"...Just keep reading Stitches, you are doing great."

Rain... The cold droplets fell across my face as we glided towards Tenpony Tower and by extension, back to Fetch's life among the surviving elite. During our short flight the little colt had entertained us with tales of what happened to him behind the gates of Filly. Despite our asking, the only real thing that he could recall about how he had gotten there was a brief story about how he had fallen asleep and awoke in a slave wagon. He had said that he was not feeling very well one morning in Tenpony and that his mother had taken him to the clinic to be looked over. Once there the doctors gave him some medicine to help with his upset stomach and sent him away with his mother to find 'something' according to him.

The last thing he could remember was falling asleep on his mother's back, before he awoke to his new life in the stockyards of Filly. Even though things like this and stories like his were ones that I had spent my life listening to, I couldn't help but ask questions about the events that transpired. Trying to avoid coming off as rude was proving to be more of a challenge than I had originally thought now that Caliber was comfortably falling into the role of parental figure. Who would have thought that he would work so well with kids! I was used to him being the first pony to pull out the explosives, not the pony who would sit and play for hours on end with a colt.

"Little one, how did you get these markings?" Zu asked.

"They... got mad at me for helping the other fillies and colts." He meeked out.

"You helped them? How did you help them in a way that made them angry?"

"When they came to move us, everypony was so scared... We tried to hide from the bad ponies, but when we did they would hit us with ropes."

"They whipped you!?" Caliber shouted in anger.

"That's it!" Fetch started."When they put us in the dark place, I tried to help. I just wanted to make everypony not be sad anymore. Life Bloom taught me how to use magic to fix cuts and bruises so I tried to help the other kids not hurt anymore."

"Wait, you can heal? With magic!?" Shale asked, her tone falling on disbelief that a pony so young could perform something so difficult as a healing spell.

"Mmhmm. He showed me how! I used magic to help them. But when the bad ponies found out they..." Fetch froze in his verbal tracks when he seemed to just now remember that he had lost his magical helping tool. "...Will it grow back?" He asked.

"Not without magic... But I'm sure Dr. Helpinghoof will know what to do. We will get you fixed up, buddy." Cal said, trying to stem the whimpers.

"Hard to believe such a smart little colt could be so brave with a father like Caliber." Shale said, clearly trying to poke fun at Cal for whatever reason... Geez... Talk about your bully petting, this had better not become a thing between those two.

"So you used your magic to help other ponies, huh?" I asked from my very wet and cold stirrups.

"Uhhu! The other ponies were hurting, so I helped!" Fetch shouted from the cart's front window.

"You know, your dad did something like that for me once. He saved my life in fact."

"REALLY!?"

"Yup. If not for him, you might not have had anypony to come after you. He used his magic to do something or other to stop my shoulder from bleeding out after I was attacked by a pony with a chainsaw for teeth. It was intense!"

"OH! OH! OH!" Fetch shouted, bouncing from one side of the cart to the other. "Did you use a dragon's breath cauterize or a verti-stitch!?" Fetch asked. Almost unison, the whole group responded with "What?".

"You know, to stop the bleeding!? I like using the verti-stitch. Less painful but not easy to do."

"I guess I used the stitch?" Cal said sheepishly. Great... My partner didn't even know what he was doing when he was healing me... Not that I'm shocked, but still.

"Cal? Don't tell me you just shot some random magic at me and hoped for the best back there..."

"NO! I know what I'm doing! I just didn't know the spells had names is all..."

"YEAH-YEAH! They have names! I can teach you... If you want me too." Fetch offered.

"That sounds good, but lets get back on the ground first." Cal said as we prepared to come in for a landing. Thanks to a heavy presence of Slavers on the ground, Shale suggested that it would be better to land on the rooftop insisting "I know a pony" and that by bringing Fetch back we would be granted some leeway. Why were the Slavers even here!? I had heard on the radio that they had massed outside of the place, but what was so important here in Tenpony that they felt the need to surround it?

It sure was not the cooking, even Cream's food had a very... been in the fridge too long taste about it. Maybe they finally had enough of the stuff Dj-Pon3 was shouting over the radio and decided to come pay him a visit. At any rate, them being on the ground was doing nothing to calm my already sleep deprived and frayed nerves as we slowly began to hover down from the cloud layer to the rooftop. If any of them spotted us now, it would no doubt lead to a fight of some kind breaking out, followed by another insane escape plan, and I just don't have the energy or patience for that right now.

Slowly, we fell from the sky and touched down on the old roof, bouncing several times as I did my best to manage the cart onto all four of its skids. Contradictory to what many would think, parking one of these things is a pain in the ass! Anything I would do in the form of movement would lead to major corrections being needed to slow the cart's rocking back and forth on landing. Finally, I somehow managed to get the thing still enough to put my hooves back to the ground and shrug off the rigging. The others stumbled out of the cart, still trying to shake off the last of the turbulence.

"We really need to work on your landings... I almost yarfed up my lunch." Valkyrie said as she helped Fetch from the cart.

"That was awesome!" Fetch shouted as he ran to my side. Before the colt could get to me, I gave myself a brisk shake to rid my mane, tail and coat of the 20 some odd gallons of rain that had saturated me to the core. With a hard shake, I sent it all flying in every direction as I rolled and tossed.

"Charming..." A voice said as I turned to face it. Before me lay a now very soaked dark grey and blue mare who was none-too-pleased for the impromptu shower I had just gave her.

"Uh... Oops?" I said, smiling and falling back to the group.

"It's ok... I suppose I needed a cold shower anyhow." The grey... Wait... Homage! I know her!

"Oh! You're Dj-Pon3's assistant! I remember you!" I shouted, trying to change the topic.

"Yes, yes... Mind telling me why you are landing on my roof like this with the Zebra, 3 ponies and..." She froze when she locked eyes with Fetch. "Is that the little colt that ran away?"

"Fetch? Yup, in the flesh!" I said as the little clot climbed onto my back.

"Oh, Coyote Joe! Now I remember. Sorry, it was hard to tell who your were in that ridiculous outfit. So that would make this Caliber, Zuri and..." She paused as she got the Shale and seemed to be placing her in her mind. "AH! Shale. It has been a long time. Good to see you."

"Likewise. I don't suppose that offer for a room still stands? Our trade?" Shale asked.

"Right to business, as always. Sure. But you will need to wait upstairs while I make the arrangements. Given the nature of this, I will need to... prepare things before hoof." She said as she trotted for the door. I did my best to try and slip out of the wet Reapers hoodie and fall in behind with the rest of the group.

"Exactly how do you know Homage?" I asked Shale as we started down the corridor.

"Oh, like anypony else in the Wasteland knows where to get instant muffin mix that is still good... a few years ago I had to come here nearly 3 times to deliver it to Cream and her both. Honestly, you would think they were having to bribe Ditzy with the amount they were making." Shale said as a matter of fact.

"So she just so happens to owe you a room then? What, did she not have enough caps or something?"

"More like, or something. Look, its complicated, just let it go and enjoy the fact that Tenpony security did not come busting onto the roof, ok?"

"Geez, fine! I was just asking." I said as she trotted past me. The moment she did I was overcome with a massive impact to my upper back as Fetch decided to take that moment for a great time to have a pony ride. "Oof!"

"Hi Joey!"

"Hi... Fetch... You think you could warn a buck next time you do that?"

"Nnnnope!"

"Ok, glad we are on the same page." I said as we entered the large room that was... What was this place? Huge marble fountain, marble floors and cathedral type ceiling made up much of the large expanse that was the world that we had just trotted into. Of all of Tenpony I had seen, none of it was nearly as ornate as this one room was. The whole place gave off a vibe of regal ownership, something befitting that of a princess rather than a lowly Dj.

"Woah..." Fetch let out as he leaned back to try and see all of the pictures that had been painstakingly painted to the room's ceiling, followed by him falling backwards and rolling onto the floor.

"Right, you lot wait here and I will see about..." Homage started but faltered as she locked eyes on me and trotted closer. I started to look around me, trying to figure out what it was that she was looking at so intently but nothing came into view as she closed the distance. Finally, with a timid hoof, she began to... poke me?

"HEY! What gives!?" I shouted as I jumped back from the sudden action.

"My, you Pegasi sure are fluffy." She said as she turned and trotted away. Fluffy? Did she just call me fat!? I looked down at my chest and saw the normal amount of fur sticking out as there always had been. Ok, so it was a little matted and messy from being in that hoodie the whole time, but still! I was no fuzzier than Calamity... Then again, I don't know if he kept up with staying as clean I as I do, or that he has a unicorn that can cast cleaning spells with a side of conditioner.

"I am not!" I shouted after her. The remark was met with looks of disagreement.

"Joy, you are... how do you say... very fluffy."

"What?" I said as I spun in place, looking myself over.

"It's true, why do you think I used you as a pillow when we were growing up?"

"Shale!" I shouted. That was private and I didn't want anypony to know about how I used to get tricked into being a damn pillow for my sister, and here she was just throwing it out there.

"I. Am. Not. Fuzzy!" I growled.

"Calm down, fuzz-nut. There is no need in getting your feathers ruffled." Caliber roared in laughter.

"Better feathers than a damn pecker hanging off my forehead." I shouted back.

