Mac popped his back as he relaxed on the spacious couch that took up most of the room in the farm-house's living room. He peered out the window at the falling snow flakes and smiled as he remembered playing in that very snow as a young colt. He and his friends would run around, bundled as tightly as they could be, building snow ponies and having fights in huge ice forts.

He remembered, on one particularly snowy day, how he and Pa had...

Pa.

Mac braced himself for the usual stabbing pain in his heart he always felt this time of year when he thought of his departed mother and father.

It was there... but it wasn't nearly as painful as usual.

He reckoned that it had something to do with the angel busying herself in the kitchen making some fresh hot chocolate.

Mac's smile returned as he gazed into the fire blazing in the hearth. The past few months being married to Fluttershy had been just as wonderful as he'd always imagined they'd be. He found himself now taking the strangest pleasures from the simplest things; waking up with her by his side each morning, the look of love in her eyes when she brought him lunch while he tilled the fields...

Heck, he'd even enjoyed their first quarrel. She'd won, of course, but it gave him the greatest happiness to know that he had a wife who, despite her demure appearance, knew when to put her hoof down.

He would make sure not to leave his towels on the bathroom floor anymore, that was for sure.

He looked up the from the fire as she floated in, a mug of steaming hot chocolate in either hoof, her wings flapping gently from where they stuck out from the special green sweater Granny Smith had knit her just that morning, her mane done up in a long pink pony-tail. She beamed at him and passed him his mug before settling by his side. “How is it?”

Mac blew on the scalding liquid and took an experimental sip. “...perfect, little wing. Just perfect.”

She grinned and repeated his actions. “It took a few tries, but I think I finally got the right amount of marshmallows in there.”

He chuckled and put his free hoof around her. “'Shy, you know not everything has to be perfect. It's not like I'm gonna leave you if there's too many marshmallows in my drink.”

She giggled as she snuggled closer to him. “I know, big bunny, I know. It's just...”

“Just?”

“Just our first Hearth's Warming Eve together.”

He raised his mug in salute. “The first of many.”

“Here here.” She laughed again as they clinked mugs and took another sip. “I just want everything to be perfect.”

They lay together like that for a long while, watching the snow flurry outside, the only sounds the crackling of the logs in the fire and the logs Granny Smith was sawing upstairs.

“Big bunny?”

Mac shook off the doze he was starting to settle in and looked down at her. “Yes, little wing?”

“I want to do this every year on Hearth's Warming. I want us all to cozy up to the fire like this and drink hot chocolate and just enjoy being near each other.”

Mac kissed her forehead. “Of course, little wing.” Her phrasing was bouncing around his dozing brain. “Not sure what you mean by 'all' though. Granny's already in bed, Applebloom's at her friend's house, and AJ's out somewhere with Rainbow Dash.”

Fluttershy looked away. “I mean all of us. You, me, and...” She reached back, took his hoof that was around her, and placed it on her stomach.

Suddenly Mac was wide awake.

“Fluttershy... are you serious?”

Still not looking at him, she nodded.

He put his mug on the ground and used his now free hoof to turn her face to his. “How long have you known?”

“Just a week.”

“How long have you been...?”

“The doctor said I'm only a couple months along. I'm so sorry I didn't tell you earlier, big bunny. I just started feeling so woozy and I told Rarity and she said that it sounded like what happened when she had Sweetie Belle and I just wanted the moment I told you to be perfect and I...”

He cut her off with a kiss, strong and gentle at the same time. She melted into it as she always did and her babbling died in the same instant as it had arrived.

When they parted, Fluttershy gaped at what she saw. “Macintosh, are you... crying?”

There was no sense in denying it, so Mac only nodded as he sniffled. “Sorry, I'm just... oh little wing, I love you so much.”

They kissed again and snuggled closer together.

A million thoughts ran through Mac's head. A million worries and a million joys and a million sorrows... he was sure his head would pop. He craned his neck and looked out into the snowy night once again.

He saw himself with Pa, galloping around in the snow, racing and laughing and having a day so wonderful together Mac would remember it for the rest of his days.

He saw himself with a little filly, playing and running just as he and Pa had done.

He found his hoof unconsciously rubbing a circle on Fluttershy's stomach.

“Fluttershy, I...” He started, but the quiet squeak of a snore he'd come to know so well told him she was asleep. He smiled, kissed the top of her head, and pulled her closer. Sleep came for him too, and he fell into the darkness with the sound of the dying fire in his ears and the smell of his wife's mane in his nose.

And the feel of the place where their little one was growing beneath his hoof.

Big Macintosh and Fluttershy.

Husband and Wife.

Father and Mother.