Rainbow Dash was vaguely aware of the fact that Applejack was speeding, and she tried to keep her grip on the tortoise as the truck sailed down the road, away from Tambelon. She grunted as they banked hard on a curved street, elbows scraping on the rusty truck bed, before the vehicle straightened out with a creak of its heavy body. Scowling, Rainbow slammed a hand on the rear window and shouted, “Yo! I think we lost ‘em!”

Over the roar of the diesel engine, Applejack shouted something at Twilight, who scrambled to slide the rear window open. Through the opening, AJ hollered, “I’m taking these girls home first, then I’m dropping you off at the dorm. I ain’t risking another run-in tonight. You’ll have to swing back for your car later, Dash.”

Rainbow Dash grit her teeth. “Fine!” she answered loudly. “But can you stop so that I can get inside, instead of sliding around your truck bed with this critter like spare parts?”

Applejack frowned in the rear view mirror, first to check the road, then to meet Rainbow’s eyes. “Gimme a sec,” she shouted.

A few minutes later, Applejack pulled over her truck in a completely different part of town: a quiet, upscale residential neighborhood. Rainbow vaguely recognized the street as being one of the ways AJ favored to get to the route to the countryside where she lived.

The detour nettled Rainbow Dash, because it put them squarely on the opposite side of town from where Twi and Rares needed to go. As she forced the crackling irritation under control, she was able to admit, grudgingly, that if she were driving in a panic, she might have gone the way of the school. Or even her dad’s, which really wouldn’t have been all that much better. Familiarity was safe. But as Rainbow hopped out of the truck, she was surprised to see the others spill out as well.

Applejack was muttering fast to herself, her hands patting her pockets for her cigarettes. When she pulled the carton out, she opened it and yelled, throwing it crumpled out onto the street. “Crap!” she all but snarled.

Few of their friends made such powerful use of the light curse words Rainbow Dash had negotiated Pinkie for like AJ. She tended not to make as frequent use of it as Rainbow Dash, but when she did, it was like the cowgirl was wishing you to be turned inside out, raw flesh salted, then your body hooked and used as bait to fish for sea monsters. Not only that, but for the same fate to be visited upon the next two generations of your family. And your dog.

Twilight, who had slipped out of the truck shortly after Applejack, nervously adjusted her glasses and asked, “What’s wrong?”

Rainbow Dash snorted as she balanced the tortoise on her hip. “She ran out of cigarettes.”

Twilight grimaced. “Oh.” She leaned in to Rainbow Dash and muttered, “That surprised you too, right? AJ smoking?”

“Of course it did!” Rainbow hissed back. She didn’t really bother to keep her voice low. In fact, she said next, “I bet if she wasn’t a smoker, she’d have driven us somewhere less pointless.”

Applejack put her hands high on her hips and tapped a boot on the asphalt, glaring at Rainbow over her truck bed. “Pointless, huh? Pointless? I dunno if ya noticed, Dashie, but I saved our hides back there from being turned into swiss cheese!”

“We could have taken ‘em if some people had stiffer spines,” Rainbow said with a disdainful sniff.

Twilight crossed her arms and glared at her. “Hey!”

There was a groan from the truck. All heads turned to see Rarity tumble out of the passenger side, her eyes unfocused and her expression one of slack confusion. “Girls?”

“Rares!” Twilight rushed to hug Rarity as she slumped against the side Applejack’s truck. “Careful, careful! You don’t look so good.”

Applejack snorted as she and Rainbow stepped up onto the sidewalk to stand next to the other pair. “That ain’t the half of it! What in tarnation were you thinking magicking a guy like that, Rarity?”

Rarity put the back of her wrist to her brow, her eyes fluttering. “I… I apologize, Applejack, but I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about!”

If Rainbow Dash hadn’t known her for so long, she would’ve thought it was a complete act. But the pale skin, the sheen of sweat, the slight tremble of that glossed lip… No. Rarity wasn’t faking. She was really out of sorts.

“Twilight Sparkle, I don’t suppose you can enlighten me as to how I came to be in Applejack’s truck?” Rarity asked wispily.

“Y-you don’t remember?” Twilight asked.

A meek headshake from the fashionista elicited a collective groan from the others.

“You were sleepwalking?” Rainbow Dash snapped.

Rarity looked them all as if she’d just been told she’d have to wear bell bottoms with platform shoes. “I s-suppose so?” she said, one hand anxiously touching her throat while the other hugged tight around her stomach.

Applejack pinched the bridge of her nose. “This is serious, ya’ll.”

Twilight placed her hands at either side of her face as it took on a worried, but pensive frown. “She wasn’t just sleepwalking, she was using magic while sleepwalking.” She chewed her lip, then said with closed eyes and a heavy sigh. “We have to tell Sunset.”

Rainbow’s eyes popped wide and she quickly looked to Applejack to see if this sentiment was shared. To her dismay, AJ nodded. “Yep. I reckon you’re right, Twi.”

