Sweetie Drops sat on the ground, in front of her house. Lyra was next to her. It had been a long, long day.
While it wasn't a complete surprise when they came back to find that the bugbear had half destroyed the place during it's rampage, it was very annoying.
And maybe she deserved this. But Lyra sure didn't.
She seemed unfazed by the destruction. "It doesn't actually look too bad," Lyra said, "I think it's pretty much just the upper floor that's gone. The downstairs is still intact."
Of course she was. It would take more than property damage to shake her. Her marefriend suddenly revealing she wasn't the pony she seemed to be—that might do the trick!
It had been a long day, and would be a long night.
They went inside. It turned out the monster had got the ground floor too. The kitchen was missing a wall. Across the street, their icebox hung from a lamppost, impaled.
Sweetie Drops lay down on the floor. She had limits, and that...
"I'm sorry, Lyra. This is all my fault." It took the last of her willpower to keep the words from breaking up into sobs.
"Come on, Bonnie, it's not like it's a big deal. And it's still better than that time I burned the place down," Lyra said. "Oh, wait. I mean, Sweetie Drops?"
There it was. "Call me whatever you want," Sweetie Drops said. "This is all my fault. I was the one who let that bugbear get out the first time around. I got our whole thing shut down and let a monster get out into the world.
"My last orders were to go undercover somewhere and just keep my head down. 'Wait for further instructions.'" She looked at Lyra. "But I know how things are. I know what I left everypony else to clean up. Those instructions aren't coming. That's all gone now." She'd been so mad at the time. She didn't know why she hadn't kept working anyway. This was what happened when you left business unfinished.
Lyra didn't get it though. She just kept stroking her mane and telling her it was going to be okay. When would that mare see that not everything could be okay?
Sweetie Drops couldn't take it anymore. "Don't you understand! I'm a liar! I'm a liar, and a failure. You're in danger just by being near me." The words hurt to say, but they were for Lyra's own good.
Lyra was startled by the outburst, but quickly recovered. The mare who was certainly now Sweetie Drops's ex-marefriend stood up. "I'm going to go grab some blankets and stuff from upstairs. It's getting late."
Sweetie Drops was alone now, like she wanted to be. Alone so she could wallow like she wanted to. Lyra would surely find some other way to be happy, no matter what. At least there was that.
The wedding had been nice. Despite everything, there was that. No thanks to her. What had she done to make up for her first failure and stop the bugbear with her second chance? Nothing. Twilight and her friends had done all the work. She hadn't even gotten a chance to help. She couldn't. Even. Try.
It was just as well she had gotten the agency shuttered. With ponies like that around what was left for ones like her? That was all she would have needed to do, not mess up for a few years, and she would have been able to retire. Instead she was exiled in disgrace. Way to go, Sweetie Drops.
She heard Lyra rummaging around above her. Fortunately, nothing load-bearing seemed to have been damaged: the ceiling was not showing any signs of collapsing. Sweetie Drops was not in the mood to have another ceiling fall on her. If she closed her eyes, everything seemed normal.
At least she had been able to keep Lyra safe. She let herself smile a little at that thought. She was very happy that nopony had been seriously hurt and that the wedding been a success of course. But she was only a mare, if an elite one.
A pillow hit her in the face. Deep instincts rolled her out of the way of the second one just behind it.
Lyra was standing in the doorway with a smirk. "Gotcha." Her horn lit up with golden light, and she rearranged the pillows side by side. "So, would you believe that there was only one blanket that didn't get torn up?" She lay down next to Sweetie Drops.
The blanket spread over both of them. Sweetie Drops stayed sitting upright, though slumped. She looked at her ex-marefriend. Despite the omnipresent cheer in her voice, her expression was fragile.
"Lyra, you're a terrible liar."
"And proud of it!" The words came out sharp.
Sweetie Drops could only wince.
"We're gonna talk about that. But you're being way too hard on yourself about the other stuff."
"How can you say that? I failed my mission. I failed Equestria."
Lyra shrugged. "So what? Look what it got you: the greatest marefriend of all time."
Sweetie Drops tried to argue, but got a hoof stuffed in her mouth.
"I know what you're going to say, but you know me. Do you really think I hate you? Me?" So that was another mistake she had made. She didn't mind this one so much.
Somehow Lyra's embrace was much warmer than it had been a few seconds before. But there were still plenty of other problems to deal with. "Aren't you afraid I'll put you in danger?"
"More danger than Princess Twilight?"
Sweetie Drops couldn't say anything to that. Ponyville had been much quieter before the Princess arrived. And most of the threats she attracted would have been well above Sweetie's pay grade even in her glory days.
"Aha, so I do know you as well as I thought, Bon Bon," Lyra said and pulled her into a hug.
"I... thank you." She hugged Lyra back.