A grimace crossed Twilight’s face as her steps halted, then changed direction in the school hallway as she realized that she’d been automatically heading to her old la—the previous laboratory space in the school she’d been given access to, she corrected herself. There was so much on her mind that she’d allowed herself to become horribly distracted again. With a sigh, she quickened her pace as she traversed the new route to the spacious, bright, up-to-date lab that her Principal had moved her to, the part of her that sounded more like her girlfriend than was healthy referring to it as a “poisoned chalice.”

She glanced at the hallway clock, uncomfortable as the knowledge that if Wallflower wasn't already in the lab space, she would be soon enough settled over her like a heavy weight. Between this week and the last, her view of her friendship with the green skinned girl was clouded by doubt, mistrust, and a myriad of emotions that had yet to be sorted properly in her mind, which meant that right now, Twilight didn't even want to be in the same room with her, let alone in any kind of conversation. Her attempts to reflect the night before both on the disastrous events in the woods, plus the girl’s general behavior had done little to soothe her nerves, and that wasn't even beginning to touch on Wallflower’s increasingly unsettling and unreasonable dislike of Sunset that was really starting to get under her skin. She had spent over an hour trying to find an alternative explanation the night before of her fall at CHS alone, but try as she might, she couldn't debunk Flash’s suspicions or come up with a logical answer that made as much sense.

Twilight didn't even want to think what her parents would have had to say if she’d told them the whole of what happened. She was approximately ninety three percent certain that they would have reached the same dark conclusion as Sunset’s friend, and been highly displeased with the knowledge. They’d certainly been upset enough last night when she’d come home and simply told them that she’d slipped and fallen while gathering data for her project—going so far as to show them the broken scanner in her pocket, its casing cracked and matching a bruise on her side that suggested she’d landed right on the delicate device when she fell. Or was pushed.

The front door had felt heavier than ever to Twilight’s re-chilled fingertips, and Flash had had to help her get the key to turn properly in the lock. Her attempted entry had made enough sound that her mother was half down the hall with Spike yipping at her heels when it finally opened and she stepped inside, still with Flash’s coat over her shoulders.

“Twily!” Velvet fussed. “What happened? You're soaked and filthy! Are you alright!?” Her eyes flicked between the two teens for an explanation.

“I’m f-fine, Mom,” she managed tiredly. “I had stopped to g-gather some data for my project on the way home…but I slipped and fell into the d-ditch.”

Flash took back the coat as Twilight shimmied out of it. “I was going home after getting some stuff at the bakery,” he added, “and I saw her trying to walk in the weather, so I offered to give her a ride. Didn't want Sunset’s best friend to freeze, you know?”

Twilight sent him a grateful smile for being willing to keep her secret. “Thank you, Flash. Your assistance w-was t-t-timel—” She broke off with a sneeze. “..timely.”

“Anytime, Twilight. Just glad you're okay.” He glanced at her mother. “She seemed a bit foggy when I first got her in the car, but I’m not sure if it was from the cold or if she maybe hit her head when she fell?”

The teen sighed. “I still believe it was from the c-cold,” she said, trying to remove the look of alarm from her mother’s eyes. “I don't have any lumps or abrasions or sore spots on my head that would indicate I hit it on anything…”

Velvet pulled her into a tight hug anyway. “We’ll make sure she’s okay…and thank you again, Flash. This is the second time you've made sure one of our girls got home safe.”

His response was an easy shrug as he put his jacket back on. “It's not a big deal, ma’am. Sunset’s my friend, and Twilight means a lot to her, so I wasn't going to just ignore her. Besides, it never hurts to show a little kindness, right?”

That earned him a warm smile as Velvet let her daughter go. “I don't suppose I can coax you to warm up with a hot drink this time, before you go back out into that weather?” she asked wryly.

Flash chuckled. “I’m afraid not. Someday, maybe, but it's getting worse out there, and I want to get home before I give my parents yet another reason to give me grief.” He gave them both a cheerful wave. “Have a good night! It was good to see you again, Twilight—let’s do it next time under better circumstances, okay?” He gave her an exaggerated wink, which made Twilight laugh.

“No promises,” she said with a faint smirk Sunset would have been proud of.

“Stay warm and drive safe,” Velvet responded. “The roads are looking bad, and I would hate for you to get into an accident.”

“I will—it's not too far, just a couple of miles. I’ll be home in fifteen minutes, even going slow.” He stepped out and shut the door behind him.

Silence.

Awkward, uncomfortable, tense silence. Twilight could see her mother watching her, scrutinizing her intently.

Then the woman broke the silence. “I wish you had at least let us know you were making a stop on your way home, sweetheart. Next time, please message me? You could have been seriously hurt, and no one would have known where to start looking.” She ran her fingers through Twilight's messy hair that had almost completely come out of the neat bun she kept it in for school. “This isn't a slight against your capabilities, Twily…it's a safety concern. I don't want anything to happen to you.”

