During the last few weeks of winter, the sun broke through the clouds and the snows began to melt. The green of the grasses returned and the warm breezes from the valley carried overhead to the mountain tops. During those last few weeks of winter, Alan Regner had determined that Fluttershy enjoyed eating hay, grasses, and other fruits and vegetables the most. Using this knowledge, he made it his point to buy as much as he could afford whenever he went to the markets. He also had decided not to tell Fluttershy what she was. He didn't want her to live knowing something that she was happier not knowing. He never said a word.

When spring arrived and the last few cold grips of winter loosened, Alan began to teach Fluttershy how to fly. He wasn't quite sure of what to tell her, so all he could do was offer support every time she jumped from the stool and fell to the ground again. Progress was slow those first few weeks and it wasn't until April that she was freely able to lift herself off the ground. Progress was again slow as Fluttershy began to work on the basic maneuvers such as gaining and losing altitude and turning left and right. As the spring moved forward and the temperatures rose, Alan Regner would often lie down in the grass and watch and offer his support as Fluttershy would fly up to a cloud and sit on it. He felt very proud of her and when she would land, he would give her the biggest hug he could give. And because the home and the rolling fields were so far from the road, Alan had no fears of her being seen.

Eventually once he had bought enough boxes home from the office, Alan set to work cleaning out his old daughter's room of the old clothes and whatnot's. The chore took a week but when it was finished, he gave the room to Fluttershy so she could have her own. And every night before he went to bed, Alan would check on his little pony and watch her sleep with a large stuffed bear kept underneath her wing. He had long forgotten the peace of watching something so simple as that. He wouldn't have it any other way.

As the spring began to advance to the influences of summer, Alan began to spend more and more time away from home. The final exam period was descending fast and in a mad dash to organize and set up and sort all of the paperwork for his three classes, he spent many days at a hotel in Krimling. There, he spent as much time as he could at the college in his office so that everything could be finished and all of his exams typed up and printed. Day after day, Alan Regner would wake in the morning exhausted and then return to his bed in the evening even more exhausted than he had been. Not even his old friend, Styner could offer support; he also had his own exams to prepare.

When the exams had finally passed and things began to settle down again, he returned home. When he opened the door to his home, laden down with bags and cases, he was met with a forceful embrace from Fluttershy as she began to cry into the leg of his jean.

"You really have no idea how much she's been worried over you, do you?" Sarah had sternly asked as Alan unloaded his luggage onto his bed. "Everyday, she would wait out in the foyer waiting for you to come home and when you wouldn't, she would sulk and start to cry."

"Well, you've got to remember, Sarah," Alan had said, suddenly feeling sick with himself for never calling or anything. "You've got to remember, I've got an art class, a literature class, and a music class that I've had to prepare exams for. I didn't have time to come home or say 'Hello,' over the phone. I just didn't have time."

"She loves you, Alan," Sarah continued on. "She loves you more than you know."

"I know she does and I love her too."

"I don't think you know. You know that black little journal you gave her several weeks ago when you started noticing she could understand English?"

"Yes," Alan responded, standing back up straight and cracking his back. "She's gotten a lot better at writing. I looked through it before I left."

"Do you want to know what she wrote in it everyday while you were gone?"

"Sure. What did she write?"

"For everyday you were gone, the only thing she wrote in that scribble of hers were the words, 'Why won't daddy come home?'"

Those words hurt. Alan could fell his chest tighten up as he listened. How could he have left Fluttershy like that? He felt sickened and disgusted with himself. It felt odd. He hadn't felt like that since he had denied Jeanette the chance to do something she wanted to do when she was younger. He had regretted every moment of it. He had finished unpacking his belongs and went downstairs to where Fluttershy was resting on the couch with her favorite cartoon playing on the TV. He wrapped her in his old arms and said, "I'm home."

As summer began, Alan had no more work to do at school. All of his students had gone home for the summer break and all the paperwork had been finalized. He was finally free to stay at home for as long as he wished. His usual day would begin with a slow roll out of his bed and onto the floor. He would then tiredly trek to the bathroom across the hall and look in the mirror at his aging figure. With a tickle of his beard that he had allowed to grow out, he would splash water onto his face and step into a warm shower. After dressing, he would make his way downstairs to the kitchen where Sarah and Fluttershy were already eating breakfast. Sarah; a plate of waffles and sausages. Fluttershy; a plate of lettuces and apples.

Alan would, as he would every morning, grab his own bowl down from the cabinets above the sink, grab his box of Corn Flakes, and sit down in the seat at the head of the table. In the warm morning sun of summer, Alan Regner would eat his cereal and stop every now and then to slip Fluttershy some dry flakes from the box.

After their breakfast, Sarah would go upstairs to shower and dress while Alan and Fluttershy would head outside to the fields and foothills. It would be another peaceful day of wandering over the hills and lying in the grass as Fluttershy would fly from cloud to cloud. With the warm valley wind coursing over the hills to where they played, this was what they enjoyed the most.

When the sun would begin to set and the winds begin to cool, Alan and Fluttershy would return to the warmness of the home. He was a little slow due to his age, but some nights while waiting for supper to finish, he and Fluttershy would engage in playful wrestling on the couch. After supper, which were slowly becoming more and more vegetarian, Alan would lead Fluttershy upstairs to the bath. It had been awkward the first few times, but as he learned what to do, he would wash Fluttershy's mane and coat and he would laugh when she would clumsily try to exit the tub and shake dry her wings. Later, in the cool wind of night, Alan and Fluttershy would sit out on the back porch and he would read her the story, The Wind in the Willows. It was her favorite story about a mole who befriends a water rat, a toad, and a badger along the banks of an English river. When she would begin to doze to sleep, Alan would lift her into his arms and carry her to her bed. Even though she was a rapidly growing filly, she was still that little one he found all those months ago.

