"Can I help you?"

"Yeah, uh..." Applejack glanced up at the clock. "The walk-in clinic still open?"

"Of course. We're open 'til eight." The nurse tapped the tip of her pen against her clipboard. "What is the reason for your visit?"

"Um..." She looked over her shoulder at the thick line of uncomfortable, infected, and injured ponies behind her, and leaned as close as she could, whispering in the nurse's ear: "I.. I... need a p-pregnancy test."

"Hm... Unfortunately, that's a little lower-priority than some of the other patients we've had check in," she explained gently. "The doctor will have to see someone with a bad muscle sprain first. Do you mind waiting?"

"How long?"

"Twenty minutes, tops. Or we could book you an appointment for early next week---"

"Nope!" she said quickly. "No, I gotta know now." She sighed, letting her shoulders slump. "I'll wait."

"I'll go ahead and book you in. Please have a seat."

"Thanks."

"Oh, miss?"

Applejack hadn't even had the chance to turn around. "Uh huh?"

The nurse slid a pamphlet across the counter. She was smiling, but it looked a little perfunctory. "Here's some reading material for you to look over while you're waiting."

Her eyes widened as she pulled it closer. Under the 'Expecting?' title, in smaller letters, was 'Know your options'. With a shaking hoof, Applejack opened it to the first page, and gulped when she saw a diagram of a late-term pregnancy showing in disgusting detail how all the internal organs had squooshed aside to make room for the growing uterus. She could feel sweat trickling down the side of her neck when she looked at the flattened bladder.

"I can't do this," she breathed.

"Jeez, wouldja move already?!" someone behind her shouted. "You're not the only one who needs to see a doctor, you know!"

Applejack rounded on him, eyes blazing. "Well, unless y'got Tourette's, y'aint got no reason to go screamin' at other ponies like that!"

"My son has a fever," he snapped. Her eyes drifted from his angry face to the baby buggy at his side; looking back up at her was a shivering little foal, all flushed and sticky. "...So if you don't mind getting out of the damn way?!"

"I... sorry," she mumbled. She quickly stuffed the paper in her saddlebag and went to take her seat, keeping her eyes to the floor. Her mind kept flashing between the image of the sick baby and the medical diagram in the pamphlet. Why do they have to use cross-sections? It's scary enough without havin' to see it from the inside!

"Applejack?"

She bolted upright and snapped her head to the side. "R-Rainbow Dash?"

"The one and only!"

Applejack forced a smile. She couldn't help but notice that her friend was sort of slouched over the chair instead of sitting on it properly. "Uh... howdy."

"Wow, no wonder you're here! You look like crap," Rainbow said. "No offence."

"None taken."

She shifted on the seat, and both her eyes and wings snapped wide open. "Ow!"

"What's the matter? Sprained somethin'?"

"Not really, but I sure did get a workout," she said with a smirk. "Listen, AJ, I got a word of advice for you---next time some barfly tries to pick you up... say no!"

Her ears immediately flattened against her head. "What's that supposed to mean?!"

Rainbow Dash recoiled a little, her eyes widened in surprise. "Uh... that a few nights ago I went home from the bar with some stranger and now it hurts when I pee...?"

"Oh," she said as her shoulders slumped. "Is that all?"

"Yeah. Geez, what'd you think I meant?" She reached into a grease-stained paper bag on the floor beside her and pulled out a gnawed-on burrito. "Oh, I got some hay fries left. You want?"

Applejack looked down into the bag, and---the stench of the cooking oil felt like a sick punch in the solar plexus. Her mouth began flooding with drool. "Oh no!"

"What?"

Jumping to her hooves, she blurted "Where's the bathroom?!"

"Uh, down the hall, around the corner and---"

"Dammit!" She stumbled to the side and just barely managed to stick her head in the garbage can before the floodgates opened, and up came breakfast, lunch, that donut she'd had on the way here... even some carnation petals.

"Whoa!" Rainbow dropped her food and was at her side in a flash; with one hoof she lifted Applejack's bangs off her forehead, and the other traced gentle circles on her back. "Easy. Easy, now."

"Ugh..." With a last spluttering gag, she pressed the side of her face against the cool tiled wall. "Okay, I... I think it's over. Aw, shoot..." She hadn't had the time to empty the garbage first, and now there were crumpled-up papers and single-serve cups floating in her puke. "I'm sorry!"

"It's okay, AJ! C'mon."

She normally would've shrugged off the help, but this time she let Rainbow scoop her up and guide her back to her seat. She kept the brim of her hat pulled down over her burning face.

