PyraohXBlaze - Well, read on and see what I have in store for Twilight and Blake ;)

xel101 - Lol you'll find out in just a moment :P

cameron dot argo - Thank you :D You'll be glad to know that this story isn't even half over yet with everything I have planned for it, and then there's the sequel ;) (Sorry for writing your name like that, this stupid thing cuts it out if there's a period)

ModestCouch - How could I not? After all, you guys all take the time to not only read my story, but leave me comments telling me what you think.

shadowcatch - The good work will be kept up for a long time to come ;)

Mr NoOne - And here I always thought you were limited to one review a chapter... Thanks for wishing me well, I'm actually already over it, so all's good.

bobfromsiam99 - Will do ;)

Kyguy - Lol that lucky filly... wish I could've caught something that big my first time fishing...

Mikalzilla - Hmm... I don't think that qualifies as a cliffhanger

frytrix - Can a girl be friendzoned...?

KillerWoW - Lol well alright then

DragonLovingBrony - Yeah, lol Scoots is awesome ;)

Lone The Dark Hearted Wolf - What can I say? I've always loved the outdoors

A/N - Howdy everypony! Thanks to all of you for your suggestions on how to catch the new episodes! I've seen the first two, and I gotta say; I never expected MLP to handle subjects like cultism and brainwashing. Anywho, in personal news; I'll once again be heading out of state to take care of some personal family business, and I'm not sure if where I'll be staying will have any kind of internet access, so I'm not sure if I'll be able to update for that period of time. I'll be leaving on the first of the month, and if all goes well, I should only be gone for a week, maybe two; I'll keep you all up-to-date with next week's update, I should know more by then. As always, don't forget to follow/favorite, review, and most importantly; enjoy!

I watched the sun start its descent towards the horizon as I walked down the dirt path towards the library. Scootaloo had tried to convince me not to go, but I knew this needed to be done.

I was still on the outskirts of Ponyville proper when I heard a fluttering of wings above me. "Heya Blake!" I looked up to see Rainbow Dash perched on a low-flying cloud. "Just thought I'd let ya know we're scheduling a storm for tonight. I convinced the weather team to hold off on the rain for a day so you and Scootaloo could have an awesome camping trip without getting drenched, so now we have to make up for it by having an even bigger storm today. Shouldn't be anything too major though…"

Something about her told me she was holding something back, but I mentally shrugged it off. "Thanks Dash." I smirked. "Man, I do love that the weather is actually scheduled here… no more expecting sunshine and getting a tsunami."

Dash stood up on the cloud and spread her wings. "Yeah, that sounds like a bummer… well anyway, I gotta go help out; wouldn't want them planning a storm without Equestria's number one flier in the air!" She zoomed off into the clear mid-afternoon sky before I could even say 'goodbye', leaving her trademark rainbow trail in her wake.

I watched her for a few moments before starting off back towards the library again. I waved at the few ponies I saw on the street, though Lyra actually stopped what she had been doing and trotted over to me. "Hey there Blake, long time no see!" If what Twilight had told the town a little over a week ago had fazed her, she didn't show it in the slightest, being her normal, super-friendly self.

She peppered me with questions and comments as we walked, not that I minded the company. When we got to the front door of the library, her smile faltered. "Oh… this is where you were headed…" Of all the questions she had asked, I would have thought where I was going would have been among the first. "Come to think of it, I haven't seen Twilight in over a week… I wonder if it's because she still feels bad…?" Lyra started trotting off, but turned back to wave her goodbye to me.

I took a deep breath and knocked lightly on the door. "Coming!" Spike's childish voice rang out from somewhere inside the library. The door opened a moment later, and I looked down to see first shock, then anger cross his little features. "What do you want?! Twilight barely comes down from the loft thanks to you and your-"

"SPIKE!" We both looked up to see a haggard-looking Twilight standing at the top of the stairs, glaring angrily at the little drake. "I thought I told you to be nice to him!"

