“So what’s she like?”
Sunset looks up from her coffee with a raised eyebrow for a moment before nodding and taking another sip, then setting it down.
“Doctor Hive?”
“Yeah.” I raise my own cup of tea and sip at it.
As much as I love that Sunset tries to make tea for me all the time, her attempts aren’t great. The tea here at Cuppa’s is much better, and I think she and Sunset know each other because they smile and chat a lot while she orders.
“She’s… interesting,” Sunset says finally, lowering her mug as she does and sighing. “I don’t know if there will ever come a day when I say that I like Doctor Hive, but I respect her. According to VP Luna, she’s like, one of the top diagnosticians in the nation.”
My eyebrows scoot up past my hairline as I lower my tea.
“Wow,” I say softly. “Why is she—?”
“Why is she doing hours at a medical dive like Old Town Clinic?” Sunset finishes with a wry smirk. “I think it has something to do with Principal Celestia, actually. I never got the whole story but I know there’s a history between them, and I know Doctor Hive had something to do with Luna’s bad girl years.”
I shake my head, still agog at the notion of Luna or Sticky or Bright Eyes being bad people.
Well, maybe not bad people. They definitely made some bad choices though. Fighting? Stealing? All of that stuff sounds like the kind of thing that’s supposed to end with the person in jail or doing something terrible with their life.
Instead, they came through and made a promise to help other kids that were like them. Kids who had nowhere else to go.
“Is she safe?” I ask after a moment. “Doctor Hive, I mean.”
Sunset presses her lips to a thin line and shrugs.
“I mean, yeah,” Sunset says finally. “If she weren’t I wouldn’t let her anywhere near you, she’s just creepy.”
As unsettling as the notion of a creepy doctor is to me, the outright statement that Sunset wouldn’t let anyone or anything near me that would hurt me is a gratifying thing to hear said out loud.
“She’s good,” Sunset says, sipping at her coffee again. “Like, really good… at least with the physical stuff. She’s no psychiatrist but she’s… I dunno…”
Sunset trails off, her eyes settled in the swirling dark liquid of her coffee.
“I trust Bright Eyes,” she says. “I don’t think he’d send either of us to someone who would hurt us, and Doctor Hive might be creepy but she and Bright and Sticky and Luna? They all have a history… a bond.”
“Friends?” I offer, smiling weakly.
“Or enemies,” Sunset counters thoughtfully. “I’ve always thought that maybe the reason I don’t like Chrysalis Hive is that we’re a little too much alike.”
“She sounds uhm… intimidating,” I say as I take another drink.
“Oh, yeah, that’s another thing,” Sunset says with a grimace, then sets her coffee down and looks me square in the eyes. “So this woman is creepy as Tartarus, smarter than me by a country mile, and if a glare could kill she’d be a war criminal, but she’s also… ugh, just, uh, bear with me here—” Sunset puts up her hands almost defensively— “she’s like, really hot.”
I stare at Sunset for several minutes over the slowly rising steam of my green tea trying to process exactly what it was she just said. Maybe sensing the four-oh-four error happening in my brain, Sunset tries to fill the silence, and unfortunately succeeds.
“Look it’s just— she’s got really strong wicked witch vibes, okay?” Sunset says awkwardly, rubbing the back of her head as she does. “If she had a blog that was just pictures of her, in four-inch heels, stepping on people, I wouldn’t be surprised, and she’d probably be making more money off that than her medical career!”
We stare at one another for a moment as I slowly raise my tea to take a sip, then set it back down and clear my throat.
“That’s uhm… kind of specific,” I say quietly.
I get a brief glimpse of a red tint colouring Sunset’s cheeks before she covers it with her broad ceramic coffee mug.
“It was just an example,” she mumbles into the brew.
She chuckles, and I smile. I always do when she laughs. Sunset’s laugh is a strong, husky sound that warms me up when I hear it. It’s the sort of laugh that only someone who’s lost a lot in their life can have, I think.
