Welcome Home
When Nurse Sweetheart unlocked the door to her house, it was Sweet Dreams who entered once again. After long shifts at the hospital, she knew that she needed to shed the nurse's name that all ponies in her position took up when they became officiated. Of all the ponies that she worked with, Sweet Dreams only knew the real names of two of the other nurses. She knew that Nurse Coldheart's true and honest name was Cold Light and that Nurse Redheart was Red Admiral. However, the latter was so enmeshed with her work that it took running into Red and her parents at a Summer Harvest Festival one year for Sweet Dreams to learn her coworker's name. Dr. Stable had even heard Red give her true name as Redheart before —one could only believe that the mare probably thought herself inseparable from her name.
Sweet Dreams couldn't do that, though. Even if nurses weren't encouraged to separate from their professional lives outside of the hospital walls, Sweet knew that she would have to do it anyway. She was one of the most awarded nurses in the hospital, constantly being praised for her bedside manner. When patients with disabilities or young foals were brought to the hospital, it was always Nurse Sweetheart who was on call to live up to her name. Though she had no foals of her own, she was more experienced than most at dealing with Ponyville's most fragile patients.
A blanket of cold air awaited Sweet Dreams when she stepped inside and shut the door behind her. She frowned. While the fall evening outside was hardly even nippy, she hated to not keep the cottage comfortable. That didn't mean that she could leave the fireplace lit unsupervised, though. Most ponies kept a stack of firewood in their cottages for immediate access during less favorable weather, but Sweet Dreams always kept her stack outside. She had everything delivered by cart to her home too, since she would never risk an ax in the house. Whenever she went to work, she was always careful to lock the fireplace poker, related instruments, and their case inside the cellar. The key to the cellar was hung on a string that she kept tucked and pinned to the underside of her hat.
Before she set about making herself comfortable, Sweet Dreams reached out a forehoof and fumbled for the light switch. One clicking sound later and the illumination crystals on the ground floor sparked to life. Only then did Sweet Dreams slip off her hat, withdraw the key, and let it sit around her neck before hanging her hat upon a hook next to the door. One other pair of saddlebags hung there, along with two scarves, two winter saddles, and two pairs of boots.
Next, Sweet Dreams exited the mudroom and entered her kitchen, which was now perfectly lit. She grunted as she slipped the saddlebag of firewood off of her back and heaved a few logs into the waiting woodstove, which she promptly lit with a nearby tinderbox. After rummaging through her cupboards, she finally produced her kettle, filled it up with water, and set it to boil. While she hummed an old Bridleway tune to herself, Sweet Dreams found two clean mugs and two chamomile teabags to match. Upon seeing that somepony hadn't done the dishes that were sitting in the old half-barrel sink, Sweet Dreams tutted.
Her humming caught in her throat and immediately died when she saw what lay next to the sink. A tall glass bottle of cough syrup and a measuring cup sat untouched. Right next to the shining brown glass was a brass pillbox. There was no indication that it had been moved from where she had set it out that morning.
Her heart hammered in her ears as Sweet Dreams threw herself to the corner of the kitchen where they sat. The motion of her hooves was so unsteady and hurried that she nearly knocked the little box to the floor as she scrambled to open it. As soon as the pillbox was pried open, the smell of cold metal flooded Sweet Dreams' nostrils.
Three aripiprazole pills rattled around inside, sterile and pristine under the light of the illumination crystal.
"No, no, no, no," Sweet Dreams whispered. Her voice shook with each repetition now that her worst fears were confirmed.
The lid to the pill box was immediately slammed shut and Sweet Dreams refused to waste any seconds as she knocked the box into the saddlebags she hadn't had the time to take off. Shaky hooves fumbled with the knobs on the sink that were built primarily to be used by equine mouths and she thrust a clean pitcher under the cold spray of water. When enough for roughly a glass and a half had filled up the pitcher, she pulled it away from the water and rushed out of the kitchen without even turning the faucet off. She couldn't delay herself anymore, and tea would have to wait.
With the pitcher's handle gripped firmly in her mouth, Sweet Dreams was prepared to make a mad dash through the corridors of her cottage home. Did she have to poise her head awkwardly to do so? Absolutely. But that wouldn't stop Sweet Dreams from doing anything necessary to provide care.
The walls of her home were decorated in a way that absolutely clashed with the urgency of her canter. Spare books that didn't meet the hospital's donation needs rested on shelves covered with doilies and crammed with photo albums. Framed antique wedding bands hung below wall-mounted oil paintings of family. Yellowed newspaper clippings from Ponyville's sporting history bore the slightest trace of dust behind aged trophies. Vintage advertisement posters for Barnyard Bargains dwarfed a crowded chore board for two.