She leaned into the touch. “I will, Mom. I…wasn't too far from the house, and I did not expect to fall like that. It was barely even flurries when I started.” Twilight had no desire to argue, and now that she was inside a nice warm house, she felt exhaustion creeping up on her. For a moment, the thought of confessing what had really happened crossed her mind, this sudden desire to unburden herself with everything welling up alongside the want for one of her mother’s tight, comforting hugs. It didn't matter that she would be admitting to Wallflower possibly causing her fall, and actually leaving her in the winter weather, or that she would be admitting to the unpleasant not-quite-an-argument that had spawned from Twilight accidentally outing herself and Wallflower’s hostility towards the girl she had chosen to date…

“Why don't you go upstairs and take a shower, put on some dry clothes after. By then, dinner should be just about done. I made that beef stew you and your father like.” Velvet guided her to the stairs, unaware of the internal war Twilight was fighting. “I don't want you to come down with anything because you sat around in cold, wet clothes.”

Plodding up the stairs at the gentle order, Twilight pushed the urge aside. The moment had passed...she would consider it after a shower and dinner had fortified her.

Unfortunately, by the time she’d gotten cleaned up and filled her hungry stomach with a surprising amount of stew, the familiar tightness had returned to her throat at the mere consideration of telling her mother any more than she already had…so she’d let it go, in favor of returning to the quiet solitude of her room. There, she’d spent most of the rest of the evening mulling things over. Wallflower…was either changing, or had never really been the person Twilight had thought her to be, and she was starting to question everything Wallflower had ever said to her…

The other girl’s reaction to her admission in the woods had really hurt, regardless of whether it had been about her dating a girl or dating a specific girl. Logically speaking, Twilight had always known that it wasn't even uncommon—not everyone would be accepting and happy about her orientation. That was the biggest reason for keeping the information to herself for so long, because she didn't want to have hate and vitriol thrown at her for something that was as beyond her control as the color of her skin or her IQ. In an ideal world, she would have had both Wallflower and Sunset in her life and social circle…but this was the real world, and it seemed like Wallflower had already made up her mind. A preferable compromise would be for them to agree to disagree on the matter of Sunset, and her social activities with Wallflower remaining separate from anything with Sunset, but she wasn't sure that would happen either…

Twilight knew, somehow, that it would eventually come down to a choice, one Wallflower would demand…

When it did, she already knew who she would choose.

She just wasn't sure Wallflower knew that yet, and she wasn't keen on finding out just yet.

Which is what led to this moment, hurrying through the corridors even as she fought the urge to move at a snail’s pace, desperately wanting to delay that moment where she would be face to face with Wallflower Blush. Maybe it was childish, or avoidant, maybe it came from the fact that she was still reeling from exposure to this new and ugly side of her long time friend, but Twilight had no desire to be in the same room with Wallflower, let alone engaging her in a confrontational conversation. …and it would be a confrontation, because she was going to lay down an ultimatum of her own. Whatever the girl’s personal issues were with Sunset—and really, it was verging on farcical, how hard she was pushing her personal narrative that Sunset was some kind of predatory monster preying on ‘poor socially incapable Twilight’—she intended to put her foot down. Wallflower could have whatever opinion she wanted, but she would keep it to herself and stop bad mouthing Sunset to Twilight.

Her grudge made no sense whatsoever, even if it was like her parents had suggested and she was afraid of losing her friend or if it was because Sunset had caused problems for one of their other friends…

Note to self…ask Sunset if she knew Lyra.

Regardless of the reason, Wallflower had no reason to make it such a personal issue. She had not met Sunset until recently, and had spent less than fifteen minutes in her company, nor had she been personally impacted by Sunset’s previously unpleasant behavior. When even people who had been her victims were willing to forgive and even become friends with the redheaded girl, Wallflower Blush didn't have a leg to stand on.

However, if Wallflower wanted to hold onto that, it was her choice, and Twilight wouldn't force the issue...but she also wouldn't let Wallflower harass and bully her about Sunset in return. Twilight had no intention of giving up her friendship with Sunset Shimmer under any circumstances, and Wallflower would respect that choice. That was non-negotiable.

More than that, she wanted to address the previous day’s events. Regardless of what had or hadn't happened in the woods, Wallflower had run off and left Twilight stranded several miles from home in the winter weather. Such an act was not just petty or mean spirited, it was dangerous, just like Velvet had pointed out. Coupled with her behavior over the samples, riding roughshod over Twilight’s own project out of some desire to “one-up” and preempt the imagined person Wallflower believed the berry bushes were a project for, and Twilight was no longer comfortable staying quiet on any of it.

Twilight gathered her courage, fixing an image of Sunset in her mind, eyes bright and lips turned into that lopsided smile. I know I don't have the right to ask this right now, she thought, imagining her girlfriend could somehow hear her mental whisper, but I need your strength and support on this, Sunny…I’m doing this for you, for us…because you’re so important to me, more than a fractured friendship, more than this project, more than all the scholarships and academic accolades in the world…

A year ago, Twilight would have balked at the thought, but now? There was no hesitation. Sunset mattered, as her best friend, as her girlfriend, as someone who believed in and accepted Twilight as she was, not who she thought Twilight should be. Like Flash had said during their talk in the car, Sunset Shimmer was special.

