A/N: See, Tails, this is why I love you. You're a good sport, even though you hated my ending and I kind of sort of keep rubbing it in your face that I don't really care whether you like it or not.

"THE GAMES WE PLAY"

ALTERNATE ENDING #13

Guest Submission from Tailslover13

There was only silence; the sound of the two of them breathing and the hushed whisper of snow falling.

"We'll be okay," Rainbow Dash said, her voice firmer this time. "I promise. No matter what happens. I'm not going to give up on you."

And without waiting for a reply, she enfolded the mare in one final embrace before quietly lowering her to the ground.

"Are you ready?" she asked.

"No," Mare Do Well answered, still breathless and panting.

A smile twitched at the corners of her mouth, and Rainbow Dash ducked her head in, so that her mouth was moving against the shape of Mare Do Well's ear.

“Too bad,” she whispered. She could feel the mare shiver beneath her.

It was time. She took one final deep breath.

Mare Do Well was perfectly still, as if preparing herself for what was coming. For whatever Rainbow did next.

And Rainbow Dash opened her eyes…

~~~

“Doctor, come quickly!”

The first feeling she experienced was pain. A bright white ceiling, complimented by white, desolate walls, greeted the cyan Pegasus as her eyes fluttered open. The sheer brightness of the strange room struck Rainbow Dash’s pupils, weakening the Pegasus and making her squirm uncomfortably. Somewhere to her left, the shrill voice of another pony was squealing and speaking gibberish that Dash wasn’t focusing on. All she cared about was what happened and where she was now.

Rosy eyes darted around the room after at least a dozen weaker eyelid fluttering exercises. The pupils dilated and began to focus in on her surroundings, Rainbow Dash spying several odd machines displayed around the white room. A respiratory machine and a defibrillator both situated the area to her right, but Dash was more focused on in what she saw towards the left of her bed. It was at this point that she finally began noticing that she was hooked up with IVs and tubes, which were both connected to even larger machines that Dash couldn’t identify.

A cardiac monitor beeped softly over Dash’s head, showing her slowly-quickening heart rate. The IVs that she had taken notice of were attached to each of her forelegs, to her neck, to her forehead, and a few around her chest. The Pegasus, continuing to panic, finally came to the realization that she was in a hospital. A place that she did not ever enjoy taking residence within, at least not since discovering who Daring-Do was. Plus, with some pony in a white jacket trotting back and forth in a frazzle next to her bedside, it didn’t seem like a normal accident this time around that had led to her coming here, either.

Seconds later, the door to the small room burst open and Nurse Redheart trotted inside. Upon laying eyes on Rainbow Dash, the pony’s jaw dropped and her eyes doubled their usual size. The younger, giddier pony in the white coat was pushed aside as Redheart rushed over to the cyan mare’s bedside. Rainbow Dash was beginning to feel a knot form in her stomach from all the attention and confusion that was beginning to escalate within the tiny hospital room.

“Rainbow Dash, this is truly a miracle!” Nurse Redheart exclaimed, reaching over onto a nearby table out of Dash’s eyesight and grasping a clipboard, “I didn’t want to believe it, but I feared that you may never wake up again. Still, even though it’s been months, your friends never gave up hope! They made sure to visit you every single day, and…”

“Whoa, whoa, hold it right there!” Rainbow Dash croaked out, finding her voice to be raspy and rather weak. It was like dust was coating the inside of her throat, and it hurt whenever she gurgled any words at all. But, the situation was much too dire for the frantic Pegasus, and she wanted answers. “Just what the hay is going on here? Why am I in this hospital bed? Why do I have all this stuffed hooked up to my body? Where’s Mare Do Well? Where are my friends? WHAT HAPPENED TO ME?!?!”

“Rainbow Dash, please calm down. You mustn’t overexcite yourself, especially after what you just woke up from.” Nurse Redheart glared at the Pegasus, trotting up and placing a hoof against her shoulder, attempting to calm her down. “Waking up from a coma after several months is a miracle within itself, but you really can’t…”

“WHAT?!?! A COMA?!?!” Rainbow Dash’s face paled, the heart monitor behind her beginning to beep even faster as her blood pressure accelerated. All she wanted to do was rip the cords off her body and get the heck out of that room and find Mare Do Well and her friends. Mostly the latter, but she had been that close to finding out who Mare Do Well was, and now she was here? After several months? This couldn’t be happening.

