“Do you want me to walk you home?” Twilight said as she helped Applejack heft the burlap sack into her saddlebag.

“Thanks, but I kinda need some time to... to, uh...”

“Process everything that just happened?” she finished for her.

“You could say that.” She grunted as she pulled the strap into place; two thousand bits, minus a few pilfered hundred, certainly weighed more than she’d expected. She tried to imagine the look on her brother's face when she showed him the money---and then it hit her. “Aw, crap. You got any tips fer how I should break this to Big Mac?”

“Just tell him the truth, Applejack,” she said, her magic already on the doorknob. “But you might want to make sure he’s sitting down first.”

“That’s a good idea,” she said grimly. “A couple a’pints a’cider wouldn’t hurt, neither.”

“Hey.” Twilight brushed her wing along her friend’s jaw, and gave her a reassuring smile. “I know you need some space, but... if you need to talk---"

Nodding against the feathers, she murmured “Yeah. I know where to find ya.”

“Okay.” She paused in the doorway. “Say, do you feel like a picnic? It’s been awhile since we all got together, and I’m sure the rest of the girls would love to hear what’s been going on.”

As much as she didn’t want to rehash it all now, the idea of getting the inevitably eclectic feedback from the rest of her close friends was somehow encouraging. Not to mention she'd need the bonding time after having to deal with her brother. “That sounds great. Maybe in a day or two?”

“Sure. I’ll drop by the farm later and let you know.” She stepped side to let Applejack through the doorway, and gave her a light nod. “Take care of yourself.”

“Of course.” She watched as Twilight trotted away towards the front entrance, and then turned in the other direction. Even after the ice cream, she was still peckish, and felt like dropping a few of her thousand-odd bits in the cafeteria. The mere thought made her a little giddy. All that money, all at once! Even though she knew a good chunk of it would have to go to fixing the broken equipment, she felt she could at least allow herself some small indulgences.

Baby clothes, she thought as she loped down the hallway, a smile playing on her lips. I’ll get Rarity to make some nice li’l dresses...

“Applejack?”

She jolted in place at the sound of her name, and turned her head slowly, somewhat afraid of what she might see. The door was slightly ajar, and when she pushed it open with a creak, her heart started thudding both with relief and apprehension. “Oh sweet Celestia---Berry, is that you?”

She gingerly lifted her forelegs off the bed with a weak smile. “As I live and breathe.”

Applejack took her hat off, looked at it, turned it over clumsily, and replaced it. She stammered out the first thing to pop into her head: “You, uh, you look pretty good!”

And she meant it. Despite the puffy, bloodshot eyes and sweaty mane, Berry seemed to be almost radiating with an inner light. “Heh. Yeah, my coat’s never been better.” Running a hoof over the opposite forearm, she paused when it reached the crook of her elbow, where an I.V. needle was taped in place. “They’ve been pumping me full of fluids ever since I got here. The good news is it’s doing wonders for my complexion...”

“And the bad news?” she said, inching into the room.

“Well, I’m probably pissing more than you are.”

Applejack let out a nervous laugh as she moved forward, but hesitated before taking the chair next to the bed. After all that had happened, she felt like an interloper in this room. “You sure weren’t doin’ too well the other day.”

Her ears flopped back. “Oh. You heard about that?”

“I didn’t hear about it. I heard it directly.” She put a tentative hoof on the chair, but instead of climbing up, she just squeaked it back and forth, staring at it instead of Berry. “I was visitin’ a fr...” The word ’friend’ had seemed so false that it withered up even as she was forming it in her mouth. “I was visitin’ somepony, an’ I heard you screechin’ like a banshee.”

“A banshee, huh? I guess that’s appropriate.” Blushing, Berry pulled her knees up to her chest. “Y’know, my family originally came from Kilkennel.”

“Ppft---yer Connemarish? That sure explains the drinkin’.” And then a hoof flew to her mouth. “Aw, shoot, Berry, I’m so sorry. Tha-that was a messed-up thing t’say! I didn’t mean---"

She just chuckled, folding her forelegs while being careful not to poke the I.V. “It’s fine, hon. I’ve certainly earned that kind of joke.”

