11. Epilogue: Auf Wiedersehen, Sweetheart
I got into his car.
Why did I do that?
That maniac of a fed proposed to take me home. Was I even supposed to get into cars of strangers?
Did I really hate the public bus so much that I was willing to let this guy drive me?
For all I knew, he could drive me into a back alley and beat the living crap out of me. The last time we saw each other, less than two months ago, he certainly looked like he would do exactly that.
Was I really that desperate to get home?
Yes, I was. On that one day, all my worries and efforts to rebuild my life were gone. I just wanted to go home, sit on my couch in the living room and... wait.
But for what?
No one would be waiting for me after all that happened.
Carefully, I looked at Fitzgerald as he directed the car through the inner city traffic onto the highway en route to Linlithgow.
"You know you could have just taken the train." he quipped.
Fitzgerald looked a bit calmer and more peacefully inclined than the last time I had seen him. He certainly hadn't been sleeping every night since then. Despite that, he still seemed to be a bit on edge. Was it because of me?
I nodded. Perhaps I should really have taken the train. Now that it was too late for that sort of thing.
He noticed how I stared at him. I quickly looked out the side window instead.
"Mr Fisher." he said slowly and scratched his nose.
"How are you feeling?"
"Are you kidding?" I hissed.
"What do you care?"
I had spent several weeks in detention awaiting trial. That was worst of it, though.
The trial itself was short and painless. Not much was going on, just the prosecution parading one piece of supposed evidence after another, indicating that I had something to do with the rainboom, only to be squashed by the judge.
When everything was over, the judge declared I was free to go and shook my hand. It was over before I even noticed it was over.
"Nothing I couldn't live with." I answered.
"Speaking of which..." he then said.
"How's that other thing you couldn't live without doing?"
I looked at him skeptically.
"What?"
He harrumphed.
"You know what I mean. Rainbow Dash."
His voice had sounded quite uncomfortable as he pronounced Dashie's name.
I should have expected him going back to that. But I didn't. After the last time, where he suddenly began to insist that it was all a pack of lies, I thought he would have never wanted to speak of it again.
Even he looked like he didn't expect to speak of it again.
"What, how she is doing?" I asked. What kind of a question was that, anyway?
"I know you couldn't stop talking about her two months ago." he commented innocently.
"In the last two months, Agent, I think Dashie was the only thing that kept me on top of myself. That kept me together."
It was true. Whenever I was lying in my cell, waiting for something to happen, whenever the police investigators came in to interrogate me, whenever I was dragged into court for yet another hearing...
The only thing that kept me from breaking down in tears and anger was the feeling of something seizing my hand.
A comely, warming cyan hoof. Whenever I looked up, I would see Rainbow giving me a wink. It wasn't that tragic, she told me. It wasn't all bad. It was going to be all over one day.
"I thought so." the federal agent commented sparsely.
I could only imagine how much he was annoyed by my words. That's why his next reply surprised my so much.
"When was the last time you saw her? Two and a half years now?"
I nodded my head slowly. Two and a half unbearably long years.
"Would you have ever though you'll see her again? That she'll be back once?"
Of course I did. Even though I did know it was unprobable, that it wouldn't make sense for her ever to come back. Being in Equestria among equals, safe, sound, and dearly missed by everypony there. There was no way she would ever want to return here. It was as easy as that.
But I didn't care much about logic or sense. I just wish that she would come back one day. At nights, I dreamed of her teasing, promising to return, joking around, feeding me sweet nothings and empty promises, then making me wake up.
No, that wasn't Rainbow though. I shouldn't be blaming Dashie for that. It was just me. A grieving guy's slipping mind playing nasty pranks on his expectations.
But that was the last and only version of Dashie I would ever come across. It hurt.
The real Rainbow Dash would never come back. I just should have realised that a long long time ago.
"No."
I noticed the corners of the agent's lips folding into a subtle smirk.
"You really never expected her to miss you or something?"
"She probably can't even... remember..." I stuttered.
Saying that hurt even more.
"Not remember you? Boy, wouldn't that be cruel? Didn't you say you took care of her for, what fifteen years? Where's the thanks?"
