//------------------------------// // Chapter 5 // Story: He Loved You // by StarLightStarBright //------------------------------// "Come on, you rocks. Tell me what I want to know..." Twilight dropped another speck of No-Gem into one of the many strange chemicals on her lab table and waited for some type of reaction. She looked for anything that could explain the nightmares, anything to explain the hallucinations that they had been having. However, the observations she made and the data she collected could not prove that the No-Gems had caused any negative effect on her. But that was impossible; she saw their effects first-hoof. She would never have a nightmare like that on her own. And after what she saw Spike going through after he ate so many of them...there had to be a reason, and she wasn't going to leave her laboratory until she-- "Twilight? Are you still down here?" A voice calling from the top of the stairs behind her broke her concentration. "Yes, Spike. What is it?" "The sun's starting to go down." Twilight turned from her table to Spike, unsure of what that could mean. She saw the book tucked under his arm. It was the same book he had the previous night on stars and comets.Her eyes widened when she realized that she was supposed to be taking him stargazing that night. "Oh my gosh! I'm so sorry, I completely forgot! I was just so focused on my studies!" She jumped from her stool and lifted her lab coat off, using her magic to place it on a coat tree next to an identical, smaller one suited for the dragon. "I am so so so sorry, Spike. Let me go get ready, it'll only take a second!" "We can just go tomorrow night, if you want..." Spike watched as she zoomed past in a blaze of purple towards the bathroom. "Nonsense, Spike! I told you we were going tonight, and we're going tonight!" She closed the bathroom door. "You know I don't go back on my word!" Spike heard the bath start as he tried to talk to her through the door. "But you've been working all day. Don't you think you'll get too tired out there to--" "You know me, Spike. I'm perfectly capable of working a day and staying up all night..." "Sure, just like you're perfectly capable of cleaning up your piles of books after yourself..." Spike muttered. "What was that?" "Nothing!~" Spike stuck his tongue out at the door. "Uh huh..." Twilight rolled her eyes and Spike practically saw it through the door. "Why don't you go out ahead of me and make sure everything's ready? I can't make myself decent with you constantly bothering me," she teased. "Oh, so now I'm a bother, huh? I think I should be offended, Twi," he teased back. "I didn't say it was a bad thing, did I?" "Since when is calling somepony a bother a good thing?" "Well, you seem to pull it off rather well. It's cute when you do it." Spike blushed a bit. "In that case, hurry it up in there! Celestia won't keep the sunset forever so you can laze around in the tub all evening!" "Oh, hush! I said it was cute. Don't push it," she said with flirtatious perturbation. "And didn't I tell you to get out of here?" "Fine, I was just tryin' to keep you company, sheesh!~" He heard Twilight giggle through the door before he walked to the bags that were sitting in front of the door, waiting for departure. He quickly made sure everything was packed correctly (because he knew Twilight would ask) before loading the bags onto his back. They were a bit heavy, but he could handle them easily. Besides, the Eastern Fields weren't too far from the library, so he wouldn't have to walk far. "Alright Twi, I'm off!" "Did you make sure everything was packed correctly?" Spike laughed at her predictability, not answering her question as he opened the door. "What's so funny, Spike?" "Just your little quirks, Twi. Sometimes you can be cute, too." He opened the door. "Don't take too long, okay?" "This bath feels amazing, so I'm not promising anything!~" "Suuuure, you're not..." He hopped off the step in front of their tree home and made his way to the specified fields to set up. ~*~*~*~*~*~ "Ugh, Im so bored!" Sweetie Belle shuffled around the lobby of the Carousel Boutique, looking for something fun to do. "Rarity, are you done yet? You said we would play at sunset, and it's sunset already!" Rarity poked her head out of her inspiration room. "Sweetie Belle, please let me work in peace. Can I go a moment without hearing your whining?" Sweeite sat up and worked her best Rarity impression. "I am not whining! I'm complaining!" Rarity rolled her eyes. "Besides, why are you making that stupid dress anyway? You don't even like Spike!" "Now just one second, Sweetie Belle! I never said I didn't acquire feelings for the little dragon..." Sweetie looked away. "You sure don't act like you like him all that much..." she muttered under