“Hey, Rainbow Dash!” Scootaloo stopped her scooter routine when she noticed the cyan pegasus coming in for a landing near her obstacle course.
“Hey, squirt.” Rainbow was smiling, but right away, Scootaloo could see that it was strained and that her cerise eyes lacked their usual luster of excitement and daring- one of the confident features she admired the most in the Rainbow-maned pegasus. The second thing she noticed was the folded piece of paper in her idol’s mouth.
“Is something wrong, Rainbow Dash?” Scootaloo asked, concerned for her hero.
“No, there isn’t, well at least,” Dash looked away, “I hope not.”
“What do you mean?”
Dash sighed, and then with her wing, took the piece of paper from her mouth and offered it to the filly,
“Scoot, there’s something I have to tell you....”
…………………
When the Ponyville Orphanage came into sight, Dash immediately went in for a landing. As soon as her hooves touched the ground, she looked up and was almost immediately greeted by the sight of the orphanage matron standing there at the door, waiting for her. Though she had expected anger, there was none in the matron’s eyes, and the look of concern on the mare’s face still told Dash all she needed to know.
“How is she?” She asked, walking up to the matron, though she could already guess the answer.
“Not good.” The matron shook her head, “She’s in her room, but she locked herself in and won’t speak to anypony, not even her friends from school.”
Dash took another step forward, deadpan, “Let me try talking to her.”
“I doubt you’ll have much luck, especially since you pretty much caused this in the first place,” She stepped aside, gesturing into the house, “but by all means, be my guest.”
Dash nodded her thanks, walking into the orphanage and creeping up the stairs to where she knew Scootaloo’s room to be. As she got closer to Scootaloo’s door, she began to hear the faint sound of crying getting slightly louder. To Dash, that was the sound of a young filly’s torment and heartache, and it made her own heart ache in her chest at the sound of it. A part of her knew that the matron was right, she was the cause of this, thinking that she had done enough and should perhaps just leave Scootaloo alone. The majority of her, however, knew that this conversation had to happen no matter how painful it was for both of them.
Above all else, she had to at least try and make things right between the two of them.
Slowly, carefully, she raised a hoof and knocked on the door when she reached it, “Scoot?”
“GO AWAY!”
Dash immediately jumped back, as if she had just been touched with a hot iron. She knew that the orange pegasus filly was hurt, heartbroken, but she had definitely not expected THAT response at all.
“Look, Scoot,” Dash sighed, once she recovered, “I just wanna talk.”
“Just leave me alone!” Scootaloo shouted.
“Scoot-”
“LEAVE. ME. ALONE!”
Dash sighed, “Okay squirt, if the easy way isn’t working for ya, then we’ll do this the hard way.”
With that, Dash crept away from the door to the end of the hall, where there was a window. Opening it, she flew outside and maneuvered around to Scootaloo’s window. It was shut, locked, and had the curtains closed- no doubt the filly’s attempt at keeping the skilled flier out.
Scoot, you REALLY need to learn- nopony stops Rainbow Dash from achieving her goal. NOPONY. Dash lifted her wing, looking through the feathers until she found one that had all but broken off. Plucking it, she held it in her wing and used it as a lockpick on the window. When she felt the clasp of the lock release, she discarded the feather and slowly, carefully slid the window open. Quiet as a mouse, she slipped into the room and turned her eyes towards Scootaloo.
The orange filly herself had moved up against the door, and was pressing her ear to it in order to listen, no doubt wanting to know what the Dash’s “hard way” was.
She was about to find out, as Dash reached back with a wing and closed the window.
BAM!
She closed it harder than she had intended, and Scootaloo spun around at the sudden sound. Seeing Dash, her eyes widened and her expression became fearful as if she had seen a ghost. Dash moved towards her, and the orange filly tried to back up, pressing up against the closed door.
“N-No! S-Stay away!”
“Not happening.” Dash said quietly, calmly, with her attention and solemn gaze focused solely on her target.
With a burst of speed that made Dash feel proud, Scootaloo zipped over to the left, landing on the bed where she picked up a pillow. It was barely any means of defending herself against the older pegasus, she knew that, but she also knew that Dash would catch her, without question, if she tried to escape anywhere. If Dash was even let into the orphanage to see her, then that meant the orphanage matron was definitely not going to save her.
“Just leave me ALONE!”
As Dash continued towards her, Scootaloo threw the pillow at the elder pegasus. Of course, as she feared, Dash ducked to avoid it.
“Like I said,” Rainbow flew up and landed on the bed in front of her, her expression unchanged, “Not. Happening.”