And Sunset deserved Twilight’s best effort. That was why she was thinking seriously about having a conversation and coming clean to her parents either during Spring Break or when summer started. Admit to them that Sunset was her girlfriend, that she wouldn’t ever be bringing a boy home… She hoped that when it happened, Sunset would be at her side, because she still wasn't sure she could do it on her own.

Twilight was abruptly jolted out of her plans for how to broach the subject with her parents and what parts to focus on in order to preempt any questions they might have, when she slammed into an oddly yielding wall, bouncing off and staggering back to catch herself on the lockers. She managed to remain upright, but at the cost of the stack of books and the folder of papers in her arms. Those crashed to the floor and scattered in a messy arc.

Blinking, her head a little rattled from the impact with cold steel, Twilight fixed her glasses and focused on the source of impact.

Tall, with messy hair that might have been generously called pale yellow instead of white, the boy in front of her was also blinking a bit. The colors of the school uniform looked unpleasant against his dark skin that reminded her of charcoal and it was when she noticed the pin with a cluster of stars on his jacket that she realized she recognized him: Polaris Hyades, the senior who was just barely behind her in school-wide scores now that Moondancer was in Italy.

Twilight didn't know too much about him beyond his name, and for good reason. Not only was he a senior and several years older, but after an incident in her freshman year, where one of Suri’s nastier rumors had involved both of them as yet one more attempt to make people believe that Twilight was bribing people in order to achieve her test scores. The entire thing had proven doubly unpleasant as Twilight had been noticeably younger than the rest of her class, and Polaris had been very vocal about how appalled he was at the mere suggestion in the rumors.

True to form, she had been oblivious to the rumors herself until he’d stood up in their shared history class and loudly fumbled his way through denials that he would even consider such a thing with a ‘middle school kid.’ While she understood and had been as uncomfortable and grossed out as he had been—she’d already figured out at that point that boys were not something she was interested in—the whole thing had caused them both a number of problems for months.

“Uhhh…” Polaris looked as startled as she felt, taking a step back and holding his hands up as if he was trying to avoid even the possibility of being seen touching her. “…Twinkle, right? Sorry…I wasn't…” He gestured a bit helplessly, then seemed to notice her scattered supplies. “Shit…um…sorry…”

She knelt down to start gathering them up, deeming him as surprised as she was by the encounter and thus unlikely to try to cause trouble. After a moment, he did the same. “…l-let me h-help…” he stuttered. She glanced up from the task of stacking her books, briefly wondering if the furtive motions and awkward shuffling was how she looked to others outside her very small social circle.

It…made her sad, for some reason.

“Why not try being friendly then, Sparky? You're good at that…”

Gathering her courage and listening to the part of her subconscious that had hijacked her girlfriend’s personality, she managed a small smile. “It’s…Sparkle, actually. Twilight Sparkle….and it's okay. Really. I think this may have been one of those cases where neither of us was paying enough attention to where we were going.”

He looked at her sharply, staring in a way that suggested he was trying to figure out if this was a trap…or at least, Twilight thought she recognized the wary confusion she felt sometimes in similar situations. Then he pasted an awkward smile on his face. “Oh…uh…y-yeah. P-probably.”

It served to cut the tension…at least until they both grabbed the same page of notes without realizing and the paper tore down the middle with a ragged sound. It was an accident, pure bad luck and happenstance, but Polaris went ashen gray and quickly let go, his hands now shaking uncontrollably. Twilight furrowed her brow—this was more than just feeling bad over damaging a page of notes she could easily tape back together or print a new copy of, and she didn't need Mental-Sunset to interpret what it meant when the senior’s breath got hung up in struggling, tight sounding inhalations. Her stomach twisted in agitation as she saw the way his unfocused eyes darted wildly, a familiar panic in them.

It was a situation she couldn't ignore and couldn't walk away from. “So help him,” Sunset’s voice whispered in her ear.

She could try—she knew how her family, how Sunset talked her down, and knew the tools her therapist had given her to help herself. Twilight cleared her throat. “…Polaris?” she tried, awkward because it felt so surreal to be on this side of a panic attack. “…It's okay. You're okay…just take slow breaths—try and match my breathing…” Just like Sunset did, the dark haired teen took several slow, exaggerated breaths once he looked her way.

Despite her misgivings, it worked enough to bring a little color back to his face and keep him from hyperventilating on the hallway floor. It gave Twilight the chance to quickly pack her notes back into the folder—she could reorganize them somewhere safer than the hallway.

Polaris finally took a deep breath, seeming more collected—though he still shook slightly and his color seemed...off…somehow. He avoided looking at her, and she realized that what twisted his face unpleasantly was shame, even as he croaked out a stuttered, halting apology.

Twilight came to a decision then. “It’s really okay,” she answered, deliberately ‘misunderstanding’ his apology. “I can print a new copy later.”

“Letting him keep a little dignity?” Mental-Sunset commented approvingly. “Good job, Sparky. See? You’ve got this.”

Pained silence fell, even as she stood back up and her fellow student followed suit. She thought the awkward encounter would end like that, until he spoke again, voice unsteady. “…Y-you…got m-my lab.”