her breath. "I am a lady, Sweetie, and ladies act with class and patience. Matters such as love are long processes, and must be handled as such." "So what if Spike doesn't know that? Seems an awful lot like he asks you out almost every other day. If I were him, I'd cut my losses and just move on to somepony who can at least say yes to a stupid date..." Rarity rolled her eyes again. "I can say yes to something as silly as a date, Sweetie." "So why haven't you? You've had, like, a million chances so far!" "I would accept if he could act like a gentlecolt and give me time to prepare. You should know what I mean, you were here last time he asked me. Don't you remember how sudden he was? I had no time to get ready, and I especially had no time to find you a babysitter..." She started to walk back into her inspiration room and away from Sweetie Belle. Sweetie followed, determined to prove some kind of point. "I keep telling you, Rarity. I'm old enough to watch myself, I do it all day while you're working anyway. And how much time could you possibly need to get ready for dinner? It's food, for Celestia's sake! Besides that, you were trying to get away from me that night anyways!" "Sweetie Belle, watch your tone. And you wouldn't understand why I didn't go with him that night. I can't just get up and go out whenever I wish. I have responsibilities around here." "What'd you have to do that night? If I remember, you were busy doing a lot of laying around." Rarity started to get a bit irritated. "Don't you have something to do somewhere else that doesn't have to do with bothering me?" "You were supposed to be playing with me, anyway!" "Oh...right. Well, can you please find something to do somewhere else that doesn't have to do with bothering me?" Sweetie Belle groaned. "You're just mad because you know I'm right..." "Sweetie, out please." "Fine, then. Be that way..." She walked out of the room. "Just know Spike isn't gonna wait forever for your classy flank..." Rarity turned around. "What was that?" "Nothing!" A halo popped up over Sweetie Belle's head. "...Be sure to keep it that way." Rarity used her magic to close the door to her inspiration room. Sweetie stuck her tongue out at the door. She looked around the room for something to do. Eventually, she shuffled across the room long enough to spot some of Rarity's fabric and a pair of scissors laying around. "I'm sure Rarity wouldn't mind if I borrowed a bit of this..." Sweetie said to herself as she started snipping three large capes out of it. ~*~*~*~*~*~ It had been almost ten minutes since Spike had finished setting up for Twilight's arrival at the top of a small hill near the center of the field. He brought their copy of the Astrological Astronomers Almanac to all Things Astronomy (fixed, of course), the telescope from her balcony, a picnic blanket, a few sandwiches for Twilight, a few of the jewels he'd been collecting for himself, and a few other odds and ends that were deemed necessary for the date. All Spike had to do sit back, relax, and wait for the inevitable arrival of Twilight. He leaned back on the tree he decided to unpack under and sung quietly... "For a thousand years, I've waited here for you, Waited every night, For I thought you were the answer to my life~ Days turned into years, and into centuries, Patience had to fade, Don't you see that there is vengeance in my eyes?~" "Wow, that's amazing Spike..." Spike jumped up a bit at the sound of the voice now rounding the tree he was leaning on. "Twilight! How long have you been there?" Twilight sat down next to him. "A few seconds. I didn't know you could sing, Spike." He turned red. "I can't, I just had a song stuck in my head and I needed to get it out." "What song is that? I've never heard it before..." "I don't know. Pinkie showed it to me earlier this week and I haven't been able to get it out of my..." Spike sniffed the air. "Is something the matter?" "Do you smell that? Something smells really good..." he sniffed closer to Twilight. "Are you wearing perfume?" "Well, this is a date, isn't it, Spike?" "Yeah, I guess you have a point there. What smell is that? It smells like a big, juicy ruby!" "Remember how I told you those No-Gems have many different uses? Well, I was able to use a complex system and scientific processes and magical spells to turn them into a sort of gas. Basically, this perfume has the power to change its smell to anything you can think of." "That's really cool, Twi! Only you'd be smart enough to turn a diamond into a fragrance!" Twilight blushed at the compliment. "How long are you gonna keep something as cool as that to yourself? You could be making a fortune selling all of this No-Gem stuff!" Twilight walked over to the telescope and began twisting a few knobs on