Author's Note

Applejack finally redeems herself.

This chapter is brought to you by "Melanie C - First Day of my Life (Acoustic Version)" making me so god damn sentimental that I wrote 4k words straight of hurt/comfort, struggling™️ and fluff.

⚠️ Warning for near purging.

Chapter 47

Rainbow slowly wakes up, still smiling from her shared dream with Tank. She could hear the others softly snoring around her, the sounds almost lulling her back to sleep.

Unfortunately, her body is having other ideas. A growing hunger is pulling her away from the last dregs of sleep, much to her annoyance. She still feels exhausted and just wants to sleep.

She first assumes that it must be morning already, but when she opens her eyes, it’s pitch black and the moon is still high up in the sky. In her disbelief, she seeks out the clock they’d hung up on the wall, and her jaw drops when the arms show that it’s only a few minutes before 3am.
Urggghhh, not this again…

Frustrated with her body, she closes her eyes and tries to go back to sleep by force of habit. But something that was once her default, is now no longer working.
Instead of falling back asleep, she could feel her stomach give the tiniest quiver, not even making a sound, but she’s immediately wide awake and afraid of it pulling a ‘Pinkie’s stomach’ and wake up half of Equestria.

Moving silent as a mouse, Rainbow sneaks over to their bags, being extremely careful to not step on any of her friends. If she has to eat something in the middle of the night again, the last thing she needs or wants is an audience.

Much to her dismay, all of her safe foods are packed up in wrappers that would crinkle so loud that it’s bound to wake everyone.

Never mind. I’ll wait until morning. She decides, but the moment she turns her back on their food storage, she feels guilty for letting the disorder win. Twilight would want her to eat whenever she’s hungry, no matter what time it is or how much she’d already eaten throughout the day.

How much did I even have, yesterday? She wonders with a sudden urgency. She’d managed to not count any calories, and now she’s desperate to know how high the total was.
One moment she tries to remember everything she ate, so that she could start her estimations, and the next she shakes her head and pushes the thought away again.
No. We don’t do this anymore. Nopony else does it and they don’t gain weight constantly.
Counting calories has always been a sort of safety net for her. It gave her a strange sense of safety and was the tool she needed to remain in full control.

The thing is, she wouldn’t even know where to add nightly calories to — yesterday’s tally, or make those the first calories of the new day. There has never been a need for her to figure that out, since she wasn’t allowed to eat at night, ever.

Her eyes discover the glistening foil of Pinkie’s spilling over chocolate pile.

No. The voice instantly reprimands, and she looks away.

But… what if…

She needs higher calories, if she wakes up hungry at night, right? This might just do the trick, even though she could feel her back crawling at the idea of eating a chocolate bar.

Well, she could always just start with one piece, see how she handles it, and either keep going or just stop there. Maybe she wouldn’t need the whole bar, anyways. She’s probably worrying over nothing already, when she hasn’t even started yet.

She looks back at them, taking a step closer-

No!

She freezes mid-step.

You know better! Go back to bed, NOW!

Rainbow sighs heavily and turns back again, but something inside her prevents her from doing as she’s told. She approaches the forbidden treats again, stands before them, and just stares, unable to reach a hoof out to touch them.

She almost turn back around again. She should know better. She shouldn’t want this, shouldn’t even consider it an option, in the first place!

“If yer gonna eat something, just get it over with.” Applejack’s voice startles her half to death. She’d been so busy going back and forth that she hadn’t noticed that Applejack was now awake, as well.

“I wasn’t- I didn’t-” Rainbow immediately defends nervously, as though she’d been caught doing something illegal.

The farm pony rolls her eyes and grabs a chocolate bar without any second thought, like everypony else in all of Equestria could do, before holding it out to the pegasus wordlessly.

Rainbow gulps, staring at the offering, but she just couldn’t bring herself to touch it. It’s as though her hooves are stuck to the floor because of a spell.

Applejack sighs. “Come on… Ah ain’t gonna judge ya, or whatever it is yer worrying about. Ah mean it: if yer gonna eat something, just get it over with. It’s not the end of the world.”

Rainbow knows this. Oh, how she knows this. But she still couldn’t touch it, the demon inside her head is in full control of her faculties, and it’s deciding that she has to get away before she would do something that she would regret, like eating chocolate.

“Dash-” AJ makes to offer that she’d happily eat with her, if that would make her comfortable enough to finally eat, but the pegasus suddenly flies past her without warning, disappearing from the room. “Darn it…!”