For a moment, the dark haired girl was confused, but then it clicked. “You mean the big lab?” She hesitated, then added firmly, her recent thoughts coloring her tone. “It was always the school’s lab, for Principal Cinch to give out and take away at any moment. You or I or any student who thinks otherwise is simply deluding themselves with a comforting falsehood.”

He frowned, but nodded slowly. “…I…k-know that n-n-n-now…” Shuffling and shifting his weight he asked, “You haven't…found any of my n-notes, have you? M-maybe some that were m-m-missed or overlooked?”

“His notes?” Mental-Sunset sounded as baffled by the direction the conversation had taken as Twilight felt. Still she dutifully thought back through her inspection of the space, trying to recall if she had seen anything that resembled someone else’s notes.

She hadn't, as far as she could recall. “I’m sorry, Polaris,” she said as gently as possible. “I haven't seen anything like that, not even accidentally stuck with my own papers.”

Desperation leaked into his voice. “C-can…I…j-just check, real q-quick? M-make sure t-that there's not even something in a c-corner c-cabinet?”

Carefully, Twilight responded, “I…suppose? I’m fairly certain that who ever cleaned and rearranged everything between labs was very thorough, so I’m not sure you’ll find much of anything.” It wouldn't hurt to let him take a quick look, and all of the important parts of her project were stored primarily in a digital format with backups inaccessible at the school. She didn't leave much out in the open when she wasn't working…at least not here, not since the very lab move they were discussing.

Mental-Sunset had other opinions. “I don't like this, Twilight,” she commented, reminding Twilight she was there. “Something about this doesn't feel right. Why’s he asking now, like two weeks later?”

Her subconscious might have a point, and Sunset had been at her for months, teaching her to trust her instincts when they crept up on her like this. She decided a probing but innocuous question would be a good route. “Did…some of your project get misplaced when everything was moved around?” she asked.

The noise that escaped him was bitter and ragged, and for a second she was concerned he might be on his way to another breakdown. “M-misplaced?! D-d-do you know w-why you got m-my lab?”

“I know…the reasons Principal Cinch gave,” she said carefully without stating if she believed those reasons or not.

Harsh, stilted laughter that sounded one step away from being hysterical made her jerk and increase the distance between them another half step or so from the already ‘more than arm’s length’ distance. “S-she probably told you I trashed it, right?” When she said nothing, Polaris kept going. “I d-didn’t. Why would I destroy my own work? Why would I shred my own notes and b-break equipment?” His hands fisted at his sides. “Told my p-parents it was obviously stress! As if being stressed would make m-me decide to do all of that and then s-soak everything with a mix of cheap sports drinks and urine!”

“What?” Twilight was horrified.

“…yikes…Sparky…are you really sure this school is all you make it out to be? That's…animals don't act like that.” Even the mental construct resembling her girlfriend was appalled, which spoke volumes. “Also…I really don't like this…I don't think you should be alone in a room with him…”

She didn't entirely disagree, but at present, they were simply walking down the hallway towards the lab, and he hadn't really stopped talking. It was like a dam had been breached and the story couldn't be stopped from rushing out of the shaking teen near her, his skin still looking unhealthy in its shade and sheen of agitated sweat. It certainly didn't smell too nice, she decided. Twilight couldn't be certain if it was the reek of teen male sweat or the story that made her stomach curdle and twist, what with its similarities to her own. Arriving in “his” lab space, just as she had, only to find it violated with no warning, months of work dashed to pieces…the arrival of a stern Principal…only in his case, there was no happy ending, no bright new lab space, only a dismal walk to the office and a phone call home.

“…I’m out of the p-program…if I don't ace the exams for classes I haven't been in all year, I fail for the year…she didn't even try to find out who really d-did it. I need something…p-proof I can show my family!” Polaris made a grasping motion at the air as they stop outside the lab door. “Cinch hit my parents with a b-bill for all the broken stuff—they're talking about using my college money to pay for it!”

There was an anguish to his words that she could feel, but it teetered warningly on the verge of something else, as his body blocked a good portion of the light coming through the doorway into the shiny-but-poisoned lab space in question. She heard a low, animal-like snarl in her ear, and for a brief second, thought she both smelled the scent of Sunset Shimmer overlaid with something hot and sulfurous, and felt fingers dig warningly into her shoulder. “Twilight, move!”

Mental-Sunset was right. Twilight shuddered as her field of vision seemed to narrow in on the boy looming in front of her, suddenly too close for comfort, the light at his back casting his face in harsh shadows as one of the hallway lights decided at that moment to go out. His eyes were almost fever-bright as he continued to ramble, about proving it wasn't his fault and the injustice that had been done to him.