Across the room, a little colt with a patch of gauze over an infected eye said, far too loudly, "Mommy, is that lady contagious?"

"No, dear," his mother responded tartly, "You won't ever get what she has."

Rainbow shot the mare a dirty look, and then put her chin on Applejack's shoulder. "Hey. My appointment's not for another fifteen minutes. Let's go for a walk, okay?"

"But..."

"C'mon, I'll buy you a milkshake. Let's go."

"The garbage..."

"AJ, they hire ponies to take care of that kind of thing! C'mon, there's a cafeteria a few doors down. Milkshakes, on me. Okay?"

"...Okay," she said reluctantly.

Once they were far enough down the hallway, Rainbow glanced over her shoulder before leaning closer to her friend and whispering "So it IS true!"

"What is?"

"You're in the pudding club!"

"What?"

"You got a bat in the cave, AJ! You're knocked u---"

Applejack shoved a hoof in her muzzle. "Would you shush?! And how---how did you---?"

"Well, you did kinda just puke your guts out. And besides, have you looked at your teats lately?"

"RAINBOW DASH!"

"What?" she shrugged. "I saw them when you sat down! I'm just sayin'."

"I'm not..." Applejack sat back on her haunches and hung her head. "I don't know if I'm... that's why I'm here. I came to find out."

"But... there's a chance you are, right?"

"Yeah. A pretty good chance." She looked away, biting her lip. "Oh...what you must think of me..."

"Are you kidding? I'm totally jealous!"

"You are?"

"Well, not of the preggers part," she said as she flipped her mane back. "But I've always wanted to have a threeway with twins. I don't know how you pulled that off! I mean, I came close once---"

Ice. Her body felt like ice. "What was that?" she said, barely audible.

"Cloudchaser was into it, but Flitter---"

"Rainbow," she said through clenched teeth, "the part about twins. What didja mean?"

She cocked her head. "Is that a trick question? You know what I meant."

"Humour me."

"How should I put this....Heh!" Now she was grinning. "You were the apple filling in a Flim-Flam sandwich!"

"NO!" Applejack shouted. "No, I did not do that!" ....although she had to admit, the thought was more than a little interesting...

"Oh, so you did them one at a time?"

"No, no, no!" She got back up and began stomping towards the cafeteria. "I only... uh... with one of 'em."

Rainbow caught up to her. "Which one?"

She scowled. "The annoying one."

"Yeah, that doesn't narrow it down much."

Before pushing open the swinging doors, Applejack shot a look over her shoulder, and then hissed "It was Flim."

"Ha! I knew it! I so knew it!" She gave her friend a good-natured nudge on the shoulder. "He was totally into you!"

"What?"

"Hold on." Rainbow clunked some coins on the counter, smiling at the colt behind the cash register. "Two milkshakes to go. One chocolate, and one, uh...?"

"Cherry," Applejack said. Once the colt was out of earshot, she turned back towards Rainbow and whispered "What do you mean, 'he was into me'?"

"Are you kidding? Didn't you see the way he was checking you out?" She paused to reconsider. "Oh, wait. Of course you wouldn't. Your back would've been turned when he was ogling your butt."

Applejack's tail flicked down protectively across her backside. "Whaaa...?"

"Oh yeah, the whole time they were in town, he was scoping you! He looked at you like a hungry dog looks at a bone. And when you were running around in the field, getting all sweaty---"

"Okay, that's enough!" She grabbed her milkshake off the counter and turned to leave. "C'mon. I dunno when the doctor's gonna call me. We better get going."

Applejack walked in silence for awhile, the paper cup balancing on her head; Rainbow flew beside her, sucking noisily on her drink. Finally she asked "So... you had no idea he was hot for you?"

She thought back... and remembered the weird way he'd sidled up against her as he'd---she still had no idea how---managed to break into their huddle. "Not... really."

"Well, whatever." She finished the last of her milkshake with a loud slurp. "Does he know you're pregnant?"

"I don't know yet!"

"You gonna tell him?"

"I..." Applejack hesitated at the door of the waiting room. "I don't really wanna talk about it any more."

"Uh, okay."

"Wait. There was one thing."

"Yeah?"

Applejack frowned up at her. "How did you know who...?"

"Oh, AJ," Rainbow said with a dismissive wave. "Everypony knows."

"WHAT?!"

"I heard it from Rarity," she went on, "and she heard it from Pinke, who heard it from Mrs. Cake, who overheard it at the grocery store..."

Applejack's shiver turned into a full-blown quake. "How-how-how is that possible?!"

"Perfect timing!"