"Don't be upset by it, just be happy that it is a redeeming quality of being a Pegasus." Homage said as she entered the elevator. "Wait here, make yourselves at home. I'll be back shortly." She said as the doors closed and she disappeared.

"You know... Your name is Coyote, you are also a Pegasus with an abnormal amount of fluffy fur..." Caliber started.

"So help me, Cal... If you call me 'Fluffy Coyote', I'm going to shove that statue up your ass..." I snarled.

"No, no... I would never do that..." He said as he backed away and started behind the water spewing statue. "...Fuzzy Puppy."

"THAT'S IT!" I shouted as I took chase after him but was quickly halted by something grabbing my tail. I looked back to see a cyan glow around what was left of it and looked back to Cal who was now trotting on the rim of the fountain just a few inches away. My hooves worked furiously at the ground as he mocked me just out of my reach.

"You see, being fluffy is just another detraction of not being a Unicorn. We are just so much better in every way, we can do magic, we can do anything!" He said striking a stupid pose. "In fact, you wouldn't be soaked if you were a Unicorn, you would be nice and dry with a single thought. Face it, we are just better." He said as he reared up on his hind legs.

"Yeah? Aren't you forgetting something?" I asked as I stretched a wing out.

"Not now, fluffy pony, I am basking in my greatness." He said as I extended a wing tip and proceeded to tickle his belly with the end of a feather. Ok, maybe I should have thought that through before I did it. Sure the second I brushed him with my primary feather, he did fall backwards into the fountain. The ice cold fountain. A fact that I became well aware of when the resulting wave washed over me and nearly froze me to my core and set my hooves to shivering. It also had the effect of breaking his concentration long enough that he released my tail, sending my straining body lurching forward and right into the fountain's concrete walls. That was just stupid.

"Are you sure you want to be with him? I mean, my brother is cute and all, but he is an idiot." Shale said as I watched my vision blur, unblur and blur again.

"Hey! He resembles that remark!" Cal shouted after he spat a long, cold stream of water at my face.

"Yes. He is even cuter when he is stupid." Zu said.

"ZU! What the hell?" I tried to say but all the stars in my vision were making it a real pain to focus on anything.

"It is true, Joy. You have always been very... cute." Zu said with a snicker.

I did my best to dry off with my wet hoodie as the rest of the group sat and talked. Zu and Caliber were talking about my younger years and sharing tales of when I was still an aspiring tracker for hire. Zu seemed to love hearing all about how I would rush into danger at a moments notice, only to find out that it was nothing more than a colt hiding in a broom closet. Caliber on the other hoof, was doing his best to try and embarrass me. Too bad for him that his sarcasm was not translating in the same way he had hoped it would to a Zebra who had little to no outside contact with anypony for the last ten some odd years.

Shale, Val and Fetch were sitting and chatting about... mare stuff... or as best as I could describe it. Well, all except Fetch who had tried several times to break into the conversation. Sadly, the poor little colt was lost in the ways of social conversation and would only recite what books he had read and some of the Fillies and Colts he had helped back in Filly. Neither the former or the latter garnered him more than a "That's great!" from either of the two mares, but it did catch my attention.

"Fetch, what do you say that you and I take a trot around and check this place out?" I said, kneeling down and motioning for him to come over.

"Heck yeah! Like an adventure!? Can I play boat captain?" He shouted as he bounced his way to my back.

"Why not, I'm sure there is something we can get into around here someplace. I'll be the boat and you can be the captain and steer." I said looking around. Fetch climbed his way to my back and proceeded to start trotting back and forth. Apart from the occasional hoof to a sore nerve, it actually felt kinda nice to be stepped on.

"Oh! Oh-oh-oh-oh! What about there!" Fetch said pointing to a red glowing sign that said 'M.A.S.E.B.S.'.

"Fetch, I don't think we should go in there, buddy. Usually places with red glowing signs mean for you to stay out." I said looking back to him with a frown.

"Oh! So you just use old news papers for that? I have been using these things I found in an old supermarket called 'tampons'." Shale said as her and Val did their best to keep quiet... Not quiet enough!

"Never mind lad! To the freaking glowing sign we head! These seas be turning red and are unsafe fur' sailin'." I shouted as we headed up the stairs.

"Woohoo! Onwards!" Fetch shouted as the rest of the group continued their conversations behind us as we made for the door. I'm sure that even though Fetch was born in Tenpony, he still knew more than the average colt. But that conversation definitely took an adult turn for the worse and he had no place near it.

At the top of the stairs, I looked back to make sure that everypony was plenty preoccupied as I nudged a hoof at the door. With any luck it would be locked and we could take our 'sailing' someplace else that wouldn't get us in trouble. Sadly, the door cracked open and with it, a burst of warm air that reeked of ozone and static. I nosed at the door and the two of us slipped inside to a world of blinking lights and monitors showing parts of Equestria I knew, but never from this angle.

No wonder Dj-Pon3 was able to see and know everything that was going on! The old pervert had eyes on the vast majority of the Wasteland! Speaking of, where was that old gravel voiced buck at anyhow? Other than the room's various blinking doodads and random beeps, the place was devoid of life... Well, other than us that was.

"Whoa..." Fetch said with his jaw hanging open.

"Don't. Touch. Anything... Got it?" I said, narrowing my eyes at him.

"But..."

"ANYTHING!" I affirmed.

"Ugh, fine." He said, falling back into a pouty face.

"Look, this place looks important. Maybe not to you and me, but to somepony for sure. It is important that we don't mess anything up or leave any sign of us being here, ok?"

"Oh! Like tracking?" He asked as he slid off my back and trotted in a circle.

"Yes like... What do you know about tracking?" I asked as I placed my hoof on a office chair to test if it was safe to sit on or not.

"Just what I heard from you and Cal... I mean, dad. I read a book too! But it was for foals, not much good in there. Do you think dad will let me have a gun?" Fetch said as he climbed into the chair next to me.

"That's good that you are read... What!?"

"Yeah-yeah! So I can shoot up bad guys!" He said as he held one of his hooves like a rifle and pretended to shoot at a monitor next to us.

"I think you should wait until you are older... I mean, you already took out a patrol balloon the last time you had one." I said, putting my hind hooves up on the desk and leaning us back.

"But..."

"Ask your dad, I so am not making that call." I said and I stretched to get comfy.

"Awwwww..." He said slouching to my side. "Can you at least tell me about tracking? Or am I too young for that too?" He asked pitifully. Great, now kids knew how to get to me. Call me a sucker but, I can be a bit of an enabler when it comes to anypony showing an interest in my line of work. Maybe it is pride, maybe it is vanity, either way I could not help myself from teaching a willing student.

"Ok, the first rule to tracking is don't be seen, don't be heard. If your cover is blown, that's it. Game over. Two, always be the one in the back. If you are in front of who you are hunting, then you are being hunted. Three, never leave anything for them to follow you with. This means ANYTHING! Hoof-tracks, old food, bent and broken branches. All of those things can lead a pony right to you if you don't know what you are doing. And finally, four. Always have a way out. If you get cornered, that's it, game over again."

"What about if you are trapped? What do you do if you can't get away?" Fetch asked, his voice falling more on the serious side than I would have liked.

"Then you fight. You fight like your life depends on it because it probably does at that point. You give it your everything and you go down swinging. You take your last breath with your hooves around their throat because you have nothing left to lose at that point." I said in a somber tone as I thought back to all of the times I had been in a hopeless situation and somehow managed to find my way out.

"What if a dragon eats you? Then what?"

"Firstly, there are no dragons. But if there were, and you got eaten, make your last moments count and give him the worst indigestion he has ever had!" I said laughing. The two of us shared a moment of silence as I looked around the room and took in all the various glowing screens.

"Joey?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you think they will be ok?" Fetch asked as he lay his head against my side and stared towards a monitor in the corner of the room. My eyes followed his gaze and soon found the glowing screen with a fuzzy picture of Filly on it.

"I don't know. I hope they will be."

"Do you think you could go back for them? The other fillies and colts?"

"I want to... I just don't know how we could. That place is the most dangerous place to go to, the fact that we got out of there with a few scrapes and bruises is beyond me. But going back now would be suicide, hell, it was suicide just going in after you." I said, giving him a squeeze with my wing.

"If it was dangerous to come get me, why did you?" He asked, looking up to me.

"Because I like you. Hey, how did you get into trouble with them. You said they got mad because you helped. What did you do that pissed them off so much." I said, trying to end his train of thought before it lead me right back to Filly.

"Oh! I used my magic! Just like Life Bloom showed me! The mean ponies would hurt us if we did not listen to them. Sometimes they would hit some of us with ropes and it would cut the other fillies and colts. I tried to help them all but my magic stopped working and brain hurt too much."

"So you used your magic to heal them back up? Well than answers one question at least. That was a very brave thing you did."

"I just did what dad told me to do. If you can, you help. He said it was a mistake that he made all the time by not helping."

"Are you sure Cal is your dad? You are a lot smarter than he is." I said laughing.

"Why do you call him that?"

"What? Cal? That's his nickname. Sometimes he calls me Joe, I call Zuri Zu sometimes and I even call Valkyrie Val. I give nicknames to anypony I like, it's kind of a thing I do."

"What about Shale?"