At the back of the one-story, thatched-roof cottage was a window with a door on either side. The door to the right led to the bathtub, where a washbasin also waited. The door to the left was where Sweet Dreams wanted to go, and it was opened just enough for a hoof to easily swing the door open. Which was how she always left it each time she went to work. She never wanted their home to feel like a psychiatric hospital, with their locked doors and cold rooms. That was the last thing that she needed.
Emergencies called for drastic measures. That meant that Sweet Dreams couldn't wince or cease her blundering pace when she approached the door. Instead, she butted it open with her withers like a hoofball player charging for a tackle. The sound of the door slamming against the wall was immediately followed by a hoarse whimper, but it wasn't from Sweet Dreams. She was too busy rushing to the nightstand on the nearest bed, where she deposited the water and pill box atop a clean doily. Only then did she allow herself to inhale sharply — which she immediately regretted. Somepony hadn't left their room all day — not even to use the outhouse just outside the door leading out of the kitchen — and the whole room suffered for it. Immediately, Sweet Dreams shifted to breathing out of her mouth and ignored the scattering of used tissues that she felt under her hooves. She was the last pony in Equestria who would judge the sick.
And she certainly wasn't about to let anypony take their medicine in the dark. Sweet Dreams did a practiced, half-hopping gait over to her side of the room, where her own twin bed rested. At the foot of her bed — which was neatly made, with its quilts pulled back and waiting — was a dated wooden sewing table crowded with drawers, though scissors, needles, and any manner of unsafe things were all stored in the cellar with the fire poker. Right next to it were the shutters of the window, with a basket of quilting supplies piled messily inside. Even though Sweet Dreams stubbed her hoof on the wicker basket as she moved, she refused to let out more than a hiss before she flung open the window's shutters.
At last, the first light of sunset poured in, and the stench of sickness and an uncleaned chamber pot flooded out. With the room illuminated at last, Sweet Dreams assessed her situation quickly.
The occupied twin bed on the opposite side of the room was a mess of quilts. All the extra quilts that Sweet Dreams had piled high this morning were dislodged from their occupant tossing and turning. A bookshelf at the foot of the bed was filled with puzzles, fidget toys, safe craft supplies, beauty kits, and a much-loved plush frog that Sweet Dreams had tenderly patched over the years. A modest collection of hats rested on top of the bookcase and were evidently disturbed by Sweet Dreams' sudden intrusion. Where most young mares were on the cusp of outgrowing their Sapphire Shores posters, a collection of flea market picture frames hanging on the wall boasted an impressive collection of baseball cards.
"Screwball!" Sweet Dreams called urgently, with concern flooding her voice. Her whole body was still trembling with the rush of protective instincts when she approached the bed, gently resting her forehoof on the lump under the quilts. "Screwball, you need to wake up! Oh honey, I felt such a chill I could've sworn the windigos were back when I saw your meds! You need to take them!"
"Uhh?" groaned the lump quizzically. Sweet Dreams felt a pitiful attempt at a squirm under the quilts.
"Now!" urged Sweet Dreams. "I know you're sick, but you can't skip a dose!"
There was another feeble attempt at movement under the blankets. A weak whimper followed.
"Screwball, honey?" Sweet Dreams murmured. She was feeling more frightful than if a herd of timberwolves were after her. "Is something wrong?"
When Sweet Dreams only received a few creaky, intense, painful-sounding sobs as a response, she knew she had to act fast. She grabbed the quilts in the corner of her mouth and tugged them open, dreading what she might see.
In the light of the setting sun, Sweet Dreams was finally able to get a good look at her younger sister. Screwball was curled into a fetal position, shaking weakly. Her normally buoyant purple and white curls were a matted mess from troubled sleep and the sweat of fever, and her tail wasn't faring any better. In fact, Sweet Dreams spotted evidence that it may have been used to wipe her muzzle at some point. Even though Screwball had brought her forehooves to her face and was holding them over her eyes and muzzle; despite this, there was no concealing her wicked, phelgmy coughing cries.
"Sweet Celestia," gasped Sweet Dreams. "Honey, do you need to go to the hospital?"
Before Sweet Dreams had become Screwball's full-time carer and guardian on top of her career, their parents always had the worst way of asking Screwball if something was wrong.
'Are you having an episode?' was what they would usually say.