Again, she reached for her hat, needing something to fiddle with, but before she could speak, Berry added something, almost under her breath: “I, uh, hadn’t expected a visit from you, Applejack.”

She wasn’t quite sure what to say, pressing and folding the brim between her hooftips. A thought from earlier came back to her, reminding her of the way Flim’s eyes had looked when she was screaming at him, and a tight pain settled in her chest when she realized he hadn’t been the first vulnerable pony she’d lashed out at.

“So, you were visiting somepony in here?” Berry said, as if to bridge the stifling silence between them. “I hope it wasn’t family. Did Granny’s hip act up again?”

“No, no, she’s fine. It was---" And her lips pulled into her mouth, interrupting herself. She just wasn’t ready to say his name out loud again, not when the dull throb of her former tears was still fresh in her throat. So she tried something else: “Why’re you in here, anyway?”

“I bet you think I drank myself into a stupor.”

“I---"

“It’s okay. It’s a reasonable enough assumption.”

“Berry, I...” She finally lifted her hindquarters from the floor and plunked herself into the chair. It was a little taller than the one that had been in Flim’s room, and her hind hooves dangled just above the tiles. “There ain’t no shame in fallin’ off the wagon, y’know. Granny always says ‘Failure ain’t the number a’times you fall down; success is the number a’times you get back up.’” When that didn’t get a reply, she went on: “I, uh, I got this uncle who---"

“Oh, let me guess. A drunk uncle?” She grinned. “A druncle?”

“Uh, yeah.” The cutesy term just didn’t seem appropriate. “From time to time, he’d try to dry out, but he’d start...” Her hackles bristled at the memory of one particularly unfortunate family reunion. “He’d start shakin’ somethin’ fierce, an’ he’d howl about things he could see that weren’t really there...”

“Oh yeah,” she said with a strange wistfulness as she turned toward the window. The curtains were fluttering lightly; she’d asked a nurse to open it to air out the dank smell of her sweat. “The DTs. The bottleache. I’m... unfortunately familiar with that.” Then she snapped her head around faster than Applejack thought would be possible, given her current condition. “But that’s not it, AJ.”

“It isn’t?” With a grunt, she leaned forward, the hide on her barrel folding against the taut top of her belly. “’Cause I wouldn’t blame anypony fer havin’ a few drinks after the...” She hesitated, her mouth moving around as she tried to find the right words. “...The tongue-lashin’ I gave ya.”

“I---“

She didn’t give her a chance to finish, the words suddenly spilling out of her: “Oh, Berry, you have no idea how sorry I am fer that! I mean it! I, I mean---here you were, offerin’ t’help me in my time a’need, an’ all I did was let my damn hormones get the better a’me an’ blow up at you like you done somethin’ horrible!”

“Applejack---"

“All ya did was blab a little, an’ I acted like you went an’ set fire to the farm!” She pulled back into herself, and hugged her forelegs around her body as her spine hit the back of the chair. “Besides, even if y’hadn’t said a thing, it ain’t like I coulda kept it a secret. We weren’t alone in that bar---plenty a’ponies saw me dancin’ with him, an’---an’ then my brother went an’ drug him back to town anyhow, so the cat woulda been outta the bag no matter what!”

“You---"

“But that ain’t the worst part, Berry! I can’t believe it took this long to click, but... but I’m jes’ now startin’ to realize what kinda place you musta been in when we were last talkin’.” Despite the warmth of holding her arms so tight to her chest, she shivered. “Here you were, strugglin’ with yer own demons, an’ tryin’ to open up to me---I didn’t even think how much courage that musta taken! I’m sorry, Berry, I’m so sorry---I didn’t mean t’make you drink again, I---"

A hooftip came to rest on her lips, and Applejack finally looked up from her belly. Berry was smiling at her, her mouth crooked up to the side.

