“This seat taken?”

Trixie looked up, surprised, but when she saw Flam standing behind her, she let her eyes wander back to the river. Her face was slack, emotionless, but her eyelids were red-tinged and puffy. He recognized that look; she’d cried herself dry, like a wrung sponge, and was trying to recuperate. She halfheartedly made a move to conceal the open pack of cigarettes under her tail, but he’d caught the scent of cheap menthol from downwind.

Flam stepped a little closer to her---not quite touching---and folded his legs underneath him, lowering himself down to the riverbank. They sat like that for a few long, silent minutes, watching the water burble and eddy past the outcrop of stones.

“I knew I’d find you somewhere along the river,” Flam finally offered, not daring to make eye contact just yet. “I remember you telling me, years ago, that whenever you felt overwhelmed, you’d find a body of water to sit next to.”

She shifted a bit, adjusting her position.

“You… you told me that whenever something upsetting popped up in your head, you’d throw a twig or a blade of grass onto the surface, and watch the current carry it away. That’s how you learned to let your bad thoughts go… just like leaves carried away by the river.”

He could tell by her ears that she was at least paying attention to him, but her tail was flicking about just enough to make him sure to keep his distance.

“I’m sorry, T---“

“NO!”

She was up on her hooves in a flash, and Flam recoiled when he saw the fire in her eyes. “No,” she yelled at him, “No, don’t you dare! Don’t you DARE feel sorry for me!”

“Tri---“

“You have NO IDEA what it’s like!” Her voice was already shredding. “NO! IDEA!”

He held one hoof up. “I-I---of course I don’t---“

Her hoof cut through the air. “So save your breath, Flam! I don’t want to hear it!”

“I…. was going to say I was sorry for looking through your photo album,” he mumbled.

Trixie’s mouth opened in surprise, but all that came out was “…Oh.”

“I didn’t realize how sensitive this subject was for you,” he said as he watched her lie back down. “Maybe… maybe, for the time being, we can just agree not to talk about Earth ponies…?”

“Oh, talk about them all you want. I just won’t share my obviously unwanted opinions.”

This wasn’t going the way he’d hoped, so he tried a different tactic: “Did you know Applejack’s having a unicorn?”

She cocked her head. “She is?”

“Yes, they confirmed it with an ultrasound.” Flam pushed his hooves back and forth. “A unicorn born into a pure-Earth family.” He cleared his throat. “You know, I think you’d be a good mentor for that little filly.”

“Applejack has unicorn friends,” she said. Her sneer just deepened when she realized she had to correct herself: “No, one unicorn friend, now. I’m sure that prissy bitch will mentor the kid just fine.”

“Not like you! You could teach her what it’s like to be, er, mixed-tribal. Teach her how to use her magic and her strength.”

She shot him a look. “Why do you care? What’s she to you?”

He hesitated before saying ’my niece’. Trixie had taken such delight in thinking she’d ‘seduced a coltcuddler’, and he didn’t think her ego was ready to take a blow just yet. “Well, er, Flim’s taken a real shine to Applejack, and… if they stay friends… you know…”

“No, I don’t. That kid’s nothing to me, and she shouldn’t be to you, either.” She narrowed her eyes. “Unless you’re trying to tell me you’re ‘taking a shine’ to Applejack, too.”

“No!” he said quickly. “Not at all. I only fall for pretty magicians who find creative ways of waking me up.”

She just re-crossed her ankles, refusing to take the bait. “Is that why you came here? To ask me to be the token half-breed nanny for some hayseed’s bastard child?”

“Trixie! No, not at all.” He reached for her, but withdrew his hoof when he saw her coat ruffle up. “I was worried about you, sugarplum.”

“Then why did it take you so long?”

“Well, it took me awhile to find you---and, er…” Flam scratched under his ear. “Connie came by right when you ran off.”

“Oh. I see. So spending time with your beloved big sister’s more important than me?”

Gooseflesh rippled up his neck. Trixie was usually so theatrical---this dull, flat new voice coming out of her mouth was starting to give him the creeps. “No. No, of course not, sugarplum. But…”

“But?”

“I’m a stallion. We’re not very good at dealing with crying mares. I needed another mare’s advice.”

“Connie can’t stand me,” she intoned. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she told you to steal my caravan while I was gone.”

“She doesn’t… hate you,” he said carefully.

“She said I did a very good job picking a wedding dress that could hide my ‘pudge’.”