"She's Siss because she is my sister. Sometimes I call her Rox, but only when we are working."

"OH! Do I have a nickname!?" Fetch said, beaming with excitement.

"Do you want one?" I asked, looking down on him.

"Yeah-yeah!"

"How about..." I said, pausing for thought. "Stitches." I said.

"Why that?"

"Well... You said that you healed those other kids with some whatchmacallit spell that had the word stitches in it, seems like it would be a fitting name seeing the circumstances."

"Stitches... I like it!"

"Stitches it is then. So, Stitch... What are we going to do about dealing with your mom? I don't think she is going to be happy that you ran off like that." I said, raising an eyebrow and sliding my hooves off the table.

"I didn't run off! I was taken by Slavers! One second I'm asleep on my mom's back the next I wake up in a Slave wagon."

"Ok... hold up a second here. You mean to tell me that you didn't run away from your mom and into the Wasteland?"

"No way! She was taking me to see a doctor about my sickness and I got sleepy along the way."

"Really..." I said as my brain started working overtime. From what I had heard over the radio, I had just assumed he had ran of, didn't I? No, no way. I remember hearing something about him running off, not this 'I fell asleep' story he was giving me. Could it have been that I had just put the pieces together in my subconscious? Maybe this was just another case of misinformation, Celestia knows that I have gone on more than my fair share of wild goose chases over something I had heard second, third or even fourth hoof. "So why is it that everypony is telling me that you ran off?"

"I-dont-know. Maybe they are lying?" Fetch said, holding his hooves up in the air. One thing I have learned in my time in this life is that children, all children are prone to lying when it comes to saving their own hide. I have also learned that they are exploited for that fact, often being labeled as the ones at fault when needed. Surely I would think that he would not lie to me, even if he was in trouble. The worst he could expect from me is a stern talking to, then again, he did just spend a few days in Filly, Luna only knows what happened to him in there outside of what was already obvious.

"Fetch, you said that you were sick? What was so bad that your mother had to leave Tenpony?" I asked as I hopped out of the chair and started to have a look around. Might as well satiate my curiosity while I questioned him, this place was rather intriguing.

"Mmhmm. Mommy said that we had to find a doctor in someplace called Fwetwock." Fetch said as he trotted closer to one of the monitors.

"You mean Fetlock. What was so special about it? Tenpony has some of the most advanced medical tech in the Wasteland."

"I-dont-know. Mommy just said that he would know what to do and that I should get some sleep. Next thing I know I am in Filly." Fetch said as he nearly pressed his face against a screen to better see the ponies moving around. "Hey! Who is that!" Fetch said pointing to one of the ponies. I trotted to his side and slowly pulled him back from the monitor.

"You know, if you get too close you will mess up your eyes." I said as I studied the picture closely. Honestly, kids are their own worst enemies sometimes.

"That looks like the Lightbringer! I have seen her before, she came here once." Fetch said in excitement.

"Hey, Cal and I saw that same mare screaming her lungs out at a sprite bot back in Hope." I said putting a hoof to the screen. "So you got to meet her, huh? How was she? Was she just as loony as I imagined?"

"Not exactly... She was... kind of busy. But she did smile at me!" He near shouted as he started pacing about the small room.

"Really, doing what?"

"Well... My mommy said it was not nice to talk about other ponies like that." He said tapping his hooves together.

"Oh, now you have to tell me!" I said with a sly grin.

"Oh... Ok. I saw her kissing Dj-Pon3's helper pony."

"What's so bad about that. It sound like the two of them like each other. Perfectly normal." I said as I slid open a drawer. "WHOA! Jackpot!" I shouted as I pulled out an old leather bound journal.

"Oh-oh-oh-oh! Is it a gun!? A lockbox? Maybe a grenade!?" Fetch said bouncing with excitement.

"Even better. Dj-Pon3's journal!" I said beaming with delight. Who am I to pass up snooping through a diary of one the most well known djs in all of the Wasteland. Yes it was probably really private and personal stuff, but curiosity was winning out over my logic that was screaming for me to put it back.

"Oh..." Fetch said unenthusiastically as he closed the drawer and trotted off. I flipped the journal open and went to the most recent entry entitled 'marefriend'. Before me lay only a short story about how Dj-pon3 had become smitten by the likes of a young stable mare named 'Littlepip' and how the two of them were becoming quite close. Granted most of the things he had wrote were sappy at best, but one thing still stood out as being very off.

"Hey, Stitches... Have you even met Dj-Pon3?"

"Nope! But look what I found!" The little colt said proudly as he held up a...

"Fetch! Put that back this instant!"

"Why! It's the perfect size for me! I could be just like you with a holster like this one!" He said as he tried to put the gross thing on over his forelegs. "Stupid... thing! Why did they put these handles on it like this!"

"Fetch... Those are not handles... For the love of Luna, put that back right now!" I said as I did my best to be a parent while not laughing. Honestly, how do you tell a kid, while you are on a sneaky adventure, that he was not playing with a 'holster', but something made for two ponies... two MARE ponies at that.

"No way! It's perfect for me! The leg holes are even in the right spots!" He said as he began to shift back and forth to better accommodate the two phallic objects under his forelegs. I buried my face into my hooves to try and come up with some way not to tell him what he was messing about with, but at the same time get him to put it down. "AHHA! I had it on inside out!" He shouted as I looked up. The black leather underwear was now turned inside out and both of the... handles... were pointing straight out from either of his sides. I was now tasting blood in my mouth from my tongue biting, restrained laughter. "Pretty snazzy huh?" *sniff, sniff* "EW! It stinks! I'll have to wash it before I get it fitted for a new gun!"

"I... I take it all back... you ARE your father's son!" I said as I nearly fell over in physical pain. "And you are NOT getting a damn gun!"

"What? You are just... just... JEALOUS! My holster has these things to keep ponies off of me!"

"More like keep bucks off of you! Mares... Not so much!" I said as I was now trying really hard not to pee myself.

"What!? What are you talking about!" Fetch said in anger.

"Fetch, do you know what that is? Do you even have a single clue as to what you are wearing?" I said as I stood and whipped the tears away.

"I told you it's a..." He started but my muzzle was already to his ear.

"Buddy, that's a MARE's toy." I whispered to him.

"A mare's..." He started again, but was stopped by his little brain working feverishly to put things together. "Mare's toy! Like my mom ha..." He started again but this time was frozen in fear as everything hit home all at once. "...eeeeeeeEEEEEEWWWWWW! GET IT OFF ME! GET IT OFF!" He shouted as he started to run in circles.

"Sorry, but I don't go in for that sort of thing!" I snickered as I once more was overcome with laughter.

"Gross! Somepony's butt was in this!"

"No, I think that thing was IN somepony's butt at some point." I said as I rolled to my side. Fetch froze once more.

"AHHHHHHHHH!!" He shouted as he took off running for the door, only to be halted by the two massive members (why did they have to be so big? Were normal stallions not enough for some mares?) smashed against the table's legs and sent him flying backwards with surprising speed. Wow those things are springy! Fetch landed in a heap in the corner, half hanging out of the undergarment, half frozen by the sight of one of black rubber rods hovering just inches from his face.

"Let that be a lesson to you in snooping around." I said as I used a wing to flip aside the vile looking panties and help him to his hooves. "Just because you find it, does not mean you should play with it." Fetch said nothing but instead locked up like a statue with a glassed over expression on his face. If having Cal for a father and Lavender for a mom was not already dealing a blow to this kid's psyche, then this probably would need years of therapy to correct. Either way, lesson learned... The HARD way.

I slid Fetch into the center of the room as I did my best to put things back the way we found them. Granted the last few moments worth of events had nearly completely erased my memory of how thing were in here, but I was still managing it well enough. I had just slid the journal back into the drawer when the office door flew open, breaking Fetch from his trance and me from my focus.

"What are you doing in here!?" Homage asked, clearly out of breath.

"Crap..." I mumbled.

"RULES ONE AND TWO HAVE BEEN BROKEN! RULE FOUR! RULE FOUR!" Fetch shouted as he darted out from under the work table and right between the grey mare's legs. I got to give it to him, he's a quick learner... and a fast little shit at that.

"Crap is right! This is a private studio and nopony is allowed in here without Dj-Pon3's consent! Do you know your little chat went live all over Tenpony and probably the whole damn Wasteland?"

"Double crap..." I said as I backed away from the advancing mare.

"Double crap indeed! If you were hoping for a quiet stay, I can assure you that you won't have one now!" She said as she pushed me aside and started looking over her equipment. I had not even noticed the big red button labeled "press for mic" that I had laid my leg across.

"I'm sorry. Fetch wanted to play together and I kinda let him talk me into coming in here. Had I known we would have caused this much trouble I wouldn't have came in, but to be fair... the door was unlocked." I said, trying to shift the blame.

"The door was unlocked because I ran outside after I thought I heard the sound of... Nevermind. Look, this is very sensitive equipment in here. Most of it is on its last legs as it is." She said as she lowered her voice.

"I didn't get you in trouble, did I?"

"Me? No. I'm sure it will be fine. But you are in trouble and you are not fine!' She said, turning and pointing a hoof at me. "I don't like ponies messing about with my stuff, and even though everything looks fine, that does not excuse you coming in here."