Applejack quickly sprints after her, finding her in the spacious foyer. The pegasus is back on her hooves, and breathing so fast that she’s hyperventilating in obvious panic.

“Gee, Dash, ya gotta calm down…” she unhelpfully informs her. She looks back to the hallway, but it seems that the others are all still asleep. “I wish I’d woken up Twi… she’d know what to do…” she mumbles helplessly to herself.

If Twilight isn’t much for dealing with other ponies’ breakdowns, then Applejack is even less suited for this.
“Uuh…” she tries to think of what the alicorn did. “You’ll be alright.” She starts. “No, that wasn’t it…” she mutters to herself, before trying again. “Everything is gonna be fine.”

Rainbow finally looks up at those words. Applejack still keeps her distance, since the pegasus has her wings splayed out to the sides, making it clear that she does not want to be crowded right now.

“Everything is gonna be fine.” AJ repeats more firmly.

She repeats the phrase a few more times, until Rainbow has calmed down enough to say it, herself.

“Everything’s gonna be fine…”

“That’s right.” The farmer urges her on.

“……I feel so stupid…” Rainbow says, wings and head hanging low in shame.

“Ya ain’t.” AJ promises. “In case ya already forgot: ya beat us at every round of that memory game.”

Dash snorts softly. “It feels like I just cheated.”

“It ain’t cheating, ya just have one strange, but pretty darn incredible noggin’.” Applejack says, pointing to her own head for a moment.

They stay silent for a moment.

“Twilight’s book says that it’s common for ponies who have this anorexia thing, to have a great attention to details and notice things that most would miss.” Rainbow explains. “Maybe that’s playing a role in my ‘photographic memory’.”

“Huh, guess there are some positive sides to this.” The farmer remarks in surprise.

Rainbow just shrugs non-committedly.

Figuring that it was safe to bring up the topic of food again, Applejack takes down her hat and grabs the chocolate bar she’d stashed in it. She doesn’t miss the way Rainbow’s face immediately falls, but she decides to ignore it.

She holds it out again, and this time, Dash slowly but surely comes up to her and accepts it.

“We can share, if ya want. Ah know ya hate being the only one eating.” Applejack offers gently.

They both sit down and Rainbow works on removing the foil from the top. Once freed, she stares at the chocolate as though she’s seeing a ghost.

It’s in that moment that she realises something:

“I know it probably sounds crazy, but I’ve never had a chocolate bar.”

“…yer kidding.” Applejack states in disbelief.

Rainbow shakes her head.

“Not even as a f-…” She remembers their earlier conversation right as she made to say ‘filly’. “…right… But.. surely somepony must have given ya one at some point in yer life?”

Dash nods, grimacing guiltily. “I either gave it away, or… I had a cabinet in my room, where I always hid all the unhealthy sweets — the ‘bad food’ — that I got.”

To say that Applejack is feeling her heart sinking to the floor at those words would be an understatement. She tries to imagine growing up like that.
The worst part is that it wasn’t an adult that told Dash what she could and couldn’t have. It was herself, or rather: this horrible, horrible disorder.

She almost doesn’t notice when Dash finally manages to take a first, small bite.

“Ya know, there ain’t no such thing as good or bad food. The only thing truly bad would be no food.” She comments, not looking at the pegasus as she chews and swallows, so that she doesn’t feel like she’s being watched.

“I’m an athlete, AJ. I can’t live off of sugary sweets like Pinkie and stay in shape.” The pegasus replies.

“Sure, but I bet’cha that even the best, most famous Wonderbolts have to be able to just enjoy themselves every once in a while, and maybe put on a few pounds for a bit. It’s perfectly normal, Dash.”

“Well I’m glad that such things are so normal for you. I hope you never have to live in this hell.” Dash snaps. “Maybe I just don’t want to be like the rest, going off a strict diet badly enough to gain weight that I will have to work off again.”

Applejack frowns for a moment. “This is gonna be a bit extreme, but answer me honestly, Dash: if ya knew that you were gonna die tomorrow, that today was your last day, would you really want to spend it ‘being in control’?
Would your last, dying goal be to have reached a certain amount of calories and whatnot, that won’t matter anyways, because ya don’t get to see your reflection the next day anyhow?”

That truly gets her thinking. Not just the way Princess Luna has just told her something similar, which is hopefully just some weird coincidence and not a certain farm pony having access to their dreams somehow.
Rainbow has spent a good amount of time trying to imagine what would have become of her friends and family if she had just suddenly died at the Summer Sun Festival, if she hadn’t survived after flying that stupid Sonic Rainboom.
The ruminating thoughts have mostly been filled with a horrible guilt and shame.

