Never Fade Away

Flat Line smoked two more cigarettes before he finally gave up hoping that Sunset would follow Celestia's lead and pop out of his life before turning back towards her.

"Unfortunately Celestia is still working herself into needing the first ever alicorn heart transplant, so she gave me a list of things she didn't want me to 'worry you over'." Flat Line said while moving his hooves up in down. Sunset knew they were supposed to be air quotes but the only thing she could think of was a catpony doing a cutesy pose.

'Flat Line would be the saddest sopping wet catpony.' Sunset thought to herself through a mental haze as she zoned out for a few moments.

Flat Line continued to speak in spite of Sunset's inner thoughts. "Not that I was planning on saying anything. Most of it is just crap nopony within a hundred miles of Canterlot is going to be sui-stupid enough to say." Flat Line said to the lamp next to her head, momentarily stumbling over a word Sunset would prefer to ignore.

"A few of the things on the list are things you should probably know, and one or two of them might even be things you need to know." Flat Line shrugged, a pale imitation of her from a few minutes ago. "Normally I'd just take my lumps and ignore Celestia, but she's been a bit emotional lately and I value the little things in life like having a job so..." Flat Line trailed off before throwing imaginary confetti into the air.

"You're a terrible doctor." Sunset's head still felt so muffled and fuzzy that it took her several moments to realize that she was the one talking.

"Actually, I'm an amazing doctor. If I was a terrible one you'd be a member of the grateful dead, not the ungrateful living." Flat Line's slate gray horn lit up with a steel blue glow, and Sunset watched as he levitated a flower out of one of the many plastic vases surrounding her bed before bringing it over to himself.

"If you want to criticize me for something, then yell at me and throw a vase at my head for the mean shave I had to give you. I never was the best at shaving heads." As Flat Line talked the flower in his magic's grasp slowly transfigured itself into a cigarette.

Sunset absentmindedly dragged her hoof across her head, feeling the short choppy mane she was left with. The entire left side of her head was shaven, and what little remained of her mane looked like what a hobo's attempt at doing a punk style would have look like.

Sunset couldn't bring herself to care about a bad haircut at the moment.

Stopping to speak just long enough to light the cigarette with magic before putting it into his mouth, Flat Line leaned back against the open windows before continuing to speak. "In my defense I went to medical school, not barber school."

Sunset felt her mind briefly become less muffled when she looked at the cigarette still floating in his magical grip. Sunset didn't know a lot, but she knew every calculation that went into that transfiguration spell. "Is it safe to smoke a transfigured cigarette?"

Flat Line rolled his eyes and smirked at nothing after hearing her words. Sunset didn't know how she knew it was a smile, since it looked more like the world's calmest snarl. "Of course you'd still be a nerd that doesn't care about losing half her hair. Celestia will be happy to hear that at least."

Sunset opened her mouth again.

"And yeah, it's safe to smoke. None of the flowers are poisonous. You've got some weird ones sent your way though." Flat Line rubbed his chin and zoned off as well for a brief moment. "What the heck kinda bouquets are they sending you?"

Sunset slowly looked at the large table that was probably once covered in beautiful arrangements of flowers before Flat Line picked through them like a sheep with an eating disorder. "I wouldn't know."

Flat Line shrugged again. "I wasn't really sure if you were gonna wake up or not so I decided to take a few of the more wilted flowers and it kind of spiraled from there."

Sunset stared at him harder, squinting through the haze surrounding her emotions. She felt... annoyed? "Aren't doctors supposed to have bedside manners?" Sunset didn't know a whole lot at the moment, but even she knew that.

Flat Line looked at the burnt up cigarette he was smoking before levitating it between him and Sunset before dragging a new one towards it. "You caught me at the bad end of a horrible week. You know how many doctors that work here are registered to work on the royal family?"

Sunset shook her head.

"Two, and that's only because Celestia hired a second one for Cadance last year. Not to knock 'em but they're basically a glorified pediatrician." Lighting the new cigarette with the old one, Flat Line tossed the butt out the window before looking back at Sunset. "Wanna know how many doctors here are registered to perform surgery on the royal family?"

Sunset could take a reasonable guess.

"One. And Sunny?" Sunset watched as the cigarette floating between the two of them burst into flames. "I've been burning the candle at both ends for a week straight keeping your flame from dying out. I'm tired." Turning back around, Flat Line went back to the window on the far corner of the room.

Flat Line stared out the window at the city below them, cobblestone streets stretching out and down the mountain like veins escaping from their preassigned lanes. "It's a little past noon. It's another beautiful sunny Fall day, with not a cloud in the sky. There hasn't been a cloud in the sky for about a week now, and the weather report for the next week is about the same."

Sunset Shimmer felt the warm Fall breeze blow across her face, carrying a hint of burning tobacco with a flowery undertone along with it. "Isn't Fall supposed to be chilly?"

Flat Line took another drag of his cigarette. "Yeah, it is. Guess we've just been having a bit of a late heatwave."

Sunset frowned at the window. "I think... I would prefer it to be cooler." Sunset nodded. "I don't like warm falls."

Flat Line looked back at Sunset, staring at her with slightly more intensity than before. "You and me both, kid. In fact you should tell Celestia that the next time you see her."

Sunset stared at Flat Line until he started to chew on the butt of his old cigarette. "What? Maybe she likes talking about the weather. You don't know."