Flam winced; the rehearsal dinner had been worse, of course, but that dress-fitting appointment was almost as bad. He’d been too busy comforting his wailing fiancée to break up the catfight that had broken out between his sister and Mrs. Lulamoon. “She regrets that, you know.”

Trixie just snorted.

“She told me you’d need a good cry and some time to yourself before you’d be ready to see me again.”

A full-body bristle ran up and down her spine. “You didn’t… you didn’t tell her…about my…?”

As gingerly as if he was touching nitroglycerine, he placed his hoof over hers. “No. That’s your story, not mine; it wouldn’t be my place to tell.”

Her horn began to glow, and he steeled himself, ready for a swat---but instead she shook a smoke loose from the pack and lit it with her magic.

“Speaking of which, I… I’m sorry for putting you on the spot like that. I shouldn’t have pushed you so hard. I had no idea y…” The sudden stab of emotion in his throat made him want to turn away from her, but he held still, wanting to be able to meet her eyes should she look up from the water. His hoof was still on hers, so he pulled her a little closer. “Trixie, sugarplum. Please look at me.”

She didn’t. “You still have your shit in my caravan, don’t you?”

That gave him pause---that, and the beginnings of thunder in her eyes. “Well, yes. Why?”

“You have ten minutes to clear it out.”

“Wh---”

“I’m leaving,” she said. Her lips were barely moving. “I’m leaving this shithole of a town, and I’m leaving you. Ten minutes, Flam.”

“What?!”

He tried to grab her hoof as she tossed the cigarette into the river, but she whisked herself away from him. “Trixie, wait! Please, wait!”

She wasn’t going to, he could tell that already. He made another grab, this time for her shoulder, but she dodged him again. He had longer legs, but she’d always been the faster runner; he knew he wouldn’t be able to catch her if she broke into a gallop. “WAIT!”

“No! Leave me alone!”

In desperation, he hooked his fetlocks around her ankles and yanked. Trixie fell onto her stomach with a squeak; kicking out behind her wasn’t working, because he’d crawled up her body, almost as if he was mounting her, his chest pressing against her shoulder blades. “Wait!”

“Let me go!”

“Trixie, please!”

The breath left her lungs with an “Oof! as he wrapped his forelegs around her ribs. She tried to headbutt him from behind, but her mane went swinging into empty air. His cheek was pressed against hers, and she wasn’t sure whether the wetness smearing around there was hers, or his, or both.

“Let me go!” she screamed.

“No! I’m not letting you go again!”

“Dammit all, Flam! What do you want?!”

“YOU!” he shouted, right in her ear. “I want you! Can’t you see that?”

She immediately stopped struggling, and her body crumpled under his. Flam adjusted his position so as not to put too much weight on her heaving chest, but he made damn sure to keep his arms tight around her. “W-what?”

“I said…” He had to pause to catch his breath. “I said I want you, Trixie.”

She began squirming underneath him, but she wasn’t trying to get away anymore; she was rolling around in his grip. “No,” she whispered, “You don’t.”

“Yes, I do!”

“No you don’t!” She ducked away, but Flam used the side of his face to nuzzle her, wiping the tears out of her coat. “Flam, stop it!”

“I’m not going to let you go until you calm down! You’re talking crazy, Trixie!”

“I’m not CRAZY!”

By now she was sobbing, her body shuddering from the force of it, so he let one arm relax from its deathgrip, and slid a hoof up to her face. “Ssh.”

He rolled onto his side, and tenderly pulled her with him. She didn’t have the strength to resist anymore, and wept into the starched folds of his collar as he gentled her, rubbing her back and brushing his frog through her mussed mane. “Shh. It’s okay, sugarplum. It’s okay.”

“No it’s not! It’s not okay!” she said, her voice muffled by his shirt. Turning her head up so she could look him in the eyes, Trixie hiccupped and stammered “I-I can’t---you---I can’t---“

He pressed his lips against her trembling mouth, and after a moment, she returned the kiss, but they were both being careful. When she pulled back, she looked more fragile than he’d ever seen her before.

“Flam.” The arm she had draped around his body was shaking, as if she couldn’t decide whether to pull him closer or to shove him away. “Y-you’re a good stallion. You’re sweet. You’re smart, and kind, and funny, and--- and---and you…”

He felt the muscles in her abdomen clench.

“You deserve somepony who can be good to you,” she finished in a voice so frail he could barely make it out over the sound of the river. “Somepony who isn’t broken.”

