"A what?" She tilted her head and raised an eyebrow at the human under her. She had no idea what he had just said.

Jonathan closed his eyes, hoping he wasn't in this situation and that he had some way to get away from it. It didn't help that his nose was fully clogged by the flu and losing consciousness didn't help in getting well from it. Feeling overwhelmingly tired; he wanted to lay on the floor, eyes closed and just rest. He didn't feel like thinking about some explanation for what he knew would change his life, again.

The purple unicorn was still baffled by his, literally out-of-this-world answer, but after Jonathan closed his eyes, her confusion dissipated. He was still ill after all. "Jonathan?" Twilight put her hoof on his forehead, and she felt the heat. "You're burning up!" Jonathan grunted in response, completely out of it due to the quickly rising fever.

"He's sick?!" A shocked voice exclaimed from somewhere in the surrounding crowd.

"Everypony, run!"

Soon, the whole library was empty. Except for the six friends, Jonathan, Spike and a lot of litter left behind by the former party crowd.

"Some.. Somehow I called that." Jonathan mumbled, turning himself on his side. The hard and cold wooden floor wasn't very comfortable to lay on. However, he knew Ponyville's citizens would react like that to a disease, be it any kind; a case of hay-fever or the dreaded cutie-pox.

"Wow, didn't know they were afraid of a simple flu as well." Rainbow claimed, looking at the open library door.

"After Apple Bloom, it ain't a surprise." The orange mare commented.

"How rude! Leave someone alone just because he's ill." Rarity said, taking a glance at the human laying on his side. "And without any fashion sense."

"Excuse me but um, could we get Jonathan to bed?" Fluttershy asked. "If you don't mind."

Twilight quickly wrapped Jonathan with her magic. "Of course."

"Wait." Jonathan protested.

"What is it?" The purple unicorn lifted the ill human on his feet.

Jonathan slowly nodded his head at the direction of the pink party pony, who wasn't looking like her usual self. Her hair had fallen flat and she was sitting on her rump with a frown on her face.

"Pinkie?" Twilight called, but didn't get a response from the pink pony.

"This is not good..." Jonathan's mind said to him. Even with the fever hindering his thought process, he knew he had to solve this before it got worse. "Pinkie. It wasn't your fault they left your party."

He didn't want to cause a case of 'Pinkamena', or leave her friends to go through the same; or something that was certainly impossible. He shuddered at the thought. "Why did I read it?" Not letting his thoughts wander more, he gave himself a mental shake. He still had to fix Pinkie. "It was my fault that the guests left and I should've told you back at the hospital that I was ill."

"Even though it was a short one; I thank you Pinkie for setting this up for me. It means a lot to me."

The pink pony slowly raised her head and looked Jonathan in the eyes. For a moment, they just stared at each other in silence. A rush of relief went across him as her face quickly lighted up and her mane puffed back to its normal state. "Don't worry Jon! This party was just a preparty-party, the real party is still to come!"

Jonathan smiled, she was her normal self again. "Good to know Pinkie."

"Now Jonathan, to bed!" Twilight ordered, opening his room's door to emphasize her point.

He could see the bed through the open door, and it seemed to call for him. "With pleasure."

***

What's worse than having a flu? Having that flu turn into a mild case of pneumonia. After Twilight noticed Jonathan's nasty cough, still high fever and constant chills the next morning, she immediately hauled him to the clinic, against Jonathan's protests. He wanted to keep sleeping.

"Now Jonathan, you take one pill twice a day for the next two weeks." Nurse Redheart informed, as she nudged the small and white plastic bottle.

"Sure sure, can I go back to sleep?"

"Yes." Redheart answered and turned to look at Twilight. "Make sure he drinks a lot of water and eats something as well."

"I'll make sure of it." The purple unicorn glanced at the shivering human. She felt tired, for having stayed up the previous night going through her books. Even though she didn't find anything, she felt like the word meant something important among humans. Not knowing made her feel annoyed, she desperately wanted to know.

"You might get infected as well if you keep staring." Jonathan said abruptly, breaking Twilight's thoughts.

"Don't be silly, you can't get..." The unicorn halted her attempt to counter the claim. Twilight had stared at him for a moment, drowned in her thoughts. He probably thought she was mad or something. "Sorry."

"Anyways, can we go back to the library?"

Twilight levitated the pill bottle into her saddlebag. "Of course."

They both turned to leave, saying their goodbyes to Redheart. Jonathan broke into a series of nasty coughs on their way out, thinking of wanting to banish the flu to the moon.

***

At the library, Rainbow Dash and Applejack had come to see how Jonathan was doing. They greeted each other and they all went inside where the house-sitting baby dragon had seen the future, and had made hot cocoa, much to the sick human's pleasure. Drinking anything warm made him feel better right away by taking away the shivers.

As Spike carried the tray to the table, he couldn't miss Rainbow's bandaged wing. "Wait, if you can't fly, you can't get to your cloud home." Puzzled, he scratched his head. "So where did you sleep over the night?"

"Applejack offered their guest room."  Rainbow turned to look at her orange friend. "Did I thank you for taking me in?"

"Like ten times."

For a while, they conversed about yesterday. Rarity and Fluttershy had left for a quick-stop at the spa and Pinkie  had went straight back to Sugar Cube Corner. Nothing special happened after the party crashed, so Twilight wanted to change the subject. She turned to look at the human, her heart jumping as she saw him. "Jonathan?"

AJ and Rainbow turned to look at the human as well. He was just staring at the cyan pegasus, with a tear slowly falling across his cheek.

"Jon?" Rainbow called, starting to feel awkward.

He didn't hear her. "No, she wasn't on Earth, abandoned in a cardboard box..." Jonathan had fallen into an emotional pit, his mind desperately tried to tell him it hadn't really happened. His memory of the emotional story came crashing back after seeing Rainbow today. A nudge from Twilight broke him free from the emotional death-spiral.

"Jon? Are you alright?"

"Yea, I'm fine." He wiped the tears away, trying to think of something else.

Applejack didn't believe him. "Why were you cryin'?"

Jonathan had no idea what to say. He certainly wasn't going to tell them the truth, that'd be the worst possible thing. Their reaction would not be anything good. He settled for a half-truth. "Just a painful memory."

"Do you want to talk about it?" Twilight said, sounding very professionally concerned for some reason.

"No need to get 'psychiatrist' on me, thank you."

"That wouldn't be first time she tried that." Rainbow said and turned to look at the purple unicorn with an amused expression. "Remember when I was demolishing AJ's barn?"

Twilight jumped at the words, blushing slightly. "Wha-? You know why! I was desperate at the time!"

"Sure sugarcube, it was a misunderstandin' n' all..."

The three friends continued their friendly argument. Jonathan had dropped out of the conversation, having more concerning thoughts in his mind.

"How am I going to live here, if I keep getting into these situations? I don't want them to know that I know practically everything about them..."

--------------------------

A/N: Have to say, this was hard to write (and the future will be even harder..)

Just as a reminder, I originally planned to end the story in the last chapter, 'Destiny', but after seeing the comments, I wanted to continue (and also because I like to write). So I'm basically floating at the wide ocean, with almost no idea where to head next...

The referenced fics are made by their authors. If you haven't read "My Little Dashie", go and read it. Now.