The look that came across Scootaloo’s face was all-too familiar to Dash- a look that her parents told her that she’d get whenever she felt like making a rash, split-second decision. It was a look that basically said, “Buck it, it’s all or nothing!”
The next four seconds seemed to happen in slow-motion. The exact moment that Scootaloo flared her wings to take off, maybe dash to the window and try to escape regardless of the other pegasus’s huge chance of catching her, Rainbow lashed out and grabbed the young orange filly, catching her in her forelegs. The second that Dash got ahold of her, she hugged Scootaloo to her tightly but without pinning her wings down. Knowing that pegasi hated being unable to move their wings, the last thing she wanted was for Scootaloo to feel like a total prisoner.
That didn’t stop the filly from feeling like that anyway.
“Let me go!” Scootaloo barked, in the midst of her loud neighing and struggling. She kicked her hind legs, snapped her teeth at the forelegs holding hers down, and tried fluttering her wings in Dash’s face- all of it to try and harm the elder pegasus. Dash silently took the beating- she felt somewhat deserving of it- but she refused to let go of the orange filly. Instead, she clutched Scootaloo to her breast tighter.
“Let. Go!” Scootaloo shouted.
“Just hear me out, Scoot, will ya!?” Dash insisted, still taking the filly’s defensive assault.
“You have nothing to say I wanna hear! Let go, get out, and leave me alone!” This time, Scootaloo’s voice carried an obvious hint of suppressed sobs as she spoke. Then, “I HATE you!”
For a moment, Dash froze, her already-aching heart almost breaking right there on the spot at the sound of those three hurtful words- words that she had never heard Scootaloo say to her before, and had wished she never would. Tears that she had been holding back were starting to roll down her cheeks. Slowly, she let her gaze drift from the filly in her arms over to Scootaloo’s nightstand, where a folded piece of paper lay as if it had just been thrown there without a second thought- the same piece of paper that she had shown to Scootaloo just less than an hour earlier.
An old birth certificate, from the Manehattan General Hospital.
“Well,” Dash squeezed her eyes shut, unable to look at that damning evidence of her past, and instead chose to hug Scootaloo even tighter against her while also nuzzling the top of her purple-maned head, “I LOVE you.”
“Liar…” Scootaloo, finally spent, stopped struggling and lay limp in Dash’s arm, her head on Dash’s chest, though her own tears still started to fall once more, this time into the rainbow-maned mare’s chest, “If you really loved me, then you wouldn’t have done it. You wouldn’t have…”
She trailed off, with a sniffle.
Dash was silent.
“What?” Scootaloo growled, “You don’t have anything to say now?”
“No,” Dash shook her head, loosening her hold much to the filly’s surprise, “because you’re half-right, Scoot.”
“W-What? H-half-right?” Scootaloo tensed up in her grip.
“I’ve ALWAYS loved you, Scootaloo. By Celestia, you have NO idea how much I did, but you’re right. I never should’ve done it. I never should have even considered letting you go.”
Dash nuzzled the top of her head again, “That was the single most idiotic, stupid, and UN-AWESOME thing that I’ve ever done in my life.”
Scootaloo remained quiet, listening. Not knowing what else to say, Dash just started talking regardless of what the filly’s response was.
She started talking about the past.
“I still feel like I should regret it, you know, that time I was with him, with Stratosphere, but I don’t. I CAN’T, not even for a second. You wanna know why?”
No response.
“It was because of you, Scootaloo. Granted, that didn’t stop me from cursing the dunce, so much that Nightmare Moon would blush, when I found out that he had run off and disappeared. He didn’t want to accept being with me, being with a family- being with you. Trust me, Scoot, I was so mad. He just WENT, and left me to try to take care of our foal all by myself.”
Dash finally released her hold, letting Scootaloo go, but the filly remained frozen against her. Dash continued speaking.
“Despite my concerns, despite the fact that I didn’t even know how to be a mother and might not be able to take care of that foal, none of it mattered when that foal finally arrived. Those concerns were the last thing on my mind, and I was only so happy when my newborn daughter was laid in my hooves- so, so happy, the most joy I had ever felt in my life in fact…”
Scootaloo finally looked up at her, tears at the edges of her eyes but the look in her eyes one of surprise, with no anger to be seen. Dash met her gaze and smiled sadly for a moment before getting up and leaving the bed, walking to the window. When she reached it, she stopped for a moment.
“You were beautiful, Scootaloo, the most wonderful- the most AWESOME- thing I had ever seen. But those concerns quickly caught up with me after I got out of the hospital. I tried, I really did, but I just...failed. I should’ve left Manehattan, should’ve tried SOMETHING, but no, I just felt so low about myself that I guess my ‘trying’ wasn’t even a real attempt. I just up and sent you to the orphanage there as my immediate go-to option.”