“You’re not---“

She slipped out of his embrace just as he made a move to hug her, and rose to her hooves. “Look at me, Flam!” she said, flinging her hoof up and down in front of her. Her fetlocks were muddied, her mane hanging in sweaty strings around her tear-stained face. “This is me! This is what I am, okay?! No makeup, no fireworks, no costume, no stage, no---just, just ME!”

“Trix---“

“I, I go from town to town, and I never stay longer than a week---a week, if I’m lucky! I can’t let it catch up with---“ A spasm of emotion went across her face. “Y-you deserve better,” she finished, all hushed.

Her mane made little rustling sounds as he smoothed it back. “You’re being ridiculous.”

“No. No I’m not. You could go out and find a ni---ice filly,” she said, her voice cracking. “A girl from a good family. A girl who you wouldn’t be ash-ashamed of---you---you could raise a family---“

“Trixie…”

She was shaking her head from side to side, her ears twitching. “Look, it was fun while it lasted, but now you know---you know me. Who I am. What I am.”

“Trixie…”

“We can’t do this. I can’t do this to you. Think about it! You’d be stuck with someone’s leftovers---and a fucking half-breed, at that! What would the foals look like?!”

“Beatrix.”

He knew that would grab her attention---he hadn’t used her full name since they’d first parted ways, all those years ago. Flam sat himself in front of her and placed both forehooves squarely on her shoulders, forcing her to look at him. “I don’t care.”

“You should!”

He squeezed her, and gave her a little shake. “Listen to me, sugarplum: It’s not important. The foals could have seven eyes and two heads and I’d still love them, okay? That’s what parents do.”

She started to turn her head, but he took her by the chin and made her look up at him again. “And I love you. That’s not something I can help, or change.”

“But I’m---“

“You’re not broken. You’re a pony, for Celestia’s sake, not a vase! Look…” He slowly slid a hoof down to her cutie mark. “You never got the chance to go to college, but you taught yourself more magic than most unicorns with fancy letters after their names are capable of! You were given nothing, but you made something of yourself.” He chewed on his lip, trying to figure out how to properly word what he wanted to say. “You came from a failed ballerina and a… a monster, but they had nothing to do with the amazing pony you are today.” He leaned in just enough to feel her breath on his snout. “Okay? That was all you. Some would say it’s a miracle you survived, but you did.” A little kiss on the corner of her mouth, and he finished: “You’re amazing, Trixie. I’ve always thought so, and I always will.”

There was a moment where he wasn’t sure if she was going to turn and run again---but then she squeezed her eyes shut and threw herself against him, clutching him in a tight hug. “Oh, Flam…”

He held her in silence, only shifting every now and then when his arms got stiff, patiently waiting until her heavy, erratic breathing steadied and her tail stopped lashing. It took her a long time, but she finally pulled back, without fully pulling out of his embrace. “Pookie?”

“Yes?”

She wiped her fetlocks over her sticky eyes, and gave him a surprising smile. “Y-you don’t have to worry. Unless Trixie starts doing hard drugs, the foals aren’t going to have seven eyes and two heads.”

The laugh loosened his sore chest, and he kissed the base of her horn. “That’s my girl.”

Flim sighed and sunk down in his bed; even over the sound of shrieking from the next room over, he’d heard Applejack’s interaction with the nurses. And he’d heard her mumble “Oh, damn, damn damn.” That had been hours ago, and he still could feel a little sting.

She’s such a sweet, lovable girl, and I had to go and say something like that, he thought, watching the I.V. needle move under his hide as he curled and uncurled his arm. What was I thinking? ‘Don’t fall for me’?! I may as well have crushed her spirits under my hoof like a bug!

He let himself flop back on the pillow. No… she’s a big girl. I’m sure she’d had to deal with worse things than that. It’s for the best, telling her how it is before she gets her hopes up---

“No!”

Chewing on the insides of his cheeks, Flim sat upright and pressed his forehead against his knees. She already had her hopes up! Every kiss, every caress, every kind word you gave her just chipped away at the walls she’d built around her heart, and then you had to go and kick her like that?!

“Well what was I supposed to do?” he whispered into his lap. “Keep telling her what she wants to hea---“

He jumped when the door clanged against the wall, and put on a wan smile when the nurse bustled into the room. “Oh. Hello. Is it dinner time already?”