"You suppose this is all a joke, don't you?" I snapped.
"Mr Fisher, I don't suppose anything." he corrected me, looking a bit like a teacher addressing a student, like someone who knew more than me. The smug bastard.
"So you wouldn't think she'd come over for Christmas or something like that? Like a good daughter should?"
"Look, just stop it." I begged him.
"If I wanted someone to take the piss out of me, I'll give you a call. I'm really sick and tired of this. You don't believe me? Fine! I got it. Just drive me home."
"What if..." he sighed.
What if I told you, that I believe your Dashie exists..."
"Aha, sure." I growled cynically.
"...because I met her myself?"
I hushed.
But it didn't take me longer than a second to call bullshit on that.
"Okay, you know what... stop the car. I'll find my own way home."
The agent sneered.
"So you're saying Helen didn't tell you?"
"Tell me what?!" I hissed. I seriously didn't want to take up with his bullshit any longer. I reached to my left and unlocked the passenger door.
The agent addressed me in a commanding tone.
"Lock the goddamn door, Mr Fisher, we're on the highway. I'll take you home, alright."
"I've had it up to here with your shit. If you say something about my Dashie again, I'm going to punch you in the face!" I spat.
"Two days in Equestria are two years over here. Guess who told me that." the agent said.
I couldn't remember him telling anybody this.
"I... I didn't tell you that."
"No, you didn't." he said, completely serious.
"Your Dashie did."
There was no way he wasn't bullshiting me. The only question was how he found that out...
"I don't know what your game is, Fitzgerald, but I am not interested in this."
"You're not interested in how your little Dashie is doing in Equestria? Fine, be my guest."
Once again, his voice showed dangerously little humour or ridcule.
"You're trying to tell me Dashie told you this personally?" I asked carefully.
"Yes. Not that I believed her, at first." he explained.
"Oh, and would you mind telling when you met her?"
He explained it to me point blank, even emphasising his words with hand gestures on the steering wheel.
"On the day you went to Linlithgow, two months ago."
I still couldn't believe it. I don't know why, but first reaction was,
"So you son of a bitch were in fact in my house?"
He didn't know what else to say.
"- Where I came across Rainbow Dash? Yes. Either you want to hear what she told me, or you don't. The choice is all yours."
Hadn't I established that there was no way Dashie would ever come back here?
"Look, if you don't believe me, let me show you where exactly it happened!"
+++
We spent the rest of the trip in complete silence.
I was still very confused. What was he going to show me? Was he just the one who hallucinated things right now?
The agent steered the car off the highway and onto the road alongside the stream, his face revealing a strong determination to prove his point.
I myself was determined to not let the excitement or hope get the better of me any more, lest the disappointment would hurt all the more later on, when it should turn out just to be another cruel joke or a simple misunderstanding.
We drove of the gravel driveway to my homely four walls. Its white wooden walls shimmered in the afternoon sun already from afar. The agent parged his car in front of the door and turned off the ignition.
He turned to me with a serious expression.
"Listen, Fisher. Just for your information, no, I don't know how this all makes sense. According to my agency, this all may just as well have never happened. Don't ask me for the logic behind all this - it's just what I saw myself - or rather heard in there."
We got out and walked up to the front entrance. The agent took out a sharp key and cut through the big police seal glued across the door. The police had sealed my home after I left. I determined that to be a good thing. Though they probably still searched it, as the dug-up garden behind me clearly evidenced.
The house smelled mildly off acetone and stale food. The police hadn't even bothered to clear out the fridge before moving out. Before I even had a chance to plump down on the couch in the living room and sink into thoughtful melancholy, Agent Fitzgerald lead me up the stairs to the bedroom door. Behind it, my mattress was still turned over, the blanket and pillows were still on the ground, and the MLP DVD-collection was still lying in front of the TV.
"What are we doing here now?" I inquired.
I didn't want to admit it, but my interest did seem to have peaked a bit.
"She was here." he stated simply. He harrumphed uncomfortably.
"I was on the other side of the door, so I didn't see her..."
Here?
According to him, she was here?
In front of my bedroom door, waiting for me, on the one day I was not at home?