Spike looked almost like he'd been slapped. "B-but Twilight…"

She shook her head. "No 'buts' Spike. I'm the one who messed up, not Blake; if anypony has a right to be upset, it's him."

There was a part of me that wanted to forgive Twilight on the spot, to get things back to normal between us, but I knew that I couldn't listen to that part just yet; Twilight had to know just how badly she'd wronged me, and that I was still angry with her for her rash actions.

Spike tentatively stepped aside, still glaring at me as I made my way into the library, even as Twilight made her way down the stairs and into the main room herself. When she got closer, I could see the heavy bags under her eyes, and I could tell she hadn't slept well in days, possibly since the day she'd found out my darkest secret.

She cleared her throat. "So… sh-should I make us some tea?" I gave the barest hint of a nod, and she practically dashed off into the kitchen.

I sat down on one of the couches that seemed to come and go as they were needed to wait for her to finish. It wasn't long before I heard the telltale whistle of the tea kettle reaching a boil, and only a few minutes after that, Twilight slowly made her way out of the kitchen, carrying her favorite tea set in her magic. Spike stood in a corner, eyeing me warily, like he expected me to try something.

I glanced out the window and noticed that the sky was darker than it should have been for the time of day. Hmm… Looks like Dash was right about that storm…

I snapped my attention back to the room when I heard the light clatter of the tea set being placed on the coffee table, which also seemed to come and go along with the other furniture in the library.

Twilight picked up the tea pot in her magic and began pouring the steaming, fragrant brown liquid into two of the finely crafted cups. "I-I umm…" She seemed nervous, but the look on her face told me it didn't have anything to do with being afraid that I might do something; more like she was afraid of her own actions, and what harm she might do. "Pr-princess Luna… she showed me…"

I was about to ask what she meant when the implication hit me. "She showed you what my dad did…" The mulberry mare nodded mutely. I took a small sip of my tea, to find that Twilight had made the special Chai tea I had showed her, and had even flavored it to perfection. "Then you should understand why I did what I did, even if you don't agree with it."

She looked out the window. "I… I do understand… and I was so terribly wrong for not listening to you…" Even though she wasn't facing me, I could see the tears forming in her eyes, and even though my heart was screaming at me to comfort her, I didn't budge off the couch. "It… it was so… so horrible… I-I can't say I agree with what you did, or that it was right… but I do understand why you did it, and I don't think any less of you for it…"

I sighed and allowed myself to sink into the plush backing of the sofa. "So… you think that just because you saw what happened to me and that you think you understand my motives, that it makes trying to ruin my entire life ok?" She recoiled like she'd been slapped at my calm, almost icy voice, but I saw that she recognized my point. "No Twilight, you don't get to just say you learned your lesson and have everything be all hunky-dory, not after something like that."

Twilight's eyes brimmed with tears, but she didn't back down. "Please Blake… I'm sorry for what I did… I admit that it was an irrational and foalish thing to do, and that I had no right to tell anypony something so personal to you, let alone announce it to the entire town…" She looked down at the floor for a moment. "When I heard what Princess Luna said, I didn't know what to think, and… and I panicked. I didn't want anypony to get hurt, and I wasn't thinking straight… I just did what I thought would keep everypony safe…"

I let out a heavy sigh and leaned forward again, staring at my cooling cup of tea. "And all of the things we've been through, all of the times we've helped each other and all the happy moments we've shared… none of that came to mind? None of that mattered enough to you to even consider when you heard about my past?"

Twilight didn't say a word, just looked at the floor in shame, a few tears rolling down her cheeks. I could practically taste her regret and shame in the air, but I wasn't ready to let her off the hook just yet; I didn't want to hurt her like this, and seeing her in this state broke my heart, but I knew that she had to understand, without a shadow of doubt, just how badly she'd screwed up.

