//------------------------------// // LIfeline // Story: Blonde Moments // by FamousLastWords //------------------------------// Derpy and Spike crashed through her front door, giggling and laughing all the while. They had just gotten back into town and Spike insisted on walking Derpy back to her home. Ponyville wasn’t exactly dangerous, but a little extra time with her wasn’t going to hurt anypony. It was late at night at this point… late enough that it was technically super early in the morning. They were both glad that Sweetie Belle agreed to foalsit Dinky for the entire night. Not that they wanted her gone, but more that Derpy could get some quality sleeping time after a long night of merriment. Of course, their laughter and smiles seemed to indicate anything but sleepiness. “And then, did you see the way Luna looked when you caught her drinking punch straight from the bowl?” Spike asked, trying to contain his chuckling long enough to complete a sentence. “Yeah,” Derpy said, unsuccessfully stifling her own chuckles. “I never thought I’d ever see a Princess get embarrassed.” “Heh,” Spike said, finally calming down. “That’s just because you haven’t seen them enough. Between Luna’s inappropriate jokes and Celestia’s dessert obsession they’re an endless gaggle of good times.” “I can only imagine,” she replied. “I really hope I get to see them more often. Luna seems like a lot of fun and I bet Celestia is, too.” “They’re both great. And trust me, you’ll have all kinds of time to try new things and meet new ponies when hanging around with me. I attract weird things.” Spike winked at her. “I guess that’s why you’re following me around, huh?” Derpy smirked. “Hey, who said I was ever attracted to you?” “Oh, you know…” Spike rubbed his chin. “I think I got the hint from the dreamy eyes you give me every time we’re about to kiss.” Derpy let out a playful huff before rearing up and giving him a quick kiss on the lips. She then dropped back down and turned her nose up to him. “Well, I’ll admit I didn’t see any dreamy eyes there,” Spike replied. “Maybe I was wrong about you being into me after all. Great, just after I told every pony in town how lucky I was to have you. Now I just look silly.” Derpy giggled and nuzzled his cheek. “You always look silly. No change there.” Sweet moments like this were one of the things Spike loved most about being with her. They didn’t really have to have anything interesting to talk about. Nothing major had to happen for them to enjoy each other’s company. They could joke around with each other without ever having to worry about hurt feelings. It was wonderful. Their mutual laughter and giddiness finally began to subside, leading to Spike letting out a deep sigh. “Well, it was a great night, but you probably need me to get out of here, huh?” Spike asked, pointing a claw toward the door. “You need to get some sleep and—” “No!” Derpy shouted, taking herself by surprise with her volume. “I mean, you don’t have to leave yet. Please don’t. I’m, uh… I'm not ready to say goodbye yet.” “You’re not?” Spike asked, scratching his head. “Mm-mm,” she said, shaking her head. Spike shrugged. “I guess my claws are tied then. Can’t say I’m complaining, though.” “You’re just stuck here with me for a bit,” she said, adorning a cute smile. “This night… it’s too perfect for it to end so fast.” Spike looked deep in her eyes. There was something up, some kind of clue he was sure he was supposed to be catching on to. A clue that his natural male intuition, or lack thereof, would never be able to figure out in a million years. But, he knew something. Tonight meant something extra special to her. “Well, then consider me stuck.” Spike smiled back at her. “But, you should probably at least go hang up your dress. It’s beautiful, but I doubt it’s comfy enough to lounge around in.” Derpy surveyed her outfit. “Yeah, you’re right. Give me just a minute. I’ll be right back.” The mare darted off to her room in the back, leaving Spike to his own devices for a moment. He followed his own advice and undid his tie, following it up with unbuttoning the top few buttons of his dress shirt and throwing his jacket on the couch. He had what he figured were a couple minutes to himself. If Derpy was like every other mare he’s ever met, simply changing clothes was never a short task. He looked around the living room, seeing what all was going on. He had seen it before, but he was so wired and nervous the first time, he didn’t really get a chance to scope it out. He made sure, of course, to avoid looking at the picture of her parents lest it lead him to opening his big mouth once more. Instead, he wandered over to a nearby bookcase and decided to take a look at what she had there. He knelt down in front of it to get a good look at its