"You know!? That makes it worse!" Dash cringed, "Is it that obvious?"

"Not really, I'm just great at reading people," Sunset laughed.

"Well that's reassuring..." Rainbow sighed, rolling her eyes.

Sunset grinned knowingly, "You're welcome. And I wouldn't be too surprised if AJ turned out to be gay and secretly be crushing on you too..."

Rainbow laughed, nervously. "Heheh... nah, I dunno. I don't wanna think about it like that."

"Why?"

"Cause... it's gross. I've never liked all the lovey dovey 'kiss under the mistletoe' kinda stuff. Ugh.." Dash scoffed, imitating Rarity from the day before.

"But do you really hate it? Or are you just saying that so I won't think you're any 'less cool'," Sunset laughed, before being shoved into the snowy grass by the clearly embarrassed athlete.

Sunset tried to make Rainbow spill out her thoughts even further as they continued walking, but Dash refused to say anything more on the topic, and soon enough the sun had begun to spill out onto the small town. It was around six in the morning by the time the girls had reached the school, and didn't quite know what to do with themselves.

"Only six o'clock?! What are we supposed to do for the next two hours?" Rainbow groaned, shaking from the cold.

"Well I blame you for getting up so early. No shops open or anything..." Sunset sighed, but then she had a thought. "Wait, Applejack wakes up pretty early right? She'll be awake on the farm by now, we could always go there?"

Dash glanced at Sunset, giving her a snarky look, "Too much effort, she lives miles away."

"But she'll be awake right? We can call her, get her to meet us here."

"I don't wanna bother her thought...."

"Cmon Dash, it'll be fine. I'll call her," Sunset stated, reaching for her phone as Dash slowly strolled away.

"Hey!"
"Yeah, I know it's early but we're around town if you wanted to come meet us. It's boring here with just Rainbow."

Rainbow Dash lobbed a snowball right into Sunset's face as she made that remark.

"Uhh. Yeah, we'll see you soon!"

She hung up, ready to prepare for an intense snowball battle with her friend, but as she grabbed the snow, Dash held up her hand.

"You're not gonna say anything... about... y'know..." Dash trailed off.

Sunset gave her a smug look, "What, you mean say anything about how you have a raging crush on your best friend called Applejack?!"

Rainbow held a finger to her lip, "I swear to god Sunset Shimmer."

"Okay okay!"

Soon enough the pair were reunited with their farm girl friend.
"So why y'all up so early again?"

Dash and Sunset exchanged glances, "It's a long story, don't worry about it," Sunset smiled.

"Uhh... ok," Applejack shrugged, "How y'all feeling it's our last week of school?"

"Oh yeah! Thank god.. and when's your Christmas party again AJ?" Rainbow grinned.

"Thursday, day before Christmas Eve. Ah'm so excited," Applejack beamed. She and her family had been preparing for the Christmas party far too many months in advance, but it would be well worth the wait. Dash was gonna be there this year, of course, so it will be tons better than it already would have been.

"Yeah me too!" Rainbow looked directly at AJ and smiled.

"What's this about a party?" Sunset butted in.

AJ sighed, a little too visibly, "Me and ma extended family celebrate Christmas together a few days before. It's usually a huge get together celebration with games and food. We decided that... well since me and Dash's family are so close n'all, that we would invite her this year." Applejack tried to make it sound fair enough without Sunset feeling left out, before Rainbow decided to add to it.

"You should come Sunset! It'll be awesome," Rainbow exclaimed, clearly without thinking. She just thought it might be easier and less awkward if Sunset was there to help her out... maybe...
Applejack tried to make eye contact with Rainbow Dash. This was not what she had planned.

Sunset grinned, "Well I don't do a lot over the holidays anyway, and since it's not on the actual Christmas Day, I'd love to... if that's ok with AJ and her family, of course."

Applejack couldn't lie to Sunset, or anyone for that matter, but it would be so rude not to invite her, even if it meant that she wouldn't be spending time directly with Rainbow, and things wouldn't be the same. "Ah'll see what Granny Smith says, but yeah, I'd love for you to come, both of y'all!" AJ smiled.

Rainbow caught contact with AJ's eyes, and tried to apologise through purely a look. Applejack subtly nodded back, and Rainbow smirked.

After all, they were still the closest two friends out of their whole group, so a little party get together shouldn't be able to change that...