Dear Journal

by Not

A Head Trip Ahead

She walked back in with the food, and we talked a while while we ate. It had gotten dark while we sat there. Apparently I had spent the whole middle of the day out cold. It was about then that she pointed out that it was almost 10. I might not be tired because I had slept throughout the middle of the day, but we were going to Canterlot the next day, so I'd have to try my hardest to rest anyway.

We were dating, but it was still a tough call to make. Should she spend the night? We hadn't been dating very long, but it was only one night, and we were taking a train together rather early the following morning, but I didn't want anypony in town to think poorly of us as a couple for spending the night together after so little time. I would be fine with it, and I'd even let her take my room and I could sleep on the couch, or would that be worse? This wasn't an area that I had a lot of experience in. I know that in some of the places that I had lived it was normal behavior, but in many it was unacceptable to even be alone together until we were married. Which one was Ponyville? The other big issue with it was that if I didn't let her stay then I was kicking her out of my house to walk home in the night after she spent the whole day taking care of me. Was I over thinking this?

Then I didn't have to decide.

"The doctor said I should stay over night just in case. No passing out again, okay?"

I smiled and nodded. "Okay. But only on one condition."

She raised one eyebrow and tilted her head the left. "What's that?"

My smile turned mischievous. "This." I kissed her. "Goodnight."

Pinkie giggled and tackled me back onto my bed. She nuzzled my neck and kissed me back. "Best night."

She just stayed there next to me when she fell asleep. I used my horn to move the extra blanket I keep at the foot of my bed over her. She was so cute, beautiful, and kind. I ran my hoof through her mane as I got ready to try to sleep. This situation was almost ideal in my mind. The only issue I had was that there would be no way that I could actually sleep right now. I'd do something I'd done only a few times before, but it usually worked. I closed my eyes and started imagining things.

It was kind of like sleep, but you wake up every twenty minutes, or an hour, or ten seconds. There was never a way of telling how long it was. It usually left me a bit groggy. I'd still be better off than I would be staying up all night though. Time passed quickly, but slowly. You kind of lose your concept of time when you're doing this, well at least I do. Whatever. The sun had barely risen when I decided to get up.

I kissed her forehead and smiled before going downstairs. I know I've used the word a bit too much already, but to me it was still true. She looked perfect. It was hard getting myself to leave that room, but I somehow managed. I took a quick shower before I went downstairs.

A while later she walked into the kitchen to the smells of everything that I had made. Guacamole, pancakes, oatmeal with cinnamon and honey and marshmallows, and four kinds of muffins. I turned to face her, smiling. "Did you sleep well?"

She yawned. "Yeah. Did you make all this?"

I feigned shock. "Pinkie Pie, tired? That's impossible!" I let out a little laugh. "Yes. I made breakfast for us." The oven dinged, and I took the last item I had prepared, and set it out to cool.

Her eyes grew wide. "Is that what I think it is?"

I smiled, not letting my eyes meet hers. "Maybe." I pulled the covering off of the dish, and turned to look her in the eyes. "Did you think it was chocolate fudge?"

She took a few steps closer to me. "No, because it's coffee fudge." She inhaled deeply through her nose. "Wait, it's mocha. Chocolate with coffee and a little bit of vanilla."

I raised my front hooves into the air. "Correct! You win the first bite!" I removed a corner of the still cooling fudge with a spoon. "Wait for it to cool though."

She was staring at it greedily. "What?! But it smells so good! I want it now! Can't I just have it now? I'll be fine. Give it to me now. Give it. Give it. Give it." She was hopping in circles around me as I rolled my eyes and moved the spoon away from her. "Give it, give it, give it give it give it giveitgiveitgiveitGIVEITGIVEIT!" At that point she tripped on her own tail while trying to dive for it.

I managed to catch her, and still keep the fudge on the spoon. "It should be cool enough now." I moved the fudge to her lips.

She greedily wrapped her mouth around the spoon cleaning the spoon off in a fraction of a second. "Mmm. Chocolate, coffee, and vanilla."

She was silly. It was great. "Now, do you want oatmeal, pancakes, or muffins? I'm saving the guacamole for later."

"So... I can't have guacamole pancakes?"

I gave her a knowing smile and pressed my nose to hers. "No. You can put syrup on muffins, though."

"Aw..." Her ears when flat against her head, and her hair sank a bit, but then she smiled again, and bounced right back up to normal. I still think she has magic hair.