“No… I would want to spend as much time with all of you, and try to teach Scoot as much as I can, and…” She could feel her throat closing up painfully when it hits her how utterly useless and pointless it is, the way she has spent the majority of her life.
None of it will matter, all her struggles have been for nothing. And yet, even though she knows perfectly how messed up it all is, she still couldn’t bring herself to just simply eat.
“I wish this would just finally get easier…” she brokenly tells the still hardly touched chocolate bar in her hooves.

“Ah know it’s probably fruitless, coming from me, but Ah’m sure it will. Ya just have to be-”

“-patient?” Rainbow finishes angrily. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but patience isn’t really my strong suit.”

No kiddin’. Applejack thinks ruefully, remembering the whole drama that they all went through, because the next Daring Do book was postponed.

Rainbow continues. “I’ve been nothing but patient, and ‘strong’, and…” she falters again. “I just want a break…”

AJ grimaces in sympathy. “I’m afraid ya can’t exactly ‘take a break’ from eating food, sugarcube.”

“Will you stop calling me ‘sugarcube’ all the time?!”

Taken aback by the sudden outburst, Applejack needs a moment to string a sentence together. “But Ah’ve always called y’all that?”

Rainbow covers most of her face with a foreleg, groaning.

Apparently she isn’t going to get further information. “Alright, Ah’ll try not to call ya- … that.”

“…thanks.” Rainbow mumbles genuinely.

“So… how is it?” Applejack asks, genuinely curious, pointing to the chocolate. The question has a double meaning: she’s not just asking about the taste, but also about Dash’s ability to handle eating it, after declaring that she wouldn’t accept chocolate, back in the forest.
The irony is not lost on her, but all she feels is pride, and a growing fear that this might not end well.

“It’s…. not as bad as I thought.” She admits, and takes a second, not as small, bite. Although she starts to fidget nervously again, which is making the earth pony wary.
Ever since Twilight told her about ‘the thoughts’, Applejack has always been on high alert whenever Dash left the group or simply went to the bathroom. She hopes dearly that Dash could cope well enough right now, so that Applejack won’t have to… try to stop her? Could she even do that?
And what if she can’t?
How does one react and handle a close friend doing that to themselves, while helplessly standing by?

“I never would have thought that I’d be eating a chocolate bar, at 3 in the morning, for the first time in my life.” Rainbow remarks, her voice tremulous, as though she’s anxiously- fearfully awaiting the wrath and punishment for breaking two rules at once.

“See it as a win.” Applejack says proudly. “And Ah promise that nothing bad’ll happen because of it.”

Rainbow nods. “Everything is going to be fine.” She reminds herself, still in disbelief that this stupid mantra thing actually works. She breaks off an untouched square, offering it to the farm pony, who accepts it without hesitation.

“Cheers to that.” Applejack says jokingly.

Rainbow snorts, amused. “Cheers.” She says, and counts every new bite as a win, rather than calories.

“Ya know…” Applejack starts, after simply letting the pegasus ‘enjoy’ her first real chocolate for a while. “No matter how difficult things get, or how hopeless it may seem, we’ll always be there for ya.”

Rainbow swallows. She’s making good progress on the bar. “I… I know.”

The farm pony looks away, taking down her hat and holding it against her chest. “Ah never got to say goodbye to mah parents, tell them how much Ah loved them, one last time.
If you’d died that day, after Ah was so insensitive and we argued, Ah’d never be able to forgive myself for the rest of mah life.”
She looks back to the pegasus. “Ah count my blessings every day that you’re still here, and still fighting.”

Rainbow tries to blink away the tears that are starting to well up in her eyes. She wants nothing more than to forget that awful day, that she never truly considered how it impacts her friends still to this day.

“You know what..?” She asks, ignoring the way her voice is shaking. “I’m really glad that I’m still here, too.”

Applejack smiles, putting her hat back where it belongs. “Yeah, good thing too, cause otherwise ya wouldn’t be eating chocolate at 3am.” She replies jokingly.

Rainbow laughs wholeheartedly, breaking off another piece and giving it to Applejack. “Wouldn’t wanna miss that for the world.”

Twilight watches the two most athletic ponies of the group for a moment. They are the only ones still asleep, and while it’s not unusual for Dash to sleep in, it definitely is for Applejack.