“That’s sweet of you to say, Applejack, but I didn’t go on a bender.” She shifted in the bed, the thin coverlet pulling to the side as she readjusted. Her hoof went from Applejack’s face down to her knee. “You want to know what happened? I decided I needed to clear my head, so I took a stroll through the Everfree.”

“On yer own? That ain’t safe! You coulda---"

“Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time.” A light blush touched her cheeks, and she giggled. “I stopped by a little creek, and realized how hungry I was after that hard day’s work. I saw some mushrooms growing by the base of a tree...”

When she trailed off, still smirking, the dark feeling around Applejack’s heart began to lift. “Oh, Berry. You didn’t!”

“I did,” she said, laughing. “What can I say? My sister was a good Filly Scout, but I quit after two meetings. So I never learned the difference between edible and, uh, hallucinogenic mushrooms.” She sheepishly moved her elbow, clicking the I.V. stand against her bed. “I’m not really sure how long I was out there, but the nurses told me a very concerned Zecora turned me in to the hospital after I threw up all of her remedies.”

The small chortle that bubbled up felt like a welcome relief, and Applejack put her hoof over Berry’s. “Part a’me wants to be mad at you fer doin’ somethin’ so stupid, but---"

“But you’re relieved that at least I didn’t fall off the wagon. Again.”

“Oh! That reminds me.” She’d let her saddlebags fall to the floor when she’d taken the chair, so it took quite a bit of huffing and shuffling before she managed to yank one onto her lap and tug it open. Knowing something so small would’ve gotten lost at the bottom, she’d placed what she was rooting for in a small side pocket, making it easier to retrieve. She picked the small coin out with her lips and spat it onto the mattress by Berry’s side. “Given what y’jes’ told me, that rightfully belongs to you.”

She stared at it for a few drawn-out moments, and then lightly touched her four-month chip. When she lifted her eyes back to Applejack’s, they looked a little moist around the corners. “Thank you,” she said quietly.

They both sat in a silence for a minute, and then Applejack coughed. “So, uh...” She extended her hoof. “Can we go back to bein’ friends?”

Instead of returning the hoofshake, Berry leaned forward and pulled her into a hug. Even with a hint of tears watering around her lashes, Applejack laughed and tucked her chin against the pink shoulder. With the maelstrom of a mess her life had fallen into in the past few days, it felt so good to at least have one thing rectified again.

“Of course, Applejack. Of course. I’m so glad you could forgive me.”

She cocked her head into the embrace, snuffling her snout against Berry’s mane. “I was about to say the same thing.”

“Hey, I knew you had a temper when I met you. I knew what I was getting into.”

She’d said it with such a teasing lightness that Applejack couldn’t help but smile.

“You sure did a lot of babbling back there, but I think I caught something about your brother dragging Flim back to town,” Berry said as they parted.

Heat and discomfort crawled up the back of her neck. Great. “...Uh-huh.”

“How did that go?”

She glanced up at the clock over the bed. “You got a couple of hours? It's... kind of a long story.”

“I’m coming, I’m coming!” Soarin’ called to the door. He paused briefly in front of the mirror, licked his hoof, and smeared it back through his mane. The hotel had been instructed to keep the press outside, but a few nosy photographers had still managed to weasel their way up to his room, and he couldn’t risk being caught looking like he’d just rolled out of bed. Rising to his tip-hooves, he slid the guard back over the peephole, but all he saw was a flash as whoever was outside ducked out of sight. The guard slipped back in place, and he groaned when the knocking began again.

“Okay,” he said under his breath, and opened the door.

His eyes went wide. Reflexes kicked in before he could speak, and he threw all of his weight forward; since he had expected the haymaker to send his target flying, the loud CLANG of his hoof on a solid, staticky wall came as an excruciating surprise. “Fucking Celestia---!”

“I figured you’d try something like that,” Flim said from behind his force field, nervously eyeing Soarin’ as he hissed in pain. “I’m sorry, but I’d rather you get a split hoof than an assault charge.”

