"Issac... me and him... it was always one sided..."

"The Instrument That Is The Mind... Summer what are you reading?" Summer glanced up from her book to look at Kylie, who was skimming her eyes over the titles of books that lined the tall bookshelf in the mare's room. 

"I'm expanding my interests."

"Your interests are becoming boring! Who told you to read this yucky sciencey stuff?" Summer rolled her eyes and turned back to the page of key potions chart of ingredients she had been examining. 

"You know, you might actually find some of these interesting if you just read the first page." Summer bypassed her question easily. There was no way she would tell Kylie anything about the second life she was basically living. I don't want Kylie to be any part of that facility and its experiments, no matter how easy they are on foals. 

"I mean I doubt it... As much as the mind's workings lure me, I'm interested in fairy tales. I relate to dragons on a spiritual level." Kylie fell down on her friends bed and stared at the ceiling while Summer hummed sarcastically.

"Right, and what about it is boring?" Summer said before spinning around in her chair and jumping out of it. She walked over to the bookshelf, took out the book that Kylie had looked at and opened the book cover to look at the chapter titles.

"Frontal Lobe: Emotional Handling and Distress... Temporal Lobe: Microscopic Memory Facts... Sounds like a detailed version of how to deal with other ponies."

"Yuck. Socialization." 

"Tell me about it." Summer put the book back and pulled out another. "Mental illnesses... maybe you wanna read about this?" Summer hovered the book over the other foals face with her magic and Kylie squeaked and grabbed it before Summer would drop it on her. 

She had done it before.

Kylie read over the description on the back. "Well... Ever since the Magic of Friendship Era when Twilight Sparkle became princess, ponies have aspired less and less to become doctors. Everyone's just solving their problems with their friends..."

"But there's still ponies out there that need a different kind of help." Summer finished. 

"There are ponies that can't make new friends because of illnesses like these."

"Maybe you should be a doctor?"

"Psh, as if I could do that! That seems to be where you're headed." Kylie said with a smirk. 

"Not surgical or a nurse you dimwit. Like a psychologist."

"You know what maybe! I guess it would be fun to know what people are thinking just by reading their movements and expressions..." She said, peeking over the books and glaring around. "It would be like having a super power!"

Summer flicked her horn with a hoof. "You already have powers. Baka." Kylie stuck her tongue out at the lavender mare before opening the book to the first page.

"I guess I'll give it a try. If I'm not interested after the first two pages though I'm not reading the rest." Summer returned to her wheelie chair and spun around once before stopping in front of her book again. 

"Suit yourself."

Kylie got through two chapters that day.

~o0o~

Ah, back to school. 

Summer leaves were just beginning to fall thanks to the first cool winds of autumn that brought along with it's chill the beginnings of the next school year. This year the two of them would be in 6th grade which was a year farther than Summer was supposed to be in. Kylie was actually older than the purple-haired mare and Summer had skipped a grade what with her fast learning and grade point average. Also her extensive liking to writing reports and reading. Kylie was more of an average student and Summer had no intention of skipping another grade, even if given the opportunity. She'd rather spend the agonizing time with someone she trusted rather than with a bunch of strangers that spread rumors like wildfire.

Mysterious.

Bully.

Hard to talk to.

Piss off, all of you.

Summer was visiting the facility again as she had for the past two weeks. She had become more keen on coming during lunch time in the backyard and talking with Rose's friends, bringing a snack herself to munch on while they talked.

Roses friends, consisting of Jake, Jet, and Issac, all boys. Blegh.

Jake, grey coat, blue and green mane and tail with curled spiky hair and blue and green double colored eyes. He's a smart mouth, rough and stupid but also playful and even charming at times. When Summer sees him he's usually play fighting with Issac or telling stories with the group. Like most of the other foals in the facility he is an orphan but he has no siblings. Without looking for and reading his chart, Summer learned that he was in an orphanage for five years before being brought to the corporation where he's been for the last year. He's the oldest of them all, not by much, at thirteen years old and Issac just four months younger.

Issac, light orange fur with straight blue hair, just a shade darker than baby blue, and blue eyes to match. Issac is bold and honorable though also silly and teasing. He's also very strong and just a bit taller than Jake though he was younger. When he wasn't fighting with Jake he was laying down, chatting, or working out doing wing push ups upside down. He's constantly working up to his family name, the Shields, and since he was an only child he had a lot on his shoulders. Though Summer guessed that he liked the work, it brought him attention that was very expecting while also respectful and highly appraised. Summer found him easy to talk to, snarky comment met with a snarky comment in return. He was good for bantering with.