Her senses were unable to cope with the assault, and she fell back a step with a low whimper when his ashen sickly pallor was overlaid by another, and the memory of the scent of cheap cigarettes and alcohol flooded her mind. “Please…get back…” Twilight’s voice was a weak thing, lost to the flow of words and the growling by her ear that no longer sounded human, far weaker than she knew she could be…far weaker than what Sunset had been training her to be…

A sweaty, frantic hand tried to grasp her wrist, and she found herself finally reacting the way she should, twisting free of the grab without thought and falling into the stance Sunset had drilled into her. “No!” Her voice was a sharp yell that echoed through the empty hall, yet somehow no doors opened, no teacher came to check, no curious student poked their head out to gawk. It was as if they were the only living people in the whole building. Not even Wallflower, who should have been in the lab, was coming to intervene…

Something flashed in the boy’s eyes, and those harsh shadows on his skin seemed to move and undulate before her vision, like the tendrils of some mockery of life, and his voice was an unpleasant rasp, touched by something Other. “You…I thought you understood…but you're just a stupid little girl, doing whatever they tell you to do! You're helping them do this to me!”

Time and space slowed into a distorted, warped tunnel around her, where sound boomed and echoed as if she were underwater.

Another light blew, this time in a shower of quickly fading sparks. Sparks she could see dying as they fell in slow motion.

He staggered for her, hands crooked into something more…

The growl became a feral scream that she knew somehow was Mental-Sunset, and the last of the dying sparks ignited into something else, shadow and flame fighting for supremacy in that warped landscape that felt too much like one of the art pieces by Impossible Triangle.

And then he was in her space, his face as twisted as her perspective had become.

So she reacted.

Just like Sunset had taught her. Drills had, at some point, become a muscle memory she didn't know she had, and in that space, where her mind was falling apart and she couldn't trust her eyes, her body knew what it was supposed to do…

Leaving her conscious mind to float, hazy and disconnected from reality.

How long that lasted, the parade of sensory data that she couldn't seem to compile into a complete picture, Twilight wasn't sure. Somewhere along the way, even the mental construct of her girlfriend had vanished, leaving her adrift with nothing and no one to ground her, trying to numbly parse snatches of audio that had replaced the growling, snarling, and screaming.

“…unfortunate incident, to be sure…”

“…no witnesses…”

A touch on her shoulder made her tense, until she dimly registered her mother’s scent and familiar hand.

“…ilight wouldn't have fought without reason!”

Her mother’s hand became an arm, and then she heard her father’s voice, angry and raised in a way she had never known.

“…twice her size and three years older!”

Something flickered in her vision, the faintest hint of another shadow…but it didn't seem to want to come any closer. She felt her face twist into a frown…or try to…but the muscles felt sluggish and slow to react.

“…mitigating circumstances, of course…the boy…unstable…documented…”

Unstable?

Polaris came to mind, not when reality had broken, but when he’d been spilling his agonized tale in the hallway, stammering and anxious.

No, she tried to say, this isn't right…

But her throat refused to work, and for a moment she thought the shadows were laughing at her.

“…a suspension, but…merely formality…expunged at the end of the year…placate the Hyades family…must look like we’re handling it…I’m sure you understand…”

Things were slowly melting back into focus, though she still felt…half outside her body, as if something else was in the driver’s seat, and she was naught but the passenger.

Her father was still angry, but it was her mother’s voice that cut through the haze with how sharp and accusatory it was. “And the security footage? With how much money you pour into lab equipment for teenagers, and how much money tuition costs each year, a school as well lauded as this one should have state of the art cameras watching a room filled with half a million dollars worth of delicate and easily damaged assets…has that been reviewed yet to determine what happened involving my daughter?”

And her father, backing it up, “I would very much like to see that footage myself, Abacus. Especially if you're going to punish her for being so badly threatened by a boy who outweighs her by at least forty pounds that she reacted like this.” No title, no hint of respect, just the tense stress on her principal’s name.

“…We are in the process of reviewing all applicable footage,” came the response, and Twilight wondered if the administrator had always sounded so…oily. “It should never have come to this, of course…”

The tight hug from her mother muffled all the sound for more than a few heartbeats and she missed a good portion of the rest, her head starting to pound painfully.

“…Monday…hopefully by then we can have this properly sorted and it will have blown over…”

Twilight forced herself to try and focus through the agony in her brain as she was led from the school by her parents, still only half in control of her own body in a world that was blurry and distorted. She managed to tilt her head enough to see herself, and the sight of a few red streaks on her uniform made her awareness lurch painfully as she got into the car.

Then her body was hers again and something snapped and she choked on a sob. There was a soothing sound in her ear and Twilight could feel her mother pull her back into a close, tight hug, even as fingers loosened her hair from the messy remnants of the bun she kept it in at school so Velvet could run fingers through it the way she had so often when Twilight was a little girl.

She felt very much like a little girl again as she huddled in her mother’s embrace, trying to make sense of what had happened, even as the emotional impact of it reduced her to a sobbing wreck. Velvet just made more of those comforting noises and let her cry herself out.

Eventually the tears ran their course, and she felt…drained. Exhausted and empty in a way she could not remember feeling ever before. Even her bones ached, as though she’d been running a fever for days. Twilight lifted her head from her mother’s shoulder. “…I…I’m sorry,” she croaked, her voice sounding thin and ragged.

“Why are you apologizing, sweetheart?” Velvet asked gently, tucking some hair back from her face.