“Oh right, like you care what happens to me!” He shook his hoof out a few more times, and tucked it under his opposite foreleg. Even though his chin was trembling lightly, he narrowed his eyes and flared his wings in intimidation. “What do you want?!”

“I’d like to talk to you. But...” He glanced up at his horn, blinking as a bead of sweat rolled over the corner of his eye. “This is hard to keep up. If I let the force field down, will you promise not to hurt me?”

His wings didn’t lower, but he did fold them slightly. “You want to talk? About what?”

“The pictures. What else?”

With a quiet ruffling, he pulled his wings back to his sides. “As soon as you let that magic down, you have one minute.”

Flim sighed, and the translucent green bubble crackled away from him. “There. Can I come in?”

“Fifty-seven seconds.”

“Okay, okay.” He made sure to keep his back legs braced, because Soarin’s’ posture made him look like he was counting down to a headbutt. Pointing at his saddlebag, he said “I have the photos in here. As well as the negatives.”

When that didn’t get a response, he gingerly unlatched one of the bags and pulled a padded envelope out with his hoof. He switched to magic, and tossed it in front of Soarin’. “They’re in there. Go on, look.”

After a moment’s hesitation, he scooped it up and used his teeth to pry it open. His eyes scanned the contents, and then lifted back to Flim’s. “Sixty seconds.”

“One’s missing---"

“Ten seconds.”

“But that’s only because it got trashed!” he said, scuttling back a few inches. “It wasn’t my fault!”

“...Fifty seconds.”

“Somepony got a hold of them---"

“WHAT?!”

“---And she ripped it in half!” Flim took his hat off and pressed it against his chest. “That’s all she did, I swear!”

Soarin’ opened his mouth, but closed it again. His eyelids drooped and he looked off to the side.

“Hey.”

The hoof came to rest on his cheek with a careful gentleness, making him look up again.

“I never meant for this to happen,” Flim said quietly. He could feel the hide quavering under the blue coat. “Please believe me, Soarin’. I really didn’t.”

“You... you have thirty seconds left.”

He ducked his head, his whole face flushing with heat. “I just... I never thought I’d ever get to be with... with somepony even remotely like you. That’s the only reason I bought the camera. I just wanted something to remind me of...” He craned his eyes upwards to Soarin’s’. “I was going to develop the photographs myself, and keep them somewhere safe.”

His ears had been peeled back in anger, but they relaxed back into their normal position. There was still fire in his voice, however: “Bullshit.”

“I’m telling the truth!”

“Yeah? Then why’d your brother blackmail me, huh?”

“That wasn’t supposed to happen,” he said wearily. “None of this was supposed to happen.”

“Why should I believe you? You’ve been nothing but trouble ever since I first laid eyes on you!”

Flim looked up at the water-spotted ceiling, trying not to groan. This whole exchange had gone so much smoother in his head. “Look, you were there. You saw the stallion with the gun! Do you think that was something I’d planned?”

He shifted from hoof to hoof, his face mixture of confusion and embarrassment. “Well, he could’ve been an actor...”

“You’re lucky you’re handsome, Soarin’, because you really are an idiot.”

He managed to get a hoof in the door before Soarin’ could slam it shut.

“Ow. Listen to me, I---"

“I don’t have to listen to you!” he shouted. Flim’s hopes perked up when he opened the door a few inches, but he just slammed it on his hoof again. “Go away! Do you want me to call the guards?”

“Soarin’, listen. I’m sorry, okay? This was all just a mistake!”

As he hissed the words through his teeth, Flim thought he caught a whiff of whiskey on his breath, hidden under a layer of mouthwash. “Do you have any idea what I’m going through?!”

“Yes,” he said, “I do.”

“Oh really? You think you do?” He’d opened the door again, but Flim kept his hoof lodged in the frame anyway. “You know what it’s like having your face plastered over every freaking newspaper out there? You know what it’s like closing the blinds against the ponyparazzi?”