“Woah, woah, woah,” Rainbow said with a dramatic wave of her arms. She made a timeout signal with her hands. “Let’s call time for a second. Do you guys hear yourselves? Tell Sunset Shimmer? If you two don’t remember, we came out here to, like, spy on her and stuff!”

Twilight folded her arms and pursed her lips. “This supersedes everything, Rainbow Dash! Rarity could have seriously been hurt. Or maybe hurt someone else!”

Rainbow ground her teeth, feeling a familiar conflict of interests. Spoil the plan to try and protect Sunset Shimmer, and potentially earn her disapproval? Or risk losing Rarity to… whatever was happening to her.

Rainbow knew what her answer was.

She groaned and rubbed her forehead with one hand, “Fine, fine! We’ll tell Sun about Rarity.”

“And about this cockamamie scheme of yours,” Applejack added sharply.

Rainbow Dash glared from beneath her raised hand. “Sure. The ‘scheme’ you agreed to help with!”

The country girl just shrugged and turned her head. “I can own up to what need’s owning up to.”

Rainbow spat onto the sidewalk, eliciting a disapproving tsk from Rarity. “Geez,” she muttered.

When they all returned to the truck, it was a tight squeeze, but they managed. Barely. Rainbow Dash practically had to hold the tortoise under her chin as she pressed hard into the passenger door. Rarity was just about on Twilight’s lap. The drive was spent in silence.

Twilight Sparkle’s home was first, and she hugged Rarity hard, her eyes shining with worry and her mouth gushing about how, “they would get to the bottom of what was wrong!”

When it was just Rainbow, Rarity, and AJ, the ride became less physically uncomfortable, but still that cloud of ill feeling lingered.

Rainbow Dash wasn’t sure she could sit with her mouth shut anymore. She turned to Rarity and said, “Rares, do you think you can sleep tonight? Pinkie Pie is back at the sorority house, right?”

Rarity seemed surprised by the question and blinked owlishly at Rainbow. “Er, yes? I believe sleep is well within possibility tonight.” She puckered her lips and looked down at her lap, where her fingers toyed with one another. “Pinkie has indeed returned.”

“Did you guys… talk?” Rainbow fidgeted in her seat, her fingers drumming on the tortoise’s shell.

Rarity stared ahead, her hands clenching. “No. I’m afraid not.”

Applejack glanced at her as she made a turn. “You two having some kinda fight?”

They were nearly to the sorority house. Rainbow was starting to recognize the street.

Rarity sighed. “Not a fight.”

“Then what?” AJ asked.

“Pinkie went AWOL for a few days and left Rarity to deal with their sorority party by herself,” Rainbow answered. “She wouldn’t tell me what was going on with her either.”

Applejack whistled. “Seems like everybody’s got somethin’ going on, huh?”

“Yep.” Rainbow Dash slouched in her chair. “I just wonder when the heck we all decided to keep secrets from each other.” She glanced over at her friends to see Rarity and Applejack do the same.

Nothing more was said until the truck pulled in front of the sorority house. Rainbow exited first to let Rarity out. As the haggard fashionista passed her, the athlete caught her wrist and said with a mixture of worry and frustration, “Get some rest. Okay? Seriously!”

Rarity answered with a pursed smile and a small nod.

Rainbow didn’t get back into the truck until she saw Rarity enter the sorority house and shut the door behind her. Then with a deep breath, she climbed back into the truck carriage. Applejack wordlessly put the truck into gear and made a U-turn, back in the direction of campus.

Rainbow peered at her friend sideways. Or were they even still friends? Sure they’d bickered before, but ever since they’d recovered from the trick the then-nasty Sunset Shimmer had pulled on their group, they’d practically been thick as thieves. Now that time seemed so long ago, the rift that had split between them widened not by evil meddling, but of their own inaction.

It feels wrong. It feels like we’re giving up, Rainbow thought with a frown.

“It just happened, y’know,” Rainbow started.

“I don’t wanna talk about that right now,” Applejack cut her off before she could say anything else.

Rainbow closed her eyes and let her head fall back against her seat’s headrest. “AJ…”

“I’m dropping you off and that’s it.”

“Yeah?” Rainbow Dash looked at her friend with a weary glare. “Well, tough nuggets, man! I’m not content to just throw away years of friendship with you over something like this!”

Applejack braked at a stop sign—harder than necessary judging by the way the seatbelt bit into Rainbow’s shoulder—and cut a look so searing that the tomboy wondered if she was going to lose a tooth if she opened her mouth again.

She did it anyway, because she was Rainbow Dash and damn it, this was her friend.

“Fluttershy is helping me with a psych project that could decide whether or not I can even keep attending school!” Rainbow said, her heart hammering as AJ’s green eyes bore into hers. “All of a sudden we were spending a ton of time together. It… Applejack, dude...” She looked away, unable to hold her friend’s intense stare. “I wasn’t even supposed to feel anything for her, man. That wasn’t the plan.”