“Rainbow Dash, if you do not calm down, I will be forced to sedate you,” Redheart warned, pushing firmly onto Dash’s left shoulder and giving her a stern look. “It’s only natural for you to be confused. But, if you would please just relax and let me explain the situation, I’m sure all your questions will be answered. I will have my assistant run to get your friends, given that they’ll make you feel better. But, please, do NOT overexcite yourself. Your body cannot take it right now.”

Giving a nod to the other nervous earth pony, Nurse Redheart went back to scribbling furiously across her clipboard with a quill. The young assistant quickly galloped out of the room, leaving the two ponies alone and in a deafening silence. The only sound came from the cardiac monitor’s beeping over Dash’s head and the soft tapping of the quill against Redheart’s clipboard. Rainbow Dash was beyond angry by this point. She was annoyed, scared, confused, and downright enraged by what the current situation looked like. Did Mare Do Well somehow do this to her?

“So? Tell me already! What the hay happened to me?”

“Yes, of course.” Nurse Redheart pulled up a chair, sitting down gently onto the cushion as she gave Rainbow Dash her full attention. The nurse’s eyes met Dash’s, the pony continuing to try and calm her patient’s inner fury as much as she could. “Rainbow Dash, you suffered a cardiac arrest a few months ago, and was quickly rushed here by your friends Twilight Sparkle and Pinkie Pie. This led to you…”

“Uh…what’s a cardiac arrest? Something to do with playing cards and the police or something?”  Dash frowned a little, hating when she didn’t understand fancy talk or complicated issues.

Nurse Redheart gave a patient sigh, shaking her head. “No. Cardiac arrest is a very serious medical condition that is brought on by cessation of normal circulation of the blood due to failure of the heart being able to contract effectively.”

“In English, please.”

“A very serious condition caused by an unnatural interruption of your blood flow caused by your heart not working properly.”

Dash’s ears flattened against her skull at the mention of her heart being involved. So, there was a chance that she could die? She still didn’t understand. Did Mare Do Well make her heart unbalanced or something? Was all that lovey-dovey junk causing her body to go about a change that could effectively end her life if not treated? Her fright was once again replaced by rage at Mare Do Well. Oh boy, Rainbow Dash was going to rip into her once she got her hooves on the mare again. This was going too far. Messing with her heart using psychological and mental tricks was bad enough, but now this?

“Oh. Well…okay, whatever. But, you said something about a coma, too.” Dash tried to remain calm, not wanting to upset her heart again, or whatever the situation was.

“Yes, Rainbow Dash. As soon as you were brought in, we rushed you to intensive care at once. Cardiac arrest is a very horrifying condition that must be treated immediately, or else the consequences could be fatal. We did all we could, but…” Redheart’s ears drooped a bit, since she hated being the bearer of bad news. “…even though we stabilized your blood flow and your heartbeat, you didn’t wake up again. You…you went into a coma.”

Rainbow Dash wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, but she knew enough about simple terms to know what the nurse meant. “Wow. Me, in a coma? Ugh, that’s rather annoying.” The mare scowled to herself that Pinkie and Twilight had been the ones to rush her to the hospital. Did that mean that one of them was Mare Do Well? After all, the masked mare had been the last thing that Dash had seen before…well, opening her eyes to find herself in a hospital bed.

“Naturally, we outfitted you with the proper equipment to make sure you were taken care of during your coma.” Nurse Redheart motioned her head to all the wires and tubes attached to Rainbow’s body. “During a coma, the patient cannot eat or drink, and their body does not function as it would during its host’s full attention. Therefore, we had to maintain your respiration and circulation by using intubation and ventilation, which also allowed us to administer intravenous fluids, blood and other supportive care while you were in your vegetative state.”

“Once more, in English, please.”

Rolling her eyes slightly, Redheart poked one of the wires on Dash’s left foreleg. “All these wires are what kept you alive all these months, Rainbow Dash. They pump blood and fluids into your body so you don’t die.”