I stood up to leave. "I need some time to think about this…"

Before I could even take a single step, a pair of mulberry hooves wrapped around my shins. "Please! Please please please don't leave!" I looked down to see tears openly pouring from her eyes and rolling down her cheeks. She started sobbing lightly as she clung to me. "I love you so much Blake… and… and I don't… don't have any… any words for how s-sorry I am…" She continued to sob even as she hugged me tighter, and the sight was almost too much for me.

I leaned down as best I could and caressed her cheek, causing her to freeze almost instantly. "Twilight… I know you love me, and I know you're sorry, but I really do need to think about this before I-" I was cut off by a flash of lightning followed almost instantly by the booming peal of thunder from outside the library, causing the entire place to shudder violently. I looked out the window to see that the weather had devolved into a fierce storm in just a matter of minutes.

I felt Twilight squeeze even tighter. "Please don't go out in that Blake… It doesn't look safe…"

I sighed and gave her a small nod; she was right of course, that storm looked dangerous to be out in, and who knew how much worse it was going to get before it finally let up. "Man… Rainbow Dash and the others really outdid themselves with this one…"

Twilight finally let go of my legs and shakily got to her own. We sat back down and I took a sip of my cold tea. Twilight took hers in her hooves and just stared into it. "Blake…" I was surprised when she finally decided to break the silence. "I know I've said I'm sorry already… but I want you to know… even if you hate me, I'll do anything to make this up to you…"

I set my teacup down on its little platter. "Twilight… this isn't something I can just name a thing for you to do and have it all be better when you do it… this is going to take time to heal."

She sniffed and a tear rolled off of her cheek to drop into her tea. "I know that… I know you have no reason to forgive me… I just want to right the wrong I did to you, even if that means you never want to see me again…" Her shoulders rocked as she sobbed silently, her mane falling over her eyes but doing nothing to hide her tears.

I couldn't take it anymore, my very being wrenched at the sight of the broken mare, and I finally gave in to what my heart had been telling me the entire time. I got up from my seat on the small sofa and sat on the other sofa next to her. "Twilight… if I never wanted to see you again, I would never have come here in the first place. I do want our relationship to mend, but it's not something that's going to happen overnight, it's going to take time for me to get over this, to… to trust you again… but, you've showed me that you regret what you did with all of your heart, and that's a big step in the right direction to fix this."

She sniffled and wiped her nose with the handkerchief I offered her. She looked up at me with big, puffy doe-eyes. "Y-you mean…?"

I nodded and offered her a slight smile. "Yes. Twilight Sparkle, I forgive you." She let out a happy sob and threw her hooves around me. I returned the embrace happily. "But… it's going to be awhile yet before I forget…"

She pulled back from the hug just enough to look up at me. "So… where do we go from here…?"

I felt my smile fade at the question. "I'm not going to lie Twilight; if we're going to have any chance at reestablishing a romantic relationship, we're going to need to rebuild things from the ground up, to start fresh…"

Her face fell and she looked down. "Oh… I-I suppose that's the logical thing to do…" She suddenly turned back to me, a glint of hope in her amethyst eyes. "Could… could we maybe start… you know, somewhere in the middle? Instead of having to start all over again?"

I mulled the thought around in my head for a moment, until I was startled back to reality by a blinding flash, followed by an angry-sounding thunderclap that shook the entire library even more violently than the last; it was almost like the storm was upset that we'd forgotten it and was reminding us that it was still raging just outside.

Twilight jumped when a picture frame on top of the mantle came crashing to the ground, the glass shattering loudly when it struck the wooden floor. She turned around and dashed over to the frame, cradling it in her front hooves even as the hind ones crunched into the glass shards strewn about the floor. She flipped the frame over and undid the back panel, allowing her to extract the picture held within.

Twilight turned back around and held the picture up in her magic for me to see. The image was that of her and her five closest friends, all grouped together and striking a pose for the camera; the eyes of the six mares staring out at me through the special paper spoke of innocence, joy and an unbreakable bond of friendship between them.