Twilight rubbed her nose, which was stuffy and gross from crying. “…I…you guys had to come get me…you're missing work…and I…I got in trouble at school…and…”

“Twily, you have nothing to apologize for,” her father said from the driver’s seat as he navigated busy city traffic. “My lectures can be handled by my TA, and I wasn't about to let your mother go into the lion’s den alone to get you…you are always more important to us than anything else.”

Velvet made a sound of agreement. “Your father is right. I was only waiting on notes from my editor today, and you needed us….more than that…I have a hard time believing you sought out some boy you barely know just to get into a fist fight. That’s not you, Twily.”

Relief crept in around the exhaustion. “…no…I…I tried to…he didn't seem…but Sunset thought—” Twilight halted, the words as garbled and disjointed as her thoughts.

Her mother rubbed her back. “Deep breath, sweetheart. You don't have to explain everything in one sentence. Take your time.”

“We definitely have that,” Night joked from the front. “Traffic is terrible—someone decided that they should do construction from Churchill Road all the way to Belmont in the middle of the day.”

The dark haired girl did as they asked, but it…still made no sense. Not at the end. The beginning was easy, though, so she could explain that. “…Principal Cinch changed my lab a few weeks ago,” she confessed. “Sunset made me tell you guys about that.”

“Yes, and believe me, I brought that up today,” her mother responded.

“…she told me that the last student trashed it, that…they had to replace the equipment…I didn't ask who it was.” She shivered, remembering how that day had been an emotional rollercoaster. “…Polaris was that student…and I ran into him in the hall today…” Twilight pressed her face back into her mother’s shoulder. “He…I felt sad for him. He was…he looked like I feel sometimes. Scared. Anxious. He couldn't talk without a horrible stutter. I was…I tried to be nice. It was an accident, running into each other…but then he was talking about his notes and the lab and wondering if I’d found anything of his, which I hadn't because someone else cleaned the labs…”

She frowned. “It was okay at first…he just wanted to take a quick look in some of the cabinets to see…I didn't think it would hurt…especially because his side of what happened was terrible…he says he didn't trash the lab…and I believe him!” Hands shaking, she struggled to control her breathing. “I believed him…but…Sunset wouldn't have…and I could almost hear her saying something was wrong, and when we got to the lab…”

That was where her memory failed her, because none of what she remembered made sense. “I…I don’t…he got weird…angry…when we got to the lab…saying I was helping…cover things up.” Once again, she had to stop and breathe, to get herself under control, because the memories of the hallway in that moment made her skin crawl. “I yelled,” she whispered. “Told him to get away and to not touch me, but he…he tried to grab me and…I…” What had she done? She’d heard a warning in Sunset’s voice, and she obeyed it. “It was like…like I could hear Sunny telling me what to do in the backyard, and I did it…I don't…remember…what I did…only that I did something, and that it was what Sunset had told me to do…” She shuddered.

Her parents were quiet for a minute, the only sound in the car was that of the turn signal ticking away as they idled at a red light. Finally, Night spoke, his voice firm and tinged with something she couldn't quite label. “What you did, Twilight, was defend yourself against a boy who was much older and larger than you who was acting erratically and had unknown intentions. No matter what nonsense your school is trying to push to save face and cover their backsides, do not believe otherwise. You did right, and we will back you on it.”

The arm around her squeezed tighter. “Your father is right, Twily. While the situation is unpleasant, you tried your best to do the right thing, being understanding and compassionate to a peer, and there is nothing wrong with defending yourself. I can't put into words how glad I am that Sunset has taught you to protect yourself like that, when we didn't ever think that it was something you might need.” She laughed softly. “I’m going to be making all of her favorites this weekend, to thank her. This is not the first time her actions have protected you in some way.”

“…I…” How could she respond to that? There was so much to unpack in her parents’ words, and she wasn't sure she was in the right place to do so, even if she was no longer feeling ready to jump out of her own skin.

When she failed to continue, her father cleared his throat. “I understand that you're shook up, Twily,” he told her, “and that you're probably second guessing yourself, because we are constantly told how violence is bad and we shouldn’t engage in it…in this case, however, it was the right choice. It shouldn't ever have to be, but unfortunately, that is not how life works sometimes. I want you to understand that I am proud of how you handled the entire situation, from start to finish, even the fight. I would take a call like this a hundred times over if it means avoiding the kind of call that means one of your brother’s colleagues is involved and something terrible has happened.”

Abruptly, something clicked inTwilight’s brain, as though the words had formed a bridge between her memories and the disconnected thoughts and concepts in her mind that she was struggling to organize. Neurons linked up in new patterns and correlated information in a way she hadn't considered before, bringing up the idea that what had happened in the hall was not unlike the night in the park, albeit on a smaller scale.

The concept made her panic start to creep back up, before a second thought intervened, reviewing her father’s words. She had fought back this time, not just struggled futilely to fend off hands and screamed for help in hopes of someone else saving her. This time, it had been her own hands and feet that had gotten her away from someone who…while maybe not like the boys in the park, had definitely not been in his right mind and had come after her with unclear motives. The bloody marks staining her uniform weren't from her, it was…

“The enemy,” Sunset’s voice whispered in the back of her mind, the tone filled with dark satisfaction.