“Oh. Right.” Rainbow Dash raised a hoof to give herself a slap in the forehead, but Redheart scowled at her and forced her to not move. “Ugh. So, let me get this straight. I suffered a cardiac arrest, Twi and Pinks rushed me here, and I fell into a coma and I’ve been a vegetable for the past few months?”

“DASHIE!” Before Nurse Redheart could respond, the door burst open and a very familiar voice broke the calmness of the room. Even though she was still rather annoyed with her for obvious reasons, Dash couldn’t help but crack a weak smile. Seeing the puff of pink mane suddenly appear at her bedside was a welcome sight at the moment. “Y-y-you’re awake! Y-you really woke up!”

“Hey, Pinkie. What’s up?” Dash grinned, attempting to lean back even further against her large, comfy pillow in an attempt to make herself look like she didn’t mind being in the bed.

Nurse Redheart stepped aside for a moment to let Rainbow Dash’s three current visitors view the Pegasus. Besides the teary-eyed Pinkie Pie, who was trembling in joy at seeing her best friend awake, there was also a rather pale and messy-maned Twilight Sparkle with dark bags under her eyes and blood red pupils replacing the white sanctum of her eyeballs. Having to stand on her hind legs and place her forelegs on the bed surface to steady herself, Scootaloo peered at Rainbow Dash with the same loving and adoring expression that she had grown accustomed to seeing each and every day. Or, in the very least, whenever she actually saw the filly.

“Oh, Dashie, I was SO scared that you would never wake up again!” Pinkie sobbed, burying her face into the side of Rainbow’s pillow and having to be restrained from putting her hooves around Dash’s neck for a loving embrace. “I…I couldn’t live without seeing you again, at least not in the sense of flying around and showing off and stuff. Seeing you in this bed all the time, not moving…not speaking…my poor little heart nearly broke a hundred times. I had to go out and buy some glue.”

“Rainbow Dash…you are one of my best friends, and you mean so much to me…” Twilight whispered, her voice akin to Dash’s. It was hard to tell just who the one with the voice problems was as the purple mare edged forward to try and get closer to the cyan mare, since Pinkie was hogging most of the space closest to her head. “I used my medical books to study cardiac arrests and comas, and I was terrified of what I found out. I thought…I thought I was going to lose you. I couldn’t eat, or sleep. Knowing that you might never get to stretch your wings again…” The unicorn went silent, trying to hold back her tears.

Finally, it was Scootaloo’s turn to talk. The little filly was wide-eyed and anxious, but looked almost just like Twilight in the face. It was clear she was suffering from a lack of sleep and nutrition as well. “Rainbow Dash…thank goodness you’re okay! My grades had been dropping in school because Miss Cheerilee has been annoyed with how much I keep drawing your picture and answering every question she asks with ‘Rainbow Dash’. I don’t want any other hero…I want you! Please, please don’t ever leave me like that again, okay?”

Rainbow Dash eyed Pinkie Pie closely, contemplating just how real her sobs were. Then she looked at Twilight, curious as to how SHE had been so worried about her, too. The mare grinned softly at seeing Scootaloo; the little kid really was a sweetheart in her adoration for her. It was no shocker that she’d be worried about her after this shocking revelation. Still, Dash had to admit that being admired and cared about so much wasn’t such a bad thing, life-threatening or not. However, she still had several questions that needed to be answered.

“Pinkie Pie.” Dash’s voice came out serious and direct, the mare staring at the hysterical earth pony staring at her with shimmering blue eyes. “I just need to know, right now. I can’t go through all that again. So…it was you, wasn’t it? It didn’t make much sense, but…something told me that it HAD to be you. You were her, weren’t you?”

Wiping a tear from her eye, a confused smile forced its way across Pinkie’s lips. “I was who, Dashie?”

“You know who I mean, Pinkie.” Rainbow Dash sighed, not even caring that Twilight, Scootaloo and Nurse Redheart were there. “Look, enough is enough. After what I apparently suffered, I think I deserve a little confession from you, since it was YOU who caused me to suffer this!”