Dash shook her head, “I can’t believe I was so STUPID! I don’t even know what I thinking, except, maybe I just...wanted you to be happy.”
She glanced back to where Scootaloo- HER Scootaloo- was now sitting up and still looking at her in shock, “You don’t realize how much I wanted to tell you the truth when you first came to Ponyville, when you first asked me to give you flying lessons, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. I guess I still considered myself a failure- heck, I KNOW I do- and I just thought you’d be happy with a pair of foster parents.
“I just didn’t think,” She looked away, “that your lack of flight and your undersized wings would prevent anyone from ever adopting you. After all, apparently nopony wants a ‘handicapped’ kid. They all want the ‘perfect’ and ‘unblemished’ filly or colt around here.”
“If you thought that, then….,” Scootaloo’s voice was hushed, but she finally spoke, “why now?”
“Going on Friendship Missions through Twilight’s Cutie Map is not as safe or as simple as one would think.” Dash said, “Just last month, I was nearly killed by a bunch of Timberwolves that snuck up on me. I took that as a sign that I’d kept this from you for long enough. You had a right to know, despite my own misgivings about the whole thing, and I STILL can’t just shake the feeling that one of us- maybe me- will meet an early grave in some accident or disaster like Tirek or Chrysalis…”
Dash turned back to the window, “That’s all I really wanted to say, Scoot. I’m sorry...and, I still love you.”
Scootaloo didn’t answer. She just continued to look at Dash in shock. Then, slowly, she began to raise her hoof, but Dash didn’t notice.
“Take care of yourself, Scoot.”
With that, Dash spread her wings and in a moment, she was out the window, leaving her daughter alone.
“Wait!”, Scootaloo jumped off the bed and ran to the window to try to call Rainbow Dash back, but it was too late- Dash was gone.
Scootaloo sniffed, and wiped at her tears, “Don’t go…”
…………..
The next day at the weather factory was surprisingly quiet on Dash’s end. Normally, she would be practically shouting orders and berating any of her team who were not listening and did the tasks wrong. Today, however, the other pegasi on her weather team were all surprised to find Rainbow Dash acting more....mellow, than usual. The rainbow-maned mare had just come in, told them the day’s tasks- slowly, so they would understand and do it right- before going about her own business for the day. To those who had known her for a while, especially the usually-dense Derpy, it was clear that Dash needed space that day.
Dash silently thanked them for that. She just wanted some time alone and to get her thoughts together. Even when there were no more old clouds to get rid of, or new ones to place, Dash still flew around, looking for something to do with her hooves, even going so far as to do some of her teammates’ jobs for them.
Finally, when there was nothing more that she could do, she finally returned to the factory and clocked out before heading down to the ground. Not wanting to return to her cloud-house right away, she figured that she would perhaps go for a walk in the park, since sure seemed like too nice a day to be inside-
-until she saw the orange filly waiting for her on the ground below the factory.
Scootaloo? Dash’s eyes widened, and when their gazes met, Scootaloo slowly raised her hoof in a weak wave, which Dash returned. Knowing that it wouldn’t pay to just fly off and leave her daughter standing there, Dash fluttered over and landed near her. Once they were sat in front of one another, mother and daughter stared at each other without speaking for a long moment.
After a long few minutes, with her forelegs shaking to show how nervous she was, Scootaloo finally swallowed a lump in her throat and spoke, looking away from Dash,
“I thought it was some sick joke at first, that you were trying to make fun of me for being an orphan or something.”
“I don’t joke like that, Scoot.” Dash responded, “You know that.”
“I know.” Scootaloo nodded, looking up at her mother, “I guess...I just didn’t want to believe it. It seemed so...unreal? Too good to be true? I don’t know.”
“Is, um, that it?” Dash asked, “Are...are we cool?”
“No.”
“Oh,” Dash said, her ears drooping as she turned to leave, “Oka-”
“Wait!”
Dash turned back around, “Wha-OOF!”
Scootaloo ran and all but pounced on Dash, knocking them both onto the ground with Dash on her back and Scootaloo on top of her belly. The young filly wrapped her forelegs around her mother tightly, hugging her and burying her face in Dash’s chest fur.
“Scootaloo, what-?”
“Don’t go. Please! Just..,” Scootaloo sniffed, and sounded like she was about to cry again, “don’t go, Mommy!”
Dash froze, like she had yesterday, but this time, Scootaloo’s words made her heart soar almost right out of her chest.
“D-Did you just say-?”