it. "I can't just give these things away, Spike. Not until I know just what kind of powers they hold inside. If they really are capable of hurting ponies, I don't want to show them at all. Just give me more time to study them." "Alright, Twi..." Spike opened the book he brought and flipped through its contents, going from individual stars to the planets visible with a telescope to planets that have so little known about them that they may not even exist at all. Finally, he landed on the beginning of the chapter marked "Constellations" and set the book down between the two of them. "Are you done with that telescope yet? I already found the constellations page." "Almost, Spike..." A few twists of the last knob meant Twilight was finished calibrating the telescope for the stars they would be looking at for the night. "Done! Now we can see almost every star in the night sky with this. Have a look!" She moved over a bit and gave Spike room to see the stars. "Wow...There are so many of them. They're like tiny pieces of glass!" "Yeah, they're all beautiful just looking up at them normally. But they get so much more beautiful when you look at them up close with a telescope..." "Yeah, no kidding. Is this what I've been missing out on? This is actually pretty cool. I thought they'd just be boring, old clumps of space dust, but some of these are moving and crossing paths and doing all kinds of stuff!" Twilight laid down next to her assistant and her telescope and looked up. "That's the wonder of stars, Spike. They fly all over the place every night, but we never notice. They're too far away for us to..." Spike pointed to a group of stars. "There's the Little and Big Dippers over there! I already knew those without even looking in the books." Twilight looked up. "Yes, that's them. But do you know what that one is, over to the right?" Spike thought about it. "Uhhhh...I can't tell." "That one's the Bull. And under it is the Hare, and there's the Great Dog..." She moved from constellation to constellation as Spike followed with the telescope. Seconds turned to hours as Twilight and Spike lay next to each other, staring at the cosmos and pointing at various star clusters and constellations. They talked and laughed and ate and talked some more, telling stories of their past adventures or talking about things in the near future. Twilight tried to weave her confession into their conversations, but she found it rather difficult finding something relevant. She didn't want to just bring it up out of the blue, but she felt an inner obligation to herself to say it at some point. Spike ran out of things to talk about, and Twilight, never being one for long conversation, lost her chance of saying it without making things awkward and saying it randomly. She kicked herself inside for procrastinating, but she sympathized with herself on her wanting it to be just right. So they just laid next to each other in silence, staring up into space at nothing in particular. After a while, Twilight felt something moving next to her ear and onto her mane, rolling groups of hair around in circles. She always liked having Spike play with her mane while they sat together or walked through Ponyville, and this time was no different. His claw quietly lulled her into a sense of inner peace, a state where she could forget her worries. "Hey, Spike?" A voice responded out of her field of vision. "Yeah?" "What are you thinking about right now?" There came a short pause. "Well, I ate my last jewel a while ago, so I'm thinking I'm getting pretty hungry." She giggled a bit. "Don't you ever think about anything besides your stomach?" "Hey, I can think about other things, thank you very much." She turned to him. "Oh yeah? Like what?" "Well..." The claw that wasn't playing in her mane went to his chin as he thought. "Sometimes, I think about how long it would take to fly up there." He pointed up to the sky at the brightest star he could see. "When I'm bigger, I hope I can grow wings so I can fly out there and pull one of those stars out of the sky..." "Hmm...It's a nice thought. Almost impossible and highly dangerous, but a nice thought, nonetheless." Spike waved his hand at her notions of "impossibility." "Pffft, I bet I could do it. If Princess Luna finds a way to get rid of the stars every morning, I'm sure it can't be that hard, right?" "I guess you're right. Then again, she has had thousands of years to practice, though." He stuck his tongue out at her, and she giggled in return. "Well then, genius. Since you have an answer for everything, why don't you tell me what you're thinking about?" "Trust me, if I told you everything in my head, you'd either have a headache or a quick snooze." "That boring, huh? Good thing I don't think that way, or I'd be sleeping 