I know she’s young. We both are. We’re just kids really, but she’s so much more mature than me. So much more capable and ready for the world. If it weren’t for her, I’d probably still be scrounging for food and sleeping at Saint Easel’s two nights out of three, with the third night spent in that parking garage.
Sunset has rocked two realms with her ambition and intellect.
All I managed to do when I got my hands on some magic was almost ruin the life of the most wonderful girl in the whole wide world.
I take another sip of tea and grimace a little. It’s gotten cold. Not icy, just tepid, but it spoils the flavor a little, so I set it down. Maybe I’ll ask Cuppa to warm it up. I’d really like a full cup of tea before I go to this appointment. I don’t like hospitals or doctors’ offices, and the Old Town Clinic is a little bit of both: half urgent care, half primary, with a small pharmacy attached.
“What happens if she doesn’t clear me?” I ask, looking up.
Sunset frowns. “We wait for… for a little while longer, I guess? Probably another month.”
Another month.
Another month of draining Sunset’s limited resources. Another month of taking up space on her floor in an apartment that’s already too small for one person, realistically speaking, and far too cramped for two.
“But uhm, hey, at least your stipend got approved!” Sunset says a little more brightly. “It’s not much, and once you’re on the housing program you’ll have a little more for bills.”
“But I need a job.” My fingers tighten around the mug, but only briefly.
Sunset’s hand covers mine before I can spiral down any further.
“Only after you’re out of high school,” Sunset says calmly. “And only if you don’t start college, and even then you’ll still have six months.”
I lower my head, doing my best to turn it into a sullen nod. I don’t want to say I’m too stupid to go to college, because I know she’ll argue. I’m barely scraping grades in high school, though, so I don’t think I’m going to be much good in ‘higher learning’.
I can barely do learning at sea level.
“It’ll be okay,” Sunset says, giving my hand a reassuring squeeze. “Are you ready?”
No.
“Y-Yeah.” I swallow back the last of the tepid tea and give a firmer nod, and I think she might have even believed it as we stand up, wave goodbye to Cuppa, and leave the little cafe.
The walk down the rest of the way to the Old Town Clinic is a slow one, but at least it’s starting to warm up a little. At least by Canterlot standards anyway which I’ll admit are kind of abysmal, but I’ll take what I can get.
“Did uhm…” I start as we get close to the Clinic, but trail off.
I don’t need to finish the sentence or the thought, though. Sunset knows me too well, and answers anyway.
“Did I tell Sticky or Bright Eyes about you not taking your pills?” Sunset says more than asks. Then looks down at me with an expression of hurt. “No, of course I didn’t, Wallie, if I told them then you’d be rejected!”
“Maybe I deserve it,” I say softly.
Sunset lets out a tired groan and stops, then links her arm in mine and I squeak in alarm as she walks us both into an alley where she turns to me with a fierce expression on her face.
“Wallie, look at me,” Sunset says sternly, pointing up at her own face. “You’ve been doing just fine with your latest prescription, okay? You haven’t missed a single day!”
“Because neither have you!” I say tightly. “You ha-haven’t forgotten to remind me even once! Of course I haven’t missed a day! You won’t let me!”
“And I’ll keep not letting you!” Sunset says almost frantically. “If I have to come over every single day after you move out to make sure you’re okay then I will!”
That’s the last thing I want, but I don’t tell her that either. I know I’m pretty much useless on my own but Sunset worries so much about me that I’m scared I’ll end up hurting her even if I manage to get my own place.
“Wallie, please,” Sunset continues desperately. “I need you to understand, okay?” She reaches out hesitantly before setting her hands softly on either of my shoulders. “I am not going to let you hurt yourself alright? I’m going to stick with you and help even if you end up hating me for it.”
I lower my head again, then step forward and close the distance between us. I don’t know how to say it, so I just hug her.
Sunset stiffens in surprise. I know why. It’s because I so rarely actually show her that I appreciate her. It’s my fault she doesn’t expect it, but I try to make up for it by hugging as hard as I can.
She thinks that I don’t understand, but that’s the problem.