"You're right. I'm sorry. What do I have to do?" I said, lowering my head.

"What?" She asked. The question caught me off guard so much that I was dumbstruck.

"I screwed up, yeah? What is it that I have to do to make things right? Breach of social contract and all that." I said, pawing at the ground.

"Ugh, sorry. I'm not used to ponies actually being honest. Look, I have something I need done. You do it, and we will call this whole 'you messing with my equipment' thing even. I think you will know what to do when you read this." She said as she pulled out an envelope and passed it off to me. Thinking it better to just accept whatever stupid job I had to do and move on with my life, I slid it into my bags and gave a nod.

"Consider it done." I said as I started out the door.

"Just like that, huh? Do you even know what is in that envelop?"

"I... Don't? But at this point I don't think it will matter much anyways. Do the job, try not to get caught, yada-yada-yada..."

"Oh you stupid buck... I suspect you will change your tune once you open it... Let me just say that it will hit close to home for you."

"Oh yeah, sure. Foreshadowing and plot progression... Look, at this point, it can't be that bad. I just finished sneaking into Filly, rescued a colt, and got out of there relatively unscathed. I highly doubt anything in here short of megaspells and walking through balefire will phase me."

"Well... We will see about that."

"Great! Wonderfull! See you later."

"Not so fast..." Great... there is always a catch, isn't there?

"What else...?"

"I want an interview. Two hours of your's and Zuri's time. The news has been rather drab lately and I need a good puff piece to stir things up around here. These ponies thrive on drama and without it, they will just turn the radio off. NOT a good thing to have happen with the place surrounded by slavers."

"Why not just make something up? Say that Cream is actually spitting in their food and let them have at it... Actually, she probably really is spitting in their food come to think of it. Yeah! So run that." I said throwing a hoof out.

"No, your mess, you have to clean it up. This isn't the Wasteland where you can do whatever you want. I want to know the details about you two, what it is like to be together again and what you two have been up to and I want to know more about you. I don't need you to be on air, Celestia knows that you have been on there enough for one day. I just need the story."

"I really don't like talking about my personal life. I have a few too many ponies and now Griffons that want my head on a stake, the last thing I want to do is give them more fuel to find us." I said in a last ditch effort to play on her kindness for her to let me off the hook.

"No dice. You are going to spill it all. Now, Shale will take you all to your room, you shouldn't be seen if you STICK TO THE PATH I GAVE HER! I'll be down later to talk to you both." She said as she ushered me out the door and promptly locked it.

"WAIT! What were you waiting on that had you running up here in the first place?"

"If you MUST know, I was waiting for a friend... A close friend at that. I'm alerted anytime the rooftop sensors are activated and I was HOPPING..."

"AHHHH... THAT special friend."

"What!? No... I mean, well..."

"What's a matter? Having a hard time divulging personal secrets that you rather not be put on the spot and asked about?"

"SHUT! UP! Just because I run stories about you doing good things in the wasteland doesn't mean I have to tell you everything about my sex life!"

"So you ARE banging that toast mare!"

"I never said... Listen. Stop picking me apart or so help me, I will have you running me favors till that sky blue mane of your's falls out!"

"Yeah-yeah-yeah... I'm sure Toasty does enough of that for you..." I said as I started out the door.

"Come see me when you are done... I think I will have something else for your soggy behind..."

"Easy... I know nothing of toasters... also I'm a buck. My rear can't get soggy." I said as I ran for my life. In the room that was now far behind me I could hear teeth grinding and the throatiest 'fuck' of all time being shouted through closed teeth I had ever heard.

Great! Fuck you galaxy! All I wanted was some peace and quiet! I saved Fetch, was that not enough? Now I have to air my dirty laundry to a production assistant because the same kid got me in trouble! Great! Just fucking great! Then again, this was kinda my fault, I was the one that suggested that we go snooping around after all. Also seeing Fetch freak out over that sex toy thing was more than hilarious... Meh, worth it.

I awoke to the sound of running water and the smell of freshly baked confectioneries while nestled under the sheets of my warm bed. Shale had done as she was told, leading us all in the most convoluted route to our room to avoid detection. Nopony said anything on the near twenty minute trot but I'm sure the fact that my striped counterpart was with us was largely to blame for the inconvenience. I respected the discretion but at the same time lamented the harsh reality that stripes of any kind were not looked upon here as a good thing.

Ponies here place so much weight on appearances and social standings that they sometimes lose sight of the bigger picture of equinity. This place was, is and always will be a bubble to me. Scarred of change, harsh towards differences and staunch in their rules and beliefs network. Sure I had my own moral values that I upheld, but these ponies were on a whole other level of snoot compared to other safe places I have been in the Wastes.

I rolled to my side to see that I was now alone in bed. Zu must has woken up early and found her way to the living room at some point before me. The realization less gathered from observation of her absences and more from the sound of her laughing in the other room. The two of us had nearly passed out once we hit the bed, we didn't even have time to cuddle as she so liked to often do as we fell asleep. No, this time it was more a case of being lucky enough to actually make it to the bed before falling asleep. Though the tail-tale signs of her habit of 'sleep nibbling' my ear were ever present from the dull ache I was feeling on the right side of my head. Why does she have to do that? I get that she had along time along out there... but if this keeps up, I will start to look more like Caliber!

I rolled out of bed, my every joint creaking and popping as I forced what was left of my body to the doorway and closer to whatever amazing smell was coming from the other room. I had nearly poked my head through the doorway when I saw the dark purple coat of the she-beast herself. Lavender, had found our room and was sitting decidedly tense across from Caliber who looked to be rather proud of himself for 'single hoovedly' bringing Fetch home. As much as i wanted to correct his words, I thought it better to let it go and give him this one to regain some respect as a buck. Just as I was about to make my grand and very crunchy sounding entrance, Zuri spoke up in a manner more befitting a grown mare, rather then the more childish filly I was accustom to hearing.

"Oh yes, I spent a long time by myself... out there." She said through a mouth of muffin. Good to see somethings never change.

"I see. Can you tell me more about when you two were younger? I believe that the more resent events have been covered, but I wouldn't mind knowing more about how you two came to be." Homage asked. Oh shit. It was THAT time of the morning. I let my head slowly sink back into the bedroom, but kept my ear near to the door.

"We were just kids when we met. I was captured by Salvers and he was on the hunt for something that had been stolen from him. If he had not found me when he did..." Zu paused as she did her best to wade through the harder moments of out first meeting. "I am just happy that he found me."

"So he saved you from Slavers? He must have been very brave for a colt to do such a thing for you." Ok, so I'm blushing now. I never was one for admiration but it was nice to hear from time to time.

"No." Zu replied. And just like that my ego ship sank. "He was foolish. He never should have come for me in their. It was dangerous, he could have been killed. I am grateful that he did, but I wish that he had not put himself in harms way." Zu said defiantly.

"That is a much more different take on that than I would have guessed. Would you not have done the same for him?" Homage asked. A long silence hung in the room as Zu thought about what to say next.

"I would not have. I do not think that I could have been that brave." Zu said in near shame.

"Given what you are saying, why is it that you two have worked out so well? Why is it that you two are still together if you feel this way about your first meeting?" She asked. Yeah Zu, why the hell are you with me if you think it was foolish for me to rush in there? I nosed my way closer to the crack in the door.

"It is because I care for him." She finally replied.

"Right... Care to elaborate?" Homage asked.

"It was foolish for him to save me. He had nothing to gain from it, but he did it anyway. I wanted to run when I first saw him. I thought that a pony so reckless would do... something bad. But he did none of those things. He just, wanted to help. I was not used to such things. The more time I spent with him, the more I began to like him. He was honest and had a charm about him." Zu said. Good girl, Zu. Ego restored.

"Yeah, Joey has a way of growing on you like that. I remember when I was just a colt he swept me off my hooves with those sparkly purple eyes of his." Caliber said.

"Shut up. It's not like you could have done that without drugs or alcohol." Lavender replied. I sat waiting for him to destroy her with his usual 'charm'... but nothing? What the hell?

"Yes well..." Homage started. "Last question. Tell me. If this foolish, charming buck grew on you so much... why did you leave and have him spend all those years looking for you?" Oh this should be good. An unbiased, unsolicited answer to a question I have had for a long time.

"There are many reasons why. But... I... I did not want to be hurt by him." Zu meeked out.

"Please. Could you explain as to why?"

"We were so young, and I was on my own back then. We fell for each other so fast, I was just scared that he would leave and..." Zu started.

"...Leave you to be on your own again?" Homage finished for her.

"Yes. I could tell that there was something between us that I was not used to feeling. It was new to me. It was as if he could speak to the part of me nopony else could. If he could do that, I knew that losing him would hurt."

"It sounds like to me that your all's puppy love was more than just a fling. Does he know about this? Why you left?" Homage asked.

"No... I do not wish for him to know that. I am... ashamed of why I left. If he knew, he would be furious with me for it. I... I could never tell him myself." Zu said in more of a begging tone. Why would I be mad about that? We were kids! Stupid, heart-struck and dumb in love kids. Does she know that Dj-Pon3 will probably be reading this on the radio? I would find out sooner or later, so did she want me to know but couldn't tell me herself?