“No sirree!” she chirped as she busied herself with opening the bundle she was carrying. “Time for that intravenous to come out!”

“Wonderful.”

She magicked a cotton swab and a bottle of disinfectant from her bag, and set them both on the bedside table, being careful not to disturb the ultrasound picture. “And how are we today?”

“Well, I’m irritable and you seem pretty perky, so on average, I’d say ‘we’ are content,” he muttered.

“I see. Crankiness is a side-effect of the painkillers.” She began daubing at the puncture site, which made him hiss in pain. “But that just means they’re working. We’ll switch you to an oral regimen soon.” Before he could respond, she placed a firm hoof over the needle and looked him in the eye. “Now, this is going to hurt.”

“It’s nothing I can’t handlAAAYAAH!!”

“There we go!” she said brightly as she pressed the alcohol-soaked swab against the open slit in his skin. The I.V. catheter and needle, both dark with blood, were floating in her aura. “You’re quite a screamer! My patients don’t usually squeal like that unless they’re foals.”

Flim ground his molars together. Why do I always get this kind of nurse?

“Oh, turn that frown upside-down, honey! You have another visitor!”

He had been rubbing his temples, but when he looked up at the doorway, he managed a smile---a genuine one this time. “Apple Bloom! What a nice surprise!”

She eagerly trotted into the room, despite being weighed down on one side by her saddlebag. “Did I come at a bad time?” she said, eyeing the nurse.

“Not at all. She was just leaving. Weren’t you, ‘honey’?”

The sunny look on her face faltered a bit, but she was still smiling on her way out, making an attempt to hide the bloodied equipment from Apple Bloom’s view.

Flim gave her a silly bow, which made her giggle. “To what do I owe the honour?”

She rolled her shoulder backwards toward her bag. “I brought yer stuff from home! AJ said you’d probably want it with ya.”

He pulled out a chair for her, and held his hoof to help her onto it. “Oh, that’s sweet of you. You didn’t have to do that---“

“She said you’d want this in particular.” After a brief fumble, she found what she’d been digging for and lifted it out, the plastic squeaking in her teeth; Flim startled a bit, but he delicately took it by the corner and pulled it from her muzzle.

“Er, yes. Thank you.”

“Yer welcome, Mister Flim.”

“Stop that,” he said with an awkward smile. “It’s just Flim.”

“So…” She scooted forward to peek over his shoulder at the photo. “That’s yer Mama?”

“No, that’s my sister.” He turned it over. “This is my mother.”

“Wow, she’s real pretty!” She lightly touched the surface, and then brought her hooftip back to brush across her bangs. “I wish I could get my mane to do that.”

With a little pat to the back of her head, he said “Now, now. Your mane is beautiful just the way it is. Aren’t you a little young to be developing a body image problem?”

“I don’t have a ‘body image problem!’” she protested, but didn’t dodge from under his hoof. “Even if I knew what that meant, I still wouldn’t have one! All I’m sayin’ is I think her mane’s nice, an’ I wish I had curly hair like her.”

“No, you don’t. Ponies with curly manes hate it.” He lifted his hoof from her head, and ran it over his. “Do you know how much pomade it takes to keep this in place? I wish I hadn’t left it back at the hotel.”

“You do kinda look like a scarecrow,” she laughed.

“Heh.” Flim flicked the photo-sleeve over, giving his siblings a quick glance. “That’s what my sister always said. ‘You can’t go out of the house like that! You look like a scarecrow!’”

Apple Bloom watched the subtle change of expression on his face as he turned it back over to look at his mother’s picture. “Do you miss her?”

He half-shrugged on his uninjured side. “No, not really.”

“Not at all?”

After a moment’s hesitation, Flim turned his attention from his photograph to the filly beside him. “Do you miss Starswirl the Bearded?”

Her cocked eyebrow made her look eerily reminiscent of her sister. “Uh, no. I never met him. He kinda died centuries before I was born.”

“Exactly,” he said as he propped the photo up on his bedside table, slightly overlapping the sonogram. “You can’t really miss somepony you’ve never met.”

Without warning, she hooked her fetlocks around his elbow and yanked him so they were face-to-face. He’d forgotten just how much strength was in those little forelegs of hers. His eyes widened as they met hers; he’d seen her cross before, but now she looked downright mad. “Now you wait jes’ a darn minute, there! I can too miss somepony I’ve never met!”