“W-what? Dashie…w-what are you talking about?” Pinkie took a step back, her ears flattening against the sides of her head. “Why are you mad at me? What did I do? I…I didn’t put you into a coma. When Twilight and I found you, we were on our way to your home to ask you how the Wonderbolts show had gone. You were on the ground…not moving…” Pinkie’s head lowered, her eyes filling with tears once more. “I…I almost lost it right then…thankfully Twilight was there to help us take you to the hospital.”

Rainbow Dash did a double take, shaking her head and blinking a few times. She wasn’t sure she had heard Pinkie Pie properly. “Uh…what? The Wonderbolts show? But…that was months ago!”

“Uh…yes, Rainbow Dash, I think we already established that,” Nurse Redheart sighed, shaking her head and going over her notes. “I fear you may have suffered some memory loss or at least some amnesia thanks to your coma. It is said that once you wake up from one, you sometimes don’t know where you are or how you got there.”

Before she knew it, Rainbow Dash was sitting up in bed and looking angry. “Girls, please, this isn’t funny! Just tell me already that ONE of you was Mare Do Well, right? Pinkie, I was sure it was you. I mean, it didn’t make sense, but…it just HAD to be. Twilight, you were my next guess, even though you had shown up at the same time Mare Do Well did during that party, so that’s the only reason I thought it couldn’t have worked. Mare Do Well had no wings, so it couldn’t have been Fluttershy. Rarity and Applejack, I just don’t think that they…”

“Rainbow…what are you talking about?” Twilight interrupted, struggling to stay awake as she rubbed a foreleg over her eyes. “Mare Do Well? I thought we put all that behind us. Oh…wait, was it maybe a dream you had during your sleep?”

“A dream? Oh, heck no! It was no dream! It happened!” Rainbow Dash protested. “I can still feel it all in my heart! The ticket…my broken wings…the carnations…the chases…the touches…it was all real! There was no way that was a dream!” She pointed a hoof accusingly at the two mares beside her bed, now ignoring Scootaloo. “One of you is Mare Do Well and one of you…possibly both of you…loves me!”

Silence filled the room once more, any attempts from Nurse Redheart trying to calm Rainbow Dash down going ignored. Twilight and Pinkie both stared at Rainbow Dash for a long time, their eyes widen and their cheeks turning dark red at the sudden accusation. Scootaloo looked crestfallen, both from being ignored and from not being accused of also loving Rainbow Dash. Rainbow Dash herself had her teeth bared and her messy mane puffed out due to stress. She wasn’t about to let this game keep going on after all she’d been through. One way or another, either Pinkie or Twilight was going to confess. That or Rainbow Dash would demand to see Applejack or Rarity next.

Very slowly, Pinkie trotted back up to Rainbow’s side. Since Nurse Redheart was now being ignored and would not be listened to, Pinkie reared up on her hind legs and wrapped both of her hooves around Rainbow’s middle. Burying her head into the Pegasus’ shoulder, Pinkie just closed her eyes and nuzzled up to mare, not uttering a single word. The same feelings that Dash had been feeling since the beginning about Pinkie Pie began to resurface, her cheeks lighting up and her heart pounding inside her chest. The sad, gentle smile on Pinkie’s face didn’t tell her anything she wanted to know.

Trotting around to her other side, Twilight joined Pinkie in hugging Rainbow Dash’s free side. The unicorn pressed her swollen cheek against the side of Dash’s face, indicating just how badly she had been crying the past few months. Rainbow Dash was used to being near Pinkie, but now that Twilight was holding her like this, she could easily see just how beautiful and sweet she was. If one of them really was Mare Do Well, it was a time like this that made Rainbow realize just what these ponies saw in her. When Scootaloo leaped up onto the bed and crawled onto Rainbow’s lap a second later, the Pegasus just wanted to scream.

“Stop…stop torturing me. Who is Mare Do Well? Please…tell me!” Rainbow choked out, trembling a little and struggling to not push the three ponies surrounding her away.

“Dashie…we honestly do not know what you are talking about,” Pinkie whispered, cuddling the mare even closer and snuggling her mane into her face. “You remember that Wonderbolts show, right? The one where you overloaded your saddlebags with Spitfire and Soarin memorabilia? Well, it was about an hour after it was over that we found you collapsed on the street, near a dark alley.”

