Rainbow Dash and Scootaloo were finally happy. There would be plenty of adjusting, but they had time. All they had was time.

A week passed and the filly was back in school. Just a few weeks more and her limp had faded, though Rainbow Dash stopped noticing it well before that. All she saw when she looked at Scootaloo was... Scootaloo. While it seemed as though she was healing fine, the scar remained... and would likely always be there. It would at least be a source of conversation during the day at school.

Despite the scar and being months behind on her schoolwork (as well as out of touch with her classmates), Scootaloo had another problem. While Twilight was glad to help her catch up with her schoolwork, and after a while she would readjust to being around her schoolmates again... this problem was on the inside, where nopony else could see it. Every couple nights Scootaloo would wake up screaming:

"Please stop! You're hurting me!"

Every time this happened Rainbow Dash would bolt awake to her cries, then zip down to the lower bunk... where she would hug the filly as she woke up, realizing it was all just a dream.

"Did you have the nightmare again, Squirt?"

"Yeah... I'm so glad it's not real."

"Me too, Squirt... me too."

They would always hug, and on occasion Rainbow Dash would sleep on the floor, just in case.

The little pegasus had a recurring nightmare where she was in a bright room on a metal table, surrounded by a white light, with white ponies all around her, no mouths and only one bright eye. They would be holding her down and scraping her skin off with green brushes.

"It feels so real!" she'd tell Dash, rocking slowly in a rhythmic fashion. "They're touching me in all the places that hurt the most... I ask them to stop but they tell me they're doing it for my own good. I scream at them, but I can't even move!"

"It's okay, Scoots," Dash usually replied. "It's not real, and if it ever was... it can't hurt you now."

Rainbow discussed these nightmares with Twilight at the library one afternoon while Scootaloo and Apple Bloom played at the Acres... Twilight had a pretty straight-forward answer:

"She's remembering the doctors working hard to save her without painkillers... just not consciously."

Dash's eyes went wide:

"B-but why now?" She exhaled through her nose. "Do I tell her the truth?"

"That's up to you. I would wait until she got older, but I can see the good in telling her now. And as for why now, she's finally away from that place and starting to relax... trauma sometimes takes a while to show up. If you think it would help, I can always talk to her if you want."

Rainbow made eye-contact with her friend:

"I got this, Twilight. Trust me."

"Okay, then." Twilight bit her lip. "I'll always be here if you need me."

The next afternoon Rainbow thought to herself while waiting for Scootaloo to get out from school. It was raining hard like it had been when she went missing... again not Dash's shift to be up in the clouds. The pegasus knew this time she'd be there for Scootaloo if it continued to rain, with a big umbrella. Plus she knew this weather was coming, so she banned Scootaloo from taking her scooter that day:

"Aww, come on, Rainbow... I just want to ride it there!"

"No way, Squirt. I'm not having a repeat of last time."

"Please? I'll wear the helmet extra tight."

"And you'll just get a swelled head. Look, it's not happening today, Scoots. Get over it. Now get going, or you'll be late."

Under the skylight the older pegasus sighed. She busied herself with an indoor project as she thought about what she wanted to do concerning her protege's nightmares... looking up into the dark clouds.

I could always talk to Luna... but then again, the last time I asked her for something I almost got in pretty deep trouble.

Rainbow smirked, turning the screw on the top bunk counter-clockwise. She felt the mattress and frame slipping...

CRASH!

The top bunk and the bottom bunk were now sandwiched together.

"Oops." Rainbow was happy that at least Scootaloo wasn't sleeping there... or else it might be another hospital trip. "Well, that was what I had in mind... but not quite like that."

Slowly but surely, Rainbow pulled the beds apart and set them side-by-side, pushed them together once they were set up, making a mental note to get a long, thin pillow to put between the two sides. She then then tightly fastened the two frames together, turning their bed into a make-shift King.

"Hope you like this, Squirt," she thought aloud. "This way, if you wake up from that dream and I'm still asleep, you can always just hug me."

Half of her didn't see talking to Scootaloo doing any good... the other half just saw it just making her feel really vulnerable. Dash hoped someday the filly would outgrow it... she needed to be happy again, not having nightmares. Rainbow was there to see to it that she would be happy. As far as she was concerned Rainbow wasn't the Element of Loyalty for nothing. The pair at least still had all they needed for now... Everything else would come in time. Right now, they would just together... happy as they could be.

Scootaloo would come home later and see what Dash had done... she would act happy, because she knew Rainbow Dash cared and that's why she did what she did. The filly was finally getting used to life without changes everyday, and each little alteration made her feel funny on the inside... she wanted a place to come to at the end of the day that would always be the same, but even with a home that's not the way it works. She would learn in time, that life is about change and frequently one cannot make things better with first making changes. Besides, that night she fell asleep in Rainbow's forelegs....the closest thing she had ever had to a mom.