The whole realization was heady, and Twilight pushed it back long enough to question if she should feel bad for the fact that she…didn't feel bad. Maybe Polaris had been put in an awful situation, but he had attacked her out of nowhere. Whatever injuries she had left on the senior…she couldn't really bring herself to care beyond a mild sense of regret that it had been necessary at all…

“I…” Twilight took a breath. “I was trying to be kind, and he turned on me, for no reason,” she said, her voice growing more even and level with each word. “I stopped him from hurting me…”

“That’s exactly what you need to take away from this,” Velvet agreed. “You didn't seek out the confrontation, but you handled it as best you could when it happened.”

Twilight nodded, and relaxed, content now to let the car ride happen in relative silence, the presence of her parents helping to ground her further. They didn't press her for conversation now that they’d learned what happened; her father even went so far as to turn on the radio to the local station Cadence worked for, rock songs playing out on a low volume to fill the empty air.

It wasn't until they were free of the city traffic and most of the way home before Night spoke again. “Once we get home, I’m going to contact Sunset’s school—I think that’s much better than if one of us sends her a message directly while she’s in class. The school can call her to the office so I can fill her in…” He made a thoughtful sound. “Maybe I should also offer to pick her up after school. This is likely to upset her as much as it has the rest of the family, and I don't really want her trying to fight traffic after school like that…”

Her calm vanished in a surge of sudden panic, like when Flash had offered to call Sunset the day before. It would be so easy to say nothing, to give in to the part of her that wanted nothing more than to be hugged by her girlfriend…but she couldn't do it. She had promised Sunset something and she wasn't going to break a promise to the girl who had already been on the receiving end of too many broken promises.

“Dad…please…you can't call Sunset…” she choked out, trying to wrestle with her rising anxiety and form words that wouldn't give away too much while still communicating her thoughts coherently.

Her mother’s arm tightened around her, voice so laden with worry and concern that it washed over Twilight in a wave. “What’s wrong, Twily…why don't you want to let Sunset know what happened?”

The words were hard to force out, her chest feeling crushed and tight. “I promised her…that…I’d give her space…after our fight,” she explained. “I want to call her…but…” She dragged a breath into her lungs that felt too warm and heavy. “…people have broken promises to her…a lot…and she tries so hard to keep her word…I don't want to be…just another person who can't keep a promise.”

Night cleared his throat. “I understand that, Twilight, and normally, I would let you choose when to tell Sunset, but I also made a promise to her last weekend. I gave her my word that if anything happened that I felt she needed to know about or be concerned over, I would make sure to contact her. She was worried about you and wanted to make sure that if you needed your best friend’s support, you would have it. While I doubt she specifically imagined something like this, I do feel it qualifies.”

That gave Twilight pause—as much as she didn’t want to break her promise, she couldn’t fairly ask her father to break his either. It wasn't fair to weigh her word’s value against his. Still, the presentation of the problem calmed the agitation she was feeling, giving her something to focus on.

What would Sunset want? More than that, what did she need most? Knowing Sunset like she did, the way the older girl was quick to put her own problems aside for those she cared about, Sunset would want to be told…but Twilight wasn't sure that was what Sunset needed right now. Not if she was still…coping…after the weekend. Sunset…needed time to process her feelings. Twilight had learned that early on, and Flash had all but confirmed it with his own comments. She had to turn each one over in her head, deciding how she felt about the feeling, what she was going to do with it. When that process was interrupted…it festered until it all came out at once. Like after the week of nightmares, or the locker room incident.

As much as she wanted to feel Sunset’s arms around her…Twilight couldn't. Not like this, not right now. The danger had passed, and while Twilight was rattled, she was safe.

The faint wisp of Sunset’s voice echoed through her mind, sounding tired and worn thin, the creation of her mind reflecting her thoughts. “Doesn’t have to be one or the other, Sparky…my needs or yours. Maybe find a balance between the two?”

Just like that, the constricting feeling on her chest loosened, and she leaned against her mother. “I…understand why this…would fall under her request, but…can I be allowed the chance to see how I fare tonight? Calling her right now is going to interrupt her day and she would be forced to stew in that until the day ends—she’s still on academic probation and can't skip or miss too much class without getting in huge trouble…” She looked up to meet her father’s gaze in the rearview mirror. “I’m…safe…and…I…” It was bitter and awful to say aloud, because she had never been in trouble at school before, “…I’m home until Monday, right?”

“We will be fighting any suspension on your record,” her father asserted. “You were provoked, assaulted by a boy who is likely eighteen and legal, and defending yourself. The school has no right to punish you, even if you broke bones, given it's a problem they created unnecessarily, and failed to anticipate.”

“R-right…” Twilight forced herself to breathe. “But until then…Monday?”

“If you even go back to that school,” her mother said with a scowl.