Jetson, nicknamed Jet, had a Tobiano mixed orange and white coat with red and white striped hair and was the youngest of them all, though he had been at the corporation the longest. He was shy, clumsy, and stuttered enough to annoy Summer to no end. But while he was also sweet and smart, unfortunately he was also deathly paranoid, with a small dose of OCD to top it off. He had a personal nurse to help with his condition, checking his lunch bags, preparing his breakfast and dinner, handling his prescriptions and holding his hoof through his tests. Summer was surprised the corporation hadn't gotten rid of him yet, thinking he was more trouble than he was worth. He also clung to Summer at random, seeing something that other ponies couldn't and hiding his face in her mane. At first she would tug away after a few seconds but eventually after he seemed to not be able to let go she just let him do what he wanted.

Today was no different from any other, aside from Summer's lunch. Summer had told Kylie that she was interested in her father's work and went along with him out of curiosity and habit of routine and she had since gotten used to Summer's random leaving every other few days. Today though, Kylie made a lunch for Summer take with her, to make sure she didn't starve at "your father's yucky adult work office not for foals."

She arrived at the usual spot under the same tree where Rose already sat. Foals were still pouring out of the elevator doors and among them there had to be Jet and Jake. The rare amount of guests such as her and Issac would use the employee elevator, which Issac should've soon been coming from as well. 

Summer sat next to the red head and pulled her lunch box out of one of her lavender saddle bags and set it down in the cold grass. The sky was white, like the sky and the clouds had melded into one with the sun a light yellow circle poking through. Today was the first day of fall. Rose stuffed her muzzle inside her lunch bag and pulled out a blue berry muffin wrapped in serine wrap to start. 

"Hey," Summer started. Rose looked to her unabashed, squinting because of the pitch white sky so it was like she was glaring at the other mare. Summer knew she'd never get over the way those eyes startled her. "Why do you always eat the treat in your lunch first?" She asked. Rose had always taken out the dessert in her lunch before anything else. A cupcake, tart, piece of pie, always the treat first. 

Then something happened. Rose expressed confusion. It was the first real emotion Summer had seen from the other mare in all the time she'd been visiting her, and she could do nothing but stare. 

Eyes widened and slanted upwards with eyebrows slightly raised, mouth partially open as if about to say something. Then she looked towards the muffin in her hoof and stared at it, the confused expression melting away back into boredom, but it seemed a bit different than usual.

It was like Summer could feel her battling with herself. 

"I've never thought about of it," she said. She put the muffin down delicately, like it was a glass figurine and pulled out a hay flower sandwich from her lunch bag and began unwrapping the serine wrap. 

Just then Jake plopped his fat plot next to Summer and stole all attention she had been focusing on Rose. 

"What's up buttercup?" 

"What?"

"I said what's up?"

"Hopefully for you a heaven if you call me that one more time."

Jake faked a cower with both hooves over his heart and sniffled. "So mean... Just the way I like 'em!" Jake laughed off the terrible flirt at Summer as Jet came over and sat on the other side of Rose. 

"H-Hey guys..."

"Hey Jet."

"'Sup."

"S-Summer you b-brought your own l-lunch today?"

"Yeah, my friend made it for me." Summer opened her lunchbox and lifted out an egg and cheese sandwich with her magic. Summer hummed in suspicion. "She makes the weirdest sandwiches." She took a bite out of it anyway.

"Ooooh can I have a bite?" Jake said and leaned in close but was met with a orange hoof in the face that pushed him flat on his back in the grass. Summer let out a relieved breath and Issac stared down at the colt, unimpressed.

"Please don't harass mares in front of me."

"So I can do it when you're not here?"

"No." Issac and Summer said simultaneously. 

"Aww..." Summer continued with her lunch and Issac laid down on his stomach in the grass between Jet and Jake. 

"So your friend made that lunch for 'ya?"

Summer glanced at Jake from the corner of her eye cautiously. "Yeah..."

"Why've you never brought her around?"

Summer finished her sandwich and crumpled the wrapping loudly in a visibly brightening magenta magic. "Why do you care?" 

Jake seemed to not notice her tense mood. "You and Issac are the only two outside of this facility and he has no friends," he said pointing at Issac without looking at him.

"Hey!"

"My point is that if he had friends-"

"I will hurt you-"

"He would bring them here and introduce them to us."

"And why would he do that?"

Jake stared at her like she was the dumb one. "Because friends meet each others friends?" Friends meet friends? Was she and this group... friends? She looked around the other four others and found everyone looking at her. Jake looked to her hopefully, Issac expectantly, Rose intently, even Jet who could barely keep his eyes still for a few seconds. 

"I-" She glanced between the ponies quickly. "I just don't want her getting mixed up in secret stuff..."

"Secret stuff?" Jake asked.

"This facility, this corporation, I had never heard of it before my father had taken me here..."

"Wait... what?" Jakes hopeful face turned into surprise and confusion.

"What do you mean what?" 

"This corporation is... secret?" Summer raised a brow at him. 

