"Wrong!" Dash slammed her mug onto the table, the fruit bowl—apples in it, of course—jumping and rattling. "Everything! Wrong!"

"Uhhh..." AJ blinked, the kitchen behind her shadowy in the not-quite-midnight darkness. "Weren't you just spouting off 'bout how good the cider is this year?"

Now it was Dash's turn to blink. "What? Yeah! I mean, of course! Your cider's always the best!" Leaping into a hover, she grabbed the jug beside the fruit bowl and refilled her mug. "It's everything [i]else[/i] that's wrong!"

AJ's arched eyebrow said more than any words ever could, but Dash pretended she didn't hear it. See it. Hear it. Whatever. She just rammed a hoof through the mug's handle and took a double snootful of pure liquid gold.

"Ev'rything?" Apparently AJ hadn't been paying attention to her eyebrow either.

"Fine." Dash set the mug down. "Not [i]everything[/i] everything." Her mind drifted back to the ceremony earlier today at Wonderbolt HQ, the party that followed, the after party, the after-after party, and the after-after-after party, her and AJ here in this kitchen at this table with these mugs the way they'd done for so many years. "Being number two in the squad'll be pretty sweet, and having all of you there when Twilight pinned the badge on me?" Warmth spread through her, and not just from the cider. "She's really making a great princess, y'know?"

"Eyup." AJ took a swig from her own mug. "So Twilight being in charge: that's another thing that ain't wrong?"

"What?" Almost waving her hooves in the air, Dash stopped when the weight reminded her that she was still holding her mug. "Of course that's not wrong! That's, like, the whole point! We're the awesomest ponies in the world, so now we're running the place! Nothing wrong with [i]that![/i]"

"Okay." Sitting up, AJ didn't look nearly as relaxed as Dash thought she should. "So us being on the Council and helping Twilight rule Equestria also ain't wrong. Mebbe it's all the marrying that's been going on 'round here's gotcha in a tizzy?"

Dash pursed her lips. "'Tizzy'? Really?"

The pressure of AJ's eyebrow, though, made Dash shrug. "Cheese and Pinkie'll be great, and yes, thinking about Discord and Fluttershy rolling around together might get my stomach turning just a little bit. But hey, I always knew she had the biggest freak flag of any of us, and it's great seeing it fly, y'know?" She managed to twitch her lips into something that felt a little like a smile.

To judge from AJ's face, though, it didn't [i]look[/i] much like a smile. "Well, then." AJ leaned forward even further. "Starting to sound like there ain't a lot left to be wrong. We're all just ticking along pretty much same as always. Ain't we?"

"Except..." Dash found herself staring at the fruit bowl. "Sometimes you find an apple sitting out in the orchard and it looks all big and juicy and you reach for it and it turns out it's all...all mushy and brown inside." She didn't want to look at the apples anymore, didn't want to smell the cider she'd splashed on the table getting warm and sour anymore, didn't want to feel all hollow and awful and alone anymore. "How do we know everything isn't that?" she whispered.

Something warm touched her hoof. "'Cause we don't [i]let[/i] it be that." The quiet strength of AJ's voice raised Dash's head, and the light of her eyes held Dash's gaze. "We keep sharp, grab all the apples we can, and insteada letting 'em rot the way nature wants, we make 'em rot the way [i]we[/i] want. With sugar and yeast and a little squeezing, we turn 'em into cider." She patted Dash's fetlock. "And we's both had a spoonful too mucha that tonight, ain't we?"

Dash found herself nodding but kept focused on AJ, didn't want to focus on anything else the rest of her life.

"So." AJ leaned back. "Since you ain't fit to fly, we'll pour you into a guest room and—"

"Could I—?" Her throat dry, Dash shoved the words out anyway. "Maybe I could stay in your room...with you...tonight?"

"Well, now." Her smile spreading slow, AJ reached up and pushed her hat back. "Reckon that'd make ev'rything all right, Sugar cube?"

No words left, Dash just nodded again.

Standing, AJ swayed a little, walked around the table—

And her smile touching Dash's tasted sweet as cider.