Twilight ignored that for the moment—she wasn't ready to deal with the emotions that sentence created. One crisis at a time, a dispassionate part of her decided. “I…am safe. I’m going home. I have an appointment tomorrow with Doctor Soft-Spoken anyway…and I…think I need time to organize my thoughts on what I want to talk to her about…as today showed me that while I am…coping…with…” Harsh laughter and the reek of beer-sweat-smoke tickled her brain and stole her breath for a double handful of seconds, but she forced the words out in as even a tone as physically possible. “…being a-assaulted…I am not…healing…the way I s-should from the experience…”

Several slow and careful breaths, and she continued, “I know she said that my friendship with Sunset was a good thing, but…also cautioned me not to become so enmeshed with it that I made Sunset bear the responsibility of keeping my mental health stable. I have a wider support system in place, and it isn't fair to expect that of Sunset anyway.”

She blinked back tears, fighting the desire inside her, because more than anything she wanted Sunset there with her, to be wrapped in deceptively strong arms and surrounded by that scent of leather and sunshine, just like she had wanted the day before. She wanted…but just as much as Sunset needed time to sort herself, Twilight needed to know she could stand on her own two feet. “…I’d…prefer to wait…if I can handle it, I’d like to work through this some with..the other resources and support I have…and then tell her what happened after we talk on Friday about what…what I did last week.”

Her parents were listening now, the occasional flicker of her father’s eyes in the rearview mirror telling her he was giving her as much of his attention as he could while driving. Twilight squared her shoulders, feeling stronger for their patient willingness to let her get everything she needed to out. “She’s entitled to her own life and to know her needs matter just as much as anyone else’s—not be expected to drop everything whenever her best friend hits a rough spot.”

The car pulled into the driveway, but they sat in it for several minutes, even after her father turned off the engine. Her parents were locked in one of those silent conversations. At last, some sort of tension seemed to lift from the atmosphere and Velvet gave her a soft smile that was filled with pride. “Alright, Twily. We will hold off for now, but we’d like to reserve the right to contact Sunset early if we think you’re not handling the situation and would benefit from the way she grounds you emotionally. Is that fair?”

Twilight considered it, but nodded quickly. “More than fair. It is no secret that I draw from her strength when I am upset. If I use the other tools available to me and fail to manage, then Sunset would expect to be contacted so she could help.”

Pride was laced with some undefinable pain as her mother hugged her tightly. “Twilight…I hope you realize how proud we are of you—you’ve grown so much in so many ways this year…”

The tears that burned in Twilight’s eyes then were things of happiness and relief…

So.

Probably not where you thought the chapter was gonna go, right?

Couple of things I do want to address, most notably about the Wallflower thing, because I don't want this to be assumed to be something its not--had a long conversation with the team about this, and I want to make it clear.

Wallflower is not a homophobe, and the problem between her and Twilight is not something so easily distilled as "Wallflower is being hostile because she doesn't like queer people, and thats why she's mad." The truth is, she's making derogatory remarks in that vein about Sunset because its "low hanging fruit."

At the end of the day, while there will be people in the story who do react poorly to non-standard relationships (of which there are many represented in the story), I don't feel its a required type of main conflict. For a number of reasons.

First, while the authors of this story fall in various places under the 'queer' umbrella, its...not a narrative any of us have actually lived, especially me. I am a person who doesn't condone bigotry around me of any kind, in any direction, and have never suffered fools lightly. As my mother is fond of repeating, I have "always marched to the beat of my own drum and refuse to let anyone tell me what to do or how to feel." I have never dealt with this feeling of being emotionally attached to someone who hated a fundamental part of me...or rather, I have, but it...was nothing to do with sexuality, only my personality, which is something I saw as a "them" problem, and elected to remove them from my life rather neatly if possible. So the drama of it...the internal conflict, the hurt, the betrayal? Not...really a thing I've ever dealt with. People can either accept and like me for who I am, or they can fuck right off, and I couldn't care less which they decide.

Second is that...it feels a bit like an overdone narrative. I see so many queer narratives where the main conflict or a major conflict is bigotry...and I get it, it does happen, way more than it should, but with it being used as the primary (and sometimes only) driving conflict in queer narratives feels...exhausting and shallow, and a little like its preventing the narratives from really expanding to the full depth and breadth that they could encompass. (Its a lesser issue in fanfiction than in mainstream media, but...)

Just like queer people are more than "coming-out stories," we're more than "victims of bigotry" stories too.

Anyway. So While Twilight's worries represent the gray area, the unknown, and her own social anxieties, Wallflower's internal behavior is that she's a petty, shallow teenage girl who is using easy available methods to denigrate and talk shit about someone she doesn't like or trust as a person, and it has nothing to do with who Sunset might want to smooch.

*gets off soapbox*

Anyway. So yeah.

Lots of little references in this chapter. I continue my tradition of making almost all of the street names horse references of one kind or another. And I managed to sneak in a reference to one of the most bizarre and yet talented artists and math-people I've ever studied: M.C. Escher.

And more of Velvet and Night going for the title of "Parents of the Millennium!" Not sure how they somehow keep getting to be MORE competent as parents every time we see them, but...here we are.

Also...is that finally a bit of maturity in Twilight I'm seeing? Hmm....

Alright, see you next week, kids!