A car honked behind them. Applejack accelerated again, heavy on the gas pedal so that the wheels squealed. They passed through two more stoplights before Rainbow was startled with—

“You ain’t never s’posed to plan for it,” Applejack said. Her hands wrung her steering wheel and she kept swallowing. Her eyes shone, bright and moist in the streetlights.

Rainbow nodded jerkily, feeling her own eyes burn. “Y-Yeah. I guess that’s true.” She tried to will away the vague nausea cloying up her throat as she remembered her father’s arm over her shoulders and his gaze of pride for their callous scheme.

AJ would kill me if she found out what I almost tried to do.

This was followed swiftly with—

She’d totes be right to do it too.

Applejack had said she could own up to what needed owning up to. Could Rainbow Dash do the same? She and Fluttershy had barely started dating. Just thinking of the shattered look on Fluttershy’s face if Rainbow said it… The nausea intensified.

What does it matter anymore? Rainbow thought anxiously. That stupid plan is dead!

“I don’t wanna hurt her Applejack,” Rainbow said hoarsely.

They turned down a new street and the brightly lit campus swung into view.

“I know,” Applejack sighed, glancing at her with a grimace.

Silence. The white lights of the campus streets started to wash over them in passing waves.

When they pulled into the parking lot for the student dorms, Applejack pulled to a stop. Rainbow didn’t open the door. She rubbed the back of her neck and said, “I’m sorry I called you a country hick. And being a coward. And… y’know, all the other things I said. That wasn’t cool.”

Applejack looked at her, her eyes tensing as if she hadn’t expected that. She adjusted the hat on her head and sat up a little straighter. “I’m sorry I said what I did about you and your dad. Ain’t no secret I dislike the man, but you’re nothing like him.” She pursed her lips and tapped a finger on the bottom of her steering wheel. “And I’m sorry I said you and Shy wouldn’t last. That’s… I ain’t trying to wish ill on you two.”

Rainbow exhaled hard through her nose. She reached down and picked up the tortoise again. “It’s not like the thought hasn’t crossed my mind…”

“Hey,” Applejack gripped Rainbow’s tense shoulder and gave her a loose shake. “Just remember you ain’t gotta turn into a fruitcake to be sweet. Shy likes you just as you are. If you really want it to work, then just meet the girl halfway. Take a breath. Slow down every once in a while.”

“And what about you?” Rainbow asked, frowning. “You gonna quit smoking?”

The cowgirl flinched and pulled away. “Aw, Dashie—”

“I mean it! AJ, if you’re stressed about stuff you can talk to us! Heck we could even help!”

Applejack looked at her with a squinted eye. “Help? Help with what? The farmwork? Rainbow, you know ain’t nobody got time for that.”

“I’ll make time,” Rainbow argued stubbornly. She threw her hands up. “Next Saturday even! I can come over and do stuff!”

“Saturday?” Now AJ looked at her as though her head had turned into an apple. “Rainbow Dash, ain’t Sunday when your team faces Griffonstone?”

“So?”

“So, that’s the game that decides who even goes on to the championships!” Applejack gestured toward the campus. “The whole school will be there! Ain’t you gotta prepare?”

Rainbow waved these objections away. “I just have the captain’s meeting Saturday! After that I can come right over!”

Applejack tilted her hat back with a finger and narrowed her eyes. “Rainbow you ain’t doing this outta pity, are you?”

This actually made the tomboy laugh. “Heck no! AJ, if I pitied you, I’d—” break up with Fluttershy. But the words were swiftly replaced with, “—try to hook you up with someone!” She froze, her pink rose eyes going wide. “Oh hey, actually, there’s this girl in my English class that—”

“Bye, Rainbow.” Applejack slouched in her seat, pulling her hat low over her reddening face.

Rainbow Dash shrugged as she opened the passenger door, the tortoise already balanced on her hip. It was worth a shot!

“See ya next Saturday?” she asked.

Applejack glanced at Rainbow just as she slid out. “Yeah, yeah… All right.”

Rainbow grinned. “Cool.”

Just as she was about to shut the door, however, Applejack leaned over and said, “Mind you keep what you learned tonight t’ween us, y’hear?” Her mouth screwed up and she swallowed hard. “Especially… especially with her.”

Rainbow’s eyebrows rose. That’s right… Applejack is still in the closet. And somehow, Fluttershy has no idea about her feelings. Would she have said anything without the warning? Rainbow wasn’t sure. She’d grown so accustomed to living in an open world where she seldom faced criticism for her orientation. But Applejack… she lived in the country, not in the city proper, and all of her business partners were traditional. It was completely different for her.

She was certain she wouldn’t have breathed a word to Fluttershy about their mutual friend’s hidden crush, however. As sorry as she felt for Applejack’s feelings, she couldn’t quite squash the muted jealousy at the thought of her new girlfriend possibly entertaining thoughts like, What if?

Rainbow Dash gave a thumbs up and what she hoped was a reassuring smile. “Hey, no prob AJ. Mum’s the word.”

Next Chapter: Chapter 23 (2023 Mini Draft Edit) Estimated time remaining: 8 Hours, 48 Minutes