"Guys! Another one! That makes twelve this week!"
Rainbow slid into her customary chair at the lunch table, excitement bubbling up from her as she grinned widely at her confused friends.
"Er...twelve what?" Sunset asked, arching an eyebrow.
"Twelve of these!" Rainbow responded, holding up a small slip of paper. "Love notes!"
"Ooh, love notes! Who is the lucky sender?" Rarity asked, completely intrigued.
"Well...I don't know exactly." Rainbow admitted. "There's no name. All of them are just signed 'Anonymous Love', followed with x's and o's and then little pink hearts."
"Awww, you've got yourself a secret admirer!" Rarity squealed in excitement.
"Yeah." Rainbow rubbed her neck. "I've been getting these all week. My locker, my backpack, tucked in my desk, stuck in my textbooks, even found one stuck in my shirt pocket yesterday after I left the girls' showers after soccer practice."
"How positively romantic!" Rarity was smiling broadly.
"Is it annoying?" Sunset asked curiously.
"By now, if it was me, Ah might truthfully be just a tad tired of it." Applejack piped up in Rainbow's direction. "But then Ah ain't much for all that hyper-romance stuff like Rarity."
"You are romantic enough, at least for me." Rarity leaned over and kissed her lightly on the lips.
"Gosh darn it, Rare, not in public!" Applejack muttered, tugging her hat down to hide her red face.
"Super duper top secret love notes! How exciting! And mysterious! Oh! Oh! Are you gonna do any detecting work? Are ya? Are ya???!" Pinkie bounced in her seat as she stared at Rainbow.
Inwardly she was hoping with all she had that Rainbow was not annoyed at the notes, considering they were her creations and declarations of the deep love she felt for the athletic girl.
"I'm hunting around." Rainbow said, shrugging. "And honestly, no, they aren't annoying. I kind of like getting them. They're really sweet and I think whoever wrote them really does love me."
Pinkie was inwardly elated. She could continue her secret love notes without worry. Rainbow hadn't said that she loved the notes, but the fact she found them sweet and liked reading them told Pinkie that there was hope.
Sunset intently studied the note, as if somehow she might find the answers Rainbow wanted hidden between the adorable and sappy lines. She finally put it down.
"Well. It could be anyone in this school." She pointed out. "There are literally over a hundred students that could have written these."
Pinkie toyed with a little pink heart button pinned to her shirt. "Sunny's right! Lots of students!"
"Actually, we can narrow it down quite a bit right now." Rarity pointed at the page. "The writer dotted their i's with tiny hearts, and some of these letters and words have cute little curlicues, not to mention the abundance of pink hearts. Whoever wrote these is a girl, I'd stake my reputation as a fashion expert on it!"
"Is Rainbow here into girls?" Sunset asked with a smirk.
Rainbow leaned forward in her chair, a mischievous grin on her face, and motioned for Sunset to come closer. Sunset raised her eyebrow and stayed where she was.
"Come here and I'll show you if I'm into girls or not." Rainbow's lips curled into a slightly more seductive smile as her magenta eyes snapped teasingly.
"You're horrible." Sunset declared, uncomfortably, throwing her napkin at the now laughing athlete.
"I think it's so sweet of this person to leave you notes." Fluttershy smiled at the page she had gotten ahold of. "It's clear they really have feelings for you."
"Mhm!" Rarity nodded emphatically. "So! This narrows it down to about half the school...which you can narrow down further by eliminating the girls that already have romantic partners."
"Like me and Rarity." Applejack draped her arm across her girlfriend's shoulders.
Rainbow rubbed her chin, mentally running through a list of others she knew had partners. Finally she snapped her fingers.
"Ok so there's still quite a few even after I cancel out the ones with partners. Including Fluttershy and Pinkie. And me, obviously. But I wouldn't write love notes to myself."
"Of course not, Darling." Rarity scoffed. "We know you aren't capable of such romantic lines as these notes you receive contain."
"Hey!" Rainbow huffed, insulted.
"She does have a point." Fluttershy offered, softly giggling.
"Hmph! Well excuse me while I go back to investigating!"
Snitching one of Fluttershy's grapes, she popped it in her mouth and stalked off. The other girls laughed and went back to their lunches, none noticing Pinkie gaze after Rainbow with a hint of longing on her face.
None but Sunset.