They both snapped to attention. "Huh?"

The nurse was smiling at them over her clipboard. "The doctor will see you now, Applejack. You can take your drink in with you."

"Hey," Rainbow said as she caught Applejack by the elbow. "Want me to come in with you?"

Applejack shook her head. "No. I gotta do this on my own."

"I'll wait for you, okay?"

They stared at each other for a second, and then Applejack grabbed her in a tight hug. "Sure," she whispered as they pulled apart. "I... I gotta go."

"Good luck!" she called after them as she watched the doctor lead Applejack out of the waiting room. "...You might need it."

****

Rainbow Dash was re-reading the short story about the all-mares' prison in the PentHorse she'd slipped into an Equestrian Geographic when a familiar shadow fell over her. She looked up with a smile. "So how'd it...."

Applejack looked like she'd been sucker-punched.

"...go?"

Quickly stuffing the magazines in her bag, Rainbow jumped off the chair and put a leg around her friend's shoulders. "Bad news?"

She just nodded mutely.

Rainbow scanned the busy waiting room. "There's some chairs in the hallway outside. It's less, uh, crowded. C'mon."

The hallway between the clinic and the cafeteria was much quieter and cooler than it had been in that stuffy little waiting room. Applejack eased herself into one of the squeaky vinyl chairs, and stared into the distance.

The clock on the wall loudly clicked away a few seconds.

"What am I gonna do?" she moaned, covering her face with her hat. "Aw Celestia, what am I gonna do?"

"You know what I think?"

Applejack scowled, but didn't lift her head. "I wasn't really askin' for advice, Rainbow."

"Just hear me out."

Rainbow flopped back in her chair and began tapping her hooftips together, deep in thought. Just as Applejack was drawing a breath to ask her what was taking so long, she began to speak:

"A few months ago when I was taking Tank out for a spin, we flew over a really busy road. You know the one that always has out-of-control carriages rolling down it? Yeah. Anyway, I saw a river turtle about to cross the road." She leaned closer. "And it was a turtle, not a tortoise. Turtles have these, like, flippers---"

"Do I really need a biology lesson right now?"

"Okay, whatever. Anyway, I knew the poor little bastard was going to get smashed into a million pieces before it could get across, so I flew down, picked it up, and said 'Hey, little buddy, you're going to get hurt! Let me help you.' Tank was yanking on my tail, but I ignored him and flew the turtle all the way down the hillside until I found the riverbank. I put him down, patted him on the head, said 'No need to thank me!' and flew back up to the road."

"Is this going somewhere?"

"Oh, it totally is. Anyway, when I got back up to the road, I said to Tank, 'Aren't you proud of me? I just saved your cousin's life!' And then he...I still can't believe it... he reared back and smacked me across the face!" She winced as if she could still feel it. "I mean, he bonks into my head all the time, but this time he did it on purpose. I'd never seen him look so mad! Before I could react, he hovered just above where the turtle had been and sort of pointed. That's when I saw it."

"Saw what?"

"It wasn't just mud, AJ," she said, leaning closer. "It was a nest. It was a girl turtle. She wasn't trying to cross the road at all---she'd been trying to lay her eggs!"

Rainbow shook her head, smiling. "She knew she had to lay them far away from all the snakes and crocodiles who'd want to eat them. It must've taken her, like, a week to crawl all the way up from the river to that safe place at the side of the road, and I'd ruined it, thinking my choice was the right choice for her. So I zoomed back down, picked her up again, and put her by her nest, saying 'Sorry! Sorry! Sorry!' the whole time. Anyway, every day after that we'd fly by to check up on her, and sure enough, her eggs hatched and they all made it back to the river okay. And now Tank has a new friend."

Applejack just sat there, her mouth hanging open.

"So, I guess what I'm saying is, I can't make the choice for you. I can stand by you and be your friend, but, y'know, it's totally up to you. And whatever you choose, well... I just gotta trust it's the right choice for you." She flashed her a smile. "That's what the turtle taught me."

"Rainbow Dash," she whispered, "That... that is the wisest thing I've ever heard you say."

"Well, yeah," she said, polishing a hooftip on her chest. "I am pretty smart, y'know."

"So..." She looked down at her belly. "What now?"

"Feel like another milkshake?"

Applejack smiled. Ice cream could make anything feel better. "Sure."

"Great!" Rainbow said as she jumped off her chair. "I know a place where they make 'em with pickles. OW!"

Author's Notes:

Aaaaaaand that's it, folks! This story's complete. (Yes, I do have a sequel in the works.) Thanks to everyone for reading. :)