No.
No, that just...
I stepped forward, stroking the door. I felt the outside, as if I was trying to find anything that would have still reminded me of her. A dried tear, a single strand of hair stuck between the splintered white lack... any proof of her presence.
The door felt remotely sticky. Could that have been a tear? Was she crying at this door?
Why?
I turned to the Agent.
"What happened here?"
He was quite hones when he said.
"She mistook me, for you."
My head grew a lot heavier all of a sudden. My breath became heavier too. I grew more nervous. If this guy was telling the truth, and yet I didn't knew any of this...
She just walked by, and I didn't as much as notice it?
What other times could she have tried to come back to me without me catching on?
All the days, weeks, months I had spent in this house, waiting, hoping, despairing...
Was it all for nothing?
I slumped against the wall, leaning, staring at the door.
She was here, right here, so close to me... and yet, she was far away again. I had missed her, if only barely; I missed her.
God, how could I have let this happen?
Forlornly, I looked at the Agent, who looked back at me with an equally clueless expression.
"What... what did she say?" I asked, hoping that she had said anything at all.
He thought for a moment.
"She said that she is missing you. That she still loves you. That you shouldn't forget her." he then said solemnly.
So she still knew who I was. After only what were two days two her...
I thanked the heavens that she could still remember.
"Was she alright? Did she look good?"
He shrugged.
"As I said, I couldn't see it. But she sounded well. She seemed fine."
I nodded.
But I needed to know more.
"What did you say to her?"
He grew even less comfortable at the topic. combing through his hair with a hand, he explained.
"I asked her about the sonic rainboom. She had no idea about it, did she?"
About the eight dead? No, she didn't.
I sunk into my knees even more. I shook with fear. Did she know all about it now?
"She had no idea... I..."
"So I figured." the agent said and sighed.
"And Celestia was there, too." he then quickly added.
Princess Celestia? I was surprised.
"What did she want?"
"It seemed like she was there to protect her. To comfort her."
"Oh God."
I closed my eyes. Why the hell did I decide to go out on that one day?!
How should I have known?
"I also told them about you though." I heard the agent say.
I looked up, horrified. What could he have told them about me?
"I told them you still care about her. That you're happy for her. How you're healthier and fitter than ever, that you could live on your life." he explained, looking down at me.
"Even though the latter three are quite debatable... In any case, they were happy for you."
I breathed in deeply. My head began to feel warmer and heavier than before. A headache was approaching.
"Did... did she say when she would come back?"
Fitzgerald stayed silent. He shook his head.
As I stayed slumped against the wall, trying to make more sense of things, trying to realise anything I might have missed, I heard the agent preparing to depart.
"You're welcome, by the way." I heard him utter.
As he was about to walk down the stairs, I tried to ask him one last pressing question.
"You didn't tell me about all this earlier? Why tell me now?"
He shrugged slightly.
"Because I didn't believe you earlier. But I thought you might be interested in knowing."
He looked at the bedroom door long and hard.
"Who knows, maybe you're the sane one, and I'm the maniac who'se been seeing ponies lately."
Then he went downstairs.
After a few minutes, I also stood up.
I went into my room, cleaned up the disks, made my bed. Dashie's letter was still lying on the bedside table, so I locked it back into the little tin box.
I also looked for the photo album in my book rack. But I couldn't find it. The cops had probably seized it. Was I ever going to see it again?
On the ground story, I could still hear the agent's shoes shuffling across the wooden parquet floor, trotting about, looking around. As if he hadn't had enough of a chance to look around the first time he was here!
Although, after everything he did, the least I could do was show him the door.
The casket in hand, I went downstairs, finding him in my living room, looking at some family pictures. Pictures of my parents.
Really, the more I thought about it, I could hang my pictures with Dashie right next to them - nobody would believe it anyway. Who knows, maybe they won't even notice.
"Agent." I said.
"Yes?"
"My photo album... I think your colleagues took it. Is there any chance I'm going to see it again?"
The thought long and hard.
"I'll see what I can do."
He took a second to turn to the nearby record player I had standing around, and carefully fiddle around with the needle.