She caught the brief expression before Pinkie turned and ducked her head, shoveling forkfulls of cake into her mouth, and looked from the party planner to the door and back again.
'Hmmmm...'
*****************************************
Over the following week, Rainbow was the recipient of over a dozen more notes, and by the time the weekend came she was happily telling her friends all about it. During that week, Sunset watched Pinkie closely, and detected her extreme joy when Rainbow admitted to liking the letters a lot and wanting more of them, and she easily detected her longing when Rainbow would leave the room. By the end of the second week, Sunset made a decision, and cornered Pinkie in the empty art room in between classes.
"Pinkie Pie, can we talk?"
"Sure thing, Sunset! What's up? You need some help somewhere? Maybe a ride? Ooh, a party??"
"I think you may know more about Rainbow's secret note writer than you let on."
Pinkie blinked. "Uh..uhm...uhhh..."
Sunset smiled slightly. "I thought so. Pinkie...I've been watching how you react to her lately. So I am pretty sure I'm right when I say, you wrote those notes, didn't you?"
Pinkie sighed. "Yeah."
"Aww, you're in love with her."
"Yeah. I really am." Pinkie's eyes were wide. "She's just so...so...well I started really liking her a few months ago, and then I started loving her and I thought I should tell her, but I got scared, so I wrote the notes and she really likes them, and maybe she will really like me too if she finds out I did it!"
Sunset chuckled softly. "I think you should tell her. I think she'll understand and maybe even return it. But whatever happens, she's gonna care about you because you are one of her best friends first and foremost."
"Okie dokie lokie." Pinkie said, with a hint of trepidation in her tone.
Sunset hugged her and then left the room, and Pinkie ran to put another note in Rainbow's locker, this one with a meeting place for later. When she opened it, she stopped at the piece of pink paper folded neatly on top of Rainbow's backpack. She picked it up, checked that no one was watching, and opened it up.
Dear Anonymous Love,
I've kept every single note. And to be honest, I really liked them. I've fallen in love with what you write, and through your notes I have fallen in love with you. I think I may know who you are, so you don't need to hide anymore. Please, please meet me at the soccer bleachers after school? I'll be waiting, and I'll wait for days if I have to.
-Rainbow Dash
Pinkie inhaled sharply. She was unsure what to do. If she went and Rainbow hadn't guessed it was her, it would be really awkward. But if she had guessed......
She slammed Rainbow's locker and rushed away to class, not noticing the prismatic blur that quickly ducked out of sight.
*****************************************
It took every ounce of courage to even make it outside after the final bell and walk the distance to the soccer field. But Pinkie did it, and when she quietly slipped up unnoticed, Rainbow was seated on the lowest bench, gazing out at the field, waiting.
It was now or never.
Pinkie stepped into view. "Rainbow Dash?"
Rainbow stood quickly, turning to face her. There was no shock on her face as she smiled.
"I was right. Pinkie, it was you."
"H-how did you know?"
"I finally narrowed it down to about ten people, you and Flutters included. Then I straight up asked each one if they wrote them. They all denied it, and I had AJ with me to act as a human lie detector. That just left you."
Rainbow slowly approached and held out her hands. Pinkie took them, and their eyes met.
"I-I've loved you for a while now, but I was a little too scared to say it, so I figured I would leave the notes, and see if you liked those, and then if you did maybe there was a chance you would like me back, or maybe actually love me, so I just kept wri-"
Rainbow's lips captured hers in a gentle kiss, effectively silencing her hyper and nervous rambling. She didn't resist, instead just enjoying the sweet moment she had been hoping for for a long time. When Rainbow pulled back, she smiled.
"I gotta tell ya, Pinkie. I started really liking you a while back but I was too nervous to do anything about it. Then these love notes...well. I fell in love with them, and by extension fell deeper in love with you. I was already suspecting who it was, but I needed proof. To be sure. I didn't want to love the wrong person. I wanted to be sure I was loving you."
Pinkie grinned as happy tears welled up.
"Dashie?"
"Yeah?"
"I love you."
"I love you too."
"Will you be my girlfriend?"
"You bet I will."
Pinkie leaned in and Rainbow followed her lead, as they met halfway in a tender kiss that made them both want to melt, completely lost in each other and the magic of the moment.
Author's Note
FlutterDash is still my favorite, but this ship is also kinda cute and I am ok with it xD