24/7." She rolled her eyes and smiled. "But anyway, you don't have to tell me everything. Just throw out a thought. Anything's good with me." "Well, the forefront of my mind is focused on this date." "Oh yeah..." He felt his face slowly heat up. "What about it?" She stared back into the sky. "I had a really nice time out here, with you. Stargazing was the perfect way to calm my nerves, and you seemed to come up with the idea just in time." Spike gave a little smug face and put his arms behind his head. "Well, you know me. Always looking out for my favorite pony in aaall of Equestria." "Your favorite, huh?..." Her cheeks turned a bit pink at the compliment. "Yep. But, then again, you have been with me my whole life. That adds up to something, right?" Twilight slowly nodded. "Yes, I guess it does...I've grown fond of you too, my little dragon." His eyes flickered as he sat up. "That reminds me. There's something I kinda wanted to ask you." She sat up with him. "Alright, shoot." "How much do you really care about me?" She froze, turning a lighter pink again. "...What do you mean?" "Well, I mean, I just wanted to know. You smile a lot more around me, and you call this a date or whatever." He turned a bit red at his remark. "I mean, I wanted it to be a date too. But I thought you might not have wanted that kind of stuff." This is it! Twilight thought. She picked her words over carefully in her mind, wanting them to come out just right. "Well, to be honest...I've noticed a few things about you too, recently. The flowers, the way we've been talking to each other, and even this whole outing. I did want this to be a date, because...well..." She stopped talking, as if no more sound could pass her lips on the subject. Come on, Twilight, say it. "Well...?" "Well...um..." Say it! Twilight screamed in her mind. She couldn't exactly find the words in her vocabulary bank to tell him the way she felt. Spike leaned in her direction, eager to hear her next few words. "I just...I think that you...I really..." Ughhh! Why can't I say it?! Just say the three little words! Just say-- "Do you like me?" She stopped trying to talk and turned a bright red. Spike took one look at her face and understood everything. Twilight wasn't the only one who could read faces. "You do like me. And from the looks of your face, it just isn't a 'like' like. It's a 'like' like..." She stared at him for a few seconds, a bit in shock. Then she hung her head, disappointed in herself for not being able to say it herself. She barely whispered under the mane blocking her face. "What?..." Spike moved in a bit closer to her in an attempt to hear her better. She whispered it a little louder, but it was still below audible levels. "I can't--" "Yes! I love you! Okay?!" She quickly covered her muzzle, embarrassed to be shouting that as loud as she did. Spike, on the other hoof, almost fell backwards because of her little startle. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to yell like that. I just..." "It's okay..." Spike explained as the ringing in his ears stopped. "Just warn me next time you're gonna yell like that, heh heh..." She removed her hooves from her muzzle, which was still burning red. "Wait...You aren't mad at me? Or embarrassed? Or...anything?" Spike thought for a bit. "Well...I don't think so. I mean, I'm surprised you said it, but...I don't feel too embarrassed. In fact, I'm a bit relieved, actually." She tilted her head in confusion. "Wait...What? Did you hear the same thing I said?" "Yeah, I heard that you love me." "And you don't feel anything about that." "Well, I didn't say that. I do feel something, Twi." Twilight felt herself tense up again. "So...How do you feel?..." He scratched the back of his head and showed his first signs of embarrassment. "I kinda figured you'd ask that...Well, uh...I guess I'd say that I like you too, Twi." She sighed and fell backwards, obviously feeling a giant weight fly off her shoulders. "Haaaaaahhh... You don't know how long I've wanted to hear that from you...~" He fell backwards next to her and the pair looked in each other's eyes. He smiled at her, and she blushed at him. Then, without any warning, Twilight began to laugh. She didn't know why she was laughing, but she couldn't stop herself. She rolled around and laughed until she had tears in her eyes. "Hahahaha!