A/N: This was so well-done that I'm choosing to accept it as canon.

"Sweeping Up Broken Glass"

Guest Submission by Donny's Boy

The question had been burning in her mind for the entire hour and a half that Pinkie Pie had bounced around the happy little kitchen at Sugar Cube Corner while baking, singing, and gobbling down cookies. As Pinkie stirred bowls, the question burned. As Pinkie cut little shapes out of the dough and decorated them, the question burned. As Pinkie took out trays of fresh cookies from the oven, the question burned like fire.

Finally, the strain of holding it in was too much, and Rainbow Dash blurted out, “Did you kill him?”

Pinkie glanced over her shoulder. There was a smile on her face, but her eyes were dark and troubled. “What, when I ate that gingerbread cookie just now? You know the gingerbread ponies aren’t really alive, don’t you, silly filly?”

Rainbow frowned. She was pretty sure that Pinkie knew exactly what she had meant and was deliberately deflecting. Pinkie had gotten better about not doing that, but she still did it altogether too often. And still, Dash could never tell for certain when the earth pony was or wasn’t doing it. She could guess, and she often guessed correctly, but she never knew. Not for sure.

“That unicorn,” she replied, her tone curt. “The one who broke my wings.”

Pinkie’s smile froze in place.

Dash refused to take her eyes off the other pony’s for even a split second. This was too important to just let go. She had to know the answer to this question. She had to.

After a few moments, when Pinkie Pie still hadn’t replied, Dash prompted, “You had blood on your … there was blood on the costume.”

“No,” whispered Pinkie, turning back around, facing towards the ovens and away from Rainbow Dash. “No, I didn’t kill him.”

“But you hurt him. Didn’t you? I mean, it seemed like you messed him up pretty bad.”

“Yes.” Pinkie’s voice was nearly inaudible by this point, and her shoulders were shaking, ever so slightly.

Rainbow felt a sharp stab of regret. Maybe she’d pushed this too far. This was still so new--asking the questions she wanted to ask, getting answers which were truthful, no matter how awful that truth might be--and she wasn’t sure at all where the boundaries between the two of them were any more. If there even were boundaries.

She was surprised at how much she missed those boundaries, sometimes. Sometimes she missed them nearly as much as she used to hate them.

But even as she felt regret over how upset Pinkie was becoming, she felt something else, too. Something in the pit of her stomach, all balled up tight, so tight it almost hurt. Something dense and dark and thick as molasses. It sort of made her want to throw up, actually, but that might have just been due to the smell of so much ginger in the air.

“Pinkie Pie,” she began again, hesitant and uncertain.

Pinkie didn’t speak, didn’t turn, didn’t so much as twitch. For some reason, the lack of the slightest acknowledgment sent Rainbow’s temper flaring.

“Pinkie Pie.” Her tone was louder, now. Harsher. “C’mon, Pinkie, look at me.”

Still nothing.

No. No. Pinkie didn’t get to do this. Pinkie didn’t get to decide when they were done with a topic, not after all those weeks of mind games, all those weeks of making Dash feel so helpless and out of control. Deciding when they were finished was something that was reserved for Dash and Dash alone. It was the least--the very least--that Pinkie owed to her.

“Mare Do Well.”

The other mare whirled around, her face twisted into an expression that was a strange mixture of anger and fear. “I thought you were dead, Rainbow Dash! Dead! I thought he’d killed you!” Pinkie pointed a hoof at Dash, almost accusingly. “You … you were just lying there, all beaten up and bloody, and it didn’t … it didn’t even look like you were breathing anymore! You … you …”

It was at this point that Pinkie’s shaking voice and watery eyes both completely broke. They shattered into a thousand shards of glass, like a mirror that had been dropped from somewhere way up high. And it was this sudden, wrenching vulnerability that led the pegasus to cross the distance between them and pull Pinkie into a rough embrace. She held Pinkie as the other pony sobbed into her mane, and Rainbow Dash just stood there and allowed it.