Something about the picture stirred something within me, and I suddenly understood Twilight's motives a little better; she cared for her friends on a level that was almost beyond me, and her greatest desire was to protect them and keep them and their friendship safe.

I still couldn't fully forgive her just yet, but any reservations I may have still had about whether or not we could have a future together withered under this new understanding.

I took the picture from her gingerly and set it back on the mantle, calling on my magic and wrapping the cherished photo in a protective barrier. I was still a novice when it came to using those innate magics, in fact, I still couldn't call on my healing at all, but I was glad to see that I was at least making some progress. "There, that should keep it safe and sound until we can get a new frame for it…" It was strange, but I had found that once I had conjured a barrier, it hardly took any effort to maintain it.

Anything Twilight might have been about to say was cut off by yet another electrical display, this one rocking the library so hard the wooden structure groaned under the assault. The wind began moaning around the library even as the structure started creaking under the newly kicked-up gusts. We heard a crash upstairs, followed by a yelp from Spike.

Twilight and I only hesitated long enough to throw each other a worried glance before rushing up the stairs. We made it to the loft just in time to see a large branch force itself further into the shattered circular window of the loft's main room and pin the poor drake between its soaked branches and the wall behind him.

Twilight's horn lit up while I called on my own magic, wreathing my left arm in my own aura, and we focused our efforts on bending the branches out of the way to free the terrified Spike. Our efforts were made more difficult by the driving winds whipping in through the window, carrying cold, stinging rain and debris with it. When Spike finally realized what was going on, he wriggled his way free of the clinging branches and ran over to cower behind Twilight.

With her assistant safe, Twilight and I shifted our focus to dislodging the cumbersome branch from the window. It felt like hours before the stubborn length of oak finally submitted, falling free of the remains of the window. This wasn't the end of our troubles though, since removing the branch removed a big obstacle for the wind, and it only took me a moment to realize that the sheer winds were tearing off small shards of the broken window, flinging the potentially deadly projectiles in our direction.

Thinking quickly, I summoned another barrier over the remnants of the window, causing the wind to die almost instantly as the shimmering barrier formed over its entry point. I slumped against the far wall, too tired from using my innate magic like that to even care about the warm liquid running down my cheek. "Blake, you're hurt! Spike, get the first aid kit!"

I looked over to see three Twilights pointing their hooves at a trio of Spikes. I shook my head to clear the fuzziness from my mind, but it didn't help much. Twilight walked over to me and stroked a hoof down my dry cheek, a concerned look on her face. "You shouldn't have used so much magic so quickly…" While warbled and distant-sounding, her voice was filled with an odd mix of concern and relief.

I shook my head again and realized what she meant; I could feel connections to both the barrier over the window as well as the one covering her picture, the latter of which I'd forgotten to dismiss in all the commotion. My addled mind realized that trying to maintain both barriers was too much strain to put on myself so soon after learning how to tap into that particular spell, just like how trying to do two things at once had been for the levitation spell when I'd first learned it.

Spike trotted back into the room carrying a small, red box which Twilight quickly snatched from him with her magic. "You must be more resilient than I thought… most ponies pass right out after something like that…" I could tell she was making conversation just as much to keep herself calm as to give me something to focus on so I could stay awake.

"Heh… You wouldn't be the first one to find out that humans are tougher than we look…" My head was still spinning, but it felt like it was starting to clear some. "Too bad I couldn't have seen the look on Nightmare Moon's face when she figured that out…" It took a few seconds before I realized that Twilight was standing stock-still.

"Blake… I…" The now pair of them stared blankly into the open first aid kit as it hovered there, wrapped in her magenta aura. "You did so much for us all that day… you did so much for me…" I watched through hazy eyes as fresh tears started pouring down her cheeks. "And how did I repay you?! I called the whole town together and told them you were a monster! Worse than that, I ran away from you!"