I don't remember the rest of breakfast other than that I needed to shower afterwards. Then we made our way to the train station.

She turned to me concerned. "You're sure that you're ready?"

I had a sad smile, but it was still strong. "Yes. I have to know if they're okay."

She grabbed my hoof. "Let's go."

The train ride was... well it was a train ride. It was a bit bumpy, and it took a while to get there. We ate the remaining muffins while we traveled. We got off, and I led the way to my parents' house. Deliberately going a few blocks out of the way when I lost my nerve, but continuing on when Pinkie helped me find my nerve again. This was hard to do.

I turned to Pinkie. "I don't know what to do."

She tilted her head cutely. "What do you mean?"

"What if they're really sick and I'm not allowed in to see them?"

"Then we'll wait until we can"

That didn't help me. "What if they've got gross stuff coming out of their faces?!?"

She rolled her eyes at me. "Then we won't touch it."

"What if--!"

She cut me off and hugged me. "We'll get to what if when we get there. I learned a long time ago that worrying about stuff you can't change isn't worth it." Then she broke the hug, but still held my hooves. "Let's just go."

She knew what to say to get me there, but I don't think she could have prepared me for what was inside.
When we got to the house it was sealed in a big plastic tent, and the doctor was at the door.

Pinkie held my hoof, and pressed her shoulder to mine. "It's okay."

She was right, and I knew it, but I was nervous. The doctor knew I was coming, and came toward us smiling with a hazmat suits, and wearing one of his own. "Sali! I've been expecting you. You'll need to put one of these on to go inside. It might be contagious." He held up a special suit with one hoof. "I'll have to grab another. I didn't know you'd be bringing a friend."

I laughed. "Yeah. You do remember me asking you not to call me that?"

"Oh, yes, not in front of others, I forgot." He hurried off to a nearby medical tent.

"Hey!" Pinkie noted. "He didn't even say hi to me." She put on a cute scrunched pouty face that would have made me laugh any other day.

"He's not always good with social interactions. He's a good doctor. Can you forgive him?"

"I guess... it really hurts his bedside manner, though."

He came back from the small tent with another suit. "I'll keep that in mind. Let's go in!" He offered the suit to Pinkie. "I am Dr. Copper. What's your name?" He asked, putting the helmet on his suit.

"I'm Pinkie Pie."

"I've heard that name... it was a few years back, and it was after the royal wedding..." I was amazed that he didn't recognize her. She was quite famous. I was sure that he would remember eventually. "You beat my nephew in a pie eating contest!" Eventually he did. "Oh, and helped save Equestria, right?"

She nodded yes happily as she finished putting her suit on. "I'm glad somepony remembers that eating contest."
I stopped them there. "Can we go inside? I'm rather worried about my parents right now."

The Dr. smiled. "Of course." He held open a flap to a small entrance way, and closed it behind us.

I opened the door, and walked in to find... both my parents sitting on the couch reading. "Mom? Dad?"

They smiled, and responded at the same time. "Salieri!"

As they got up to hug me the doctor spoke. "I swear they were horribly ill just yesterday..."

They hugged me together amidst utterances of "we missed you." and, "Write us more often!" Until they noticed Pinkie.

My father spoke first. "I know you! You're the mare that won the pie eating contest a few years back!" He remembers the strangest things, and didn't pay much attention to news or pop-culture.

I was stunned. "Um... well not what I was expecting. Uh... this is my marefriend." I said hugging Pinkie with one foreleg. "Well... I don't know if we made it official or anything but-"

She cut me off. "I'm so glad to see that you're doing well! I felt awful when I heard that you were feeling awful."

My father tapped a hoof on his chin for a moment, looking at the two of us, then his eyes opened with realization. "I know you! You're Pinkie Pie! I was in the third row for your big cupcake competition! It was amazing."

My left hoof became quickly planted upon my face. Yes. He didn't remember the whole saving Equestria more than once, but THAT he remembered.

Yet for her it was an achievement she was much more proud of. "There's no WAY any of those chumps were gonna eat more confetti cake cupcakes than Pinkie Pie." She nodded confidently to punctuate her point, and her signature smile spread across her face.

"Thank you for giving my son a chance." My mother stated with about a half ounce of tact.

I rolled my eyes. "Mom, she's the one that asked ME out."

"Really? Well that's new. How did that happen?" She seemed genuinely interested.

Pinkie smiled big and simply stated, "Coloring books."