Lying back onto the bed Sunset felt the haze around her head shift slightly. That's right, she doesn't know. She doesn't know anything at the moment. She doesn't know where she lives or where she is or if she has any friends or what happened to her or what wou-

Flat Line interrupted her existential crisis with a loud clearing of his throat. "You know you should uh, probably stretch your legs for a bit. Looking around your home will probably help jog your memories."

Sunset quickly slid back into her earlier passivity after digesting his words for a moment. She couldn't think of anything wrong with what he said, so she decided she might as well stick to the professional's advice.

"Does every hospital discharge their patients the moment they wake up?" Sunset accidentally asked out loud.

Flat Line shook his head, his large ears flopping back and forth. "Nope. But this isn't a average hospital, you're one of the lucky few that have recovered on a royal medical bed, and I'm not an average doctor."

Following the direction his hoof was pointing Sunset could see small lines of text written on the baseboard of the bed. Not even noticing her own sudden interest in the world around her Sunset began to inspect the bed frame.

Sunset could see small lines of glowing text written on every single surface and edge of the bedpost and even a few on the mattress itself, crisscrossing like endless lines of traffic on a never-ending drive on an old familiar road. Sunset could see just how much talent went into every inch of the bed. It was a modern miracle.

Flat Line gave Sunset a few moments to nerd out over the magical hospital bed before drawing her attention back to him by trotting in place for a moment. "Yeah, it's a magic bed with enough bells and whistles to put an infomercial to shame."

Flat Line noticed Sunset's eyes begin to stray back to the bed frame before he trotted in place again.

"Anyways, you should get out of here. I wasn't joking about you needing to stretch your legs. It'll probably do you some good to explore and jog your memory, and I know you're healthy enough for it."

Sunset squinted at Flat Line for a bit until he rolled his eyes and let out another huff of smoke. "I also wouldn't mind taking a nap while you're out and about, and that's the only royal clinic bed we have activated at the moment."

Sunset didn't know a whole lot at the moment, so she supposed she should listen to her doctor and get up and get out.

"You can either return here tonight to sleep or return to your room. If you return to your room you'll need to make sure you stop by here so I can make sure nothing's changed over 24 hours. If you experience any negative or neutral symptoms return here immediately." Flat Line mechanically said to her, going through some routine only he seemed to know as he tossed the final cigarette out the window.

"I can't think of any medication that'd benefit you at the moment, and Celestia has all the papers with the exercises you should do." Flat Line stared off into space for a moment before looking into her eyes.

"Next time you visit you'll probably run into Furaha, she's the glorified physician I mentioned earlier. Do me a favor and don't act weird around her like the first time you met her." Sunset didn't really know what to say to that so she just nodded for what felt like a reasonable amount of time.

Flat Line looked like he was considering whether or not letting her outside the room was a good idea before his ears perked up for a moment. After concentrating on something Sunset wasn't even sure was real or not Flat Line's ears flopped back down to the sides of his head.

"Yeah, you're definitely good to go. Right now, in fact. If you're wondering where anything is then just ask the first pony you see for directions and it'll work out." Briskly trotting towards the door Sunset opened it and begin to step outside into the hall before Flat Line called out to her again.

"Oh and one more thing." Sunset looked back at Flat Line and saw him already climbing into the immediately discarded bed. "If you see Celestia tell her to keep at least two senses engaged to prevent mental fog. She'll know what I mean."

Sunset was glad that Celestia was supposed to understand that, because she sure as heck didn't. Nodding at Flat Line as he shuffled into bed Sunset turned back around and exited the door before almost immediately running into a dark pink pony with pale pink feathers standing on the other side of it holding a mishmashed vase of flowers.

"Sunny?" Sunset watched the plastic vase drop to the floor, almost disappointed when it didn't even bounce or spill over and instead just fell flat on the floor with a dull thud, not a single flower petal managing to get knocked loose.

Looking back up at the pink mare in front of her, Sunset's vision was almost entirely overtaken by eye-searing feathers as the stranger pulled her into an improvised choke hold.

"OhmygoshI'msohappytoseeyou'refinallyawake-" The pink pony paused to take several deep breaths before continuing to speak.

"Auntie said you would be fine but she wouldn't stop crying. I don't think anyone's ever seen her like that before. Dr. Line made some morbid joke at one point and auntie's hair- I don't even want to remember it!" The pink mare begin to sob into her shoulders, right above the spot that Celestia splattered earlier.

Sunset felt her hooves wrap around the crying teenager holding on to her for dear life, and before Sunset even realized what was happening she had a small torrent of tears running down her own cheeks.

Sunset might have found it hard to think at the moment, but difficult didn't mean impossible. And at the moment, Sunset was very sad and very scared, and she felt like she deserved to cry as much as much as anyone else in her existence had so far.

"I'm sorry if this is a big ask since I can't remember how well I knew you-" Sunset said, ignoring the winged pink mare choking on her own sobs as she buried her face into her shoulder even harder. "-But can you take me somewhere nice? I've only been awake for an hour and I'm already tired of feeling bad."

The pink pony immediately gripped her back as if she would disappear before letting out the loudest, wettest wail yet before letting out several sobs as if they were preemptively queued up.

Sunset didn't know exactly what skills she had locked in her head besides bed frame reading, and it seemed like talking to crying mares wasn't on her shortlist of life skills.