Twilight yawned and stretched her legs languorously, smiling into her memory foam mattress. She tried to extend her arms as well, only to find them pinned at her sides. Her brief panic abated when she realized she wasn't being held hostage, or restrained on purpose – she was simply being hugged. From behind. In bed. Again.

I swear I locked that door...

Vexed, Twilight slowly and gently extracted herself from her doppelganger's sinewy embrace, and slid out of bed, tiptoeing out of her guest bedroom. She padded downstairs and toward the kitchen, groggy and tugging her thin pajama shirt. The morning was a cold one, even indoors, but it was nothing that a pot of coffee couldn't fix. It would certainly sweeten the sour note her day had started on.

She passed the front door just as someone knocked on it, and paused to peek out the window. Her heart skipped when she saw Sunset Shimmer on the stoop, fully dressed and fidgeting nervously. She looked about as stressed as Twilight had ever seen her, even moreso than on the first day of the Eyeball crisis.

Twilight quickly unlatched and opened the door, squinting at the orange light of dawn shining in her face. "Hey," she said, her voice still thick with sleep.

"Hi." Sunset looked shyly at Twilight. "You mind if I...?"

"Oh, um... I mean, it's not my house, but I doubt Other Me would mind." Twilight peered closer at Sunset – her eyes were red, with dark circles underneath, and her face and hair were conspicuously unmade.

"Did you not sleep last night?"

Sunset shook her head and stepped inside, Twilight shutting the door behind her.

"Please tell me you have coffee. Or anything with caffeine." Sunset crushed her hands together and wrung them tightly. "A can of heart attack-inducing energy drink would be acceptable at this stage. Hell, you can fish an old tea bag out of the garbage, and I'll chew that like gum if I have to."

Twilight rolled her eyes, smiling. "I doubt it'll come to that, since Other Me taught me how to use the coffee maker. Of course, I already know how to use a coffee maker, but she insisted on showing me, holding my hand through the whole process... and I do mean that literally..."

She looked at Sunset with an expectant smile, waiting and hoping for a knowing smirk or a teasing chuckle. Sunset's face, however, remained blank and harried, as though the comment hadn't registered at all.

Sunset Shimmer, passing up the opportunity for an incisive quip? Things must be more serious than I thought.

"C'mon then," said Twilight, beckoning for Sunset to follow. "Let's get you coffee'd up."

Sunset clenched her hands tighter against one another to stop them from trembling. She sat on a wooden stool, leaning against the granite countertop of the kitchen island, and watched in silence as Twilight prepared their coffee. The process took longer than it should have; Twilight insisted on scrubbing the pot until it sparkled, and her awkwardness with human hands and digits made an already painstaking task more time-consuming. Then she needed to carefully, and precisely, measure every scoop of grounds and every drop of water poured into the reservoir, with measuring cups and spoons.

As endearing as Twilight's meticulousness could be, Sunset wished to every god in every human pantheon that she'd just wrap things up already. The episode with the burglars left her unable and unwilling to fall back asleep, her short loss of consciousness notwithstanding. Her eyelids kept growing too heavy for her to keep open, and every time she shut them, she couldn't avoid likening the nothingness before her to the inky black of the Eyeball's pupil...

Sunset felt a brief sensation of weightlessness and jerked awake, taking a sharp breath. Twilight sat on another kitchen stool, across the island from her; she didn't seem to notice Sunset falling asleep, but her concern was nevertheless plain on her face. Behind her, the coffee machine burbled and percolated away, and steam was already beginning to rise from the vent on its lid.

How long did I nod off for?

"So..." Twilight looked down at her hands. "I take it you got my... um, what's the term... voicemail?"

"Voicemail?" Sunset said vacantly.

Twilight cocked her head. "I called late last night on Other Me's phone, saying I needed to talk to you. You seriously didn't..?"

"I left my phone downstairs last night; I haven't checked it since yesterday afternoon. Kinda... can't anymore. Tehcnical difficulties." Sunset idly, and nervously, ran a hand through her hair.

"I see." Twilight took a deep breath. "When I saw you outside, I naturally assumed... but I suppose there's only one other explanation for why you'd drop by so early."

Sunset blinked. "That being?"

"You're here because you want to apologize for seducing Flash Sentry."

"What?!" Sunset snapped up, her grogginess shocked away by Twilight's assumption. "That's the furthest thing from my mind right now!"

Twilight held up her hand. "You don't need to hide your feelings from me, Sunset. And I want you to know that there isn't any need for you to apologize."

The shock wore off, and Sunset slitted her eyes, fighting like hell to keep them from shutting on their own.

"That's fantastic to hear," Sunset said testily. "But I didn't actually come to grovel at your feet like one of your subjects, Twi. Believe it or not—"

"I owe you an apology, Sunset."

The words cut easily through Sunset's irritation, and she fell silent, at a loss.

"Come again?"

"I owe you an apology," Twilight repeated. "Over the way I've treated you – taking our friendship for granted, and failing to take your feelings seriously. Without really meaning to, I've made you feel like you're a less important part of my life than you truly are. I've only ever considered our friendship from my own perspective; I've never tried to put myself in your position. Never really thought about what it might mean to you. Or how it might have felt for you when someone else came into my life whose situation was similar to yours."

Sunset clenched her jaw. "Twilight, we don't... we don't need to have this talk right now," she said through her teeth.

"I think we do. I think it's long overdue, Sunset." Twilight's voice was wistful, and rang with regret. "I know you're not comfortable with the friendship I have with Starlight Glimmer. Maybe it is similar to the one I have with you, and maybe she is important to me. So are you, though, Sunset. Every bit as important."

Twilight reached across the island to grip Sunset's hand.