“Pinkie and I must’ve felt something similar, since our hearts were telling us to go out and see you,” Twilight continued, speaking in the same quiet voice as her counterpart. “I found Pinkie bouncing out of Sugarcube Corner, and both of us began to chat about you while we headed to your place. Luck was on our side, and we ran into you on the ground, as Pinkie said. She tried to give you mouth-to-mouth, but it wasn’t working. She was…freaking out, to put it lightly…so, I levitated both of you to the hospital. After the doctors worked on you for a few hours, we heard that you had a cardiac arrest.”

“If I had to pinpoint a reason as to why you had the attack, I would have to blame who you are and your lifestyle,” Nurse Redheart spoke up. “Think about it, Rainbow Dash. You had just watched your heroes perform in a show, which easily must’ve increased your heart rate. Then, you tried to return home with weighed-down saddlebags that easily put a strain on you. I’d say that, given all the insane flying you do, combined with your usual outgoing attitude, your intense training, always flying at such dangerous altitudes, and from that exciting night…all of that ultimately led to you having an attack.”

“I-I rushed over to see you as soon as I heard, too, Rainbow Dash!” Scootaloo piped up, but sighed when she saw that Rainbow Dash was already looking sullen and terrified at the realization.

“No…it can’t…it can’t be…” she whispered, lowering her head and now feeling utterly broken. “It was all just…just…a dream? All of it? N-no…it c-couldn’t have all been…fake. I felt it…I know I did…”

“Dash? What…what kind of dream…um…well, what did you ‘experience’ that was so interesting?” Twilight asked, accidentally giving Rainbow Dash a nuzzle to the face with her own mane to go with Pinkie’s. The unicorn continued to tighten her grip on Rainbow Dash; the fact that she felt she had forever lost a pony so close to her heart did not sit well with the mare who had struggled to learn how to be social. Right now, she did not want to let Rainbow go.

It was an odd feeling having two different manes with two vividly different scents in her face at the same time, but Dash found her heart squirming inside her chest as she smelled each one. Pinkie’s was so sweet and fluffy, like diving headfirst into a bowl of rich cotton candy that just screamed for you to roll around in it. Twilight’s was rather minty and silky, almost the complete opposite of Pinkie’s, like being the first to open up a brand new copy of a Daring-Do book that was beautiful in both essence and appearance. Both manes were so incredible and yet so different, just like each pony they belonged to.

“Nurse? Would you please give us some privacy?” Rainbow Dash asked, glancing to the side and narrowing her eyes slightly at the nurse pony.

“Very well. But, please, for the love of Celestia, STOP getting worked up or else your symptoms may relapse!” With that, Nurse Redheart exited the room, closing the door with a gentle lick behind her back. Rainbow Dash was soon left alone with Twilight, Pinkie and Scootaloo.

Through the next hour, Rainbow Dash spilled her guts to the three ponies surrounding her. She shared everything that she had thought she experienced, from the time the thuggish stallion very nearly ripped her off, to the moment she was about to open her eyes and find out just who the pony who was that had been messing her with heartstrings for so long. She didn’t leave out a single detail. What was the point in doing so? Sure, this could all be some elaborate trick, with Nurse Redheart in on it, but Dash now doubted it. Clearly, Mare Do Well never existed a second time and that was it.

Pinkie Pie’s face turned multiple shades of red throughout the entire story, her hooves rushing up to her mouth several times to block muffled gasps and squeaks from escaping. Twilight Sparkle looked utterly dumbfounded, yet also fascinated, by the entire tale, and her own cheeks showed small hints of redness as well now and then. Scootaloo looked mostly dejected for the most part, but eagerly wagged her tail when Rainbow Dash came to the part about the Cutie Mark Crusaders attempting to help the Pegasus with her mystery. Rainbow Dash finished up a while later and immediately checked out Pinkie and Twilight’s facial expressions.

“So…what do you think?” Dash asked, taking a few deep breaths after her long storytelling.

Pinkie was sitting on the floor, nervously fidgeting and squirming in place. Her cheeks stayed a dark red, and her body trembled lightly. Deep in her heart, something was telling her that she was ultimately going to be behind that Mare Do Well mask. All the pieces, at least the logical ones, fit into place. A lot of it made no sense for her to be Mare Do Well, not to mention that she would’ve had to do a lot of fancy maneuvering to do so. However, something was telling her that if Dash hadn’t woken up from her coma, she would be face-to-face with the Pegasus in possibly one of the most shocking and embarrassing moments ever.