I do understand. I know exactly how far she’s willing to go, and it scares me because I’m afraid that if she does go that far, if I really am that useless, that she’ll end up driving herself right off of a cliff. I can’t let her do that, but at the same time I know she’ll try to anyway.
“I won’t hate you,” I say.
That much, at least, I know how to say, because I won’t. I can’t. After all, how could I possibly hate someone that—
“I promise.”
—that I love with all my heart?
Sunset hugs me back, and she nods against my head as she buries her face in my hair. I know she’s scared for me. I hate that she worries so much, but I understand why. If I was in her shoes and our positions were reversed, as absurd as that notion is, then I’d be worrying just as much if not more.
So I get it.
She steps back after a moment, and surreptitiously wipes at her eyes. I don’t think she realises that I see it, but I do, and I hate that I always make her cry.
It’s a small secret that Sunset actually cries kind of easily. Once upon a time I thought she was the type of person who never cries at all, like me, but spending so much time with her has made me realise how off the mark that was.
Sunset cries a lot, but never in front of people. She’s too proud for that. So instead, she bottles it up, keeps it clamped down, and then when she feels like she’s safe she lets it out.
Maybe it’s terrible of me, but I’m a little proud of the fact that she lets me see her cry. Sometimes, anyway. She doesn’t let me see it every time, but I’ve seen it enough now that I know the signs.
Not even Rarity or Pinkie can tell when Sunset’s been crying. I know, because I’ve seen them miss it, but I can tell.
I can always tell.
We walk the rest of the way to the clinic in silence, but I stay beside Sunset the whole time. I need to if I’m going to have the strength to do what’s coming next. I’m a weak person by nature, I know that, but being next to Sunset makes me feel stronger.
At least a little bit.
The Old Town Clinic doors are heavy, and a shot of relief floods through me when I see how few people are inside. At least I won't get crowded.
“Okay, let’s get you checked in,” Sunset says, stepping forward to take the handle of the door.
I move between them before she can.
“I… I’ll do it,” I say without looking up as I set a shaky hand on the handle. “You can go back to the apartment, I’ll be alright.”
Sunset doesn’t answer right away, and after a moment I force myself to look up at her. There’s pain on her face. She really does wear her emotions right out in the open. Or maybe I can just see them easier than other people.
I force a smile onto my face. “Thanks for, uhm, walking me here, though.”
“Wallie, I—”
“Go home, Sunset.”
It takes everything in me to say those words without breaking, and it’s doubly hard to keep it together as Sunset jolts in surprise.
“Please,” I say softly. “I’ll… I’ll be fine.”
I squeeze her hand gently before letting go.
Then I turn, push the door open, and step inside the Clinic, all while doing my best to ignore the vaguely antiseptic smell and the sounds of conversational chatter as I wrap my arms around myself and keep my eyes forward. I know she’s still behind me, still waiting at the door for me to look back and ask her to come with me, so I don’t look back.
If I looked back, I probably would.
I really can’t stress how much I don’t like hospitals and clinics, which is funny because stress is pretty much the only thing I usually do.
Sunset would’ve found that funny.
Or maybe she’d have gotten upset.
I rub at my arm and shiver as I sit on the exam table. I’ve been here for over an hour. The first fifteen minutes were a blood draw, and that was the moment that I wished hardest that I’d let Sunset stay. The only way I got through it was by almost crushing the nurse’s hand while clenching my eyes shut and pretending it was Sunset.
Otherwise I’m pretty sure I’d have passed out.
They told me after the draw that it would take a little while to process the results, and that Doctor Hive would be with me right after.
All I have to do is make it through this, and then I go h— go back to Sunset. I can go back to the apartment and I’ll be one step closer.
“In and out,” I mutter, taking a deep breath as I do and letting it out in an effort to quell the rising nausea and shaking.
A sharp knock strikes the door twice, and I jump. It wasn’t loud but the sound is almost… imperious.
The door opens a heartbeat later and the woman who steps through takes my breath away. I understand now, what Sunset meant when she talked about Doctor Hive back in Cuppa’s, although seeing her now I’d disagree with Sunset on one point.