Sweet Celestia, Applejack’s temper sure does run in the family! he thought as he tried to pull back. I hope it skips a generation… “I---“

She let his elbow go, and folded her forelegs over her chest. The frown hadn’t left her face. “I never really met Ma an’ Pa, but I miss ‘em. I do,” she stated with more force than he’d ever heard from such a young filly before. “Y’can’t tell me those feelins ain’t real!”

He numbly nodded. There was something shining in her eyes that he hadn’t seen for awhile---not since Applejack had refused to answer his question about her parents.

“I don’t think you’d bother carryin’ around a picture a’yer Mama if you didn’t feel the same way,” she added. “Even jes’ a little.”

“You… may have a point there,” he said with a touch of hesitation. They both glanced at the bedside table, and then at each other.

“Besides…” Still seated, she leaned over his body and rapped a hoof against the picture of the foal. “You can’t look at me in the eye an’ tell me you wouldn’t miss her.”

Almost as a reflex, he swatted her arm away. “Apple Bloom! Don’t say things like that!”

“Why not?”

“You’ll…” He wrapped his arms around himself, as though trying to keep from shivering. “You’ll jinx it.”

“I’ll ‘jinx it’, huh?” She plunked herself back in her seat, swinging her hindlegs. “You believe in stuff like that?”

“Oh, yes. I’m very superstitious. It’s part of being a salespony; you have to stay on Lady Luck’s good side.”

Her gaze wandered from the sonogram, to the empty I.V. stand, over the bruise in his elbow, and then up to his shiner. “Uh-huh. So what didja do to tick her off?”

He ruffled her hair. “I suppose trying to cross you and your family was a bad idea. We’ve had nothing but bad luck ever since.”

“Really?” She had a tiny smile on her face; it seemed almost shy, but she made no move to hide it. “I wouldn’t say it’s all bad. You got to be a daddy, right?”

He froze, his hoof still on her head.

“An’ you an’ AJ have been spendin’ a lotta time together.” She looked over her shoulder, then back at him, lowering her voice. “Y’know what?”

“What?”

She leaned in a bit with a conspiratorial gleam in her eyes. “Jes’ between you an’ me, I think she really likes ya.”

“Well… I’m not so sure about that,” he said quietly.

“Sure she does!” With a little grunt, Apple Bloom hefted herself onto the bed so she could sit right beside him. “She wouldn’t come over here every day if she didn’t! And anyway---” She giggled into her fetlocks. “Whenever she comes home from seein’ you, she’s always got this big, goofy grin on her face!”

A light flutter rose in his chest. “…She does?”

She pointed at him, bopping his snout just a touch. “Uh huh! Exactly like the one you got on yer face right now.”

His cheeks flushed with heat, and he ducked his head away from her---he hadn’t even realized he’d been smiling. All those years of practicing keeping a cool, calm demeanor, even under duress, and now just the thought of Applejack’s smiling face had let a grin slip through?

“Oh! I almost forgot.” She yanked her saddlebag off the chair, plunked it down beside her on the mattress, and began rifling through it. “I brought ya something!”

“A-Apple Bloom, really, you’re being too kind,” he began, surprised to hear the waver in his voice. “You didn’t have to go to the trouble---“

“Weren’t no trouble!” She pulled out what looked like a folded square of paper and dropped it in his lap, beaming. “G’wan! Look!”

Very carefully, Flim lifted it with his magic; it took him a moment to realize he was holding it upside-down, and when he righted it, he could feel a hot pinch in his throat. It was a card. On the front was a fairly accurate drawing of a hospital with a rainbow overtop, and on the inside, written in marker over carefully-drawn pencil lines read ‘GET WELL SOON!’

“I did it during Arts and Crafts,” she said proudly. “We were s’posta be doing papier-mache, but I finished mine first, so Miss Cheerilee let me do this, too.”

“That’s… this is so sweet,” he finally said. “It’s been a long time since somepony gave me a get-well card.”

“Really? Aintcha in the hospital a lot?”

“Yes, unfortunately. But…”

He trailed off.

“Maybe it’s ‘cause yer a stallion. Maybe folks like givin’ cards an’ stuff to mares instead.”

“Sure.”

She bounced on the mattress as she kicked her hindlegs back and forth. “Ma got a lot of flowers when she was sick, but flowers are somethin’ a stallion gives to a mare, not the other way ‘round.”

“Mm-hm.”