A major low pressure system rolled in off the Pacific during the last week of July and while Washington and Oregon bore the brunt of it, the torrential rains reached far inland. Alan Regner had awoke one morning to the sound of howling winds and driving rain as the storm was funneled through the mountains. The storm lasted for three days and over five inches of rain fell with wind gusts as high as sixty miles per hour. When it passed, knee-deep puddles water were littered around the yard and the little creek that snaked its way through the hills was over-flooded with water. Over the next few days as Alan and Sarah worked to clean their yard, Fluttershy began work on tending to the various little animals that were washed out of their lairs and burrows.

Several days later as Alan was busy preparing for the new school year that was soon to begin, Fluttershy rushed inside with the largest grin he ever thought possible. When he asked what was the matter, she happily bounced up and down telling about her cutie mark. Sure enough, when he took a glance at her flank, there were three little butterflies. As they held a party to celebrate, the Idahoan summer drew to a close.

When Jeanette had unexpectedly shown up one morning in mid-August, she had reacted worse than Sarah had. There came a scream from the kitchen and Alan found his daughter fell over on the tile floor while Fluttershy crouched behind the table. It took several hours for Jeanette to calm down and even longer still for her to come to accept what Fluttershy was. It wasn't until the middle of the afternoon several days later that Jeanette was comfortable with it all. Jeanette ended up staying for a week and to Alan's surprise, even gave Fluttershy a farewell hug when she departed back to Louisiana.

The new school year began and on the very first day of it, Alan Regner woke late and had to rush from his home in order to make his train. As his heart pounded the inside of his chest as hard and as fast as it would pound, Alan climbed into his compartment as the train began to pull away. He sat in his chair and rubbed his chest. The pain this time was maddening. As Krimling loomed closer and closer in the distance, his old heart began to feel better and he stepped down from the train as if nothing had happened.

"You look like you've been wrung through a ringer," Styner had said to him when they met again during lunch that day.

"I had to rush this morning," Alan had replied, taking a sip from his soda. "And my heart's as it is so you know how it is."

"I understand."

"How come you never stopped by the house this summer?" Alan had asked, moving from the topic of his heart. "Surely you weren't to busy?"

"I would have loved to have come over," Styner admitting, taking a sip from his own soda this time. "But you know how my mom's reaching that big centenarian milestone? She's really old and well, she was having trouble with that nasty sore on her leg. Because of that, I had to fly down to South Carolina as soon as I got the call from the hospital."

"Is she doing alright?"

"Yeah, she's fine. She's like a dang tank. But she didn't want me to leave until I just couldn't stay away any further. I had classes to prepare."

"I know it," Alan had agreed. "I spent most of last week after Jeanette left writing up the curriculum."

"Jeanette came up to visit?" Styner had asked, spilling soda down his front. "How's she been up to?"

"She's been doing fine," Alan said as he handed his friend several napkins. "She's gotten through to that large software company so now she's off traveling to places like San Diego, Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, and all those other big cities working with various teams. She says she's having fun with it but honestly, when she came up, I thought that she looked as tired as I do."

"Sounds like serious stuff."

"Oh yeah. I didn't understand a word of what she said when she explained it. I know how to browse the internet and check my emails and such, but that's simple stuff. You and I, we didn't grow up with all this technological hoopla so it's only natural that the old farts like you and I don't understand it."

"True, true," Styner agreed, downing the last of his soda. "It's that time again."

The rest of that day and the last days of August had progressed without a hitch in the system as August turned to September and September turned to October.

Alan celebrated his seventy-fourth birthday one weekend in late October. Styner unexpectedly showed up with a present of his own but unlike Sarah and Jeanette, he accepted Fluttershy for what she was and who she was almost as soon as they met. The party was a modest affair: it was only Alan, Sarah, and Styner sitting around the living room talking and laughing. Fluttershy would occasionally rise from her spot in front of the fireplace, stretch out her wings and yawn before sitting back down. She called over the white rabbit that she had rescued from the flood after the historic summer storm had passed. Alan and Sarah had allowed her to keep it and she named it 'Angel'. When Angel hopped over to her, she began to play with him in front of the warm fire.

The following weekend, the first snow of winter roared to life.

The storm dumped half a foot of snow that blanketed the faces of the hills and the floor of the valley. Alan had taken Fluttershy outside the following day and watched as she placed her hooves in the snow and got used to the coldness of it. He watched as she took off and flew into the cold wind. It wasn't too long before she landed again shivering. The cold certainly wasn't her favorite, but she found the sparkling white of the snow to be incredibly beautiful. She liked how the snow crunched beneath her hooves, she liked how her breath froze in the air, she liked how everything was silent, she liked how the horizon seemed to go on forever. She loved the snow.

As November progressed, the days got shorter and shorter until there was no time at all to go out and watch Fluttershy fly. The only days Alan got to go out and play with Fluttershy was during the weekends. It was on the weekends that the two went back to the schedule they set to during the summer. It was the weekends they loved most.

The exams for the first semester were on their way and Alan Regner soon often enough found himself laden down with work. Though this time, it was only the mid-terms and so the work involved with it wasn't as strenuous. Even in the dark tired evenings of long days at school, Alan would always smile when he was greeted with Fluttershy again. And just like the exams during the previous spring, they came and they went and things went on with their lives and their habits. But unlike the spring, the snows of winter fell onto the quiet valley.

As the days went on and Christmas passed, it had soon been an entire year since Alan Regner found Fluttershy crying behind the large billboard and to him, his life couldn't be happier. His wife was no longer as prone to bicker as she had been after Jeanette moved away after high school, he was no longer in a mad rush to reach his train every morning, and every evening when he returned home, Fluttershy would surely be waiting for him with a smile.