Sweet Dreams knew that they usually meant well, but years of that kind of treatment had obviously left emotional scars on poor Screwball. Even worse was when they would ask Sweet Dreams if Screwball was having an episode — that's how they always phrased it — when the latter was in the room. Being old-fashioned wasn't an excuse to alienate her little sister more than she was already by those who didn't understand her or her conditions. Besides, depending on what was flaring up, Screwball wasn't in any shape to answer complex questions. If it was her autism, it didn't matter how high-functioning she was — their parents didn't understand that Screwball could still lapse into being non-verbal. When it was her schizophrenia, it meant that Screwball didn't always know what could be happening.
That was why Sweet Dreams always preferred to ask if her sister needed to go to the hospital. No matter what was flaring up, Screwball always had definite ways to express when she was scared, in pain, or missing her medication. Simple questions like that yielded effective answers, which made it much easier to assess whether a trip to Ponyville General was necessary. While the rural facility didn't have the kind of robust psychiatric resources that were ideal for somepony like Screwball, they had enough to handle a few ponies at a time, and vital resources like emergency supplies of medications to stabilize Screwball. Even if Ponyville General were less of a welcoming place, it wouldn't change that two very important things distinguished it from how their parents handled Screwball.
First and foremost, it was nothing like the hospitals that Screwball was sent to as a foal. Despite how much older she was than Screwball, there had never been a time when Sweet Dreams felt more helpless than seeing how her sister was treated as a foal. Second, Ponyville General had an understanding with Sweet Dreams — who never left Screwball's side during hospital visits. Pinkie Pie was allowed to visit even though she wasn't technically a relative because her antics could sometimes help Screwball when other ponies couldn't. Derpy Hooves was allowed to be an emergency contact despite having no relation because Sweet Dreams trusted the gentle mailmare the most to check in on her little sister during her delivery route whenever Sweet Dreams was at work. They never took Screwball's propeller hat away because Sweet Dreams knew that it was her sister's favorite thing to stim with. And nopony there thought about parting Screwball from her beloved plush froggie either.
(His name was Ribbert. Sweet Dreams always remembered.)
"N-no," Screwball rasped after what felt like an eternity.
Sweet Dreams dared to glance at the clock ticking away on Screwball's nightstand. Only a few seconds had passed. Adrenaline was messing with her head to the point she was beginning to feel a hint of dizziness tinge at her mother bear emotions.
"Honey," Sweet Dreams pleaded, "you have to take your meds now. We can talk about whatever is bothering you after you take them."
Sweet Dreams gently helped Screwball up. As she did, she held Screwball's forehooves in her own and caught the first sight of her sister's face she had seen all day — leaving for work early meant that she was only able to give her sister a quick hug after taking her temperature and setting out medicine for her. Screwball's purple eyes were red, damp, and weary. She had to have been bawling her eyes out for some time to look so severely unkempt.
She did her best to pour how much the sight hurt her into helping Screwball take her medicine. Sweet Dreams individually emptied each pill onto Screwball's tongue and helped her steady the water pitcher that she drank straight out of.
"Better?" Sweet Dreams asked, lightly stroking Screwball's mane.
"Dunno," whimpered Screwball.
"Did you get any sleep while I was at work?"
"Little bit," mumbled Screwball tiredly.
Sweet Dreams frowned thoughtfully. Screwball almost always slept more than a cat when she was ill. Perhaps this could give her a clue as to why Screwball was so upset.
"Did you have nightmares again?" Sweet Dreams lowered her voice to a whisper. "About when Ponyville was made, ah, all... topsy-turvy?"
Saying the name of the culprit only terrified Screwball as much as the nightmares. The whole ordeal had been a living Tartarus for Sweet Dreams too —she had spent hours trying to scramble into a floating, wrecked cottage screaming her sister's name, only to find it empty. When she finally recovered Screwball, she had her worst psychotic break in years and had to recover at a hospital in Canterlot. Sweet Dreams had to take sick leave for weeks afterward just to care for Screwball, and that was when the nightmares about Discord started.
"Sorta," rasped Screwball, who had begun to fidget with her hooves.
For Sweet Dreams, this was a good enough sign to give Screwball Ribbert, who was immediately hugged to her sister's chest in the embrace of grateful forelegs.
"Can you tell me what you mean?" Sweet Dreams prompted gently.
"Mhm," Screwball mumbled into the fabric of the plushie. "It was about somepony I saw then."
As soon as Screwball's strained words were spoken, Sweet Dreams paused carefully. Had this happened before? Screwball hadn't ever been too specific about what — or who — she had seen when Discord had used his magic on her. All that Sweet Dreams could think to do was turn towards her sister and look at her imploringly.
"What do you mean, honey?"
Screwball squeezed Ribbert tighter. "Why does she look like me?"
Before Sweet Dreams could begin to unravel the situation further, the whistle of a tea kettle caught her off-guard.