Apple Bloom bit her lip, chewing it to the side. She didn’t like the despondent look he was trying to mask. “I noticed that the colts in my class don’t get as many Hearts an’ Hooves day cards as the fillies. Lotsa cards are real frilly an’ stuff, so maybe they’re meant t’be fer females, mostly.” She put her little hoof on his shoulder, making him look up at her. “Besides, AJ can’t draw fer beans. There’s no way she could make a card that looks halfway decent.”

Then she surprised him by wrapping her forelegs around his neck and squeezing her face against his chest. “Don’t worry! You got a lotta ponies who care about ya. You don’t need cards to know that, right?”

He chuckled, shaking his head, but gave her an affectionate, if nervous, pat on the back. “Are you sure you’re only eight?”

“And two-thirds,” she reminded him.

“When I was your age, I thought that cucumbers were snake eggs. How did you get so smart?”

“I listen t’my elder ponies,” she said sweetly. “But I listen to ‘em when they don’t think I’m there, too. That’s when they say the really interesting stuff!”

He couldn’t hold back the laugh. “Oh, dear. I certainly hope you haven’t been listening to me behind my back!”

“Well, I know you say ‘fuck’ a lot.”

“APPLE BLOOM!”

“Oops.” She put a hoof over her grin. “Sorry.”

“You really are growing up too quickly! Or am I just being a bad influence on you?”

“Who cares if y’are? Growin’ up’s a good thing, ain’t it?” Her eyes lit up with a strange mixture of glee and wariness. “I’m gonna be an auntie soon, anyway!”

“Are you worried about that?” he said, recalling something Flam had muttered about being elbow-deep in shitty diapers.

“Nah, not really.”

But there was definitely concern on her face now. “Come now, Apple Bloom. If there’s something on your mind, you can tell me.”

She was looking off to the side at nothing in particular, and her legs began to slow their swinging. When they’d come to a full stop against the side of the bed, she looked back up at him and said “How… how often do mares die when they’re foalin’?”

“Oh, Apple Bloom.” He put his arm around her shoulder and pulled her against him. “Has that been bothering you?”

“Well, yeah…. You said yer Mama---“

“Listen to me.” Flim took her little hooves in his, discretely using his magic to slide his photograph under the sonogram. “My mother was very old when she had us; Applejack’s in her prime. And she’s only having one. You see…” He tried to remember how Connie had explained it to him---and immediately decided to take a gentler approach. “Ponies aren’t really built for more than one foal at a time. Having twins was very hard on her. That’s why… it happened.”

“Yeah, but…” She glanced at the bedside table, then back at him. “I don’t have a twin.”

It took him a second to realize what she meant, and when he did, he surprised them both by wrapping his forelegs around her and hugging her as hard as he could.

“Ow!”

“Applejack’s not going to die,” he said into her mane. “I promise.”

“Flim, yer hurtin’ my ribs!”

“Sorry,” he said as he let her go. She made quite a show of huffing and pushing her ribbon back into place. “I just---I don’t want you to think she’s going to leave you. She’ll be fine.”

“How do you know that? Y’ain’t a doctor.”

“Maybe not, but I know that this hospital has excellent staff, and they’ll take good care of her.”

“She ain’t gonna be here,” Apple Bloom pointed out. “She’s plannin’ on havin’ the foal in the barn.”

“The barn…?” He frowned. He knew they’d be able to clean up the mess---no, his mess---in time, but he remembered the acidic tang of manure in the air. “Isn’t that a little… unhygienic?”

“I dunno about that, but it’s safe enough,” she said with a shrug. “Ma had the three of us jes’ fine in there.”

“She did? But didn’t you just say she… you… er…”

“Flim,” she said quietly, “There are lotsa ways a foal can hurt their Mama.”

He didn’t know what to say. He wasn’t even sure if there was something to say to that.

She scootched her rump back a bit so she could sit cross-legged, her back propped against his knees. “Ma got real sick after she had me.”

He absent-mindedly scratched at his stitches. “An infection?”

“Nah. My family doesn’t really talk about it much.” Then a dark look crossed her face. “They say I’m ‘too young to understand’. But they don’t understand it, neither!”

Before he could respond, she grabbed his hoof, looking at him with pleading eyes. “Y’ain’t gonna make Applejack sad, are ya?” she asked. “You promised she won’t die---y’ain’t gonna make her sad, are ya, Mister Flim?”

“FLAM!”

