The last two months flew by in the blink of an eye, and I had settled into my routine. My fridge was packed with muffins of various flavors, and my desk had less crumpled papers. I made some attempt to write, but I could barely stay still for more than five minutes.

However, one day, something felt off. She usually arrived at noon, but there was no knock on my door. I looked out the window, and she wasn’t there. Where could she have been? The only time I wouldn’t normally see her were Sundays, but it was definitely a Monday. I shrugged it off, thinking that she had a busy day, and didn’t have time to see me. Understandable, she told me about the days she would have to work extra hours.

Two days had passed since then. No Derpy, no note, no nothing. I began to worry. Was she okay? Was she sick? My thoughts feared the worst. I tried to convince myself that I was overreacting, but something felt like it was eating away at my consciousness.

I had enough of waiting. I went straight to the Post Office to see if she was there. Upon walking in, I find a big stallion, an intimidating looking fellow. This must have been the boss she was talking about. I wouldn’t want to be yelled at by this guy either.

“Excuse me?” I asked him.

He turned to me, spitting tobacco into a spittoon.

“Whaddya want? Can’t you see I’m busy?” he asked in a gruff voice.

“I didn’t mean to bother you, but is Derpy here? I haven’t seen her for a few days.”

He leaned over to my face. I got to say, I was afraid he’d beat me up.

“What’s Derpy to you?”

“I’m a friend of hers, and I was worried. Is she okay?”

“A friend? I didn’t know she had any friends.”

My hesitance to talk to him soon became impatience. I didn’t have the time to listen to him talk about her lack of friends, as unfortunate as that was.

“I am a friend. So, do you mind?” I asked, this time, with more demand in my voice.

He paused. He then looked at me, as if he knew me.

“Wait a second…” he realized, “You’re the colt she won’t shut up about! Probably the reason why she’s late for her shifts sometimes, too! If I had half a mind…”

I had enough of this. I got in his face, staring him down. I’ve never done this before, and deep down, I thought the day would end with me getting beaten up by this massive stallion.

“Yes, I’m the colt she’s talking about. I’m the one who has been spending time with her, and I’m the one who has made her late for her shifts. I apologize for the last part, but I don’t have time for your little intimidation game, either tell me if she’s okay, or I’ll find somepony else who can.”

I mentally prepared myself for the punch that I was so sure would come. Thankfully, that punch never came to pass. Instead, he spit another glob of tobacco into the spittoon, and turned away from me.

“Okay.” he said, “I believe you. Got to say, you’re braver than I figured.”

I sighed, happy that I wasn’t going to receive the beating of a lifetime.

“So, can you help me?” He still hadn’t told me anything, yet.

“Yeah, she’s called in sick for the past couple days. Must be one heck of a cold. I never thought of her as the sickly type. I guess when it hits, it hits hard.”

So, she was sick. While I was relieved it was nothing worse than that, I still wanted to see her, maybe see if I could make her feel better.

“Thank you. Can you tell me her address? I just want to say hi, and wish her well.”

“Sure thing, kid. Give me a moment.”

His attitude towards me was much friendlier than it was not a couple minutes ago. It was a good thing he was being cooperative, I would have hated to see what would have transpired if the opposite happened.

In a matter of moments, he gave me her address, and I was on my way to see her.

I found her house with no problem. As a gift, I bought her a bouquet of roses. I didn’t know what kind of flowers she liked, she never once told me about it during our hangouts, but I hoped she would at least appreciate the generosity. It was a fairly nice looking house, once you get past the cracks on the walls, and the slightly fogged windows.

I walked up the steps, roses in my mouth, happy they were de-thorned, and knocked on the door.

“Go away!” she yelled, anger in her voice.

Derpy’s angry? What happened? Who would make her so mad? I put the roses down quickly.

“Derpy, it’s me!”

A pause. I heard the hoofsteps to the door. The nearby curtains moved. I saw Derpy look through the window, back at me. She gasped and immediately ducked down.

“I can’t see you today. Can you come back later?” she said.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you, but I haven’t seen you for a few days. I asked your boss where you were, and he told me you were sick.”

“You saw my boss?”

“Yeah, he was pretty intimidating; I could see why you’d be afraid of him being mad. Look, I feel awkward about having a conversation with a door, so can I see you, please?”

“I-I don’t want you getting sick.”

“I’m very resistant to illness. I’ll take my chances.” I lied. Any hint of sickness, and I could have a stuffed nose faster that you could say ‘muffin’. I still wanted to see her.

Seconds pass, and the door finally opens, but just a crack. I could only see her left eye, and a bit of her mane protruding from the crack.

“I bought these for you.” I picked the roses back up.

“H-how did you know roses were my favorite?” Her eye widens.

I paused. I didn’t know. I couldn’t give her a coherent answer with the flowers in my mouth. Thinking for a moment, I shrugged my shoulders. Finally, she opened the door just enough for me to enter. She hung her head down; as if she was hiding something.