"Oh ponyfeathers," Sweet Dreams hissed. "Meet me in the parlor. We'll talk about this there." Just before she was about to dash out of their bedroom, Sweet Dreams looked over her withers. "And remind me to get you a new box of tissues!"
...
Screwball sat on the cushy rug spread out on the floor of the modest living room. When Sweet Dreams returned with the tray of chamomile tea, she was about to suggest that Screwball move to their worn couch. Despite its age, it was wonderfully soft and big enough for two ponies. However, Screwball looked quite at home on the floor, all wrapped in multiple homemade quilts, and happily nudging Ribbert along the surface of their round coffee table. One of the best things about Screwball was the simple joys that she found in things — whether it was playing with her coveted frog friend at nearly twenty-two or info-dumping about baseball.
Sweet Dreams set the tea tray down with a satisfied hum. Next to a paisley-patterned mug was the bottle of cough syrup and its respective measuring cup.
"Please take that," Sweet Dreams said, pointing to the medicine. "I'll be right back."
Screwball didn't look at Sweet Dreams — which was something that the latter was used to — but nodded in quiet understanding. Sweet Dreams hesitated to round the corner and head back into the hallway until she saw Screwball reach for the medicine.
"Careful!" Sweet Dreams called back. "The tea is still hot!"
When Sweet Dreams returned to the parlor, she carried a large scrapbook gingerly in her teeth. A tissue box was balanced atop it, which was swiftly passed to Screwball as soon as Sweet Dreams seated herself on the couch. She enjoyed the feeling of a plush pillow against her back, having finally gotten the chance to slip off her saddlebags.
Sweet Dreams opened the album in a single perfect motion so that when the cover came to rest against the table, it didn't make a sound. She had years of experience handling books in the hospital — either reading stories to foals or to patients too frail to handle them on their own. After flipping a few deckled pages, she pointed to an aged photograph.
"Is this the pony that you saw in your dreams?"
Screwball stared at the picture without blinking, her expression somewhere between unreadable and solemn.
"Do you want to tell me who she is?" asked Sweet Dreams.
"Diamond Dazzle Tiara," said Screwball, carefully reciting each syllable. She never looked away from the picture of the swaddled infant. The colors in it faded slightly since there were no preservation enchantments on them, but the identity of the filly so carefully wrapped in lacy pink blankets was unmistakable.
"That's right," replied Sweet Dreams. She carefully watched as Screwball poured herself a cup of cold medicine. "Was Diamond Tiara mean to you in your nightmares?" she asked when she was certain that her little sister had finished the last drop.
Screwball shook her head in a clear 'no' and used Ribbert's front legs to point to the signature at the bottom of the lavish birth announcement. "Were you there?"
Sweet Dreams let out a heavy sigh and let her gaze fall to the floor. Screwball may be the one with the flu and a fever, yet Sweet Dreams felt as though somepony had sat on her chest. Such was the weight of old sorrows. "I'm afraid that I wasn't invited. Rich was lucky that he was able to hoof-write and mail me a card behind his damned wife's back."
"Damned," echoed Screwball, staring intently at her sister. She squished Ribbert to her chest as she pronounced the forbidden word.
Sweet Dreams tsked. It was rare for her to even approach the intensity of 'darned' or 'peeved' in general, so the words were like magic to Screwball.
"Language," she chided.
"Fine," pouted Screwball.
A long silence fell between the two sisters, broken only by the ticking of the clock and the sound of an autumn wind rushing down the unlit fireplace. The whole house felt remarkably frozen despite this. Sweet Dreams could almost believe that she was caught in a painting due to the sudden stillness.
"Why do they hate us?" Screwball asked eventually. She cradled Ribbert forlornly, looking to Sweet Dreams expectantly.
The first thing that Sweet Dreams did was sigh. Next, she flipped forward a few pages. This was a story that needed to be told at last, and more clearly than any of the measly hints that their parents had dropped for Screwball over the years. Not only was it unfair to her to be surrounded by almost total silence on the issue, but it also was an utterly impenetrable style of communication to poor Screwball.
"Who is this?" she asked. Her hoof lightly tapped the pocket, so as not to damage anything. The contents were an aged sephia image that was utterly irreplaceable — and from an age when photographs of any kind were rare.
Screwball looked expressionlessly at the lanky stallion in the photograph. "Stinkin' Rich," she said flatly.