What makes her even more suspicious is the fact that they are laying side by side, just snoring away softly, when they had gone to sleep at opposite ends of the room.

“They’re still asleep?” Spike asks behind her, returning with a dusty old comic book he’d found in the library.

Twilight nods. “I’m starting to get the feeling that we’ve missed something.”

Spike watches the two sleeping friends for a moment. “Well, at least they don’t seem like they were fighting.” He points out and shrugs.

“No.” Twilight carefully agrees. It feels weird, knowing that she has had arguments with Rainbow, and then they still ended up sleeping next to each other, in the same beds. Arguments where she has hurt Rainbow, and the pegasus had every right to be mad at her for it.
But Dash is loyal and forgiving to a fault, when it comes to that.
“I just wonder what happened last night.”

Pinkie bounces over to her chocolate pile, about to just grab one, when she notices something different about it, and suddenly feels extremely off. “Hey, there’s one missing!” She says a bit too loudly, and not a second later, starts to violently shake all over — her Pinkie Sense is sensing a doozie.

“W-what’s happening?!” Spike exclaims. “Pinkie Sense? What did that one mean?”

“S-S-Something comple-e-etely-y-y une-e-expe-e-ecte-e-ed is abo-o-out to-o-o ha-a-appe-e-en!”

The shouting finally startles Dash awake, who immediately raises her head and looks around. “Wha- Pinkie, why-” she stammers, before her brain starts registering her body’s signals, and she quickly turns to Twilight. “Is anyone in the bathroom right now??” She asks, since she’s not seeing Rarity or Fluttershy in the room with them.

Briefly taken aback by the question, and everything else going on right now, Twilight looks over to where the bathroom door is standing open. “No-”

Dash zooms past them all so fast that only her rainbow trail could be seen for a moment, followed by the bathroom door being closed shut with more force than necessary.

Twilight looks over at Pinkie Pie still shaking like she’s being possessed. She shakes her head and turns to Spike.
“This day is just getting weirder and weirder…”

“…and it’s only 10am.” Spike adds.

Applejack has now woken up from all the commotion as well, yawning and rubbing the sleep from her eyes. “Mornin’ y’all…” She mumbles, before realising that the spot on her right is no longer occupied by a certain pegasus.
“Hey, where’s Dash?”

“Bathroom.” Twilight and Spike reply in unison.

Against their expectations, the farm pony instantly panics at the single word. “What?! Is she-” then she notices Pinkie’s current state, and fears the worst. “Pinkie… please tell me yer Pinkie Sense is not sensing Dash stickin’ her wing down her throat right now.”

“…What?!”

A few hours earlier…

Dash and Applejack are still in the foyer, with the pegasus now pacing agitatedly in circles. A nearby trash bin is housing the empty wrapping, crumpled into a ball, that was previously keeping them from staining their hooves with its contents.

“I can’t believe I did that…” Rainbow laments as she trots at a strong pace. “I shouldn’t- why did- what was I thinking?!”

“Dash, there ain’t nothing wrong with eating chocolate.” Applejack calmly tells her. “In a few hours, the sun is still gonna rise up in the sky, yer not gonna gain ten pounds from this, and we’re all still yer friends.”

Rainbow finally halts to a stop, heaving a sigh.

“If ya can’t go back to sleep, we could play a game? Ya need a distraction.”

Rainbow shakes her head. “Can’t concentrate.” She then trots over to one of the windows.

“What are you doing now?” Applejack demands, rushing to her side.

“I need to fly.” Dash grits out urgently, wings already opening on their own accord.

“Then fly in here. There’s enough room-”

“It’s not the same.”

“Have ya even looked outside?!” The farm pony scolds harshly, gesturing to the flashing lightning from the darkest storm clouds she has ever seen. Which… Rainbow has been so focused on other things, that she’s never even noticed the storm that’s been building up outside.

With the only thing that would save her right now being unavailable, the growing anxiety is starting to actively suffocate her. She feels like she could barely draw in a breath, and even in the spacious foyer she feels like the walls are closing in on her.

“I-I can’t-! I have to- you don’t-”

Applejack lays a firm hoof on her shoulder. “Rainbow, look at me. Focus on me. Everything is okay. Ya hear me? Everything is gonna be fine-”

And then, to her absolute horror, Rainbow suddenly turns away from her, starts to gag with her shoulders squared, and brings the largest primary feather of her flexible wing to her mouth.

“Dash NO!” She shouts and pounces on her, stopping her from going any further. “Ya don’t want to do this!”

