//------------------------------// // Rainbow Dash 5 // Story: Unwell: Recovery // by HazamaBrony //------------------------------// Morning came much too soon. It felt like I had just said goodnight to Applejack when the morning alarm rang. Still, somehow I managed to drag myself out of bed and do some pre-flight stretches before I ran out of time and had to leave for the hospital. I sure as heck wasn’t going to miss my appointment with Twilight just because I was a little groggy. The flight itself was uneventful, for the most part. The only thing that kept me from flying on automatic was my search for the bus that Applejack would have been taking to the hospital. The hospital may have been out a ways from the city, but it still had a somewhat steady stream of buses pass it by. I did remember that there was a small town on the other side of the hospital from Canterlot, so the hospital was probably just an unneeded stop for most ponies taking the bus. Nevertheless, I was glad that my ground bound friends had a consistent way to come visit Twilight. And just like that, my thoughts turned to my appointment with Twilight. By Celestia, I hoped it would turn out better than my last visit. I’d barely gotten to see her for ten minutes before we had to leave. Hopefully she wouldn’t be as out of it as before. About half way to the hospital, I saw the bus. Grinning, I swooped down and gave a wave to Applejack when I saw her through the windows. She looked surprised at first, as did the rest of the passengers, but Applejack quickly recovered and waved back. It felt good to be back on speaking terms with Applejack. After all, she was one of my oldest friends, and it hurts to lose a friend, no matter whose fault it is. After I did a quick couple of tricks for the passengers on the bus, I sped off. It was time to see Twilight. “Hey, Izzy, I’m here!” I announced as I trotted into the receptionist area. “Hiya, Rainbow! How you doing today?” Izzy asked, smiling widely. I glanced around the room to make sure there were no other ponies in it. “To tell, the truth, I’m ready for the weekend. I need a break from all this cleaning.” “Yeah. I can understand that. Much as I like this job, five days in a row every week is enough. I don’t know how some of the doctors can put in six or even seven day weeks.” I blinked. “Some of them do that? Why?” Izzy shrugged. “Most of the time, it only happens if we’re short staffed, or if some sort of emergency happens. Most of the doctors here care deeply about their patients, enough that they don’t mind putting in some overtime if it helps them through a rough patch.” “Most of them?” I asked. “What about the ones who don’t care?” “They tend to either be the best of the best in their field, or they just plain don’t last long. Dr. Kindheart has very strict standards about his staff. Well, the doctors, at least.” “Right. He must be more relaxed about the cleaning staff, or I never would have gotten the ‘thrilling’ chance to work here,” I joked. “Oh, yes, I know,” Izzy said, earnestly. “Oh, um, okay,” I replied, feeling a little hurt by how blunt her answer was. “Anyways, Dr. H is almost ready to oversee your visit,” Izzy continued, seemingly unaware of my hurt feelings. I shook off the last bit of resentment I felt towards Izzy. “That’s good,” I said. “How long will I have to wait?” The receptionist leaned back in her chair, giving her a good look down the hallway to the left of her desk. “About thirty more seconds. I can see her right now.” True to Izzy’s words, Dr. H came around the corner less than a minute later. “How you doing, doctor?” I asked, shaking her hoof. “Quite well,” she said, still in that same soft voice. “Yourself?” I shrugged. “I’m a little tired, but other than that, I’m fine.” “Good to hear. Are you ready?” “Yep. See you later, Izzy!” I said as Dr. H and I started down the hallway towards Twilight’s room. As Izzy waved back, I turned to the doctor. “So,” I asked, “how is Twilight doing?” She frowned. “Well, she is doing better than the last time you saw her. The chemical restraints have worn off, and she has calmed down, but... I’ll be honest with you, she’s been cycling between blunted affect with alogia and disorganized speech.” “Um…” I said, searching my memory for what those words meant, “Blunted affect is when she doesn’t feel much emotion, right? And… I forget what the other two mean.” “Alogia is when a pony doesn’t