Scootaloo nodded, only hugging her tighter. Slowly, Dash brought her forelegs up to wrap around her precious daughter in return. Of all the things that Dash had expected to call her after yesterday, she had not expected her to call her “mommy”, or even her friend and idol for that matter.
“D-Does that mean you forgive me?” Tears- of joy, this time- were threatening to trail down her cheeks, and her smile held nothing but hope.
“I’m still mad at you. You should’ve just told me…”
“I know.” Dash smiled faltered.
Scootaloo then all of a sudden leant up and kissed her on the cheek, “But I forgive you, anyway. Why wouldn’t I? This whole time, you were just trying to make me happy, and when I came here, you were nothing but there for me, like family. You were my friend, my sister....
“Now,” She continued, crawling up to rest her head in the crook of her mother’s next, “all I want is my family back. I just want YOU back.”
“But I-”
“I don’t CARE if you don’t think you’re a good mom. I don’t CARE about my dad, Manehattan, or anything. I just want you back. Please…” She trailed off.
Dash didn’t even need to think about what Scootaloo was asking her at that moment. Her smile growing wider, she leaned down and kissed her daughter’s forehead, “I promise I’ll always be here from now on, Scoot, always….I love you, squirt.”
“I…” Scootaloo looked at her and smiled, “I love you too, mom.”
For a long moment, the two embraced, just happy to be with one another- Dash was happy that her daughter accepted her, and Scootaloo was just happy to have her own mother back, a mother she thought she might never have.
“So,” After a few moments, Dash coughed and finally spoke, “now that the drama’s over, you said that you’re still mad…so, what can I do to make it up to you?”
Scootaloo looked up and smirked, “Wonderbolts show, this weekend, and a third VIP ticket to go with both you and Fluttershy.”
Dash blinked, “That’s it?”
“I’m not THAT mad at you. Oh, and also, you have to spend one whole day with me and do everything I want to do.”
“Um, okay. Sure! You’ve got a deal.” Rainbow smiled, secretly wondering if she actually deserved worse, but thankful that Scootaloo was taking it easy on her- and hopefully would do so for her savings account, “I think I can manage that. It’s just...gonna take a day or two…”
“I can wait.” Scootaloo suddenly tensed up in Dash’s forelegs, nervous, “Can..can I sleep over at your house tonight?
“Sure you CAN, but are you sure you WANT to?” Scootaloo nodded, “Okay then, and don’t worry, I promise I won’t make you go to bed on time- yet.”
“Thanks.”
Dash paused, “So, Wonderbolts, day together, sleepover, are you sure that’s everything you want after all these years of secrecy?”
“Well…” Scootaloo looked away.
Me and my big mouth. Dash sighed, knowing that Scootaloo was no doubt gonna drop a twelve-kiloton request on top of her. With her hooves, she turned Scootaloo around so that the filly was resting comfortably on her back, while still using her tummy as a pillow, “Okay, what is it?”
“Are you…? Never mind.”
“Scoot.” Dash gave her a pointed look, one a mother gave her foal to let them know that they would not allow such a shift in conversation.
“I don’t wanna ask.”
“Come on, how bad could it be?”
“No, it’s-”
“I WILL start tickling- I’m not kidding.”
“Okay, okay!” Scootaloo took a deep breath, “Will you let me live with you? CAN I live with you?”
“Um…?” Having not expected that request, Dash trailed off, thinking.
Scootaloo sighed, misinterpreting the reaction, “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have-”
“No, no, Scoot, that’s not it. I’m much better off than I was when you were born, and I CAN take care of you. Heck, give me an hour and I can probably get Twilight’s help, get all the forms filled, and move you out of the orphanage- if we’re that lucky- but...do you really want me to really be your mom again? Legally? Like, for real?”
To be honest, Dash knew that while Scootaloo may have accepted her, she didn’t think that the filly would really want to live under her roof again, at least not yet. After all, Scootaloo had just heard about Dash’s hardships and admittedly feather-brained decision-making under pressure, so she might not want to live with such a mother as her full-time.
“I trust you.” Scootaloo responded, not knowing Dash’s thoughts, yet that was all the answer the rainbow-maned mother needed.
That’s really what we are now, huh? What she wants us to be...a mother and her daughter...
Dash kissed her on the forehead, “Then how about we rest here for a minute, then we’ll head down to the orphanage and I’ll see what I can do, but even with Twilight’s help, it might not be an hour. It might take days for you to become legally my own again.”
Scootaloo turned around to lay on her front again, and curled up to snuggle even more into her favorite pillow known as Dash’s tummy. At least now, she could guess exactly why it was her favorite.
“I can wait.” She said, nuzzling Dash’s tummy, “I will always wait for you, mom.”