The door creaked open.
Rainbow Dash peered inside to see the thing that would be the light and joy for the rest of her life. There, on the bed, wide awake, was Scootaloo.
Rainbow Dash rushed into the room and wrapped her forelegs around Scootaloo's small warm body, tears of joy streaming down her face. She sat there, sobbing into Scootaloo's orange coat, not even noticing when Scootaloo started sobbing as well. They sat there for longer than either of them could remember, just being happy to have each other back. After a long while, Rainbow Dash looked up into Scootaloo's bloodshot lavender eyes.
"I missed you Scoots," she said, her voice quivering.
"I missed you too"
Rainbow Dash spent the next few days telling Scootaloo about all the stuff she missed out on, like how Derpy raided Sugar Cube Corner's entire supply of muffins, or how Rarity had gotten a huge new contract and was constantly working. She just left out one tiny, well, not really that tiny, thing. But, Rainbow Dash couldn't hide her secret from Scootaloo forever. The walls all came crashing down when it was time for Scootaloo to be checked out of the hospital.
"Um, excuse me, Miss Dash?"
Rainbow Dash stopped her animated conversation with Scootaloo and looked towards the door. She saw the young stallion from the other day, Monitor, she thought, standing at the door with a clipboard in his magical aura.
"Yes?" she said.
He looked at his clipboard and flipped through some papers. "I need you to come with me to the front desk to fill out some paperwork. It is time to check Scootaloo out of the hospital."
Rainbow Dash looked back at Scootaloo, as to say 'we will finish this conversation later', before getting up and following Monitor out of the room and down the bleached white corridors.
When she reached the front desk, she saw a mountain of paperwork sitting on the counter.
Please, please, please, don't say that's for me, Rainbow Dash silently begged.
"Rainbow Dash, could you come here and fill all these out for me please?"
She rolled her eyes and sighed before turning to the stack of papers a mile high. Just my luck. This could take a while.
Scootaloo sat in bed, a confused expression on her face. As a nurse came in and started to make sure everything was in order for her to leave, Scootaloo thought to herself.
Why would they ask Rainbow Dash to fill out my release paper work? Wouldn't they ask someone from the orphanage to come pick me up?
The nurse turned to her and nodded, telling Scootaloo that it was alright to get out of the bed and into the wheelchair. With great effort, Scootaloo sat up and swung her stiff hind legs over the side of the bed. She slowly lowered herself down onto the linoleum floor tiles, recoiling at the cool touch. She took a deep breath and slowly lowered herself again so that she could put all of her weight onto her hooves. Once she was fully on the ground she let out her breath. She hobbled over to the wheelchair and plopped herself into it, glad to be off of her hooves. She didn't like the unsteady sensation she was having. The nurse wheeled her down the hall and towards the front desk, where the top of Rainbow Dash's mane could be seen behind a huge pile of paper work.
Yeesh, thought Scootaloo, That is one heck of a lot of paper work.
The nurse wheeled Scootaloo over towards Rainbow Dash. As Scootaloo approached, Rainbow Dash glanced up from her work.
"Oh hey Kiddo! Just give me a minute to finish filling all this stuff out and then I can take ya home." Rainbow said as she returned her gaze to the paper.
Scootaloo's heart almost stopped.
Ohhhhh no no no no no no no. Rainbow Dash can not take me home! Ohhhh this is bad, this is very, very, bad. She can't find out I live in an orphanage. She'll think I'm even less cool than she already does. What am I going to do!!!! Scootaloo frantically thought to herself. She glanced around and started sweating out of nerves. She didn't notice that Rainbow Dash had finally finished her paper work and was now staring at her with mild interest.
"Whatchya freaken' out for Kiddo? I'm just taking you home. Its not like its a big deal or anything…" Rainbow Dash trailed off. Her face contorted into a series of different expressions, as if she was having an internal conversation with herself.
"Oh Nothing nothing…" Scootaloo nervously replied, still sweating like she was in an oven.
"Well come on then! Time is a wasting'!" Rainbow Dash exclaimed before wheeling Scootaloo out the hospital doors and into the bright sunlight.
The sunlight was torture on Scootaloo's eyes as she was wheeled outside by Rainbow Dash. After her eyes adjusted, she took a minute of silence. She took a deep breath.
"Rainbow Dash?"
"Yeah kiddo?"
"I can't let you take me home."
The wheel chair stopped moving.
"Why not? I mean, it may take a little bit of time to get used to but, come on, I'm sure you will like it…" Rainbow Dash trailed of into mutterings that sounded like 'what if she doesn't like' and 'what will I do'. Scootaloo just looked at her with a confused and scared face. She took a deep breath.
"I live in an orphanage, thats why. I don't want you to see what I have had to live like everyday for as long as I can remember. I can get home myself."
What Rainbow Dash did next was probably the most surprising thing Scootaloo had ever seen. She laughed. She didn't look shocked, or show pity, like the few people Scootaloo had told. She laughed. When Rainbow started to calm down, she turned to look at her.
"Thats what you were worried about kiddo? I already knew that! Oh, gosh, I thought you just didn't like my house or something'!" She started cracking up again. Scootaloo's eye's widened in anger and confusion.
"What!" she spluttered, "Why would your house have anything to do with the orphanage? The only way your house would now be mine was if-" She stopped abruptly. She could feel her heart beating in her chest. She could feel her eyes start to water.
"You adopted me?" she asked, her voice weak and quivering. Rainbow nodded.
Scootaloo could not express the joy she was feeling. She felt like if she jumped out of the wheelchair she would never come back down. Her smile was as wide as the ocean of tears she was crying. She hugged Rainbow Dash so tight that Rainbow had to tell her that she was having trouble breathing. When she let go, she looked deep into Rainbow's eyes. Rainbow stared back, until a look of realization and something that looked like sheepishness came onto her face. She pulled out a gift bag from Carousel Boutique and handed it to Scootaloo.
"This is for you," she said, "I meant to give it to you on the day your fell through the ice, but well…I couldn't exactly. It's a little late in the season, but I still thought you would want it. You can open it now if you like."
Scootaloo took the bag and started to unwrap the green tissue paper. When she finished, she could not believe her eyes. Inside the bag was the same scarf that Scootaloo had noticed that day, the one with the fat orange stripe. She looked up at Rainbow Dash.
"Thank you," she said softly.
"Your welcome, squirt. Now, lets take you to your new home." she said.
And with that, Scootaloo and Rainbow Dash headed to Rainbow's cloud home, with the last signs of snow trailing in their wake.