Bringing a hand up to his incredibly sore head, Shard slowly pried his eyes open but immediately shut them to protect them from the harsh morning light shining through the window. Feeling the full effects of his hangover, Shard groaned and tied on his side, turning his back to the window. When he did, he felt his hand fall on something warm. Confused, Shard felt about the strange thing that shared the bed with him, his hand eventually reaching a soft and squishy lump of some kind. He gave it a few squeezes before slowly opening his eyes and found...he was squeezing the naked breast of a sleeping Gaige.

At first confused as to why Gaige was in his bed, not to mention that she was naked, Shard then looked to himself and found he too was naked.

And what not in his own bed.

His hungover brain slowly put two and two together and came to the conclusion....

"I got even more shitfaced and fucked Trebles sister..." Shard groaned as he finally took his hand off Gaige's breast and put both hands over his face. "Oh God I slept with Gaige..."

As he continued to groan, Gaige slowly started to stir. She gently rubbed the sleep from her eyes and pulled herself up into a sitting position. She stretched her arms out and held a hand to her forehead as she felt the oncoming headache start to form. "Ow...too much spiked punch...wait...why am I naked?"

Gaige slowly turned her head to see Shard lifting his hands from his face, and they locked eyes. "Um....hiiiiiiiiiiiiii...." Shard said awkwardly.

Gaige blinked, looked to Shard, then to herself. This repeated for awhile before she finally pieced everything together and her pupils shrank and her face went red. She quickly coveher chest and hid under the sheets. "Oh God oh God oh God oh God oh God oh God...." She muttered to herself. "Wait, maybe it's just a misunderstanding, maybe..." Any arguments she started developing in her head to try and see this as just some misunderstanding melted away as she looked down below. "Oh no..."

"Um...Gaige? You ok under there?" Shard asked with concern.

"Just...get dressed and get out..." She spoke with a shaky voice.

Shard frowned and nodded. "Alright...I'll find my clothes and wait outside...I think this is something we need to talk about rather than just ignore forever."

Gaige remained silent as she heard him shuffle about before hearing him leave the room.

After getting his clothes on, Shard decided to figure out where he was, the house he was in wasn't all that familiar to him. Walking down the stairs, he was surprised as to what he found. Mise was passed out on the living room couch with Octavia standing over him looking disappointed. Vinyl was busy listening to her music and Treble was watching cartoons. 'Wait...I'm at Octavia's place? How the hell did any of this happen anyway?'

As he reached the bottom of the staircase Octavia finally noticed him and looked to him with surprise. "Shard? What are you doing here?"

"Yeah, why are you here? Your author wouldn't just put you here for no reason." Treble said with an unusual amount of interest as he turned off the TV and looked at him with a raised brow.

Before Shard could answer, Gaige came down the stairs and froze when she saw everyone staring at her.

Octavia looked between the two and stifled a laugh. "W-Wait, did...did you two..." With no effort to try and hide it, Octavia burst into a fit of laughter while Treble looked at them confused.

"Sis? What are you doing here?"

"Uh...uh...what are YOU doing here, Baka?"

"I live here."

"Oh...shit. Um, Shard, can we talk please?" She said quickly before dragging Shard into another room.

Ditzy slowly opened her eyes and looked to her closed curtains, a tiny ray of sunlight slipping through the cracks and illuminating a small part of her room. She slowly sat up and gently rubbed her eyes before looking to her bedside table, seeing a framed photograph of herself and Shard, both smiling happily. Ditzy sighed as she climbed out of her bed and began getting ready for the day ahead, failing to notice her friends all sleeping in a cuddle pile next to her bed.

Remembering the events of the previous night, she put her face in her hands and sighed deeply. When she had her hair brushed, clothes on and teeth brushed, she walked out of her room with her robot companion following behind her. The sound of the door being shut causing the others to stir.

Dinky sat at the kitchen table watching her sister make her breakfast, a concerned look on her face. "Sis, are you doing ok?" She asked with a worried tone.

"I'm...I'm fine Dinky, thanks for asking." Ditzy responded unconvincingly.

"Yeah, I don't believe that for a second sis, did you have a nightmare last night?" Dinky continued as she continued eating her cereal.

Ditzy stopped and sighed. "No...I didn't, I'm just...not feeling the best."

"I don't blame ya, with everything that's happened it's gonna be hard to be fine. I'd be questioning your sanity if you were alright." Dinky hopped out of her seat and walked up to her sister, reaching up and making Ditzy look at her. "You're still thinking about Shard aren't you?"

"Of course I am..."

"Are you still thinking about Jackson?" Dinky asked with slight disgust at the name.

Ditzy sighed again and slowly nodded.

"Sis...you need to stop comparing every guy you have feelings for to that waste of space, you're just hurting yourself and your relationships that way." Dinky shook her head and walked towards the front door. "I'm going out, Ruby isn't doing so good right now, I'm gonna try and make her feel better then we're gonna try and find where Shard is."

"Wait, Shard is missing?" Ditzy asked with a hint of worry in her voice.

"Nah nothing like that, I'm sure he's with one of his friends or something, all I know is that there was some drama between him and his dad, he was gonna be cast out of the family so he left on his own terms, at least that's what Ruby told me. You want to come with me?"