"Yeah, of course. You think any normal pony outside this facility would be okay with people testing on foals in large quantities with some unknown, unapproved drug or substance nobody's ever heard of? Not to mention the stuff I haven't seen. I've only been to the first ten floors, there are like four-hundred elevator buttons-"

"W-W-Wait s-slow d-down S-Summer!" Summer startled at Jet's overly stuttering sentence and realized she had been rambling about probably very confidential stuff. She stared around at the others and found equal expressions of shock and confusion.

Her horn sparked. Her blood went cold. Her eyes widened and dilated as she used her magic to slam her lunchbox closed and shove it in her saddle bag without looking.

You messed up. They hate you now. They can't trust you. They can't take the fact that they're living a lie. 

She found herself backing up, vaguely heard Jake call her name, barely noticed Jet's mini panic attack and was suddenly galloping for the employee elevator. She pressed the button with her magic and skid into the open doors. She leaned her forehead on the elevator wall and breathed shakily, water falling onto the floor that she realized were actually her tears. She touched a hoof to her face and pulled it back wet. 

They'll never want to talk to you again. You kept something from them. You're not one of them.

She heard someone clamber into the elevator behind her and her back tensed in fear. No one can see you this weak. Go away, I'm sorry, I'm-

"Summer." It was Issac. Oh no it was Issac. She rubbed her forehead against the elevator and hid her face under a curtain of purple hair, tail curling around her hooves. 

Summer shuddered when Issac placed a hoof on her shoulder. 

"Summer, it's okay-"

"I-I'm not..."

"What?" Summer spun around and glared at him, her horn crackling and eyes glowing. 

"I'm not pathetic! Don't even think for a second I am!" Summer huffed a few breaths before covering her face and punching her hoof down on the pause button on the elevator, making it come to a soft stop. She rubbed her face with her hooves roughly wiping away her tears with muffled little noises. "I've ruined everything..." 

Not a split second after she said that Issac grabbed her face between his hooves and made her look him in the eyes. 

"You didn't ruin anything. What you said was obvious they were just... shocked that their suspicions were confirmed." He wiped away the leftover tears and moved her mane out of her face before giving her a large hug that warmed her to the core. Tiny hugs from Jet were one thing, glomps from Kylie were a whole other deal, comfort hugs she had only shared with her parents.

He smelt like blue berries and seemed like a giant what with her cuddled in his furry chest. Her saddle bags fell off her back and onto the floor as she settled down in his embrace. 

"You're not pathetic. No one could ever think you're pathetic with that glare." A wet laugh left her mouth and she rubbed her wet muzzle in his fur. "Hey! That's gross!" She laughed again.

"I'm sorry..." 

"Hey, it's fine." He held her for a bit longer and stroked her hair, the hum of the elevator vents and Summer's sniffles the only sounds heard. Her heart thumped heavily in her chest and she sighed.

You didn't ruin anything...

~o0o~

Issac and Summer returned to the Backyard to find Jake rubbing circles in Jet's back who was breathing heavily in his lunch paper bag. When Jet caught site of her he threw the brown paper bag in the air and ran forward, hugging her tightly which caught Summer completely off guard. Summer calmed him down by letting him hold her and apologized to the others.

"I thought... I scared you all off."

"It's gonna take a bit more than that to get rid of me baby~," Jake said with a charming smile that Summer scowled at fiercely. "What an overreaction. But you're my overreact- oof!" Issac stepped on the other colts back and pushed his face in the dirt. Summer silently thanked him.

She thought for a moment as she watched Jake try to push himself up. 

"I guess I could bring her here." Jake and Issac both looked up in surprise.

"You mean your friend?"

"Yeah..." Jake jumped up, knocking Issac flat on his back.

"Are you sure?" He asked.

"Yeah. I mean, as long as we stay on the first ten floors, I don't think anything will go wrong."

~o0o~

Summer heard a tapping and a shimmer but really didn't know what it was. Until Kylie spoke up.

"Hey," she said. "You're doing that tapping while thinking thing again." It was her magic. It was like it had a mind of it's own. She was tapping a pen on her desk while staring down at an open spells book, her eyes moving but her mind not taking anything in. 

All she could think about was Issac. He was kind to her, held her, comforted her... she'd never known her heart to feel that way.

"And I knooooow you're thinking because I haven't seen you turn the page in the last five minutes, it usually takes you just two." Kylie closed the book she was reading on Summer's bed and gave her a look. You know. One of those worried looks. "So what's on your mind?"

Summer sighed heavily and set her magic to work. Her book was bookmarked, closed and put in the shelf along with all the other books laying around her messy room. Usually she wasn't so careless but she had a bit on her mind lately. Her magic lured out notebooks and opened her desk drawers, pulling out papers with scrambled handwriting and bullet notes.

When the room settled she turned, slumped forward, in her wheelie chair towards the other mare whose gold eyes were gleaming with curiosity. Summer had never acted this way before.

Their eyes met and Summer cleared her throat.

"Can you keep a secret?"