Mom was confused. "Coloring books?"

We looked at each other and smiled, then turned in unison, and nodded. "Coloring books and a party."

Then we related the details happily (I don't feel I need to write it down if it's already in here.)

I remembered something, then. "Where are my old coloring books?"

"Still in your bedroom closet." Mom recalled.

"Want to go grab them, Pinkie?"

Dad cut in at that point. "Inviting a girl to your bedroom so soon, and in front of your parents no less? How forward!" He jested.

I couldn't help but smile as my hoof planted itself on my face. "You know very well that my bed is too small for that."

I smiled more when Pinkie added, "The suits don't help either. We could try, but I don't think we'd get too far."

We all paused a moment to imagine that, then broke out laughing.

When the laughing subsided the doctor spoke up. "In seriousness I'd still like to keep you two under a forty-eight observation. If everything's good I'll lift the quarantine."

My father responded, "Fine, fine. Two more days of rest."

My mother preferred lighter topics. "How about a tour of the house?"

Pinkie somehow managed to put a blindfold on before answering. "Start at the top, and work our way down!"

I giggled, and grabbed her hoof to lead the way. As agreed we started at the top, and I nudged her to undo the blindfold. I still have no idea how she put that on with the hazmat suit on. "This is the very top, the roof patio. Normally there's a good view, but today we have some tarp in the way." It was just the two of us on the tour since I grew up here, and mom wanted us to be alone together.

"Wow! I've never been on a roof patio before!"

I raised an eyebrow confused. "Doesn't Twilight have one?"

Pinkie shook her head and giggled. "Trees don't have roofs silly."

I just shrugged. "I guess you have a point."

She licked my cheek, and started bouncing around me. "Next room! Next room!"

I just smiled and led the way. "Next room, attic. Storage space, quiet place, and dust factory." I said leading the way into our rather sizable attic. ...We might have played hide & seek for a little while after that. Next was, "The guest room. Queen sized bed, and lots of white." The room had white walls, ceiling, carpet, blankets, lights, and drapes.

Pinkie tilted her head back and voiced her opinion. "Booooring."

She always made me smile. "Next room?"

"Next room!" She said hopping back out to the corridor.

Next was my old bedroom. I sauntered in and sat on the big three-pony beanbag-chair. "My room."

There was a race-car bed, a big bean bag chair with myself and Pinkie on it, two small beanbag chairs, Blue walls with glow in the dark stars on them, a small book case that was half comics, a small bedside table with rocket-ship lamp, shag carpeting the color of the night sky, a small TV with two old consoles plugged into it, and a near black ceiling with disco ball. My room was awesome.

The closet had way more cool stuff in it too. Coloring books, water color paints, five squirt guns, eight different board games, a box of trading cards (assorted), a Batmane sleeping bag, a Mare-do-well sleeping bag, lots of costumes, a few nice suits, a cello, four violins, a ukulele, more comic books, brandless snap together building blocks, two toy laser swords, and a mare in the moon poster. There were also some little odds and ends that I can't remember.

Needless to say, Pinkie loved it. After half an hour of playing with all the toys, and a few rounds of kart racer, we moved on. Next was my parent's room, (standard married bedroom) the master bathroom, (unremarkable baby blue and white bathroom with jacuzzi-tub) the guest bathroom, (yellow tile, white upper wall/ceiling, normal fixtures) and the hall closet (linen, cleaning supplies, misc.)

That finished the upstairs, so we went back down to my parents in the living room with the doctor.

We walked in on my father telling what was apparently a really bad joke.

"...So I said, 'we don't pander to ANY bears!'" My father laughed at least...

My mother noticed us and made a better joke. "Look who finally came back! My tours never take this long. I wonder what you two were doing up there."

Pinkie chimed in happily. "Hide N' Seek and video games."

I smiled braggingly. "My tours are way cooler than yours."

Author's Note:

So... I was working on this, then forgot about it for a while, and now I'm putting up what I have done of this chapter for people to read because I'm going to boot camp tomorrow. I won't be able to add a single thing to this for about thirteen weeks, and then I'll only have ten days of freedom (potentially forty, but probably ten) before I will go to rifle training. I don't know how long off I'll have after that, but then I'll either wait a while, and be able to do things, or I'll just go to intel school, and work on this when I can, or forget about it completely.

See you space cowboy.

*Uptate!* I survived boot camp, but it took three weeks longer than expected. Tonight's update was entirely written at boot camp.