Author's Notes:

Added on 01 May 2016

Originally part of Looming War

Also, Pinkie Regeneration theme song, just because

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSvOTw8UH6s

With Laughter’s necklace clamped securely around her neck, Pinkie Pie trudges through an endless field covered in a blanket of thick snow. In a normal situation she would be exhausted to the point of collapse because of the bitter conditions, but the necklace is melting away all the snow around her, revealing healthy, green grass and flowers. However, once they fall out of the necklaces range they wither and die from the cold.

Pinkie Pie is not cold in the slightest sense since the necklace is making her feel warm and cozy, like a personal sun. She only wishes that her mane and tail would puff out again, she hates them when they are straight. It reminds her too much of Pinkamena, and she knows she turns into a monster when that side comes out. She also wishes she did not hear the outside world. Its faint when she doesn’t pay attention to it, but its the background noise that never ends and is forever annoying. On occasion she will even feel the ghostly hooves and pressure of the nurses, doctors and machinery working on her body, doing whatever it is they are doing to keep her alive.

After what feels like hours of aimless walking, Pinkie Pie stops on the crest of a hill and sees a familiar site. An old farmhouse in desperate need of fresh paint and possibly new wood next to a nonexistent fence. Surrounding the house is rusting quarry equipment and stones of various shapes and sizes. Not to Pinkie Pie’s surprise, the endless snow stops at the border of the rock farm, leaving the stone’s gray colors to add an impossible level of dread to the area. However, she is surprised to see smoke rising from the crooked chimney and lights shining through the house’s grungy windows.

The closer she gets to the structure, the more her footsteps become heavy and slow. She is loathing her approach to the farmhouse, the source of her miserable childhood wracked with poverty, miserable rock farming, and cold, hungry nights. She doesn’t want to go there, but her feet are moving on their accord. Her breath freezes in the air as now not even Laughter’s necklace can keep her warm, and she feels the frost seeping over her hooves and digging into her skin. When she steps on the rickety patio, her body is trembling and her teeth are chattering with her pink body covered in white, and when she reaches out to open the door a torpedo of clothing blast through the door and tackles Pinkie Pie dead on. They fly off of the patio, hit the ground rolling over each other, and come to a stop with the bundle on top and Pinkie Pie's back pressed into the cold, hard ground.

When Pinkie Pie’s eyes stop rolling she sees the large bundle of clothing staring down at her with muscular arms on either side and a pointy tail wagging. The thing looking down at her also has the sweetest lizard eyes anyone could ever see.

Pinkie Pie gasps joyously and her mane and tail inflate with an audible pumph. “Spike!”

Pinkie Pie latches on to Spike with a tight, loving hug around his neck, and he chuckles and returns the hug.

“Hey there, Pinkie,” says Spike, his voice being muffled by the layers of clothes around him. He stands up, easily picking up Pinkie Pie in the process, and carries her to the old farmhouse. “Want some hot chocolate?”

Once inside the farmhouse, Pinkie Pie sees that everything is exactly as she remembers. The old, worn down furniture, the sparse photos, the abundance of farming equipment waiting to be cleaned, and a stack of food stamps resting in a basket nailed into the wall. She walks around and hears the third floorboard to the left of the door creak, exactly as she remembers. Then she sits on her father’s easy chair and feels the lumps and springs, just as she remembered. She also notices that the fireplace is burning nicely and that the fuel is, of course, the fire logs and the daily newspapers that no one ever reads.

“This is a copy of my old house, isn’t it?” asks Pinkie Pie as she messes with the lamp that never turned on, no matter how many time the light bulbs were changed.

Spike walks out of the kitchen, no longer bundled and carrying two mugs of hot chocolate with marshmallows in them.

“Yep,” he says while carefully handing a cup to Pinkie Pie. When she balances it on her nose they both take a seat by the fireplace. “And I have to say, this place really sucks.”

Pinkie Pie takes the cup off of her nose and sips it, smacking her lips and moaning from how good it is moments after.

“You always make great hot cocoa, Spike,” says Pinkie Pie.