"Ok, I think that this has been enlightening." Shale said as the sound of her hooves started across the floor. "Zuri, honey. Why don't you have something to eat, that could not have been easy for you." Her hoofsteps grew closer to the door as she trotted about the room

"I think it's time you all knew who Joey really is. Obviously everypony here has had something to say about him over the last hour, but why don't I fill you in on the finer details of my dear brother." Shit... Now I'm screwed for sure! "Yes, Zuri, Joey would be upset with you, but not for you leaving. He would be upset that you left him with unanswered questions. If there is one thing in the world he hates, it's not knowing. Joey is a VERY perceptive buck... when he wants to be. But I feel like you have an... effect on him that lets him drop his guard. He's smart, clever even... He is quick witted and at times the luckiest buck I have met. But one thing he is not, is fool heart'd." Shale said as she rounded the room.

"No! I do not mean for you to think this of me! I think all of these things about Joy. He is, everything to me!" Zu shouted back in protest. And here I thought that I was perceptive...

"No dear, you missed the point. I was trying to tell you, well, you all that HE would want to know these things. If not because he can't stand not knowing every damn thing about everything, then because... he needs to know them. All my life I have watched him grow up and in all that time, even with all his positive traits, he still thinks other ponies are better than he is. He puts other ponies first and himself dead last. Honestly... You all can not say you don't know this about him." She said as her hooves stopped just on the other side of the doorway. "I also know one very important detail about my dear brother that nopony other than myself seems to notice..."

A loud crack followed by a sickening crunch filled my head as she bucked the door with full force and sent it flying right into my nose. The impact sent me sliding across the floor, now holding my bloody nose in my hooves.

"HE SNORES LIKE A DAMN BRAHMIN!" Shale bellowed into the room at me. "He is also a sneaky little shit that likes to eavesdrop. So don't worry, he heard everything anyway, Zu." Shale said as she trotted passed me and into the bathroom. I staggered to my hooves, holding my broken nose with a hoof and trotted into the room. Lavender had not changed position or smirk by the looks of things while Zu on the other hoof... The word terrified was not enough to describe what she was going through.

"Is there any food left? Maybe a bandage?" I asked as I hobbled to the small kitchen area.

"Oh good! You're awake, Joey. Are you ready?" Homage said with glee. I must have pinned her all wrong, here I thought she thrived on action and excitement of the heros of the wastes. But no, shes a mare, I should have know snooping into my personal life would bring her enjoyment, especially after yesterday.

"I fucking guess!" I shouted, throwing dirty rags in every direction. "Let me stem the tide first!"

"Ok... I was just talking to Zu about..."

"About how we met, how we broke up and how I was left with a million unanswered question about why she left me?"

Shale, never to miss a chance to prove herself right, threw in her two bits. "Told you... Sneaky and hates being left on hold."

"Well, I think it best we start from the beginning. Seeing as I have the finer details, I will take mercy on you and just get your reactions to a few things."

"Great..." I said as I took my place next to Zu.

"Tell me, in your own words... What was it that you were feeling when Zuri and yourself parted ways."

"Now hold up. That's not the beginning..."

"Yes, well... I have that part already thanks to Zuri."

"If I'm going to spill my guts, at least let me do it myself. I don't even want this stuff going on the radio, but it would piss me off if it wasn't done right."

"Fine... hang yourself with your own words then. Honestly, try to be nice to him and he just makes it worse..."

"No kidding..." Shale interjected.

"Shush you! Now. I will spare you my own stupidity as I am sure you have a good idea of how I rescued Zu. You have blasted that over the air long enough and everypony who knows me loves to talk to me about it. But what you don't know and what I have never told anypony, is just how I ended up falling... *cough* in love with her." I said as I felt every word weigh me down under a thick blanket of humiliation.

"Well... Go on then..."

"I would say it was... probably from the moment she got trapped in her 'camouflage' that we later ended up using as a campfire."

"This is not funny!" Zu said as she gave me a shove.

"No, you don't get it. it was hilarious. The first time I have honestly laughed at something that was so innocent in a long time. I didn't know it then, but I know now that was when I started growing close to you. Not in the tent, not on the hike. No, it was when you made me laugh. Nopony had done that to me before and, I liked it."

"So after she made you laugh, then what? Surely it wasn't pure romance after the fact." Homage point out.

"Oh no way! It was more survival and completing a job after that. You have to understand, this job... tracking... is a very solitary thing. Even when the caravan was still together and I would run a sweep of an area, I was alone when I did. It was normal for me to be on my own. Now I know that I was left to be alone in life, but someone found me and took me in. Honestly, the tracking stuff is easy, the jobs not so much, but what really sucks is... Being alone."

"Do you think that her being there helped you in some way?"

"Yes. I do. Not because I was scared of what I was doing. If I had been I never would have gone into that camp. No. It was... something else. It was like I had lost something I never knew I had. Like something I was denied from the start. I guess never knowing my parents left its mark on me and left me with more questions than answers. When I was with the group things were fine, but when I was alone it felt like there was always something eating away at me. Something that chems, booze or caps could never touch. A deep pain. Something you can't get rid of no matter how hard you try. The kind that even if you felt like ending it all you just knew it would be the last thing you would feel before it all went black."

"Celestia... And Zuri's part in all this."

"She... made it go away. The pain, the loneliness... I felt it fade that night at the cave. It was the first time I had ever felt it dim in the slightest. The group was more of a bandage that got ripped away anytime I had to stray away from them. But when I was with her, it felt solid. Sure even. Like she had found that spot that nopony else could and just... made it go away. I guess it was just natural to feel attracted to her."

"For a buck who hates talking about his feelings, you are not too bad at it. So, when did you first feel like you were falling in love with this lovely mare?" Homage said with a smile, aiming her words at a decidedly nervous Zuri.

"I would say... at the out crop. When she fell asleep on my side. It made me feel... needed. Like all the good things I was feeling being around her meant something and that I had to reciprocate in some way. For some reason it made me want to be near her even more. Like, I could do something in return for her helping me with my own pain, even if she never knew it. It was... nice. Nice to be needed by somepony."

"Aw... You two do make the cute couple... Now... take me to the moment..."

"What moment?"

"THE moment. The moment it finally hit you that you were in love."

"OH! That's easy. When she was trying to tell me about the dream she had." With those words, Zuri went bright red and began nudging me, really really hard. "Ok, ok... Maybe It was a feeling that I had growing deep inside of me that was being reciprocated when I heard about her dream about us that felt validating... But the exact moment? Our first kiss. We were young, stuff like that leaves a mark on you when you have never felt it before. Then... when I can back from my blackout, She was just so... caring. And I still maintain, best feeling I have ever felt."

"That's so sickeningly sweet... Then what happened?"

"Then my heart ran away with my feelings and told my brain to eat it. I let my emotions take over and start dreaming of a life where I wouldn't be alone anymore, where I would have somepony who could love me and care about me in a way nopony else could. it was honestly the happiest moment of my life at that point." I said with a smile.

"It's nice to actually hear a story like this... Last question... I think you know already what it is..." Homage tried to say as professionally as she could.

"The moment I found out she was going to leave..." I said with a sigh. The whole room fell quiet. Even Cal had stopped his rhythmic tapping of his hoof that had nearly driven me insane as I tried to not let it bother me. I never looked, but I could feel Zuri's eyes melting into me, as if she never wanted to hear me say the things that were surely to come.

"Please... continue."

"Heart breaking. It was like I was given the most special gift in the world, then it was ripped away from me. It was like the world wanted to give me a taste of what could be and then remind me what would never be. Even now, I can see her striped mane fade over that ridge, I can still feel the searing pain in my chest. Even all the times I went back and carved my name into that Goddess forsaken tree, I saw her standing there. Purple eyes shining with the same tears I was pouring, wind whipping her mane back and forth as the word divided us. It had never felt such a thing in my life at that time. It was a thousand times worse than being alone. That's when I learned a fact about life. Love, is not temporary, it stays with you forever. It can be the best thing that has ever happened to you. But when it's ripped from you, it aches and never goes away. That's true hell. True pain."

"Well... I think we have all we need here. Zuri gave us the story of how you found her and Shale your journey to find her. Thank you for sharing this with me." Homage said as she very nervously took her leave out of the room.

"Yeah... Your welcome..." I said as I got up and left the room. I had played those events over and over again in my mind, but never had they felt as real as they did just now. I had all but held back the tears buy the time I got to the end. Celestia... does she really effect me that bad? Sure we had our private moments together, but, THIS bad? I barely know her outside of a relationship or sex. I guess this is what happens when you never get over your first love and so many ponies say.

Shortly after my exit, Shale trotted to my side as I was trying (very unsuccessfully might I add) to eat a muffin without getting any blood on it from my now weeping nose.

"Here..." She said as she threw a towel at me. "Clean yourself up, it is going to be a long day."

"Long how? It's already been a long day! Can we just go back to bed!?" I asked as I held the damp towel to my sore muzzle.

"Oh don't act like you didn't hear any of what she said..." Shale barked as she stormed out of the room.

"Wow... Talk about grouchy. I know that eavesdropping is bad, but was what she did really necessary?" Valkyrie asked from the table.

"It's... complicated." I mumbled as I nursed what was left of my nose.

