The door to the bakery was open, and the smell of rising dough drifted out from behind it. Above its frame, a pink-painted sign announced its name to be, as it always had been and would be, Sugarcube Corner. She hadn’t bothered to change it, then. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know what that meant.

In any case, there wasn’t any real surface to knock on, so he just sort of stood outside waiting for her to come out, so he wouldn’t have to make the decision to go in. And it was only a few seconds before she did, before she ducked out from behind the counter and stood in front of him silently, stoutly. In a different world, that alone might have meant something to him, but here in this one all he could think about was how much she hadn’t changed in all in the last six years. Her shoulder-length mane was still a fiery orange, her hooves were dusted with flour and still a bit on the small side, her eyes still reminded him of lightning at midnight. Her horn, glowing with sky-blue light, held a cookbook in midair by her side.

“Hey, Pumpkin,” he said.

“Pound,” she intoned. For a moment, neither of them spoke.

“Did you come here to apologize?” she finally asked.

“If I did, would it make a difference?” he asked in return. She didn’t seem to have an answer to that, so they went back to just staring at each other and thinking their own private thoughts.

“I just wanted to see you again. I just...” he started to say, but without the composure to be able to finish. “I wanted to come home.”

Home. What a magical, distant, stars-awful concept. There’d be a lot of good things about staying there: a warm bed, a few hot meals, a chance to meet the adorable little mare poking her head out from behind her momma’s leg, a niece he’d never even gotten to know the name of. But there’d also be a lot of waiting, a lot of staring out the window wondering when the breeze would come back in, when he’d step outside and know he only had a moment to say goodbye before it whisked him away again. A whole lifetime of it. Pumpkin would bake her cakes and Pumpkin would follow in their parents’ hoofsteps, but he would always be looking for a way out. He would always wake up in the early morning, gasping for one more second, one more adventure, one more drop of memory to throw into a sea of millions. And he would spend years reminding himself why he wasn’t getting another chance. Why he didn’t deserve one.

“Can I come in?” he asked.

“Are you going to stay?”

Well, that was the eternal question, wasn’t it? Are you going to stay, Pound Cake? Are you going to run away like a coward because you don’t think anyone wants you around? Or are you terrified of taking the risk, because you know all too well it can’t possibly last? Because you know that this is only a weekend stopover, that come Monday you’ll be back in Cloudsdale meeting with new clients and taking on new contracts, and keeping a running tab at a ground-level saloon because it’s the only way to forget that it’s been five-and-a-half years since you’ve sent a letter home, and three since she stopped sending them to you?

With a tiny sigh, Pumpkin lifted her hoof and pushed the door open a little further, and in that moment he finally made a decision. Come hell or high water, he would stay this time. He would tell her why he didn’t write, why he laid awake at night wondering how the bakery was doing, why his shame had kept him from doing something he ought to have done years ago. He’d torn his family apart to chase after a dream, and now he was back. Now he could start mending the wound that had never scabbed over.

Now the next time she asked him that, he could give her an answer.