"That's a nice grammophone you have there." he quipped.
"Really old, but goes like a clockwork. Though this darling does tend to go off at the worst of times..."
After ridding himself of those mystic words, he walked over to the open front door.
I followed suit.
As he stepped out, and I was about to close the door on him, I could not help myself but ask him one more thing.
"Do you believe in Dashie now?"
He looked at me indignantly. But he couldn't find the right words straight away.
Sighing, he said,
"The government says no. I say no. I told you, this world has its very own, unchangeable, unimitable logic. That's the logic I would like to follow. Not Dashie. I told you, she's still dangerous. I just hope this is the last I will ever hear from her. For the sake of us all."
Then he scuffled back towards his car. But on the way, he turned around once more.
"But as for you?"
He shrugged.
"I don't know. I should be wishing you well, but in the end it would only serve to screw your world's logic. I mean, maybe, if you're just lucky enough, Dashy'll come back, with Celestia, and they'll take you along to their own perfect world. I'm sure that would suit you."
He smirked. But this smirk it wasn't as sardonic as it was sympathetic.
"Maybe, just maybe, you will have your own happy ending. If you're into that sort of thing, that is. Take care."
I drew one last breath and closed the door.
The door clicked as it fell shut, I heard something behind me click as well.
I froze.
Something had definitely just made a sound behind me.
"Dad..."
I twisted around immediately.
A sob.
"Dad. I don't know if you can... uh..."
I saw nobody in the living room.
"Rainbow." I shouted.
"Rainbow!"
I stumbled forward.
"Dashie, where are you?!"
"I don't know if you can hear this, Dad..."
I turned around. The voice did not come from the kitchen. It didn't come from upstairs. Where was she?
"I was here. I missed you. And I still do."
I turned around.
I saw the record player in the corner running.
"I know what you're thinking... after all I have done... how could I... risk to come back..."
I stepped towards the machine, and slowed the disk down my my hand. I remembered which record I had played on it last, and it certainly was a different one.
This record itself was unmarked. But it was different from the other ones in my small collection. It was obviosuly new, and had hardly any dust on it. Also, it was a bit thicker than the others. It was also heavier, and less shiny. Like it was from a completely different place.
This house has been sealed for two months. How did that record get in here?
After a few seconds of trying to connect the dots, I chose to let it play on.
I sat down on the couch, my stare still focused on the running grammophone.
"I feel horrible. Dad. What will they do to you? If you can hear this, thank Celestia you do!"
Oh Dashie. My poor, sweet darling. Whatever impression she had received when she was here on that fateful day...
"If I had known... I wouldn't have done it. But I didn't know. Does that make it okay? The rainboom, it was such a great... grand moment for me before. Always when I looked back on it, it made me so happy. Does this make me a bad pony, dad? I don't know."
It was a recorded apology. I didn't know how it got here. I didn't know when this record was placed on my parent's old phonograph...
But it wasn't important at all.
"I really wish you could be here with me. Everyone's so happy and peaceful in Equestria... It's almost like I have been there my whole life... somehow..."
I knew what I had to do next. In the kitchen, I found the note that 'Ingrid Tremblay' had given me in the pub down in Linlithgow. Her phone number was still on it.
Quickly dialling her on the living room phone, I didn't even bother to press the muzzle against my ear. Instead, I just put the muzzle down and pressed the intercom button. I sat back down on the couch, and waited until the beeping stopped and Helen picked up the phone.
Rainbow still talked and explained as I waited.
Then there was a click, and I heard Helen saying,
"Ingrid Tremblay, Doctor of Psychology. Who am I talking to?"
I didn't say anything.
I just let the record on the player turn and turn, and Dashie's kind voice reverb through the living room.
There was a momentary silence on Helen's part.
"That... isn't that... oh my God."
Now she could hear for herself that it was true. It took a load off my mind, to be able to admit it freely to someone.
I picked the muzzle.
"Helen, hi. It's me."
"Brian." she answered, completely captivated by Dashie in the background.
"Am I hearing this right? Is she really..."
"Dashie?" I answered and closed my eyes.
"Yes, she was. Dashie came back."