"No... Complicated is a term better used for socially awkward... That bitch is crazy."

"Look, when we were kids, I might have... by complete accident... spied on her doing... THINGS." I said under my breath.

"Ewwww... Gross, Joey!" Cal shouted. "So what happened next."

"Nothing! I was just a colt, I got curious. I also couldn't sit right for a week after she caught me!" I shouted. The room stood silent as everypony was now looking at me with both confusion, sympathy and disgust. From the door way to the living room I could see Zuri's head lean into view with a 'you pervert' look across her face. "Wait... that came out wrong."

"Don't you mean, went in wrong?" Cal said, quick to never miss a joke at my expense.

"You would know, you are the one dating her." I said over my shoulder as I left the room.

I sat on the couch opposite Zu who was making good on her request to consume nearly any and all food that remained. I'm sure left unattended she would being gnawing on the table as well, I thought it better not to attempt reaching
for the last muffin when she gave me a look that just screamed 'Do it and you will pull back a nub!'. Despite her and I spending far more time together than I thought we ever would, given the circumstances, she was still a confusingly familiar mystery to me. Sometimes I could not keep her off of me, others she seemed distant and even cold, especially when anything deeper than sex was on the table to be talked about. Then there are times like this, her acting like a rabid dog and tearing into a muffin with nearly evil intent. Still, even now, she is just so damn cute.

Lavender had yet to break eye contact with me, seeming to attempt to drill holes in my head with just her gaze alone from her safe spot in the corner of the room. Even fetch was acting strange. The once bubbly colt had been reduced to a melted pile of pony that lay at his mother's hooves, seeming to be trying to do little if anything to aggravate her already aggressive demeanor further. What the hell happened while I was asleep!? Did I somehow piss everypony off by sleep-trotting or something? Not like this was the first time I had woken up to a group of weird ponies, but even still, you would think being reunited with your kid would afford you some level of humility.

"So... Lavender. Lavender, Lavender, Lavender...?" How do you talk to a pony who hates you? I stalled on her name long enough to try to find a way to break the ice, but failed and fell in. "How are you?"

"Fine." She replied coldly.

"Fetch? How are you doing?" Fetch neither replied or acknowledged the question but instead rolled to his side and curled into a ball.

"He is sick, not that it is any of your business." Lavender barked.

"Whoa, ok. Calm down. I just woke up and I didn't expect..." I started.

"What!? Didn't expect that I would have forgotten the last time you were here? What did you want? A damn party!? You and that fuck-head in the other room are better off far away from here. You already got my brother fired from his job in security for that little stunt you two pulled. I suppose you will be after my job next!" Lavender said through gritted teeth.

"Seriously? We bring fetch back and all you have to worry about is your damn job!?"

"It's hard to raise said kid without said job!"

"Well if said mother would get off her said ass and put forth a said effort, it would not be so hard to raise said kid!"

"Oh this is ridiculous! We are leaving. Come along, Fetch. It is time for your medicine..." Lavender said as she nudged fetch from his fetal position.

"My tummy hurts..." He whimpered as he raised himself to his hooves.

"Well, if you had your medicine by now, it would not be a hurting, would it?" She said in malice.

"What is your problem!? Can't you see he is sick? He needs to go to the doctor, like now."

"He has already been earlier today!" Lavender said as she slammed the door, nearly catching Fetch's tail in the gap.

I stood in shock to what I had just seen. Lavender had never seemed like the mothering type, but this was just... nonpony! I don't think Raiders would even been so cold to their child... if they even have them... (Would they eat their children if they had them?). I was getting that all too familiar feeling that there was more to this than meets the eye. Was she just repulsed by our presence? Was it Caliber? Did something happen before I woke up? Surely she wasn't upset by us bringing Fetch back to her, so what was it?

"I do not trust her..." Zu said, as she pulled her eyes from the door. "She is evil."

"Evil? You had the words bitch, cunt and whore to work with and you chose evil?"

"I do not like how she treats the little one. It is though she does not wish for him to be near her."

"I was getting a vibe like that myself. What do you think is going on?"

"You are asking... me?" Zu said in near bewilderment as she took a moment to collect herself.

"Well, yeah? Why wouldn't I?"

"I think she is evil."

"Well established, but why?"

"I think that she is mean to Fetch because she does not wish for him to be with her."

"Oh com'on, Fetch is her kid, why would she want rid of him?"

"I do not know. But I think that Fetch is in danger."

"Zu, we are in Tenpony, the safest place I know of, if he were in danger, I would know."

"Is Tenpony safe for me? I am a Zebra, no?"

"True, but what does that have to do with Fetch? He is a young colt who was born here. Seems like to me that he would be reasonably safe."

"Yes. but only if that place has ponies who are safe too."

"Ok..." I said as I stretched out across the couch and rested my head on her side. "Tell me a story mommy..."

"If you are in the safest place, it is only as safe as the ponies you are near. Would it not still have the most dangerous things in that safest place? Would you not still be in danger, if those ponies did not like you? Just because the place is safe, it does not mean that the ponies are, no?"

"But if Lavender wanted Fetch gone, then wouldn't she have done it by now?"

"Not if she did not want to become... captured? This is, as you say, the safest place."

"This isn't adding up... It would be crazy for her to even try to do something like that."

"Joy... The little one was sick now. He was not sick in the cart."

"Are you saying us bringing him back made him sick?

"No. But I think the evil on is hurting him."

"I hope for his sake your wrong. But you are making a hell of a lot of sense."

"I hope so too... " Her words were cut short by a explosive sound coming from the kitchen.

"You are having that looked at this instant!" Shale screamed.

"NO! I am not going back to that starry eyed doctor again!" Caliber shouted back. Zu and I fell out of our seats and began to creep to the corner of the threshold to see what was going on THIS time. With Zu on my back, the two of us peeked around the corner, only to duck back again to avoid a flying rusty pot. Caliber was latched onto the long since dead stove with both hooves as my sister did her best to drag him away from it with her teeth around his tail.

"I asked you if you were hurt, I asked you if you needed to go to the doctor and you lied to me!" Shale mumbled out through Calibers tail.

"I'm fine! Stop ripping my tail out!"

"You are not 'fine', your damn hoof is going to rot off!"

"Is not! See! I'm using it right now! It's strong enough to keep you from taking me back there!" He shouted in glee. Shale rolled her eyes and gave one hard pull with her neck, sending both Caliber and the stove flying into the center of the kitchen.

"Your sister is scary." Zu said from behind me.

"You are going, and that is final!" She said as she once more latched onto his tail and began dragging him towards the door.

"BUT! MY SUGAR APPLE BOMBS WILL GET SOGGY IF WE GO!" He said as he reached out with his magic and began attempting to eat them while being dragged.

"You have got to get your priorities in line. AND YOU DON'T EVEN HAVE MILK IN THEM!" She said as the two of them cleared the doorway we... I looked back to see a pair of eyes staring back at me from under the couch followed by a sharp pain in my nose that send stars through my vision.

"And you need to learn a lesson the first time!" She said she pulled her hind-hoof away from my nose and the two of them trotted for the door. I rolled across the floor and came muzzle to muzzle with Zu.

"What the hell! You just... Abandoned me back there!" I said, holding my now very sore nose.

"I like my nose..." She said as she pulled herself from her impossibly confined hiding place.

"Those two really love each other..." Valkyrie said as she trotted into the room.

"Match made in Flank..." I replied, trying to shake the blurriness from my vision.

"You know, you should probably have that looked at." Val said, taking my head in her hooves. She rotated my head back and forth, eyeing my nose thoughtfully before helping me up. I took notice that even though the two of us were not being attacked by a rabid ball of stripes at that moment, the hair on my neck was still standing on end with delight at her sudden touch. Great, so that feeling is not just for the mare I care about... I looked over my shoulder to see Zu nursing what was left of her muffin before pulling away.

"I should go after them. Maybe get my nose looked at too." I said, backing my way to the door. "Can you stay here with Zuri, you know, keep her company?"

"Sure..." She said enthusiastically.

"Look, not that I don't want you both to come with, but this place and Zebra's don't mix well, and I don't want her to stay by herself. It wouldn't be fair."

"I'm sure her and I can clean up the mess those two made..." Valkyrie said as she slumped back off to the kitchen.

"She likes you!" Zu said just above a whisper.

"WHAT!?" I shouted. Ok, I can handle the weird nibbling on my ear in her sleep, eating like a rad roach and even her odd temper, but this on again off again attitude with mares and them being near me is getting weird way too fast!

"You can see it in her, she thinks you are cute." Zu said in an almost teasing tone.

"What gives, one second, you want to kill her, the next, you are ok with her making moon eyes at me? WHY!?" I said in my most parenting tone.

"It is because I know that you are safe." Zu said without care. "And she knows that I would end her."

"Safe? Safe how?"

"I know that you would not allow another mare between us. I see the way she looks at you, but I also see the way you pull away. I know that you are safe, or how do you ponies put it... Loyal.

"So unsafe would be... what?"

"That would be if you fell for her." She said as she raked the rest of the crumbs from the table to her mouth.

"You are a very strange mare... you know that right?"

"Ah, yes. And you a very sweet buck! We go well together, no?"

"Whatever you say, Zu." I said as I trotted out the door and as far away from that complicated conversation as my hooves would allow me to.