“Well, not quite like that, but---"

“Do you know what it’s like having to go and, and---“ He began running a hoof through his disheveled mane, his feathers sticking out at odd angles. “Do you know what it’s like having to go into a retirement home and have to face your father and tell him you’re gay, huh? Do you know what that’s like?!”

Flim, as cautiously as he could, set his horn alight again. Soarin’s’ hooves sure looked twitchy.

“And do you know what it’s like having to look a war veteran in the face and tell him something you---!” With a fierce shudder, his muzzle twisted as his lips pulled into his teeth. “Not that it fucking matters, anyway.”

“Soarin’!”

The hoof that was in his mane smashed to the floor, but his eyes were off to the side. “I pay his bills, I visit him every week, and he can’t even remember who I am! Every time I see him, every fucking time, he tells me he has a son my age who never visits because he left to join the Wonderbolts, and... and...”

Everything about him deflated, his wings sagging to his sides. It took a great deal of courage, but Flim finally forced out “For what it’s worth, I, er, I never knew my father.”

“Oh, who cares? Why should I care?!” Using a flick of his hooftip, he kicked the envelope back into his room and turned his blazing eyes up to the stallion at his door. “And your minute’s up! Get the hell away from me!”

“Soarin’, wait!”

And for some reason, he did. He was halfway twisted into the room, but the foreleg he had pressed against the door was frozen in place. There wasn’t enough room to step in, so Flim kept one hoof in the doorjam. “Please, just one more minute!”

“No!”

“Come on, Soarin’! Just let me explain!”

He couldn’t quite read the expression on the pegasus’ face, but he could see his jaw clenching and unclenching a few times.

“You’re right,” he said, “I don’t know what you’re going through exactly, but my life these past few days hasn’t exactly been a bed of roses, either.”

No response.

“It’s only been a few days since we last met, but...” With a quiet whuff, he leaned his head away. He knew that he was opening himself up for attack, but Soarin’ didn’t seem to be about to pounce. “You have no idea what’s happened to me.”

He snorted, turning just enough to show one hooded eye. “Oh yeah? Wanna trade?”

Flim half-grinned, slowly, and then turned towards his saddlebag. “Part of me wants to say yes.”

The bone-tired movement made Soarin’ bristle his feathers; he couldn’t place his hoof on what, exactly, was wrong, but something felt incredibly off about the other stallion’s actions. Four days ago he’d seemed so lively and full of life---and now he was moving with almost geriatric fragility. “You... uh...”

“But another part of me wouldn’t change the past, not for every gold bit in Equestria.”

“...What?”

His ears had started to fold back, but he forced them to stand upright again. “Soarin’,” he said carefully, still not looking quite at him, “I may not be a celebrity, but I understand the... er... the need for privacy.”

“Not the way I do.”

“You’re right. I don’t understand your struggle... and you can’t possibly understand mine. Because you’re a singleton.”

That caught his attention. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

After pulling the buckle loose, Flim sat down heavily. “I have a twin---an identical twin brother. Ever since conception, we shared everything.”

Even though he wasn’t looking, he sensed the pegasus leaning forward.

“Everything,” he repeated. “Every day, every dream, every aspiration---we were like two halves of a whole. And then, when I least expected it, I fell in love with, er, with somepony I shouldn’t have, and I was forced to keep a secret from the best friend I’d ever had." He snorted. "That sure didn't last long. I don’t know what it’s like to be hounded by the press, but I do know what it’s like to have everypony talking about me, and not in a particularly positive way.” With a smirk, he added “And, given the choice, I’d take the ponyparazzi over high school students any day. Last I checked, photographers don’t tend to slam their subjects in lockers.”

“S-so?” he sputtered, surprised to hear the falter in his voice. “What are you getting at?”

“We have something in common,” Flim said haltingly. “Neither of us chose to come out of the closet---the door got kicked down instead. You shouldn't have had to go through that... and I’m... sorry for the role I played in it.”