Spike shrugs dismissively. “Its part of the trade. Being Twilight’s assistant I had to learn to cook.” Then he looks down at his marshmallows, smiling sadly. “I’ll never forget that day she burnt the waffles to ash.” Then he looks at Pinkie Pie. “How’s Twilight, by the way?”

Pinkie Pie sighs. “I don’t know. We kinda had a falling out after you... died.”

“Oh.” Spike sips his hot chocolate. “I’m guessing Rarity was pretty sad, huh?”

“Yeah, you could say that, but that would be a ridiculously flimsy understatement. They didn’t want to listen to me when I tried to explain what happened. I guess I can’t blame them, though, since I dragged you into my fight and got you killed.”

Spike stares at Pinkie Pie as she looks at the floor, her mane and tail once again deflated. They finish their hot chocolate in silence, and when the mugs are empty, Spike takes them back to the kitchen with Pinkie Pie following.

“I don’t know why you keep blaming yourself,” says Spike as he sets more water to boil. “I mean, you told me you didn’t want me involved, but I helped you anyway. You told me to stay away from whoever that psycho was, but I went ahead and chased her anyway. You see a pattern here?”

Pinkie Pie looks down, not wanting to answer Spike. She knows the answer, but she also knows that she got him into it by not being able to talk him out or to stop him from going after Terra. While she’s moping, she feels a claw go under her chin and her head is gently lifted up so she can look in Spike’s eyes. He’s smiling sadly and Pinkie Pie’s eyes tear up as he strokes her cheek with his claw. Despite his predatory nature, his stroking proves that he was anything but a predator.

“It was all me, Pinkie,” says Spike softly. “I made my own choice because a certain pink pony was willing to sacrifice herself to protect others.”

Spike kneels down to Pinkie Pie’s eye level and she opens her eyes to look into his.

“Spike, you shouldn't have died. It should have been me,” says Pinkie Pie.

“You inspired me to do go above and beyond to protect Twilight and Rarity and all my friends,” says Spike. “I know you can continue on, just please stop beating yourself up for what I did. It really sucks seeing a role model do that.”

Pinkie Pie nods as she averts her eyes from the dragon.

“Besides, you and I know the truth. Shouldn't that be enough?” says Spike.

Pinkie Pie shakes her head and pulls away. “What good is there of knowing the truth if nopony else knows it?”

Spike scratches his head. “Where the heck did you hear that?”

“My head.”

“Oh... Well, you kinda ruined a great, cliched thing there.”

“But everypony talks about only a select few knowing the truth to be good enough when there really is no point in knowing the truth if no pony else knows it.”

Spike smacks his lips together, stands up, cracks his fingers, and then he pounces on Pinkie Pie, bringing her to the ground and starts searching through her mane, ignoring her thrashing and colorful protests.

“Spike, what are you doing!” cries Pinkie Pie as she squirms under him.

“I’m checking to make sure you’re not Twilight,” says Spike playfully as he checks the roots of her mane. “Nope, pink and pink all the way through.”

Pinkie Pie stops squirming and lets her face fall flat on the floor.

“Did I sound like a snobbish bookworm?” asks Pinkie Pie, her voice being muffled by the floor.

“Kinda. I knew you were a goofy party animal who had a hidden intellect, but I never thought you’d spew something like that.” Spike crawls off of Pinkie Pie and lies down in front of her so that they are eye level. “Speaking of ‘party animal’, where is she? I see Pinkamena Diane Pie, but not Pinkie Pie.”

Pinkie Pie looks up, glaring at Spike. “Pinkie Pie’s dead, Spike, I made sure of it.”

Spike and Pinkie Pie sit up with Spike sitting with his legs crossed and his head propped against his hand.

“You may have painted yourself green and changed your name and cutie mark, but I know that the party meister is in there somewhere,” says Spike.

“I got you killed, Spike. It’s better if Pinkie Pie stays dead,” says Pinkie Pie.

Spike arches an eye ridge. “Really? Is that what you truly believe or is this another way for you to hide from your past?”

Pinkie Pie frowns. “You better not be going philosophical on me.”

