Three days later, she lost the baby.

Three days later, everything changed. Three days later, an entire future no longer existed. No more would she be able to call herself a mother and grin at her belly and wait for the day she would see a bright little face smiling back at her.

That day would never come now. Everything was gone.

Applejack miscarried. It was so sudden; no one saw it coming, and it caught everyone by surprise. A simple checkup at the doctor turned into a torrent of emotions: anger, sadness, and eventually melancholy. It consumed her, no matter what.

She was no longer a mother to anyone.

Two days after, you visited the farm. The air was ablaze with this bitter, sorrowful silence. Big Macintosh and Apple Bloom gave you a smile, even Granny Smith. But you knew they weren't entirely true.

You could see the anguish in their eyes.

She didn't talk very much once she got back home. Even as you knocked on her door, told her it was you, and walked in to see her, she didn't say much. All she would do is give you a faint smile, tell you she was okay, and then look out the window, to Ponyville. But she wasn't okay.

"Everyone's worried about you," you told her.

"I know. I'm... I'm sorry, I don't mean to scare everyone."

Confused, you looked in her eyes.

"You don't have to be sorry. You're... I know it's hard—"

"You would've been a daddy."

Those words hit you suddenly. It all weighed down on you all at once. She wanted to apologize, but refrained from it; she regretted it.

"Yeah."

The pained expression on her face never left the entire time you were there. You kept telling her that she was not alone. Everyone was there for her, and would be until she healed—and she would heal, given enough time.

It was like that for a while. She would stare out her bedroom window, make small talk with everyone including you, and then be on her own all over again. It went on for days, but even then, you could see the change in her emotion; that fire in her was making a comeback in full force. Slowly, she was becoming the Applejack you knew, and at one point, loved.

Or rather, she wanted to become that again.

But something held her back; it bit and chewed at her, and every time she wanted to let it loose, she'd retract it and let it simmer within her again. She would look at you, even stare, and open her mouth to say something, before closing her lips and going about her day, only to do it again the next day.

Eventually, it'd change. It just took talking to her about it to realize what she wanted to say, what she was thinking.

It was a month after her results when you went to the farm to talk to her. You found her standing in front of a tree, bucking away at the trunk and letting apples fall into their respective buckets. The closer you got, the more you could hear her humming a tune. It wasn't one you could recognize, but she was reciting it well.

At first, she didn't seem to notice you walking up to her, but once she could hear your hoofsteps, she first called out Big Macintosh's name, but recoiled and smiled when she realized who it was.

"Hey, hon," she started. "What brings you here today?"

"Well, I... I just wanted to see you, that's all."

"Alright, then. Give me another sec, and I'm all yours, sugarcube."

So you let her be for "another sec," as she bucked the rest of the apples out of the nearly-stripped tree. As soon as the last bucket was full, she turned to you and lent you another grin.

"There. Now, what was it you wanted to see me about?"

You twirled your tongue in your mouth, unsure of how to go about answering the question. But already, the belle had a firm idea of what you wanted to say, and while the smile almost entirely faded, she was more than okay to talk about it.

"We can talk about it inside, if you—"

"No, no," she rejected, "it's fine, I promise."

You and Applejack walked over to a bench that resided near a cliff-side that overlooked the region where Ponyville stood. Being the middle of the day, everything was visible for miles. You told her that you didn't remember the bench being here a few months ago.

"It's only been here a couple of weeks. I built it myself," Applejack explained, staring out to the countryside. "When I was... shutting everypony away, I was looking out to the town, standing in this spot. And for a moment... I felt so calm, like everything suddenly just got better. I guess it... I guess it helped. I thought building a bench here would make it better."

"Did it...?"

She nodded. "I'm glad I did."

The two of you stared out to the countryside for a few more moments. Soon enough, however, your mind was back on your intention, and you felt your mouth going dry for a moment. You figured it was best to get it out now instead of letting it linger.

"I should've been there more."

She turned to you, a tad bit confused. "What do you mean?"

"I... I should've been there for you more. You were pregnant, you had a foal on the way, and I was just focusing on Dash and I. You were throwing up your food, and I ignored it."

You looked at her, your eyes locked on hers.

"I can't help but think it's my fault—"

"Stop," she immediately and firmly said. "This wasn't your fault, don't ever say that. You have nothing to be sorry for, hon. What happened was... it just happened."

"But if I was there, maybe I could've figured out something, realized it sooner."

"There was no way for you to have known. I... the baby... she was... she was dead for a whole day before I knew it. There was nothing I could've done to know or stop it. You're no different. It wasn't your fault. So if you think me shuttering everypony away and staying in my room for all this time was because of you, you can stop right there. It was never your fault."

You closed your eyes. "Are you sure?"

"As sure as I am that you nearly getting killed in Manehattan wasn't Dash's fault."

You found yourself laughing a little. You weren't sure if it was somber to laugh at the fact that you nearly did die, but you couldn't help it. Applejack didn't laugh, but she knew why you did, even if it was a weird moment to laugh.

Looking up at her, you stared her up and down, as if to keep your mind on something.

"I'm sorry. About her."

"I know. Everyone is. I just... needed time to process it, that's all."

Applejack continued to stare out toward the countryside, beyond Ponyville, occasionally glancing at Canterlot. She let out a sigh through her snout. For a moment, the two of you said nothing to each other, not even a glance in each other's direction.

You found yourself shaking a hind leg against the ground, something you instinctively picked up from Dash. Thirty seconds went by as the two of you looked at what mother nature had created.

Then, to break the tension, you leaned over and gave Applejack a gentle kiss on the cheek. You saw her smile faintly, her cheeks turning a faded red as she looked over to you.

"I wanna help you. However I can," you told her.

You were truthful; it may not have been your fault, but that didn't mean you were just going to keep back to business. You wanted to help, just to feel like it was okay. You knew it would be okay... but you weren't going to just sit by and expect it to be okay on its own.

Applejack held one of your hooves in her own and let out a bigger smile.

"Thank you."

You smiled back. You didn't know at that moment whether your own was genuine or a fib, but you knew hers was more than real—maybe it was the way she looked into your eyes at that moment, or the way she held your hoof, but you knew that for the first time in a long time, she actually smiled.

Things were looking up. You were determined to keep it that way.

Author's Notes:

Got bored one night, decided to continue this. The retcon could wait. I have already accepted that I suck at story/chapter openers, but I figured the whole act thing can be scrapped after this story is finished, because it was pointless to make. It's interesting, but this is a story, not a show. :P

Plus, it was really difficult to figure out where to take the whole Applejack thing after I pretty much killed the baby. Then again, I didn't know much where to take it after I wrote that she was pregnant, I will fully admit that. I have a general idea of what I want to do with the MC and Applejack now, though it won't be "AJ gets preggers, lel" like in Regret.

As I've said before, this act will be the final act of the story, meaning—unless I decide to change later on and realistically scale down the amount of chapters while still giving a non-rushed story—there will probably be around 8-10 chapters left, and it will finally be done!

I've been having a huge bout of writer's block recently. I'm going to try and finish this story over the next few months. I want to finish it before the end of 2018. Will it happen? Not sure, but I'll likely work on it during the weekends and whenever I'm free of schoolwork.

But I feel that once I'm done with this story, I'll be free to work on more interesting concepts!