She’s not what I would call ‘hot’. She’s definitely creepy, though.
The woman who steps into the exam room with me is intimidating on a number of levels, and all of them feel almost subconscious. She’s striking, certainly; tall and with pitch black skin the colour of a beetle’s shell that contrasts starkly with her white coat, and long, teal hair that hangs straight down across her shoulders, and has an oddly ragged quality to it.
Her whole body is made of sharp lines, like a statue carved from volcanic glass, and I think if it was just that much then Sunset might have been right about calling her attractive.
For me, though, her eyes steal all of that away.
Wicked, harlequin-green eyes pin me to the exam table with an expression of innate disinterest, and in that brief moment I wish I still had the Memory Stone if only so I could vanish from her.
She’s not ‘hot’. She’s terrifying.
“Wallflower Blush,” Doctor Hive says quietly. Her voice is strong and pitched with analytical distance as she shuts the door with a loud snap. “Another one of Bright and Sticky’s rabble of strays.”
She lifts a thick folder, one large enough that I’m sure it contains everything from both Sticky Note and Bright Eyes, in addition to my medical records. Doctor Hive leafs through the papers as she stalks around me.
Stalks is really the only word, too. She moves like a predator, and I am, without a doubt, her prey.
“Uhm, that’s me,” I say quietly.
Doctor Hive flicks her gaze up at me as the words leave my lips, and she pauses as if deciding whether or not to eat me.
“That wasn’t a question,” she says after a moment, then sets the folder down.
It’s open to a single white page that has the words ‘Medical Evaluation’ written in cold, formal block print. On top of the paper she sets two more small objects, and it takes me a moment to realise what they are.
Rubber stamps.
“Do you know who I am, Miss Blush?” Doctor Hive asks in a conversational tone that’s almost worse than her disinterest. “Do you know what I do?”
“You’re uh—” I think back as I try to remember what Sunset had called her— “a… a diagnostics?”
“Diagnostician,” she corrects me with a sneering curl of her lip that puts a shiver down my spine. “Do you know what that means?”
I shake my head.
“It means, Miss Blush,” Doctor Hive continues grimly, “that I am an expert in collating all of the data regarding a patient, from their habits to their medical history to their psychological profiles and more, and creating a diagnosis from which treatment can be devised and administered.”
“Oh, that uhm…” I swallow quietly as I try to find the words without letting them choke. “That sounds… hard.”
Her flat expression gives nothing away as she slowly raises an eyebrow, then smirks in a manner that makes me think that I definitely just did something wrong.
“It’s a job that requires more than intellect,” Doctor Hive says softly. “It requires the ability to… change. To not just think but to feel and for a moment become the patient, to understand them… so my next question is this—”
She taps a single, perfectly manicured fingernail on the paper between the two stamps.
“—what do you think my diagnosis is for you?”
I swallow hard. I’m not even shaking anymore. My stomach has twisted itself into a Gordian knot as Doctor Hive’s bright, awful eyes dig into me like the mandibles of some unpleasant insect.
When no answer comes out, her joyless smirk returns.
“Your full blood test results are still forthcoming, but there are some interesting factors to it that are immediately obvious,” Doctor Hive says finally. “Namely that your nutrient levels are abysmal, indicative of chronic malnutrition, which of course, is in your file, and so most would overlook it, except…”
She trails off as even the facsimile of her smirk fades, and she reaches beneath the evaluation sheet to pull out another piece of paper, freeing it from the stack, and narrowing her eyes as she examines it critically.
“This test suggests that you’re still weak. Far below what I would expect after the battery of vitamins and probiotics you were prescribed,” Doctor Hive says quietly before turning her eyes to me. “So answer me this, and I warn you, I deal with much better liars than I suspect you of being so stick to the truth… how many days of your prescription have you missed?”
“I… I’ve taken all of my pills from my c-current prescription,” I say cautiously.
“And the one before that?”
My lips clamp down to a line. She’s right, I’m an awful liar, and I know that if I try to tell her I took all of those then she’ll know in an instant.