Spike shrugs. “I’m just saying that you hate your real name and nobody knows much about your past. The only consistencies in your stories are that you grew up on the bottom of the barrel rock farm and that you got your cutie mark after Rainbow Dash’s sonic rainboom. I can play the mysterious origins card to near perfection because I truly don’t know where I came from. But you? You don’t got that privilege. You got something you can remember, but rather than letting it out and letting your friends help you, you punish yourself for some reason.”

“STOP!” yells Pinkie Pie, breathing heavily and eyes narrowed with gritted teeth.

Spike holds up his hands defensively and she jumps to her feet.

“Look, as much as I am glad to see you -like wordlessly glad- I do not need people telling me what they think my problem is when I know what I am!” shouts Pinkie Pie. “Everypony thinks that just because I want to see others happy that I’m trying to make up for some horrible mistake! Well I’m not! I’m not making up for anything! I’m not some nutjob! I’m not a witch! I'm just me!”

Pinkie Pie then storms out of the kitchen and heads straight to her old room, slams the door shut, and then she hops on her bed and curls up into a ball. Seconds later the legs of the bed snap and the whole thing collapses to the ground.

“Figures,” mutters Pinkie Pie angrily as she scrunches up tighter in her ball.

Moment’s later, there is a light knocking on the door and Spike pokes his head. Pinkie Pie looks at him briefly before slumping in her spot and poking her old childhood pillow.

“Are you going to try to make do something random to get the old me back?” asks Pinkie Pie moodily. “Because if you are, my random generator is shot to dust.”

“Nope, not here for that,” Spike says coolly as he walks in her room, looking at all of her doodles, most of which are pictures of her mother.

Spike picks up a little old, yet elegant, figurine of a dancing pony with a sun and rainbow behind it with an inscription on the worn, gold plated base, saying: “Sunshine and Rainbows”. There is “To: Pinkie, Love: Mom” underneath the base, too. He puts the figurine down and looks at the moping pony.

“I just wanted to apologize for ticking you off,” says Spike.

“Apology accepted. Can I mope now?” says Pinkie Pie.

“Yeah, but can I hear you sing first?”

Pinkie Pie raises a brow, and sits up and looks at Spike. In turn, Spike grins and sits against the wall, tossing one of the random balls in her room between his hands.

“You want me to sing when I’m incredibly depressed right now?” asks Pinkie Pie.

“Well, yeah. I mean, you didn’t have a problem singing to Trixie when she had her meltdown, so why not sing for yourself?” says Spike.

“That was different. That was a pony who needed to be comforted.”

“And what about you?” Spike points at Pinkie Pie with the hand holding the ball. “Why don’t you want to be comforted? You have no problem comforting others and being their friend, but when it comes to you, you are very reluctant in making yourself happy. Even going as far as pretending to forget about your birthdays.”

“Since when are you a psychologist?” says Pinkie Pie sourly.

“I lived with a walking library for thirty years, I was bound to pick up something.”

Pinkie Pie sighs, figuring Spike had a point, and she turns away from the dragon as she lies down and pulls a ratty blanket over her. Spike frowns and tosses the ball to her. It bounces off of her head, but she doesn’t react and Spike sighs and sits next to the depressed mare.

“You know, I never thought I would be the one to help you out of a depression,” says Spike. “Twilight? Sure, I’ve done it plenty of times. Rarity also had her fair share of down moments. But you were the one that needed it the most. You just hid it so well I never saw it.”

Pinkie Pie starts shaking as she tries to contain her tears. She has always been the one tasked with trying to make others happy, not because she was elected to, but because she just did it out of a default reaction. After all, no one deserves to be miserable. No one but her.

“They were right,” says Pinkie Pie in a low whisper as she tugs the blanket tighter around her. “Its all my fault. You. Mom. Octavia... All me. It’s better for everypony if I stay dead.”

Spike hugs Pinkie Pie and gently rocks her as she quivers while crying softly in his arms.

“Please forgive me,” whimpers Pinkie Pie.

Spike closes his eyes and rests his head on top of Pinkie Pie’s. “We already have.”