contents. There were the home staples, of course. A dictionary, a basic Equestrian encyclopedia, one of Twilight’s published friendship journals… “Oh great, not these,” Spike said, shaking his head. “I thought we resolved that issue years ago.” Spike chuckled and took the book out. It was an innocent book, of course, but it caused untold amounts of trouble when citizens found out all the intricacies of how his friends solved friendship issues. Of course, he was also happy about the nice little sum of money he got from all the book sales considering he was the one who actually wrote all of the original journal. He opened it up and began flipping through a bit when something fell out from between the pages and dropped to the floor. “Whoops!” Spike whisper-shouted under his breath. He was about to pick up the object and put it back in, but then he realized what it was. It was a yellow flower of some kind, pressed between two tissues and flattened because of the book. He head heard that you can preserve flowers that way, but he had never really tried it or had any remote interest in it for that matter. “Spike!” Spike nearly dropped the flower again as his body jolted from the sudden shout. He looked toward the hall to find Derpy standing there, face beat red. “Hey, Derpy. Sorry, I was just looking around. I didn’t know you liked to preserve flowers. That’s pretty cool.” Derpy’s face seemed to relax a bit. “You mean, you don’t recognize… okay.” “Recognize what? The book? Yeah… it’s kind of a legend between me and Twilight.” Spike laughed but then saw Derpy’s eyes instead looking at the dried flower held in his claw… and her eyes looked a bit sad. “You mean the flower?” Derpy nodded. Spike held it up to his face. “Well, it’s pretty. And yellow. And it’s…” And then it hit him like a ton of bricks.. “I hate picking the only flower that’s managed to grow here, but I couldn’t help noticing it matched your mane really well.” He tucked the flower into her mane, right behind her ear. “There,” Spike said. “Now we have a memory here. Good thing, too. I’d rather not forget this if it’s all the same to you.” “Wait a second,” Spike said, getting up from his knees. “Is this the flower from—” “Yeah,” Derpy said, hiding behind her mane. “I, um, I didn’t want it to die, so I kept it in a book. It’s kind of dumb, huh?” Spike looked back at the flower, his heart practically beating out of his chest. All the time and all the effort he put into making her like him… and to think she liked him from the start. “No, no… It’s not dumb at all.” He knelt down and put the flower back in the book and placed the book back on the shelf. “In fact, it was so sweet I’m pretty sure I’m gonna have to go to the dentist tomorrow from all the cavities I just got.” He gave her a winning smile before walking over to her and wrapping her up in a tight hug. She gladly reciprocated it. The two then made their way over to her couch, Spike lazily tossing his jacket out of the way allowing them room for cuddles. She curled up and rested her head on his shoulder while he cradled her in his arms. “So, did you have fun tonight?” Spike asked. “I mean, you said it was a great night and all, but you know…” “It was amazing.” She peppered his cheek with a few kisses before nuzzling it and resting back on his shoulder. “Thank you so, so, so much for taking me. I can’t believe you actually wanted to go with me to something like that.” Spike rose an eyebrow. “What? Why wouldn’t I?” Derpy sighed. “It’s just… I’ve never really been to a fancy event before. I’ve never really had a coltfriend before. I’ve never had somepony who lo—” Derpy gulped. “...Anypony who seemed to be that proud of me, before.” Spike gently stroked her mane. “Nopony? I doubt that. What about your par—” Spike cursed himself. “I mean…” “It’s… It’s okay, Spike.” Derpy scooched her body up a bit to where he could still hold her but she could also see him eye to eye. “I, um, I’m not really used to talking about them, but… but you deserve to know.” Spike was about to do the classic gentlecolt maneuver and protest and say she didn’t have to, but honestly, he was far too curious to do such a thing. So instead, he’d hear what she had to say. “Alright, I’m listening. Take your time.” Derpy averted her eyes, instead choosing to stare off in front of her. And then she began. “My parents weren’t terrible or abusive or anything like that. A lot of people who see me taking care of Dinky think so. But, no, they were really really fantastic. I loved them. I still do. But, something happened when Dinky was born.” Spike could see a tear welling up in her eye. He pet her mane a bit more gentle this time. “What happened?” “Well, when my mother gave birth to Dinky we were all really excited. I was a bit older, as you can probably