“What are you doing up here?”

The hinges squeaked as Rarity stepped into the Cutie Mark Crusaders’ clubhouse. She cocked her head and raised an eyebrow, but she wore a soft smile.

“I-I just…” Spike swept a claw toward one of the cushions on the floor. “Please sit down. I wanted to talk to you.”

Rarity frowned at the discolored upholstery and scraped a hoof at the darkest stain on it, then settled for swiping away some of the dust from the bare floor. She crouched over it more so than actually lying down. “What about, dear?”

“First off,” Spike said, pointing his nose toward the note clutched in her hoof, “I’m sorry I misled you, but I couldn’t come up with a better way of getting you here.”

“Oh…” Rarity craned her neck to see out the window, probably a little less mystified about the lack of other ponies headed this way. “So… no Pinkie party?”

Spike shook his head. “Sorry. I wanted to talk about… us.”

At last, Rarity did choose the cushion over the floor. “I see…” Her tail swished a bit, and a smirk played at the corners of her mouth. “It’s not like I couldn’t tell, you know.”

“Yeah,” Spike said, scratching at the back of his neck, “I figured.” Then he caught himself slouching and jerked upright. “But look—we’ve spent a lot of time together, and I thought we’d gotten closer over the years… maybe…”

“That we have,” Rarity replied with a nod. “I’m not sure that means we should change anything, though. You have all your duties with Twilight, and I have my business, of course. Plus all that stupid homework, and—” She held a hoof to her mouth, and her eyes shot wide open.

Spike took a deep breath. He needed to concentrate. “Do you remember how much fun we had at Princess Cadence’s wedding reception? I thought the accent gems were part of the buffet, and then it turned out they were just glass imitations, but by then, I’d eaten so many already that I got sick, and… at least I made it outside, but the gardener is never gonna forgive me for burning up all those rosebushes. I don’t think any of the castle staff would welcome me back.”

Rarity stared with a horrified gape, but a snicker trickled through, which soon grew to a full laugh as her shoulders bounced. “But you felt much better afterward. And we spent the whole time dancing after that,” she said, her voice cracking in that adorable way.

“Heh. Yeah.” That same nauseous feeling bubbled up, but he quickly willed it down and steadied his mind. “And when we went to the Crystal Empire together for the Equestria Games? I had a lot of fun.”

“Mr. The Dragon,” Rarity said with a steely gaze, in a perfect impression of Ms. Harshwhinny, then snorted and burst into laughter.

Not one of Spike’s finer moments. but at least he’d gotten to spend all that time with friends. And… her.

“I’ll teach you to sing Cloudsdale’s anthem someday,” she said with a twinkle in her eye. “You do need to get used to crowds, if you want to be my friend, ’cause I’m gonna be a star!”

Yeah, she would. He’d bet on it. But Cloudsdale’s anthem? He’d never touch that thing again. “I know,” he said, his voice growing quiet. “A beautiful star.”

He studied the floor in front of him, in case she’d heard that. When he looked up, she had a warm smile. “Friends,” she said, reaching out a hoof.

“Yeah, friends.” He took the hoof in his claws. But she didn’t stop.

“It starts out that way, doesn’t it? Then it gets complicated.” Rarity sighed, but she never lost her smile.

So Spike seized his opening. “No. No it doesn’t, because it never changes from that. Friends first, and then maybe more, but we never stop being friends, no matter what. That’s why it works: because we’re friends first.”

He must have said something right, because she grinned even bigger. And then she clapped her hooves together. “Wait until my sister hears I got a date!”

Spike chuckled, but—hoofsteps on the walkway outside! He tucked his Rarity plushie behind his back as Sweetie Belle stepped through the door, a note clutched in her hoof. She did a double take when she saw him.

“What are you doing up here?”

Spike’s stomach lurched—time for the real deal. “I-I wanted to talk to you.”