A Second Chance

3 weeks later

“Get me that file, 3rd from the right,” commanded Oliver’s superior, Wildfire. He lived up to the name, very frantic at times only stopping when completing his task, he was nice enough though.

“Maybe I should have paid attention to the word ASSISTANT when I took this job.” Oliver muttered under his breath. “Fetching files, reports and tools for some guy who can’t be bothered to walk 3 STEPS TO THE LEFT!” he shouted the last bit out loud.

“What? No I said 3 from the right! Are you okay today?”

“Yeah I’m fine, here’s the file,” Oliver hovered it over to a table nearby and slammed it down, a large bang echoed around the room.

The pony almost jumped out of his seat after the bang. “I didn’t even know you could make a noise that loud with a folder, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Oliver spat. He didn’t want to be questioned endlessly by a trained psychiatrist, he had to do something. “I’m fine, honest. I’m just going to go now.” Oliver walked towards the door and it shut in front of him, narrowly missing his muzzle.

“Oh no you don’t, you are going to tell me what’s wrong, right now.”

Oliver groaned and sat down quickly thinking of a lie that might sound plausible. “I’m just a little tired that’s all.” His mind screamed at him, That’s the best you can think of? Come on think of something!

“Tired huh? I think you’re lying.”

Oliver wasn’t surprised but he kept to the story, “I am not, and I doubt you could prove it.”

The officer smiled, “Oh but I can. You were in almost 2 hours late. I think you got more sleep than usual.”

Dammit! he thought.  Think of something else, quickly! “Alright, I’m not feeling too well.” Once again his mind exploded. Yeah that’ll work, if the pony interrogating you wasn’t a doctor!

The officer raised an eyebrow, “Not feeling well? Let me check something.” He quickly tapped on a datapad and examined it carefully. “Nice try, but you’re fine according to this,” he said waving the datapad. Oliver could just make out that Wild had just run a full scan on him and had turned up nothing.

Gaah! How many tricks does this guy have? Oliver thought wildly. “I…uh…I’m,” he was out of ideas except for one. Leave.

Once again he attempted to leave the room and this time the officer let him. He just sat there shaking his head as Oliver walked out of the room. That’s one awkward situation dealt with. He thought to himself.

The ship was due to jump today and Oliver wanted to be ready for that to happen. He always found preparing for the jump was better than quickly holding onto something and feeling sick afterwards.

He went to the mess hall where he ate very quickly. He wanted to get the food through his system before the jump made it extremely…unpleasant.

He then went to his room and lay down on the bed, muzzle stuck in one of the many books he had gotten back on Donegal while waiting for the inevitable jump. The book he was reading certainly caught his attention as he didn’t even notice the familiar feeling of jumping till it was too late.

He felt kind of sick but once again he was used to the feeling and it faded quickly. He continued reading the book, fully immersed in the story, ignoring everything around him.

Oliver wound up sitting in the corner of the mess hall a little after 8:00. He sat there drink in hoof and fiddling about with a pack of cards. He looked around the room, there weren’t any groups but out of the corner of his eye he noticed somepony looking in his direction.

He didn’t give it another thought however and began to play solitaire with the cards he had been shuffling in mid-air for about 15 minutes. He had gotten halfway through the diamonds and clubs when the pony he had seen before sat down in front of him.

“Hello,” he said. Oliver placed down the 5 of spades and then looked up from his game to see the pony better. Fortunately it was somepony he recognised.

“Evening Cobalt. Everything okay?” The white pegasus looked off towards the wall, a pained expression on his face.

“Nothing you need to know about,” he said still refusing to make eye contact.

This seems to be taking a familiar turn. Oliver thought remembering the events of that morning. But unlike the officer, Oliver had a few tactics. “Alright, it’s none of my business anyway,” he said returning to his game and finding the card he had been searching for.

Cobalt looked up eyebrows raised. “You’re not going to ask what’s going on? Some pony you are.” Oliver smiled getting just the response he wanted.

“So you were expecting a reaction? I thought you didn’t want to talk, or were you just attention seeking?” Oliver had learned these patterns of behaviour before.

Cobalt sat there staring daggers at him while Oliver continued looking for the 8 of diamonds. “Why are you here then?”

“I was a little bored, I saw you with the cards and thought hell, why not.”

Oliver was a little surprised, in the short time he had known Cobalt they had never really talked. “You want a game then?”

Cobalt nodded “I bet I could beat you easily.”

The unicorn smiled, “You bet? Put your money where your mouth is then, 50 bits says you win.

Cobalt returned the smile “50? Bit low, shall we say 100?”

“You’re on.”

The night stretched on as the two stallions drank, played and laughed the hours away. He didn’t know if it was the alcohol that had helped him win or if Cobalt was just generally a bad player but Oliver walked, no, stumbled away 100 bits richer with a passed out pegasus on his back.

After dumping Cobalt outside his cabin Oliver went to the med bay to find something for a headache. He didn’t really need it now but he definitely would tomorrow morning.

Heading into the bay Wildfire was sleeping or at least he seemed to be. His chest was rising and falling deeply and his eyes were closed but that didn’t mean he was asleep. Just to be sure he quietly walked along to the cabinets and grabbed the bottle he identified as headache medicine.

Just then Wild spoke, “Don’t take that.”

“Why should I?” Oliver was fairly sure the alcohol was talking here.

“Because that,” he pointed at the bottle, “is a muscle relaxer. Unless you want to flop about for 2 hours tomorrow morning I suggest you put that back.”

Oliver squinted at it and realised that it was indeed what he had said. He quickly put it back and grabbed the correct bottle.

“That’s Cynocin, eat that and you’ll be in pain for a while. You should only use that for certain sicknesses.”

Third times the charm, he thought to himself when he picked another bottle.

Wild looked up then looked back down “There you go. Get some sleep, you’ll need it tomorrow.”

Oliver thanked him and left the room hoping for a good nights sleep.