~ I can't believe it was that easy!" Spike stared at her, chuckling at her laughing fit. "You can't believe what was that easy?" "Telling you about this, Spike! I've been wanting to tell you that I loved you for quite a while. I thought Celestia would be mad at me, but she doesn't even know! Ha!" "Wait, what? Why would the Princess be mad that you love me?" She rolled to face Spike and wrapped him in her forelegs, nuzzling his cheek. "The rule, Spike! Remember that rule that I cried about before, in the kitchen?" "Her rule was that you couldn't love me? That's what you were crying about? That's the rule you wanted to break?" "Yes, Spike. All this time, I've been worried about that rule and my relationship with you. I've wanted to break that rule for who knows how long. And now...I've done it! I don't have to worry about her mystery consequence anymore! Ha ha!~" Her laughing fit returned, making her roll about on the blanket with Spike wrapped around her. "Hahaha, okay, okay! I get it! Now let go, Twi! You're crushing me!" She rolled onto her back, allowing him to sit on her stomach. "Haha, sorry, Spike. I'm just so happy. I don't have to hide the way I feel anymore. I used to always think she watched over me like a hawk anywhere I went. But I guess that was another silly notion in my head. Sorry for putting you through so much, Spike." "I was more worried about you than I was about myself, Twi. With all the stuff about the No-Gems and Celestia's rule, I thought you were gonna end up a crazy pony, heh heh..." "I guess you're right. I did go a bit nuts for a while. But look on the bright side; I have one of my problems solved, right?" Spike nodded and they looked in each other's eyes again, softly laughing. "So...we know of our feelings for one another. What do we do about these feelings?" The dragon scratched his head and gave a loud yawn. "I dunno. I mean, I wanna be with you, but I've learned to wait so I won't get hurt. Decision's yours. What do you wanna do?" As if on cue, the moon completed its revolution in the sky, bringing the very first rays of light of the sun into view. Something happened in the mare's mind as she saw the bright beams. It was as if a wave of something cold and invisible hit her and filled her with an awful emotion. She slowly stood up and trotted over to her telescope, her body moving on its own. Spike stole a glance of her face in the light of the sun. Her pupils were smaller than normal, and she was biting her lower lip at its tip. "What's up, Twilight? You okay?" "I...I'm fine. We just...need to get home." "You sure, Twi? We have time. I've stayed up this long, I can stay up a little lo-" "I'm sorry, but I have to get back home. Now." For a spilt second, Spike heard something in her voice. Desperation? "Okay, okay. Let me just go and pack the wagon." He stood up and slowly began to place each item he brought with him back into the cart. Twilight helped, moving a bit faster than he did, and before long the wagon was full again and ready to take back to the library. "Alrighty then, everything's set. Let's get mo-whoa!" Without much warning, he was lifted into the air and onto her back by her purple magic. The same aura covered the handle of the wagon, pulling it behind her as she began to walk with a pace unfitting a mare who'd been up all day and night. "What's going on, Twilight? What is it?" "Sorry if I seem like I'm rushing, Spike. I just...don't feel too well right now. I really need to get to bed." She quickened her already unusually fast pace as she looked down and noticed that the light from the sun had already made its way past her hooves and coated the nearby grassland back to Ponyville in its brilliance. Before long, it would be at her doorstep, through her windows, in her home. After what they had talked about earlier that night, this normal, everyday occurrence filled her with dread. Spike turned around to look at whatever was making her move so quickly, as if it was a specific animal or creature she was trying to run from, when he took a long glance at the horizon over the houses of Ponyville. "Wow...Hey, Twilight! Look at the sunrise! It's so colorful!" Spike was mesmerized by its beauty the rest of the way home, but Twilight never looked. She dared not look. She simply wanted to get away from it, to get away from her eyes. It didn't take long for the pair to make their way back to the library; still, the sun's rays shone ever brighter with each passing minute. The mare opened the door and set the wagon to the side on the wall before quickly and quietly walking up their stairs. The blue curtains to her bedroom were wide open, giving her a good view of the sun peeking out of the horizon. She quickly shut the curtains, darkening the room a bit more. With that, she softly slid the now sleeping dragon off of her back and into his bed, carefully tossing his blanket over him with her teeth. Then, without thinking, she gave Spike a soft kiss on his cheek. "I love you, Spike..." She then turned to her own bed and fell into it, allowing subconciousness to take over. She wasn't sure, but before she fell asleep, she could've sworn she heard Spike murmur in his sleep... "...I love you too, Twi..."