“Did you know that self-starvation is an under-recognised but dangerous form of self-harm?” Doctor Hive asks in such a casual tone that it puts a sliver of ice in my heart. She continues without acknowledging me, speaking as if to a lecture hall. “It’s a cousin to disorders like anorexia and restrictive eating, commonly recognised as a method to regain control of one’s body.”
She turns her harlequin gaze on me, poleaxing me with the dark expression she’s wearing, and raises the results of my blood test like a blade to my throat.
“Physically speaking, other than malnutrition, you’re healthy,” Doctor Hive says. “But I know what you’re doing because I’ve seen it before, and if I approve your evaluation and you go on to spiral downwards then that will be a black mark on my record, and the records of Bright and Sticky.”
“I’m not—”
“I don’t want your excuses.” Doctor Hive cuts through my words like a razor. “The problem is that I’m in an… unfortunate position because of your current residence.”
“What?” The word comes out like a whimper.
My current residence? With Sunset? What does that have to—
Oh.
Oh no.
“I see the coin just dropped,” Doctor Hive says with a nasty smile. “Slow one, aren’t you? So yes, the problem is that if I deny you—” she taps the rubber ‘DENIED’ stamp that’s sitting on the evaluation form— “because I suspect you of self-destructive behaviour, then that will reflect on Miss Shimmer, whom I happen to like, and who, unfortunately, already has my stamp of approval… and Sticky Notes’, and Bright Eyes’, which will prompt an investigation.”
“No,” I say softly. “It wasn’t her fault!”
“But can you prove that?” Doctor Hive hisses. “No? I didn’t think so. So I’m going to approve your evaluation, but with a… let’s call it a caveat.”
“I’ll do anything,” I plead. “Please, just… just don’t let this come back to Sunset! Please!”
“Don’t beg,” Doctor Hive says flatly. “I hate begging. No, I’m doing this for me, and for a woman to whom I made a very particular promise.”
Doctor Hive sweeps up the ‘DENIED’ stamp and tucks it into a pocket before picking up the ‘APPROVED’ stamp, lifting it, and slamming it down on paper with more force than is, I think, strictly necessary.
“If~” her voice trails on that word like steel sliding from leather, “if you spiral, and you’re found engaging in that behaviour again, and it comes back to me, and Sticky, and Bright, then I promise you, I will make absolutely certain that it comes back to Sunset too.”
Doctor Hive picks up the evaluation form with the word APPROVED stamped across the bottom in bright red block letters like the blood on a Faustian contract, and hands it over to me.
“Miss Shimmer bet everything on you,” Doctor Hive says, and her voice is deadly and low. “You’ve repaid her poorly, so I suggest you get your shit together, Miss Blush, or I will be the one who makes sure that Shimmer loses that bet, are we clear?”
I swallow thickly, raise one shaking hand, and take a grip on the evaluation form.
“Yes,” I say in a paper thin voice. “Crystal clear.”
The tension leaks out of her like water from a sieve as she lets go of her end of the paper, passing it over fully to me, and leans back. I hadn’t realised until that moment that she’d literally been looming over me.
“Good girl,” Doctor Hive says with a wicked smile. “Now, I think that covers everything. I’ve renewed your prescriptions for another two months, you will take every single pill, won’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” Doctor Hive reaches out and pats my head. “Now I suggest taking a walk, clearing your head, and maybe going home and telling Sunset how much you appreciate her good-natured idiocy, because Lord knows she’s probably the only one crazy enough to bet on you.”
I nod weakly as Doctor Hive turns, opens the door, gestures for me to leave, and I do. She follows in my wake for a moment before turning to go down the hall, while I make my way out to the lobby gripping the evaluation form like a lifeline in a tempest.
By the time I get back outside it’s started raining again, but only a sprinkle. The rain is cold though, it always is in Canterlot, so I tuck the evaluation under my hoodie, lower my head, pull the hood up, and start walking back to the apartment as I try to think about what I’m going to say to Sunset.
She knew.
She had to have known.
Sunset… why?