Applejack pounded her hoof against the caravan door. The shutters were drawn, but she was sure she’d heard some scuttling about inside. “C’mon out, Flam! I know yer in there! I can hear ya bein’ ugly!”

The door slammed open, but instead of having to tilt her head up to meet Flam’s eye, she found herself staring into an unfortunately familiar face---and a sneering once, at that. Trixie gave her a condescending once-over, and then firmly planted both forehooves in the doorframe. They both knew Applejack was strong enough to push past this barricade, but it was more for show than effect. “What do you want?” she spat.

“I wanna talk to that miserable coltfriend a’yers. Ain’t that obvious? Or didn’tcha hear me hollerin’ out here?”

“Trixie wouldn’t be surprised if the whole town heard that braying voice of yours!” she said. “And while you’re in her presence, you’re not to insult her pookie like that!”

Applejack’s frown suddenly pulled back as she snorted. “Her ‘pookie’?!”

A quick flush of embarrassment went over her features, and the fluff around her ears bristled up. “I---shut up! What do you want with him, anyway? Come to try and steal him away, are you, you little home-wrecker?”

“Hey!” Even though she shoved her muzzle against Trixie’s, she didn’t lose her ground. “Who’re you callin’ a home-wrecker?”

“You, obviously! Or is a straightforward conversation too difficult for your simple mind to handle?”

Applejack pushed farther, her head halfway inside the caravan; Trixie’s whole body was tilted back at an uncomfortable angle, but her hooves were still blocking the doorway. “You wanna get a fat lip?”

“Why? Are you selling one of yours, tubby?”

“I am pregnant! I ain’t fat!!”

She could feel her muzzle twist as the last word left her throat in a ragged screech. Satisfied that she’d hit a sore spot, Trixie steeled her hindlegs and, with a thrust of her head, forced the intruder to back out of her home. “Oh, don’t you worry. I’m sure you’ll lose that extra babyfat in no time. Some stallions like a plumper mare, anyway.”

Her leg was starting to twitch so hard she hard to lean most of her weight on it, lest it fly out and give Trixie a matching bruise on the opposite cheek. “Trixie, I swear to Celestia if you keep flappin’ yer jaws I’ll---“

“You’ll what? Resort to violence, like your kind always does?”

“’MY KIND?!’” The muscles in her haunches flexed. She didn’t want to prove this bitch right, but she knew she had to be prepared for anything. “What d’you got against Earth ponies, huh? What did we ever do to you?”

It was so fast it was barely noticeable, but something crackled between them, like a shiver of static---and Applejack was sure her eyes weren’t playing tricks on her. Yes, she was sure she’d seen a little blanch on Trixie’s face. Was it a cringe…?

“What do you want with Flam, anyway?”

“Well, fer starters, I wanna give yer ‘pookie’ an earful fer callin’ his sister over here!”

The pallor on her face was long gone, vanished under her smirk. “Oh. So you’ve met the Old Battleaxe.”

“Yeah.” She glanced away. “She’s a real piece a’work.”

“At least we can agree on something.”

“…Sorry you hadta have her in yer family, too.”

Trixie raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean, ‘too’?”

“Well, if my brother has his way, I’m-a have that…” She paused, clicking her tongue a few times as if to dislodge a bad taste. “…pony as a sister-in-law.”

“A sis---?!”

Trixie took a stumbling step back, her eyes wide and her chest huffing. Another flush had risen to her cheeks, but this time, it was out of indignation. “I knew it! I knew it! You are out to steal my Flam from me!”

“What?!”

“Why, the nerve of you, you--- you hussy!” She grimaced as she pointed at Applejack’s puffed-out belly. “Not only did you go and get yourself pregnant, but now you want to take the one good thing I have in my life?!”

Her eyes narrowed. There it was again, that strange flicker on the unicorn’s face, like a mirage on a distant road. It was beginning to unsettle her. “Okay, first of all, I ain’t a hermaphrodite, so there’s no way I coulda ‘got myself pregnant’. Usually there’s a stallion involved.”

“And I bet you don’t even know who he is.”

“Oh, yer a bettin’ mare? Slap down a hundred bits on that lousy guess a’yers, Trixie, ‘cause I know damn well who knocked me up!”

Her lips curled up in a sneer. “Some poor mare’s husband, hm?”

She leaned back on her hindquarters so that navel stuck out; even though it made the foal rustle around in the amniotic fluid, she wrapped her fetlocks under the widest part of her belly and hefted it up. “Don’t try yer luck in Las Pegasus, girl. This here’s Flim’s baby!”

