"*Yaaaawn*, uh, I need to make a better bed. My back is killing me," Spike said stretching and rubbing his back. He looked over at the seat to notice Fluttershy was not sleeping, but hunched over quietly crying into her hooves. Spike quickly jumped up to comfort Fluttershy saying, "Fluttershy, what's wrong? Are you ok?" Fluttershy looks up, startled by Spike's sudden movement towards her.
"Oh, I-I-I'm fine Spike," Fluttershy said through sniffles. "No you're not Fluttershy. You woke up last night screaming in terror, and now I woke up to you crying on the floor. I might not be Applejack, but I can tell when somepony is lying about certain things. So can I ask again, what's wrong?" Spike said, giving Fluttershy a small lecture.
"Oh, I don't want to bother you with it." Fluttershy said, hoping Spike would drop the topic. "Is it about what happened yesterday?" Spike asked with concern, "Everything is going to be alright. We will make it through this." Fluttershy then looked at Spike with red, puffy eyes and started to tell him about her nightmare.
"Well, I guess the nightmare started on the Aurora, but it was minutes before the disaster, it was kind of like reliving that day. So I was doing a routine maintenance check on the east side of the ship making sure life pods were functional and stocked. I happened to be in my life pod when the alarms started to blare and the screams of everypony. I quickly got into the seat and closed the life pod as somepony tried to get in. I tried to open the life pod to let them in, but then a huge green beam pierced the hull, automatically ejecting the life pod and leaving an innocent pony to die on the ship."
Then my nightmare shifted to my time stuck in the life pod. I had to be confined to a small space with food and water, but no contact with anypony, especially my friends. I also saw random fish swimming over head, but they didn't look friendly at all, so I kept the light level lowered, but could have sworn I saw a pony swimming around above the life pod, but was unable to let t-them in and save them," Fluttershy said, barely containing tears.
"Hey, hey, calm down, it's okay. I'm here for you. Nothing's going to hurt you in here." Spike said in a soothing voice while hugging her. They sat there hugging for a few minutes while Fluttershy collected her thoughts. "Ok, um, I'm ready to continue, I think," Fluttershy said, pulling back slightly to look at Spike.
"So after I couldn't open the hatch, I saw the face of the swimming pony. It was the face of the pony that I couldn't save, but she already looked like she had been decaying. I then began to scream and woke up screaming. That was the truly terrifying part of my dreams. The other part, which happened after we went back to sleep, was very sad."
So after I fell back to sleep, my dreams were relatively happy. I started dreaming of memories with our friends, like the day we went to the Grand Galloping Gala, even though that ended up not being the night we wanted. Slowly, my dreams became worse, like when we didn't take Twilight seriously about not writing her friendship report."
"Well, you have to admit, that was a pretty unbelievable thing to be freaking out about," Spike cut in. "Well, um, either way, it wasn't nice of us to ignore her problem. Eventually my memories turned to nightmares by having Twilight and you leave us because we didn't take her seriously, then Applejack ditched us because she let working on the farm take over her life. Then it was Rarity because she discovered her prince charming and moved to Canterlot, then Rainbow Dash left because the rest of us w-weren't cool enough for her. T-Then.. Then Pinkie left me because I didn't want to party everyday, so then I was left without friends."
"Oh, Fluttershy, that sounds horrible. You need to know none of us would ever leave you, especially me. Do you remember how you reacted that first day Twilight and I came to Ponyville? You were absolutely amazed at meeting a baby dragon, and this baby dragon wouldn't leave the nicest pony in all of Equestria all alone, even if it meant leaving Twilight," Spike said, hoping to cheer up Fluttershy.
"R-Really Spike?" Fluttershy asked, trying to get reconfirmation from Spike. "Really Fluttershy. Now, what do you say I go get us some food?" "Oh thank you Spike. Is there anything I can do to help?" "Well," Spike began, "Do you think you could take the fabricated med kit from the machine and put it with the rest in storage. Then if you want to, you could reorganize the stuff in there. I didn't really bother with organization so much as making sure all materials were together."
"Oh, I can do that. You go get some food, I'll just sort this now." "Okay, I should be back in a few minutes." Spike then departed from the bottom hatch in search of some fish while Fluttershy reorganized the storage on board the life pod. After a few minutes and one screaming suicide bombing fish later, Spike returned with some fish and a few quartz from a nearby cave.
As Spike boarded, he saw Fluttershy looking through the storage, still sorting the different resources. Spike moved over to the fabricator and began to cook the fish. After a few minutes, Fluttershy was done sorting and Spike was done cooking, so Fluttershy grabbed two bottles of water and Spike gave her a fish, and they began to eat, enjoying each other's company before they got back to work.
"Well, I should probably head out and get some kelp vines to make the fiber mesh for those radiation suits," Spike said while standing up. "Oh, well, I think I might stay here. I don't know where else I would go," Fluttershy said, feeling slightly useless. "Well, I could help teach you how to swim, and then you can start building a base for us to live in instead of this life pod," Spike said while moving towards the hatch. "Oh, well I don't want to waste your time on teaching me how to swim. I'm sure I will figure it out."
"No, if you can't figure out how to swim good enough through water, you might drown. Then I would be left all alone and knowing I could have helped you, but didn't," Spike stated, "That's why I'm going to go get resources for the rad suits and a set of fins for you to use." "Oh no, I don't want to be a bother. I could just, um, stay here and organize the storage some more," Fluttershy said, hoping to avoid getting into the water.
"Well I don't know where else we can build a base besides in the water or on that island with carnivorous, one eyed, four legged murderers," Spike said, hoping Fluttershy would agree to swimming lessons. "Well when you put it that way, I think I want to learn how to swim, if that's ok with you." She said, thinking about the evil creatures. "Ok then, it's decided. When I get back, we are going to begin the process of teaching you to swim." With that, Spike opened the hatch and got into the water.
"Oh, I do hope I will be able to learn how to swim fast," Fluttershy thought. "I really hope that I can teach Fluttershy how to swim in a short amount of time," Spike thought at nearly the same time as Fluttershy.