You can almost swear that...she feels pity for you, one way or the other.

“So listen...” The pegasus manages eventually, still not looking at you except for the odd glance. “I’ve probably got to be places, and I’ll probably feel really bad about leaving you here more or less alone-” The thought strikes you that your roommate is nowhere to be seen, and you can’t quite contact her in your position. “-but I can still stick around every now and then. In fact, tell you what-” She seems to be gaining a bit more confidence, which is great-you always hated being around sad ponies, partly because you didn’t know what to do with them. “-once you get out of here, or while you’re in here, I’ll do one thing for you, so that we’re a bit more even. How’s that sound?”

You briefly chew this over a bit: it’s not like she held any sway over your tutor, so she probably couldn’t help you with that...literally, the only thing you can think of is the fact that you’ve really wanted to see ‘Saving Pony Ryan’, but when you bought a second ticket, Sunny decided she didn’t like it. Before she even gave it a chance. But, a repayment was a repayment...no matter how minor it was.

“Well, I’ve got this second ticket to see Saving Pony Ryan, so maybe when I get out, you could come see it with me...or something.”

Oddly enough, as you finish (rather weakly, at that), Dash steps back, losing what little tinges of courage she had, and seemingly struggling to keep her composure-what did you do? All you did was ask her to see a movie... “I, u-uh...” You could almost swear she was at war with herself over a movie. It seemed a little funny, since it was a movie set in a war. You half consider asking if she’s alright, but then her ears hang low, and she answers. “I...I’ll go. I...sure.”

As hard as you find it to believe when she sighs, shaking her head, you swear you can see her blushing, which makes you really think-did she have a particular thing for those movies, and didn’t like admitting it? Did she just not like movie theaters, and the thought of a previous incident at one of them, involving a pony in a banana suit had embarrassed her against her will?

“Right...well, uh, I’ll see you later.” She starts for the door, only turning back for a brief second. “I’ll come back and visit every now and then so you aren’t...”

She doesn’t even finish her sentence, instead opting to turn back and hurry away from you. In fact, the words you hear right before the door closes behind her puzzle you, so much that you’re left scratching your head all the way up until you’re released, an exact 5 weeks later:

“What am I doing...?”