Soarin’s’ hoof had slipped off the door, hovering an inch above the ground. They made brief eye contact, and both quickly glanced away; the combination of the surprising statement and the sincerity he’d seen on Flim’s face had flustered him into silence. All the knotted-up rage he’d been holding inside since he’d read that newspaper headline was beginning to feel loose and impotent. It took a great effort to speak again, but he managed “So... so what? You’re sorry, and that’s it?”

He shrugged, still fidgeting with his bag.

“Uh, your brother said something about wanting money if you got hurt,” he added as he eyed the shiner, “And you do look worse for the wear.”

“Oh, fuck that. I don’t care.”

“You don’t?!” That was a shock---most disgruntled fans had their eyes on his wallet, and it wouldn’t have been the first time he’d bought somepony’s silence.

Flim rubbed his frog over his black eye, and then up towards his mane. “No. I’m sorry if this seems crass, but I got what I wanted from you.”

“I...”

“Don’t get me wrong, a few extra bits here and there would be nice, but I’m...” Holding his teeth together, he sighed through them and then closed his lips. “I can get by without your blood money.”

“Okay. Seriously, what’s going on?” he said in bewilderment. “I hardly freakin’ recognize you---you look like you’ve aged ten years since the last time I saw you! What happened?”

Flim finally opened his bag, picked something out with his teeth, and turned back. Soarin’ squinted at what he’d retrieved---at first glance it seemed like one of the photographs, but when he took a second look, he realized it was something he hadn’t seen before: a blurry, black-and-white picture with medical markings along the sides, a strange little blob in the centre.

“What’s that?”

“It’s...”

With a little ‘ptui’, Flim dropped it onto his outstretched hoof, and the breaths seemed to pull in and out of his chest with a mighty heave. Looking down at the print-out, he mumbled “This... this is my daughter.”

“What?”

A tiny swirl of magic began whirling around the sonogram, and Flim rattled out the points as best as he could remember: “You see that? The dark spot there? That’s her heart. That little nub down there is where her tail will be, once she’s grown a bit more. Oh, and can you see what’s tucked up by her ears? That’s her horn.”

He was starting to feel all cold and rattled inside. “I don’t... I don’t understand,” he mumbled.

“Do you see her, Soarin’? Do you see her?” he said, jabbing his hoof at the print-out. “This is what’s happened since we last met. This is what I have to deal with, now.”

“I---"

“I’m going to be a father,” he whispered, and then pulled the sonogram away from the pegasus. He held it an inch away from his barrel, taking long, deep breaths. “No matter where I go, or what I do, I’ll know there’s a little filly who’s going to be waiting for me. My little baby girl...” Still sitting awkwardly on the rough hallway carpet, he threw his forelegs up in a helpless gesture. “And now I have no idea what I’m going to do with the rest of my life.”

The sonogram being lifted in his aura was enough of a distraction that Soarin’ actually jumped when he felt a gentle kiss pressing against his cheek.

“You’re going to make some stallion very happy one day,” Flim said as he tucked the picture away. “I hope you have better luck in love than me.”

He put a frog to the spot where he’d been kissed, and slowly blinked a few times. By the time he’d registered everything that had just happened, Flim was halfway down the hallway. “Hey!” he called after him. “Hey, wait!”

He paused, but didn’t turn. His barrel expanded as he took a deep breath, and then he disappeared around the corner.

Soarin’ stood in the doorway for a full minute before turning back into his room, closing the door and leaning back against it. He idly pulled the envelope towards him and opened it, shaking a photo loose.

“He has a daughter?” he said to himself as he let his eyes wander over the evidence. “Sheesh. That’s the last time I mess around with a straight stallion.”

Author's Notes:

Thanks to Elric of Melnipony for suggesting 'Connemarish' to suggest a pony has Irish heritage.

I wanted to have a scene where Soarin' comes out to his dad, but decided to refer to it in passing instead.

Anyway! Just wrapping a few things up before we get back to the meat of the story. Heh heh... meat.