speak much without prompting, and even then they give rather short and clipped answers to everything. And disorganized speech can be divided into several categories, but mostly it just sounds like nonsensical rambling.” “Oh. Those kind of sound like opposites to me.” Dr. H sighed. “Yes, but what is concerning is the frequency with which she switches between the two. She never cycled this fast when she was here before. In any case, you should be prepared for her to either not react to you, or not make much sense.” “Right,” I said, as we stopped in front of room 112. Dr. H stepped through the door, and gestured for me to follow. Twilight was reading, or at least looking at, a book. She looked up at us as we entered the room, and her eyes lit up as she saw me. “Rainbow!” she said with a huge smile. “Dogs have read all my books and there are termites in the air!” “Hey, Twi. How you doing?” I asked as I waved at her. The smile I put on my face was mostly genuine. She had recognized me, and she seemed happy to see me to boot! “Well, breakfast was ethereal because I saw some clouds,” Twilight said as she waved back at me. “That… uh… sounds nice?” I replied rubbing the back of my head, nervously. What was I supposed to say to that? “Magical worms are eating the pages of my library,” she said as she rubbed the back of her head… just like I was doing. I slowly clapped my hooves together in front of me. Twilight tried to do the same thing, but the cast on her leg made it awkward. “Red ribbons are all around us and the air is—“ She stopped mid-sentence and frowned. “I—I forgot. Sorry.” I looked to Dr. H, and found to my surprise that she was smiling. “Twilight, Rainbow here is going to read a book to you. Doesn’t that sound nice?” Twilight nodded slowly. “Here,” Dr. H said, handing me a huge book that she must have been holding in her saddlebag. I glanced at the cover. “’A Beginners Guide to Basic Magical Theory?’” I said aloud. “It was one of Twilight’s favorites the last time she was here. Go on, read it to her.” I shrugged, then took the book and sat on the bed next to Twilight. “Foreword by Dr. Abra C. Dabera. Many ponies think that magical theory is…” Twenty long minutes later, I was on the verge of falling asleep. If somepony had told me a week ago that I would get sick of the sound of my own voice, I would have laughed at them. But, as it turns out, almost a half hour of hearing myself recite figures and equations would do that to me. Why couldn’t Dr. H have given me a Daring Do book to read? Luckily, after I accidently read the same line out loud twice, the doctor came to my rescue. “Okay, Twilight, Rainbow, our time is just about up for the day. Say goodbye to Rainbow, Twilight.” “Bye, Rainbow,” Twilight said, before adding “Mountains are blocking the sky.” “See you later, Twi. I’ll come visit again as soon as I’m able,” I said as Dr. H and I walked out of the room. As soon as the door closed behind us, Dr. H turned to me and smiled as I handed the book back to her. “I think that was a good visit.” “You sure? She wasn’t making any sense, and I just spent most of the time reading to her.” “Yes, but you have to look on the bright side. She recognized you, and she was happy to see you. That’s a good sign.” “Okay,” I said, thinking. I was going to have to take the doctor’s word on this. Still, she was right. It was a much better visit than last time. “Right,” I said, pulling myself back to reality. “Do you have a moment? I have a few questions.” “Sure thing,” Dr. H said softly, brushing a strand of her blue hair out of her eye. “I sort of noticed that she was mimicking my gestures there at the beginning. Was that normal?” “I hesitate to call it normal, but it is a symptom that Twilight has exhibited before, so it’s not completely unexpected.” “Got it. So… uh, just… how is she doing? I don’t really have a frame of reference for this, so could you kind of bottom line it for me?” Dr. H bit her lip. “Honestly, it may take a few days for us to get a more accurate feel for how things are proceeding.” I tilted my head to the side. “Really? Why?” “She is most likely still suffering some of the effects of the withdrawal from the previous, full strength dosage of her meds. That alone makes it hard to judge her progress.” “I see. So once the withdrawal goes away, she should start improving?” I asked, hopefully. “If everything goes according to plan, yes. But like I