The inside was quite a bit nicer than the outside, from what I could see. The curtains were covering most of the light; so even the things I could see, it wasn’t much. Nevertheless, the place definitely was a fixer upper. Not perfect, but livable. However, her living quarters were the last thing on my mind that moment. I placed the roses into a nearby vase, and put some water from the sink into it. As I stepped back from the vase, Derpy stepped in, smelling the roses.

“These are nice. Thanks.” she says, finding the smell to be a comfort. She walked passed me to sit on the couch. Not wanting to be rude, I sat next to her. She looked at me with a hint of regret in the still only visible left eye. “I’m sorry I didn’t see you the past couple days. You must have been worried.”

“Well, only a little.” I smirked, hiding the fact that I was being overdramatic for the time she was gone, “But, at least you’re okay.” She remained silent. Something was wrong; I could feel it in my gut. “You...are okay? Right?”

She doesn’t say anything. All she did, was slowly shake her head, signifying that no, she wasn't alright.

“You're….not sick, are you?” I asked, now with more worry in my voice than ever. She nodded just as slowly as before, trying not to cry. On instinct, I tried to put my hoof on her shoulder.

“Derpy, what’s….” She instantly flinched at my slightest tap, afraid to let me touch her. “What’s the matter?”

“If..." she pauses, hesitant about what to say next, "If I show you…you promise you won’t get mad?”

“About what? What is it?”

“Please, promise me.”

“Okay, fine. I promise.”

She got up from the couch and walked over to the curtains. Slowly, she opened them up. The light of the sun shines through the window, showing herself to me. My jaw nearly detached itself from me when I looked upon her appearance. I was in shock to find parts of her body covered in bandages, her right wing wrapped up in gauze, her right eye black, and she had a cut on her lip that was slowly healing. It looked like she applied the bandages herself.

I wasn’t mad. I was furious.

“What happened?! Who did this?!” I yelled. She flinched again.

“Y-you promised.”

I tried to calm down, but the thought of somepony hurting my closest friend made my blood boil.

“I’m sorry. Tell me what happened.” I said, attempting to sound gentle, but the anger in my voice was still ever so present.

Her once cheerful voice stuttered with fear.

“T-there are these colts outside of Ponyville. I pass them every day on my routes. They make fun of me, and call me names. I tried to ignore them. A few days ago, they got tired of me ignoring them. They threw rocks at me, knocked me out of the sky. It……it really hurt.” she began to cry. Every ounce of my being wanted to hold her, but I was afraid she would turn me away again. “Before I knew it, I ran as fast as I could back to my house. Afraid that they would come back to hurt me again.”

“Where are they?” I asked sternly.

She escorted me to the colts hang out spot. It took a while to get there, as she was scared, not only for herself, but for me. There I saw them; there were four of them. They were big, bigger than me, and way bigger than Derpy. I watched them, talking, and laughing, picturing them hurting her, they were probably laughing then too.

“Wait here.” I told her.

She grabbed my foreleg, trying to hold me back.

“No. Please, it’s okay. Let’s just go.”

“I’m not going anywhere. It’ll be fine. Trust me.”

I gave her a gentle smile, trying my best to calm her. Slowly, she let me go. I walked towards the four colts. I didn’t care that they were bigger than me, what I told Derpy was the truth, I was going to make sure that she wouldn’t be bothered by these punks again, even if it meant that I was going to get hurt in the process.

One of the colts saw me coming, and also saw Derpy.

“Hey look, guys! The retard brought a friend!”

I didn’t even give him the time of day. In an instant, I decked him in the face with my right hoof. Before I could give a second punch, they all ganged up on me, delivering blow after blow. I had little to no experience in fighting, it wasn’t my style. Their punches hurt, a lot. They knocked off my glasses, stomping on them as they continued to knock me around. The thing was, I was too angry to care. In an instant, I bucked one in the face, knocking his teeth out, along with him. I headbutted another, and gave another my left and right hooves. There was one left, he was scared, and I was still extraordinarily mad. I tackled him down to the ground, and hit em’ hard till he pleaded.

“No! Enough! I’m sorry!” he shouted in pain, his front teeth missing.

“If I EVER find out that you’ve hurt her again, I SWEAR TO CELESTIA!”

I raise my hoof to deliver another blow.

“No! Wait! Okay! We’ll leave her alone! Just let us go! We won’t tell anypony about this!”

It took all of me to not hit him again. I could have done worse, I SHOULD have done worse, but that wouldn’t have made me any better than they were.

“Be sure you don’t.” Was the last thing I told him before I let him go.

He woke his friends up, and they all galloped in fear.

The moment they made their exit, the adrenaline coursing through my body wore off, and the pain began to set in. I realized that I was bloodied and beaten, my right eye felt swollen, and my glasses destroyed. It turned out that my day didn’t end with me getting beaten up by a massive stallion, but me getting beaten up by four big colts. Not sure which one I would have preferred.

I wobbled and fell to the ground. Derpy ran to me, held me in her forelegs, trying to keep me awake. I could see that she was happy, but she was crying. Out of joy, or out of sadness, I didn’t know. I brought my hoof to her face, wiping away the tears, caressing her cheek.

There were no words between us; all she did was embrace me. It was nice, to be held by another. It was relaxing…almost too relaxing. I slipped out of consciousness within seconds.