It breaks her heart, having to hold down her sobbing friend so she couldn’t…. with her own wing, the most important part to her, of all things…

Applejack is absolutely correct: she doesn’t want to do this. But she absolutely needs to.

“If ya do this, you’re only letting the bastard win, and nothing good will come out of it.” She murmurs lowly. “All it’ll do is make ya even more miserable, and as yer friend, Ah can’t let ya do that to yerself.”

Rainbow has never known that one could hate their friends, and at the same time, be eternally grateful to have them.
Then again, it’s not truly her who wishes that she didn’t have anyone in her life who is able to stop her from doing what she desperately needs to do.

All she manages to emit is a pained mewl, but as she lays there, the fighter in her is slowly but surely getting back to her hooves.

The world isn’t going to end if she keeps it down and simply lets her body digest it.
The world may not end if she gives in, either. But if this was the last night of her life, then she wouldn’t want to have it wasted like that, with the darn voice winning.

If I’m going down, I’m going down fighting. She promises herself, and her friends.

Present

“So… how exactly did you two end up here, like that?” Spike asks curiously, pointing to where Dash had previously been sleeping right next to the earth pony.

Their earlier yelling has attracted the attention of the previously not present girls. Rarity looks utterly horrified, while Twilight, Fluttershy and Spike are heartbroken to hear about what happened last night.

Pinkie is still shaking, so that horrific tale was somehow not the doozie.

Applejack awkwardly rubs the back of her neck. “Well… by the time she was calmed down enough, we came back here. But she still didn’t trust herself not to give in ta temptation, so we just.. laid down over here, and must have eventually fallen asleep.”

To add to the misery, Dash had told her that she couldn’t just go to sleep, because she kind of needed to pee, but she hadn’t dared to go anywhere near the bathroom, nor separate from Applejack in general.
Apparently they must have both fallen asleep at some point, anyhow.

Twilight decides that she’s heard enough and goes to investigate what Rainbow is currently up to. She knocks on the bathroom door, afraid of what she might walk in on once she opens it.

She’s already forming entire speeches of what she would say, if she found the pegasus indeed purging, or attempting to purge.
However, it’s oddly silent, as though nopony is even in it.

Against all expectations, she finds the pegasus just calmly sitting in front of a lean, tall mirror, which Rarity once insisted upon the bathroom absolutely needing it, as its shape and decorative designs around the mirror’s frame complimented it.
For Dash’s sake, they had kept it covered by a sheet — until now, apparently.

“Rainbow..? Are you… okay?” She asks carefully, coming to her side.

“If today was my last day, I’d want to spend it having fun with all you guys.” The pegasus replies, before finally looking over to her.

Stunned by the words, and a bit freaked out by how calmly she just said that, Twilight is speechless for a moment.
“…Alright…? I would spend it with all of you, too.”

Rainbow smiles at her, before looking back at the mirror. “It’s something Luna told me. If I ask myself whether or not what I’m about to do today is how I’d want to spend my last day, and the answer is ‘No’, and it keeps being ‘No’, then it’s time to do and change something about it.”

“That’s… pretty good advice.” Twilight replies. She comes to her side, curious to know what the mirror is showing Rainbow right now.

They remain in silence for a while, and to Twilight’s surprise, the pegasus is smiling at their reflections.

“What do you see?” The alicorn finally asks her.

“A very lucky pony, with the best friends that anypony could ever ask for.” Dash says without a hint of hesitation.

Immense relief washes over her, and Twilight can’t stop herself from hugging her. They would be lying if they said that there weren’t any happy, relieved tears being shed.

“Let’s go and make some more of those happy memories that you keep talking about.” Rainbow broaches half jokingly, and the two finally separate again.

When they get back into the ‘bedroom’, they find Pinkie still shaking violently. Rainbow notices the — still pretty large — pile of chocolates, and looks back and forth between it and Pinkie. She has a feeling that she knows what Pinkie is sensing, and even though she really doesn’t want to add any more-

“Screw it.” She mutters and grabs one. She already screwed up last night, so what harm could this possibly do?
“Anypony else up for chocolate for breakfast?” She asks casually, opening it and breaking off a piece, which she simply eats without hesitation. The others stare at her as though they’re seeing a ghost.
She smirks proudly when the pink mare rapidly changes shapes, until she is finally standing still and looking perfectly normal again.

A second later, she is thrown over by Pinkie pouncing on her. “I knew you would love it! And I’m always up for chocolate for breakfast! Or brunch, or lunch, or dinner, or…”