tell, but I was excited to finally have a sister. So were my parents. But, um… my mother got sick a few months after. Really sick. And uh, umm…” Derpy tried to fight back a sob, instead just sniffling ever so slightly. “She got sick?” Spike asked. “Like she caught a disease?” Derpy shook her head. “She wasn’t like, sick sick, but... she started changing. She never wanted to do anything anymore. She slept all the time. Nothing she used to do for fun made her happy. She stopped laughing, playing games with me and stuff. She, um, she even started ignoring Dinky. We didn’t know why…” Derpy’s cheeks were coated in tears at this point. Spike kept his mouth shut and instead planted a kiss on her cheek. Derpy tilted her face toward him, wanting a second kiss which he provided. “We, um, we weren’t sure what was going on, but we needed to do something. I started having to look after Dinky more and daddy had to take care of mom the best he could between work and helping with Dinky. We thought things were getting a bit better, eventually, to be honest. Taking some of the load off of her seemed to do good. Plus, she was doing her best to fight off whatever was happening to her. She loved us, she really did. And she tried her best.  But, one day we were all out…” Her eyes instantly shut, releasing a new stream of tears down her cheeks. “Me, daddy and Dinky went out to see a play. Mom didn’t want to come because she was too tired. We came back later that night and.. and...she was waiting for us, but “ Derpy twisted her body and burrowed her face into Spike’s shoulder. “… she decided to leave us.. forever... She didn’t wanna fight anymore! ” Well, history had repeated itself. Once again, Spike had Derpy bawling her eyes out. But the difference is this time, she was looking to him for comfort, not running away. Spike wrapped his arms around her and held her as tightly as he could. He began planting small kisses on her head. “Shh, shh… it’s okay,” he said. “I’ve got you. It’s okay.” Derpy was able to recover after a minute or so. She pulled her face from his now soaked shoulder and instead rested her head against it. “Sorry about that.” “Don’t be,” he replied. “We all have to let it out sometimes.” She nodded. “Yeah.” They both laid there, cuddled with each other for a few minutes, enjoying the peace. But, of course, Derpy wanted to finish the story. “Well, after everything happened, daddy had a really hard time getting things back together. He lost his job and had a hard time keeping a new one. So, I started working as soon as I could to help, but I also had to take care of Dinky. Thankfully, she was too young to really understand what happened. But eventually, things had to change even more.” “What do you mean?” Derpy took a deep breath before continuing. “After a year or two, it became too hard to live with him. H-He couldn’t support us and he couldn’t help take care of Dinky anymore. He would always say how much she reminded him of mom. I think it actually hurt him to look at her.” Derpy let out a sigh. “I didn’t want to leave him, but I needed to do what was best for Dinky. It wasn’t a good home for her. So, I took her and came over here to Ponyville. Long story short, a few hard years go by and then Dinky ends up getting sick. I take her to the hospital and try making things work all over again.” “Wow…” Spike wasn’t even talking to her, necessarily. He was just amazed at what she’s been able to overcome. “But then, I run into this really sweet dragon one day and well, the sky got a little bit brighter.” Spike turned his head and smiled. “I hope you’re talking about me.” Derpy nodded and planted a small kiss on his cheek. “Yeah, I am. Every time I’ve told you how much I appreciate what you’ve done for us… you have no idea just how much I mean it.” Derpy didn’t give Spike a chance to respond before twisting her body over and pressing him into the couch. She pressed her lips to his, very deeply, yet it still maintained her usual gentleness. He could feel her breath on the outskirts of his lips and eventually, he felt her tongue slowly part them. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her closer. She took a moment and broke the kiss, instead opting to look him in the eyes. She wasn't smiling. She wasn’t laughing. She was just looking at him. “Spike?” Spike tried to catch his breath. “Ye—” “I love you.” And there it was. She said the words. The words Spike never thought he’d hear in a non-platonic fashion. Quite frankly, he wasn’t sure what to do. What he did know though were three things: his heart was beating faster than it ever had, he was the happiest he’d been in an long time and most importantly… ….There wasn’t anypony else he wanted to be with more than the mare he was with right now. “I love you, too, Derpy.”