Ditzy went to answer "yes" but stopped herself. After a few seconds she shook her head. "No, I...I think I need some time to figure things out first, you just go make sure Ruby is ok."

Dinky nodded and walked out of the house, leaving Ditzy with Aniese who had hopped up onto the kitchen counter. "Miss?" The tiny robot asked while tilting its body.

"Hey...are you and Ray able to track each other?" Ditzy asked hopefully. "That would probably make things easier for us when trying to find Shard later."

Aniese closed her eye, searching through the various programs and abilities built into her, only to come up short. "Nope, sorry. I can message him but I think Master Shard has told him to cut off communications for now."

"Oh well, worth a shot." Ditzy said while pulling out her phone, scrolling down her contacts until she saw Shards number. "Maybe I should call him, I'm honestly surprised no one has thought to just do that yet."

"I wouldn't." A voice came from behind her. Turning around she saw her friends all shuffling down the stairs tiredly, all except Turner anyway, who stood directly in front of Ditzy with a serious look on his face.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that you do what you told Dinky you would do, just take some time and figure things out. Try and get to the source of the nightmares or try and find a way to rid yourself of them, maybe just think about your relationship with Shard. I'm pretty sure he's going to be doing a lot of thinking before showing himself again."

"How do you know that?"

Turner looked out the kitchen window, watching Dinky hurry down the street to comfort her friend. "Just call it a hunch..."

Shard and Gaige sat opposite one another at the kitchen table, both not saying a word, the atmosphere becoming awkward very quickly. They refused to look each other in the eye as they tapped their fingers on the table top.

After a few tense minutes of silence Shard shook his head and groaned. "Ok, us sitting in silence is getting us nowhere. We gonna talk about this or what?"

Gaige looked up slightly before looking down at the table again. "Well...where do we even start with this?" She asked awkwardly.

"I don't know." Shard scratched the back of his head as he tried to think of what to say next. "Did...you enjoy it?" This earned him a shoe thrown at his head. "Ow!"

"The hell kinda question is that?!"

"I don't know! It just popped into my head and thought it was better than sitting in awkward silence for 10 more minutes!" Shard rubbed where the shoe had hit him and sighed.

"This is so messed up..." Gaige whispered as she covered her face with her hands.

"I know...I know..." Shard replied as he ran his fingers through his hair. "How about...we just chalk it up to a drunken accident and see it as something to look back on and laugh?"

"Seriously?"

"You got any better ideas? Because I really think we're just overthinking this and making it more awkward than it needs to be."

Gaige groaned and looked away. "Maybe just...give me some time to think this over."

Nodding, Shard got out of his seat. "Alright, I got some stuff I gotta take care of anyway, just find me when you want to talk about this more." As he opened the door to leave, he turned around and gave a soft smile. "Hey...if it's any consolation, from what I can remember, I did enjoy it." Of course this resulted in her other shoe being launched at his head. "Ok ok I'm going!"

"Man, why do the women in my life always end up confusing me or hitting me?" Shard groaned as he and Rayleigh walked through one of Canterlot City's many parks, enjoying the peace of nature as they strolled under the shade of the trees.

"Well, women are generally a confusing, and often violent, species sir." Rayleigh laughed at his creators expense.

"Kami knows that's true..."

The two came to a small hill overlooking a lake, deciding to sit down and enjoy the brief moment of peace and solitude.

"So, what are we going to do?" Rayleigh asked.

"Depends on what you're talking about Ray."

"With everything. Miss Doo, CyCorp, what happened with Miss Gaige. What do you suppose we do?" The robot asked, his three eyes locked onto his master.

"Regarding Gaige and Ditzy, its stuff that I'm really gonna need to think about and not just rush into. With CyCorp, I don't know, then there's also Seras to deal with." Shard sighed and fell backwards onto the grass, holding his sword up in the air to stare at in thought.

"Well, with Miss Doo, the problem is the nightmares, correct?" Rayleigh asked.

"Well, that seems to be the problem with her being scared of me but...there's more involving her than I thought."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm just starting to think about how our relationship is and or was, how we rushed into things, everything that's happened, everything we've said or done." Shard frowned as he looked at his sword. "Like many things right now, it's gonna take time to think about and probably take longer to sort out. But..."

Pulling himself up into a sitting position, Shard held his blade in both hands, gripping it tightly before easing his grip.

"But what sir?" Rayleigh asked with slight confusion.

Shard didn't speak for a few moments as he continued to stare at his weapon. "I think I have a way to deal with CyCorp, Seras and Dity's nightmares..." Shard stood up and grasped his blade before bending down and digging up some dirt. After a big enough hole was dug, he placed his sword into it and threw the dug up dirt over it, burying the blade.

"What are you doing?" Rayleigh asked with extreme confusion. "Won't you need that to fight whatever is waiting at CyCorp?"

"No..." Shard spoke softly as he stood up straight, turned around and began to walk. "No more fighting. It's time to deal with my problems in a way that doesn't involve me cutting them to pieces."

Author's Notes:

Yep, long chapter and only two more chapters to go.

Shard has given up fighting and has a lot of thinking to do, as does our humanised muffin mare. Shards reasoning for giving up his sword will be explained in the next chapter don't worry.

Let me know what you think in the comments and feel free to point out any mistakes you found. Thank you.