Sweet Dreams nodded and moved her forehoof to another picture on the opposite page. This one was equally old, but there were a few stripes in the mane of Stinkin' Rich which hadn't been in the last picture — the kind that only age could grant. Next to him was a mare who was just on the cusp of middle age, while Stinkin' Rich had clearly entered the upper years of that particular stage of his life. The mare wore a big smile that stretched tighter than the face of a drum like she wasn't quite sure how photographs worked and that she decided she was the luckiest mare in the world at that same moment. Such was the obvious earnesty of it — the camera had caught her looking right up at the stallion who wrapped his foreleg around her. The whole picture may have been posed but there was an undeniable tenderness to the couple.
"Now, who is this?"
"Dream Chaser," Screwball said.
"That's right," said Sweet Dreams. "She came all the way from the Vanhoover marshlands to meet him. They courted over letters, which was a lot harder to do back then. She was also the first pony in the family to go to college. Do you see her brooch there? That's from the sorority she was in, which was for business majors. She passed down all the trade secrets to her grandson."
Screwball peered at the daguerreotype and propped Ribbert up so that he could look too. "Where is he?"
Sweet Dreams chuckled. "Rich wasn't born yet, silly!"
Now, Screwball's eyebrows knitted together faintly. "Okay, but they're all old."
The weight on Sweet Dreams' chest eased somewhat and she made a matronly clucking noise with her tongue. "He's not that old. Look here." She pointed to a foal in front of the couple. "Who is this?"
She watched as Screwball's eyes widened faintly. There was no color to the colt standing in front of his parents, and not even a cutie mark, but Sweet Dreams was happy to see the dawning recognition.
"Grandpa!"
"Uh-huh," replied Sweet Dreams with a nod and a smile. "Berry Rich was one of the first foals to be born in Ponyville. He was one of the first foals to be able to attend classes in the schoolhouse too, since that's when it was new. There weren't many foals among the first settler ponies — the families who were granted land here first couldn't hire a teacher, so they homeschooled for a while. His parents were so proud of him and his siblings that they sent them off to business schools in Manehattan. Do you know what happened there?"
Screwball answered by flipping one page, then another, and a few more after that. When she finally found a photo that satisfied her, she pointed at it with her forehoof.
"That's what happened," she rasped.
To see which photograph was being pointed at, Sweet Dreams had to scoot the album closer to herself. She hadn't looked at this album in some time — family troubles weren't things that she liked to discuss, and there were some painful memories in these old keepsakes. Memories of loss, and what could have been.
This particular photo was not yet in color, but it depicted a wedding. Neither pony's cutie mark was visible, but Berry Rich looked much more recognizable as an adult than as a little colt in an oversized bowtie. The mare in the photo had a thick mane pinned in a crown of braids on her head and only the ghost of a smile was visible from under her veil. Her dress was high-collared and almost austere compared to modern wedding dresses, and other than frills to the fabric and obvious features like a train, the only thing that really seemed to separate it from an old schoolmarm's dress was the pearl buttons.
"Ah, yes. You were too young to remember much, but Grandma's name was Purple Patch. Now, I'm sure you know what came after, don't you?"
"Stuff," Screwball said, her muzzle screwing up with concentration.
At that, Sweet Dreams had to laugh. "Yes. That's one way to put it." Unfortunately, she found that her laugh was only momentary, and turned a few more pages forward and sighed heavily. "Rich always told me that I was lucky to have such a swell name. He was my favorite cousin... until..."
"His... wife?"
Sweet Dreams nodded at the guess. "He already didn't get along with dad when he saw how mom was being treated... but unfortunately, Rich found somepony worse. She was always off but she really started to show her true colors after they got married." She stared sadly at the visage of two smiling ponies — a gap-toothed image of her younger self balanced on the back of a gangly preteen Filthy Rich. "By then, she started treating him like a seasonal fruit, one that she could bruise at will and only make accessible at certain times. When we tried to tell somepony what she was doing to him, nopony took us seriously — and when she found out, she cut us off. It's... been so long... now I have to pretend that I don't know him or his daughter, especially to stay professional at the hospital."
"Why doesn't he leave her?"
"Oh, Screwball, I wish I knew. He would have loved to meet you. But that wife of his... everypony knew she was a gold digger after a while. It just leaked out and around the town like a fog. She can't stand ponies like you. She believes all kind of nasty, untrue things about you — that you have 'unicorn diseases' and that you can't be around Diamond. That what you have is contagious."
Screwball buried her muzzle into Ribbert's head. "Can't we get them back?"
Sweet Dreams reached over to pull Screwball and Ribbert into the tightest of hugs. "Despite everything, one day I believe we will. And no matter what, we'll always be together. With Princess Celestia as my witness, I'll never leave you or let somepony like her near you. I love you, Screwball."
"I love you too, sis."