Trixie widened her eyes and, with a little gasp, took a step backwards. “W-what?”

“This is Flim’s daughter,” Applejack repeated.

Her eyes were flicking between the taut hide of her abdomen and her face. “But… how is that possible? H-how did that happen?”

“The stork, Trixie,” she said blankly. “Or was it the ‘cabbage patch’ story you heard?”

“But that’s… that can’t BE!” Trixie had backed up a few feet, and her eyes were wide and startled. “There’s no way he could be the father! No way!”

“Why not?”

Her nostrils flared. “Because, in case you haven’t noticed, he’s GAY!”

For a moment Applejack looked confused---and then she burst out laughing.

“What? What’s funny?”

“Oh, Trixie, you sure are somethin’!” With slight gestures of her hooftip, she encouraged the other mare to lean forward. “I got somethin’ to tell ya.”

Trixie kept her hooves firmly planted, but allowed herself to lean in a little.

“But it’s a secret,” she said in a lower voice, still motioning with her hoof. “C’mere.”

With one tiny, tentative step, she closed a bit more of the distance between them.

Applejack bit her lip and shook her head. “Nuh-uh. A li’l closer.”

She turned her head to the side and folded one ear toward Applejack’s mouth. “Okay, okay. Fine. So what’s this big, important secret?”

“Thing is, sugarcube,” she began in a whisper, “I know fer a fact Flim ain’t a coltcuddler…”

Trixie nodded. “Go on?”

Her chest puffed out as she sucked in her breath, and then with the power of a gale-force twister she screamed “…BECAUSE I BEEN SLEEPIN’ WITH HIM!!”

She couldn’t help but smile triumphantly as she watched Trixie stagger back, gasping and clutching at her ringing ear. “An’ he’s mighty good at it, too. No coltcuddler would know his way ‘round a mare’s body the way Flim does.”

“Some Element of Honesty you are!” she snapped. “Trixie’s the only mare who could seduce him!”

“Well maybe Trixie should take it up with Flim himself! I’m sure he’ll tell ya all about it!”

Immediately her mouth pinched shut, but she managed to keep her muzzle from scrunching up; sweet Celestia, she hoped Trixie didn’t take her up on that! She didn’t know how discrete Flim would be about their love life, and the thought of this egocentric loudmouth knowing all about it made her hide crawl.

“Y’jes’ gotta trust me,” she said, watching Trixie nurse her sore ear. “I ain’t got a reason t’lie about it.”

“Oh, you have plenty of reasons!” She rapped her hoof against the floor. “One: you have no idea who the father really is, and you want to protect what’s left of your reputation. Two: you know it’s easy to blame a stallion who’ll leave town once he’s out of the hospital. Three:”---here she paused to toss her mane and tilt her snout up just enough to be able to look down her nose---“ you know Trixie managed to make a coltcuddler fall for her charms, and it just burns you up inside that you couldn’t do the same. This is your feeble attempt to prove yourself as worthy.” A few strands had caught on her horn, so she lifted a hoof to brush them back in their place. “It really is pathetic how jealous you are of Trixie’s achievements.”

Her face and ears were burning so hot she was sure her hat would catch fire. Enough was enough. “You wanna know what’s pathetic, Trixie? A washed-up showmare who not only talks about herself like she’s some other pony, but desperately clings to her crazy delusions!” She caught her by the elbow mid-flinch, before she could properly retreat into her home, and yanked her so close the bristling hairs on their snouts were touching. “If Flim likes stallions, I’ll eat my hat!”

She was expecting her to snap back---so the smug, slow-spreading grin on her face took Applejack by surprise. “Oh, would you?” Trixie said. “Would you reeeeeally?”

“Yeah,” she said hesitantly.

“Well, sit yourself down. Trixie has something to show you!” she chirped as she turned back into the caravan. “By the way, do you like your Stetson with mayo or mustard?”

Author's Notes:

Don't do it, Trixie! DON'T DO IT!

....she's gonna do it, isn't she?

So I know it's a popular fanon that Ma Apple died foaling AB, but my take is a bit different. I didn't want to explicitly state what happened, but it was hinted at here.

As you can probably tell, the Big Bisexual Brouhaha (as ChuckFinley calls it) is really going to hit the fan in the next chapter. *rubs hands evilly* Oh, this will be fun to write!