"She's not a carbon copy of you, and you're not one of her. You're you. You're unique – your own person, your own mare – and that makes my friendship with you unique. Whatever parallels exist between you and Starlight, or the friendships I have with the both of you, they're just skin-deep. What matters is the substance of our friendship, Sunset. And the substance of our friendship is different from the one I have with Starlight. Because you are not Starlight Glimmer. And I would never ask for you to be."

"Twilight... I'm..." Sunset wanted to squeeze Twilight's hand, but her fingers felt suddenly numb.

"That's... that's what I wish I'd said that from the start, instead of making lame excuses." Twilight chuckled softly, a sad smile on her face. "But actions speak louder than words. So... if you'll forgive me... I'd like the chance to prove it to you."

Thin tears streaked down Sunset's face, and a sound came from the back of her throat as she struggled to formulate a proper response, staring into Twilight's eyes all the while.

Then she blinked, recalling what had driven her here in the first place.

"The Eyeball ate two people last night."

Twilight's smile slowly melted, until her lips were a thin line, pursed tightly. Her pupils shrank, her fingers slowly unclenched from around Sunset's hand, and she leaned forward, gazing intently into Sunset's face.

"When you say 'ate'..."

Half an hour and two cups of coffee each later, Sunset had recounted the events of the last three days to Twilight – her burgeoning rapport with the Eyeball, and the burglary from the night before. Twilight sat in silent, rapt attention as Sunset spoke, nodding along, yet pointedly not asking for detail or elaboration.

"No wonder you couldn't get back to sleep," Twilight said, when Sunset finally finished. She took a thoughtful sip of coffee.

"Yeah, unless you count passing out on the kitchen floor for the second time this week. And I certainly don't." Sunset dropped her chin into her palm. "Once I regained consciousness, I picked myself up, grabbed my field hockey stick, and waited on the couch for the sun to come up."

"I didn't know you played field hockey. Come to think of it, what the heck is field hockey? I know what hockey is, but—"

"Twilight? Eyes on the prize?"

"Why do people keep saying that to me?" Twilight shook her head and drank deeply from her cup. "If it's any consolation, I'm sure you're perfectly safe. If the Eyeball could do that to the robbers, it's plausible that it could have done it to you at any time. The fact that it did it to them, and not you, suggests that it may have been acting in your defense. Maybe it was protecting you from what it perceived as a threat. You did say you've bonded a little over the course of this week."

"Is that supposed to make me feel better? Because I'll tell you right now, it does not." Sunset slurped noisily from her mug, glaring bloodshot daggers at Twilight all the while.

"Need I remind you that you decided to stay put. Coulda come and stayed here, with me and Other Me." Twilight shrugged. "Although I don't think that would have been much of an upgrade. In some ways, it's nice to have someone you can work with on the exact same wavelength, and we have made a lot of progress while sharing the same space, but hanging out with yourself isn't all it's cracked up to be."

She lifted her mug to her lips and spoke into it. "Plus, she keeps trying to peek at me in the shower. I mean, we don't have a nudity taboo, but you all do, for some reason, and the implications are more than a little awkward."

Sunset's jaw dropped. "Please tell me you're not comparing your sitcom relationship with your pervy purple doppelganger to me living with a time-bomb that will eat me if I get on its bad side."

Twilight's eyes widened and she set her coffee down, lifting her hands defensively. "No no, I didn't meant to – I thought we were doing the girl-talk bonding thing. Y'know, venting about our living situations and the—"

Sunset leaned across the kitchen island and pressed her face against Twilight's. "I need that thing gone, Twilight, and I need it gone yesterday. I have never, never lived in fear under my own roof until last night, and I cannot keep living like that. So, please, tell me that the two of you worked something out between pillow fights and games of spin-the-bottle."

Twilight flushed. "We haven't been—"

"Or whatever!"

"I mean, I don't think you can even play spin-the-bottle with two people. That's not a game; that's inefficiently making out." She unlaced Sunset's hands from her blouse, but kept their fingers clutched together.

"Look, you weren't the only one who lost sleep last night. Other Me and I... we were working pretty late, and we do have something to go on. I was hoping we could wait, maybe run a few tests, but if you honestly feel that unsafe..."

Sunset nodded. "Uh?"

"...Then I guess we can skip the rigorous troubleshooting under safe, controlled circumstances." Twilight sighed and squeezed Sunset's fingers, smiling tiredly. "There's still a lot of work to do, either way, but with you around, I think we can get it done by this evening."

A sense of relief and gratitude flooded through Sunset, as a weight she'd been carrying since long before the Eyeball appeared was lifted from her shoulders. She stared at Twilight, her vision blurring, as hope crept into her heart.

From the kitchen doorway came a stifled, girlish sneeze. Twilight's face all but glowed; she released Sunset's hands and folded her arms tightly.

"Good morning, Other Me," she said, her words sharp and clipped.

"...G'morning," came a timid, sheepish voice in reply.

"How long have you been hiding there?"

"...A while."

"I take it you're up to speed?"

"...Mm-hm."

"Wonderful." Twilight's eyes flicked over to Sunset's. "Why don't you come in here and join us, then? I made coffee."

"...Kay."

Bespectacled Twilight tiptoed into the room, her face flushed. She quickly waved at Sunset, but otherwise made a beeline for the coffee machine.

"Was she spying on us?" Sunset whispered, leaning in close to Twilight. "Why?"

Twilight flexed her fingers and took a long, deep sip from her mug.

"Why do you think, Sunset?" she muttered.

SciTwi likes to watch.

Just a short chapter for you all. We're in the back half of the story now, and we'll be wrapping it up pretty soon.

Why is there a Twist emoji, but not a Luna?