The temperature was much warmer by the ovens--oppressively so, even--and it didn’t help that Pinkie was drenching her shoulder with wet, scalding tears. The room felt so hot and so tiny, almost as if the walls were closing in on them. It took nearly all of Rainbow’s willpower to not make a blind run for the door, to escape into the cool night sky, to escape into blissful freedom.

But she’d promised. She’d promised things would be okay.

She stayed as still as a statue.

As Pinkie’s crying eased and segued into muted sniffling, Rainbow quietly offered, “I guess I understand. It’s not like I’ve never gotten violent myself. I mean, I even hit you.”

“W-what?” There was another sniffle. “What are you talking about, Rainbow Dash?”

“That … that one time. You know. In the alley. You made me really, really mad, and I just kind of lashed out.”

Pinkie drew in a sharp breath.

“It was pretty cool, actually. You didn’t fall down or stumble or anything. I mean, it … it didn’t even seem to faze you. You just stood there like you were made out of steel or something.” She almost added that it was the first and only time she’d actually feared Mare Do Well, but she didn’t. She couldn’t. Not with how fragile Pinkie felt right now, trembling anew. “I’m sorry, by the way. I didn’t actually mean to punch you. It was an accident.”

“You don’t have to apologize,” Pinkie muttered, her voice muffled. “I know I provoked you. It kinda really wasn’t your fault.”

“Still sorry.”

They lapsed back into silence but remained standing right where they were, motionless, as if under a spell. They held on to one another and listened to their synchronized breathing until the oven timer started beeping. Slowly Pinkie Pie pulled herself away from Dash and went to turn off the timer and, as she did, the pegasus took a seat at the long counter that stood in the front of the kitchen.

Rainbow Dash watched as Pinkie retrieved a tray of cookies from the oven and began setting them on racks to cool. Even as upset as the baker still obviously was, her every movement was fluid and adroit. Quickly she moved all of the cookies to the racks, without fumbling or dropping a single crumb.

Dash found herself asking, “Why do you pretend that you aren’t strong?”

Still Pinkie didn’t flinch or miss a beat, as she carried the now-empty cookie tray over to the sink. “I’m not pretending.” She laughed. It wasn’t a particularly nice laugh, though--it sounded bitter, almost angry. “I’m not strong.”

Rainbow’s tone was quiet but firm as she replied, “Yeah, you are.”

Pinkie turned her head at that, and Rainbow could see the uncertainty in Pinkie’s eyes right beneath their shimmering blue surface. But then the earth pony grinned, a small but genuine grin--and it wasn’t a lot, that feeble little grin, but it was something. Maybe even something to build on.

She tried to focus on that, tried to hold onto that fragile thread of hope, even as she tried not to notice that Pinkie hadn’t called her “Dashie” even once since she’d brought up her question about that unicorn lowlife. That was surely a coincidence, after all. Surely it didn’t mean anything.

She also tried not to notice that nagging voice at the back of her mind, the voice that whispered that maybe she should have let well enough alone that one night back in Canterlot. That maybe she should have kept her eyes closed, should have left that damned mask untouched, should have just allowed Mare Do Well to disappear once and for all after one last flourish of that ostentatious cape of hers.

She tried so hard to ignore that nagging voice that taunted her, tormented her, telling her that she would have been better off never knowing.

She had to try, because if she heard that voice, if she truly listened, it would surely drive her insane. Because it was too late--there was no way to turn back the clock, no way to unlearn everything she now knew. At this point, there was no going back, only going forward. Whatever that meant, and wherever that led.

Pinkie Pie’s face was unreadable as she carried over a plate of the cookies that had already cooled. She placed them down on the counter next to Dash and nodded towards them. “Do you … do you want a cookie, Dashie?”

That gingery smell that permeated the kitchen was still a bit too strong, and it still made her feel a little sick to her stomach. But Rainbow Dash smiled anyways. “Sure. Why not?”

She took a cookie and bit down, chewing slowly and thoughtfully. The ginger taste was pretty strong but, all in all, it wasn’t as bad as she’d feared it might be. It was pretty okay, really.

It was okay. Next Chapter: Side Story: Behind Blue Eyes (Guest submission from Donny's Boy) Estimated time remaining: 3 Hours, 48 Minutes