said, for the moment the withdrawal symptoms are mixing with her actual symptoms.” “And that makes everything seem worse. I think I get it. But still, next time, couldn’t we get a better book to read? That one that I was reading in there was sort of…dull.” Dr. H laughed. “I think so too, but the staff and I really think that Twilight would be more comfortable with something so familiar. By the time she left after her last stay, she could almost recite some of the earlier sections of the book by memory. And let me tell you, the title doesn’t do that book any justice. Despite it being a ‘beginner’s guide,’ it covers the full spectrum of magical theory,” she said as she wedged the book back into her saddlebag. “Still, couldn’t I bring a Daring Do book next time or something?” “No,” Dr. H said bluntly. “At this point, what Twilight needs is stability, not excitement. And an old familiar book of proven equations and concrete figures is as stable as it gets for Twilight.” “Okay, I get your point. Just, keep me posted when you do think I could read some Daring Do to her. We both love that series. In fact, she’s the one that got me into it.” The doctor’s frown morphed into a smile. “I’ll do that. Now then, if you’ll excuse me, I need to do my rounds. Have a good day, Rainbow.” “I’ll see you next time, if we don’t run into each other while I’m cleaning,” I said, waving over my shoulder as the doctor and I went our separate ways. I still had a bit of time before my janitor shift started, so I started to head back to the reception area. Maybe I could set up an appointment for the weekend. Or… I frowned. Did the hospital even have visiting hours on the weekend? Oh, well, only one way to find out. “I’m back, Izzy! Oh, hey Applejack! What are you doing still hanging around here?” I asked as I walked into the lobby. “I was waiting for you, Rainbow. I just finished making an appointment to see Twilight tomorrow, and I remembered I forgot to ask you something,” Applejack said, getting up from the chair she was sitting in. “You do still have a little bit of time before you gotta start cleaning, right?” I glanced at the clock above the receptionist desk. “I’ve got about half an hour. Why? What’s up?” “Well, tomorrow, Rarity and Lyra are gonna be heading to Canterlot for a while. The competition for that grant is starting next week, so they wanna be prepared. And Pinkie and Fluttershy pulled some strings so that they can come up and visit on Sunday and stay for a few days. And since the hospital doesn’t have normal visiting hours on Sunday, we were thinking that the six of us could just spend the day relaxing. You, uh, don’t have to work over the weekend, do you?” I shook my head. “No, I’ve been looking forwards to the weekend to get a break from all this. And I didn’t really have anything planned for Sunday, so… yeah. That sounds like a plan.” “Alrighty then, I’ll see you Sunday. And I’ll see Twilight tomorrow… say, you just visited her, right? How was she?” Applejack asked, lowering her voice, even though the only other pony in the room was Izzy. “She, uh… wasn’t making a lot of sense,” I admitted. “But she did seem happy to see me. I spent most of the time reading her a book.” “Huh. Well, hopefully she’ll be better tomorrow. Anyhow, I gotta get going. Don’t want to miss the bus,” Applejack said as she turned to leave. “Catch you later, AJ!” I called after her, before turning to Izzy. “All right, when’s the next open appointment for me?” “It looks like… maybe Monday?” Izzy said haltingly. I tilted my head in puzzlement. “Why the hesitation? And why not tomorrow or Saturday?” “Well, the thing is, the doctors want Twilight to get into a routine right now, and most of the rest of the day is filled up so she really only has time for one visit a day. And the next two days have already been booked,” Izzy explained, looking sorry. “So, Applejack is taking tomorrow, but what about Saturday?” “Her parents are coming that day.” “Ohhh. That makes sense.” “Yeah, they were apparently on vacation, but they cut that short.” “Well, darn. Monday before work it is, then.” Izzy grinned at me. “I’ll put it on the books.” “All right,” I said, “I should get going. I need to meet up with Clean Shine. See you later, Izzy!” “Later Rainbow,” Izzy called after me as I made my way to the janitor’s lounge. Hopefully today and tomorrow would go by quick. I was really looking forwards to the weekend.