She looked like she was going to throw the medical supplies away, but seemed to think better of it. "You… you deserve a better mare than me Blake…" She sniffled, but fought though her emotions and wetted down a cotton ball with a clear fluid, which I recognized as alcohol a second later when the powerful odor hit me.

She diligently started wiping down my cheek, cleaning up the blood that had spilled from it, which was quite a bit, judging by the number of reddened cotton balls she pulled away and tossed in a nearby waste bin. My head started to clear more, and I reached up, stroking her cheek gently. "Twilight… I won't deny that what you did was wrong, but that doesn't make you a bad mare… you just made a mistake, that's all; we all do it from time to time, that's just part of life." She stared at me, listening to what I had to say. "What I did to my father… that was the biggest mistake any living being could ever make… it's a mistake that's going to stain me forever, I'm never going to be rid of it…"

Twilight shook her head and looked me straight in the eye. "You were justified in what you did, right, wrong, or somewhere in between. When the changling queen tried to take over Canterlot by impersonating Cadance and enslaving Shining Armor, I felt so much anger towards her for violating my family like that; but I realized when Luna showed me what happened to you and your sister what I felt was nothing compared to what your own father forced you to go through…" I felt a twinge of pain and Twilight's face brightened up slightly. "There, all done." I hadn't even realized she'd started treating me again, let alone that she was almost done.

Just as the lid snapped shut on the little red kit, the entire library shook violently, and we heard the telltale groaning of wood; the loud, sharp sound that wood let out right before it buckled under stress and snapped. Twilight gave me a worried look. "I don't know what Rainbow Dash and the weather Pegasi were thinking with this storm, but we have to find a way to brace the library, before it tears itself apart under all this stress!"

I looked around the loft, my expectation of not finding anything of use was quickly met when all I saw were Twilight's bedroom furnishings. The library shook and groaned again as another gust slammed into the structure. I looked to the broken window to see that the barrier I had placed there was holding strong against the debris and wind that battered it, and got an idea. "We need to make a barrier around this place to keep the wind out!" I had to start shouting to be heard over the howling wind.

Twilight glanced around and shook her head. "It's too dangerous to make one that big in this storm! The stress of making it strong enough to block these winds would be too much!"

I took her hoof in my hand. "We'll have to work together! If we make one barrier inside the other, they can share the load!"

The mulberry unicorn's amethyst eyes darted around for a moment. "Can you make a perforated barrier so that only some of the wind is blocked? That will help even more!"

I shook my head. "I wouldn't know where to start! The best I can do is choose the size and make a few different solid shapes!"

She nodded. "That'll have to do! Come on, we don't have much time!" As she started towards the ground floor, she was nearly knocked off her hooves as the tree-house once again rocked violently, as if to accentuate her point.

We made our way to the first floor, and I dismissed the other two barriers, Spike's faint yelp of surprise came from upstairs as the barrier over the window dropped, allowing the violent winds inside again. Twilight's horn and my arm both glowed, as she cast her barrier spell, and I prepared to cast my own. I threw out my aurasight to gauge the size of her barrier and cast my own right over top of it, a strange tingling filling my mind as our two magics made contact.

I kept my aurasight going to better watch what was happening, and I 'saw' her barrier reshape itself into a lattice structure; each 'beam' in the lattice grew brighter, and I recognized that Twilight was decreasing the surface area so she could pour more of her magic into making the structure stronger.

I felt the wind press against my barrier, and almost immediately felt Twilight's barrier push back, bracing my own and easing the strain the wind put on me.

I had no idea how long we kept our barriers up for, but it felt like days. When the storm finally started to die down, I felt the pressure from Twilight's barrier fade away, having long since given up on keeping my aurasight up.

When I released my own barrier and the gently whistling winds resumed flowing around the library, I noticed that there was a warm, sticky liquid flowing down from my nose and dripping off my chin. Blood…