Twilight was staring down at the floor, lost in her own thoughts. She had read enough mystery and psychological books to understand just who she thought would’ve been Mare Do Well. Even though many things still did not add up, Twilight was sure that Dash would’ve opened her eyes to Pinkie Pie. But, at that thought, Twilight couldn’t help but feel her heart sink. To know that Dash would’ve gone through all that with Pinkie, while she just stood by and basically did nothing to help her, it tore her up. She cared for Rainbow Dash so much. She had never technically lost a friend before, the time with Discord notwithstanding. That feeling of losing Rainbow Dash…she felt it in her heart, and it hurt.

“Rainbow Dash, that was such an awesome story!” Scootaloo squealed, breaking the silence as the filly threw her arms around Dash’s middle and cuddled her tightly, very nearly puncturing a few of the wires at the same time. “You sounded so totally cool. I so wish I had been there…even though I apparently was. I can’t believe you had a dream like that! Most of the dreams I have are…”

“Say, Twi? Where are Rarity, Applejack and Fluttershy?” Rainbow Dash interrupted Scootaloo once more, turning to look at the mare lost in her thoughts.

“Hmm? Oh, right, them. Rarity had to tend to her boutique, Fluttershy’s animals needed tending to, and Applejack had chores. They all really wanted to be here, but…well, unlike Pinkie and myself, they actually have things they must do on a daily basis and they had confidence in the two of us being here in case you woke up.”

“I…I never left the hospital, Dashie,” Pinkie said softly, moving back to Dash’s side, the same dark redness still lingering in her cheeks. “I ate the hospital food, even though they said it was for patients. I tried to get myself sick so that I would be a patient, but they wouldn’t let me. I just wanted a bed that was close to yours! Was that so wrong?”

Rainbow Dash stared into Pinkie’s eyes, seeing the same warm glow and feeling the same loving radiance that she had felt in her dream. Was she really Mare Do Well? It looked like Dash would never know, but…after a moment of thinking, she realized that she didn’t need to know. As she glanced over at Twilight next, watching the purple unicorn struggle with her internal battle of confused feelings, Rainbow gently stroked over Scootaloo’s backside, as though she was a cat. At the moment, nothing filled her with greater joy than being surrounded by those she loved most.

“Dash…dreams can sometimes point to future events, or in the very least tell us something that our heart our mind wants us to know but our mouth never speaks up about.” Twilight gulped a little bit, reaching out and grasping Rainbow’s hoof. “Do you think that…um…you and Pinkie…”

“Yo, Twilight…just shut up.” Rainbow Dash wrapped a hoof around Twilight’s neck and gently pulled her into her side. She then did the same to Pinkie, tugging the pink mare into her other side. Getting another dose of two beautiful manes for the price of one, Dash gave a little sigh and just shook her head. “You both talk too much, you know that? Sometimes…words just ruin things. Sometimes…you don’t need words to let you know what your heart wants. I…I learned something in my…my…dream.”

“What…what is that, Dashie?” Pinkie squeaked, peering up at Dash with her big, blue eyes, the pony nuzzling Dash’s upper chest and holding her as close as possible.

“Your brain will fool you, your eyes will deceive you, but…your heart will lead you.” Dash closed her eyes, leaning back down onto her pillow and pulling Pinkie and Twilight’s heads right up close to hers. She didn’t know what she wanted. She didn’t know how she felt. But, with the blushing cheeks of the two most important ponies in her lives in her forelegs and pressed against her face, she was at peace with herself. Oh, and she had her biggest fan snuggled up on her lap, too.

There was no hiding. There was no pretending. There was only the three of them, plus Scootaloo. Together, as confused as they were, Rainbow Dash knew that the questions her dream and secret desires had presented to her would soon resonate and become real. Here, in the real world. She didn’t know what she wanted. She didn’t know what to do now. But, she was alive, and she was surrounded by love. What was broken was now going to lead to a whole new path of their lives.

And they were going to be okay.

End Next Chapter: Alternate Ending: Déjà Vu (Guest submission from Bellum_Civille) Estimated time remaining: 2 Hours, 16 Minutes