The lobby of Tenpony was just as I had remembered it, bustling with life (albeit snooty and uptight), filled with ponies talking about the slavers who had massed around the tower. Even though they had a clear show of force, you would never be able to measure it off of the demeanor's of the overly confident tower residents. Sure some seemed nervous but overall most of them seemed, at the most, inconvenienced by their presents, rather than intimidated by them. I sat looking for Caliber and Shale taking in all the various happenings around me.

It wasn't that long ago that I was here in nearly this exact spot that I met fetch for the first time, I also met Lavender as well, but I still had yet to figure out if that was a good thing or not. What was her deal? We bring her kid back and all we get is a stern glare as if we had found something she had been looking for and some how offended her. I know mares are complicated and crazy at the best of times, but this was just stupid! We risked our lives to pull him out of that hell-hole! Just what the poor kid had gone through should have been enough to cut through her hardened facade, but even that seemed to piss her off. I bet that If I were to pass her off a solid gold bar, the gift of ever lasting life and bag full of promises, she would just bitch about the weight and tell me how unlucky she was to live forever in the Wasteland.

Even with plenty to take in around me, I couldn't shake the thought of what little I had seen in the room. I was actually making myself angry just at the very thought of it in fact. So much so that I thought it better of me to set myself to just finding my sister and brother before I had some sort of outburst and got kicked out. I pushed the thoughts of Lavender and Fetch to the back of my head and headed back on the trail that Caliber had left for me.

The buck might be many things, but stealthy, he is not. He had not gave up his bowl of cereal and left me a nice trail of spilled water and Sugar Apple Bombs to follow all over the damn tower. Seriously, who eats cereal with water! That's just... GROSS! Wouldn't they get all soggy and nasty tasting? I followed the puddles all the way to Cream's Confectioneries, dodging the ponies that were bumping into me seemingly on purpose. When had this place gotten so crowed, and rude! Well they had always bee rude, but seriously, I think that buck just tried to trip me.

A quick glance over my shoulder confirmed what I had already figured out on my own. The buck returned to curious glance with a snarl and spit on the ground in my direction. I turned and flexed my frame forward, readying myself for what I was sure was to come next.

"WHAT!?" I shouted as I cocked an eyebrow at him.

"Don't you what me! Tattooing yourself up like a damn Zebra! What did you expect, for me to hug you? If it were up to me, you would be hung by the balls for doing that!" He snapped back to me.

"Tattooed!? What is your malfunction, fuckhead?" I asked as I started to close the gap.

"Yeah! If you want to be one of those damn things so bad, why don't you do us all a favor and shoot yourself and save us the trouble." A mare said to my right.

"Hey! Why don't you-" I started but it was no use, I had gotten the attention of nearly everypony within earshot, and everypony seemed to have their own opinion of the stripped up pony in their midst's.

"Go back to Wastland!" and "I bet he is here as a spy for the Slavers!" rang out across the crowd of ponies that were now backing me into the small bakery. Just as my haunches cleared the doorway, I felt hooves press hard on my haunches and pull me deeper into the sweet smelling shop. In a white and blond flash, Cream had leaped in front of me and began waving a broom at the aggressors.

"Shop's closed everypony, time to get the hell out!" She shouted as she hit one mare in the face with her staff of cleansing."Get out of here you time wasting bastards!"

"I have never!" One back said as I picked myself up off my hooves and stood in aw at the power of a mare holding a broom.

"Well now you have!" She shouted, followed by her smashing the bristly end of the broom into another bucks ass with full force. Once she had completed her tirade, she backed herself back into the shop and locked the door behind her. "Joey, always a pleasure. Nice stripes." She said as she rounded on me.

"Thanks for that. I guess I really poked the hornet's nest coming here." I said hopping for a smile.

"No!" She said as pointed her filthy broom at my nose. "Poking a hornet's nest would have been showing up, what you did was more like trying to steal it and mate with it! Showing up here looking the way you do, what did you think they would do if you pushed back on them!?"

"True. Not my finer moment. But even still, some of those ponies out there know me and what I do! Why would they act like that?"

"Joey... You really are stupid." She said as she put a hoof to her temple. "You have got to be kidding me... Tenpony ponies only care about being safe and looking good. They thrive on a balance of attractive appearance and social up standing. YOU look like a raccoon that was eaten by a trashcan and barfed out into a puddle of awkward... How did you think it would go?"

"Good point..." I said looking down at the floor. So this was what that felt like, being denied a simple pony right to be over looked. Now I was being singled out for the way that I look and there was nothing that I could do about it. Even if I went to every pony here and explained why I had stripes, I bet my last cap that at least half of them would still try and kill me.

"What, now you are going to be sad over it?" Cream said rather curtly.

"Gee, thanks bitch." I said from my pit of self wallow.

"You are seriously getting upset over what all those snooty ponies think of you? They live here because they could never survive out there, and here you are, worried about what they think?" She said as she tapped me on the nose with her broom. The resulting screaming and cussing took far longer to explain to her than it did for me to forget all about the ponies outside of the store. What was this, hurt Joey day!? After what felt like an hour, our conversation turned to Lavender and her strange, but not unusual, ways of acting like a complete cunt.

"So she just, kicked him to the door?" Cream asked as she went about her daily routine of making bread.

"Well, not so much kicked as nudged, still though, it was an unkind gesture. I think if we had not been there, she would have pretty much thrown him out of the door." I said leaning on the counter.

"Yeah, Lavender has always been a strange mare. She comes in here and always expects me to give Fetch his food for free because I like the kid. I mean I do, but it would be nice to do it because I want to, not because I have to."

"So she shops here for her food? No offense, but you are the most over priced place in this whole tower. If she was so concerned with money, why would she shop here?"

"It's not over priced! It's priced very appropriately for my demographic, thank you. But yes, she comes in here every other day and orders the same thing. Two dozen muffins, a loaf of bread and some Cadmilk."

"What the hell is 'Cadmilk'?" I asked in bewilderment. Of all the strange things that I had heard of, Cadmilk was far from anything that I knew of.

"It's powdered milk. You add water to it and you have milk." She said in a tone that suggested that I was an idiot.

"I was just asking... Geez."

"She claims it is the only thing Fetch will drink, but honestly I'm pretty sure the kid hates it. If you ask me, it's because it is cheap and she gets to feel like a mother by buying him something other than water to drink. Racid stuff, can't stand it myself."

"If it is so bad, why does she buy it for him. It can't be because she wants to feel like a good mother, she's a damn bitch towards the kid."

"How the hell should I know!? I make bread and shit, I'm not a brain doctor!"

"Oh that's for damn sure..."

"Well, either way, she is the only one that buys the stuff. Ponies tend to think it tastes like licking a battery after you drink it. I have been using it to clean the pots with, works great as a soap." She said as she retreated to the bowels of her shop. More strange behavior from the purple mare that had peaked Zuri's interest back in the room. I really want to believe what I believe when it comes to Lavender. That she is a horrible pony and a bad mother, but not an abusive one. Sure what she did back in the room was abusive, but was this a near constant thing? But then you get things like this where she was buying milk for her kid so he would not have to drink water alone.

Nothing was adding up. One second bad mother, the next, kind of ok mother. Even if she wasn't showing it, how could a mother decide to turn against her only kid without any malice in return? But then there is the very real fact that Fetch was fine when we landed o the roof, but a few hours later he was nearly comatose. My train of thought was derailed by Cream throwing a box that clearly read 'Cad-Milk, a tasty alternative for milk!', at my hooves.

"This is the stuff. Go on, take her a box... Maybe it will calm her the hell down to get something for free."

"Thanks. But I doubt anything short of a bullet would do that for her. Are you sure you don't want me to pay for this?" I asked as I turned the box over in my hooves to read the ingredients. 'Soy protein, rich whole wheat reduction and powdered ...' the last word had been nearly completely worn away by time but it didn't stop me from trying to guess what it was. Caster oil, maybe? One thing was for sure, it was gross.

"No need, I have 400 boxes of it. Some buck came in here with a huge load of junk a few years ago wanting to buy some muffins... Maybe you have heard of him..."

"Ok, I get-"

"Grey, messy blue mane-"

"Cream."

"Oh, he had wings too! Two big stupid looking wings-"

"Cream!"

"And he's a real ass-"

"CREAM! I get it. Thanks again..." I said as I trotted back out of the store. Cream, never a pony to let anypony get the last word in on her, shouted after me as the door slowly closed.

"He has a cute butt too!"

I gave a nervous shudder at the thought of a pony like her eyeing my backside and did my best to hide what I could of it with what was left of my tail. Thankfully, the crowd had all but ran off during the time Cream and I had our little talk together. Though, it did not seem to do anything for the crooked-eyed-glances I was getting from pretty much everypony around me. Rather than take a chance at starting another fight, or more likely a riot with a side of hanging, I kept my head low and and focused on finding the clinic.

Despite being here multiple times in my life, the place was always hard to find for me. Maybe it was my fear of doctors and waiting to the last minute before seeking one out, but I hated going there. Also, I think the nurse has a crush on me, but that was beside the point. They stick you with needles, drain your blood to do Goddesses only knows what with and take all your caps. But nevertheless, they did at least smile while doing it. I guess I would smile too if I had ponies willingly bringing me caps and wanting me to stab them.

Trying to get my barrings, I glanced around the lobby once more to see if there were any signs of Caliber about the place. But all I could see was the angry eyes of ponies who were none-too-pleased by me being near them. It was as if I had now seen a monster that, once you looked at it, it would always follow you from then on. I couldn't help but look at them with a bit of resentment now that I knew how everypony truly felt about me. It was almost addicting in its own way to look to them just to check and see if I was still being hated or not. The longer I looked the faster my heart would start to race as if I were about to be attacked at any second.

I forced myself to look back to the ground before I gave myself a panic attack, and just in time too. Right next to my hoof was a still drying piece of cereal on the ground. I followed it with my eyes to another, then another, then several more all making up a trail around the corner and presumably, to the clinic.

"Thank you, Caliber, you great big stupid slob, you!" I mumbled to myself as I put my nose to the ground and began follow the edible trail out of the lobby. All around me I could hear ponies remarking at that stripped pony with his bloody nose to the ground. Stuff like " Look at him! He's savage!" And "What, first he thinks he's a Zebra, now he think's he some kind of dog!?" found its way to my ears as I tracked my friends breakfast trail through the lobby. That's me, just a savage, bloody and beaten coyote, trying to sniff out his friend. Go ahead Tenpony, laugh... See if I help any of you in the future.

I must have followed that damn trail all over the Tower before I was halted abruptly by the pony I slammed my head into. Seriously, I had not wanted to look up so badly that I actually bumped into somepony, bumped my nose on the ground and proceeded to start whaling like a foal on the ground again. I covered my nose and shouted every obscenity that I knew in a desperate attempt to stave off the pain and the stars that were now flooding my vision. Through their darkened state, the silhouette of a buck loomed over me and was saying something, but through my own angry words, I couldn't hear anything.

I felt a hoof grab my foreleg and wrench it away from my face with a surprising amount of force. The action was met with nothing short of panic from me, I must have hit a Tower resident! Great, I'm on the ground, already injured and now I'm going to be stomped to death on my way to the clinic... Talk about ironic.

"Calm down already, you damn fool." The soft voice of a stallion said to me. Wait a minute... I know that voice. Cautiously, I cracked my eyes back open to see a bright red mane come into view. "Honestly, I know your name is Coyote, but do you have to act like one?" Life Bloom said as he eyed my injured muzzle closely.

I froze. I'm on my back, his nose is just a few inches from mine and he has his hooves on both of my cheeks. My eyes grew wide as my brain shifted from simple panic to historical paranoia and sexual confusion. I still had not forgotten that comment he had made the last time I was here and if his intentions were anything short of professional, I was screwed.

"What in the name of all that is good did you do to your nose?" He said almost sarcastically as he turned my head side to side in an effort to look all the way to the back of my head through my nostrils.

"Shale. She-"

"It's broken." He said, cutting me off. The curt tone in his voice was now telling me that this was not a social conversation.

"B-broken?" I stuttered as my heart sank. Oh no... If it's broken that means...

"Don't act like you are upset about it, I know you have been shot before. A simple broken nose is easy enough to fix. " He said helping me to my hooves and guiding me inside the clinic before following in behind me.

"Fix?" I whimpered out.

"Oh, cut it out. Don't be such a foal." He said as he nudged my rump with his horn.

"Hey! Watch were you poke that thing!" Do unicorns just forget they have a phallic object on their heads? Had he missed his mark... Not thinking about it, not even going to think about that with him right behind me...

Inside, I saw Shale had already found a cozy spot in the waiting room and had curled up on an old couch with what was left of a magazine to read. She raised an eyebrow towards me for only moment before turning a page and looking back to it once more.

"Ah, I see moron the sequel has arrived..." She said in a tone only I could appreciate. It was the same one she would use anytime she knew she had won an argument, or caught me doing something stupid.

"Sh-shut up! OW! Watch the horn! SHALE! Help me!" I shouted as I felt another sharp jab in my other butt cheek.

"Ignore him. He's a baby when it comes to doctors. Don't let him be a problem." Shale said without so much as casting the faintest glance in our direction.

"It wouldn't be a problem, if he would move his flank!" Life bloom said as he threatened me into one of the several examining rooms.

Once inside, I was ushered to one of the gurneys and threatened by point of horn to sit on it, quietly. Looking around, I was revealed that I was not the only pony to be lead to this room of blood and broken bones. The soft ruffling of the sheets beside me on the bed and the large mound of blankets covering whoever was under there was evidence enough for me to gather. I was lost deep in thought when the cold touch of hooves found my neck and cheek, causing me to pull away in shock from the two piles of snow that just touched me.

"Hold still, damn it! You don't want to move like that while I'm holding a scalpel." I froze again and slowly let my eyes move to his now hovering blade that was now just inches away from my right nostril.

"W-why do you need that!?" I said through my teeth, afraid to move my jaw.

"You have a hematoma. I have to drain it before I reset your broken nose." He said as he slowly pressed the shiny blade against the inside of my nose. Short to follow came a pin prick of a needle on the outside of my muzzle. No doubt a numbing agent, I felt my body relax, now knowing that he wasn't going to go about this 'procedure' without at least numbing me up first. "Now... Stay perfectly still..."

"Easy for you to say, you're not the one with a knife in his face..."

"Quit your whining." He said as he lanced the mass and I shuddered at the feeling of warm blood flowing down my chest. "And it's a surgical scalpel, for the last time."

I tried to speak my witty retort but no sooner than I opened my mouth, it was filled with nasty nose blood. Luckily, Life Bloom had pulled the scalpel away from my nose when I choked and spat the blood all over him. Though from the look he was giving me, I was sure that he was having thoughts of going in for round two on my uninjured nostril after that.

"Lovely..." He said as he reached out, took my muzzle in both hooves and pulled my face close to his. Shit! I should have known! He's a male nurse! The sight of blood must be a turn on for him! Crap!

"OWWWWWWW!" I screamed as I felt an extreme amount of pressure being applied to the right side of my face, followed by a sickening crunch of the bone being shoved back into place. I was seeing stars by the time he stuck me with another round of numbing liquid. "What in the fu-"

"Seriously? You are here with a broken nose, what did you think I was going to do? Kiss you?" He said a matter-of-factly as he turned to look for a needle and thread. I gave my nose a small wiggle in a circle as if I were trying to itch it without my hoof, oh how I wished I had not done than. The pain... OH the pain. I was now sitting cross-eyed as I tried my best to not make a sound. It was bad enough I was in here, had not listen to anything that he had said not to do, spat blood all over him and acted like a foal, but now I was hurting myself for absolutely no reason other than my own curiosity. "Now... All you are going to need is a few stitches and a healing potion. Honestly, why is it that you always find a way to get hurt that requires the most amount of pain prior to healing?" He said as he returned from his tool rack with a needle and thread.

"Heh... Did he tell you about the time he almost killed himself with healing potions?" The pile of sheets beside me said.

"Cal-OW-iber?" I tried to say as Life Bloom began stitching me up.

"Oh yeah... It's me." A drunken muffled voice replied.

"You... Almost DIED... from healing potions?" Life Bloom asked in shock.

"Heh... Shut his liver down and everything." Cal said, poking his muzzle out from under the sheets.

"You are one to talk, didn't you almost die from dating that ghoul? What was the name you gave her? Nightlite was it?" I said as best I could while somepony was inside my nose.

"Hey! She was the best! You could cook eggs on her flank!" Cal said in rebuttal.

"You were sick for over a month with rad-sickness." I retorted.

"Yeah, well I didn't lose a fight with a door, did I?"

"Wait... You almost died from too many healing postions, and you almost died because you dated a glowing ghoul?" Life Bloom said as he pulled away from us both. Cal and I could only stare back at him, the two of us waiting for him to continue his question.

"What?" Caliber said finally, breaking the silence.

"You two have to be the dumbest ponies I have ever met! I have treated raiders that had more sense than the both of you combined! It's no wonder you are in here all the time." He said as he trotted to a medical supply cabinet.

"Ok... We are not in here ALL the time." I said as I climbed down from the bed.

"REALLY!?" He shouted as he turned and held a clip board with my medical bills on it.

"See, that's not that bad... There are at most... ten or eleven things on there..." I said squinting.

"This was today..." He said as he undid the clip on the clipboard and allowed page after page to scatter across the floor.

"Whoa... Damn, Joey. Maybe you are Ditzy's kid after all..." Cal said as he kicked a few stray paged off of his hoof. Life Bloom was now clutching his blood spattered temples in what looked like physical pain as he started groaning.

"Ghouls... Can't... Have... FOALS! Morons..."

Cal and I stood perfectly still as we waited for the now very angry unicorn to calm himself enough to set us up for discharge. I had thought it better not to say anything, but we really had to get a move on. I had not even had time to think about what we were going to do about Firefly yet, nor had I even given any thought about talking to Doctor Helping Hoof about Fetch's condition. If there was something out there that could help the little colt, I know that it would make its way to the top of my priorities list. Before I could think of a good way into that conversation, Life bloom had one more trick up his sleeve.

"Do you think you could just... just stand there and manage to not get hurt long enough for me to look you over for ANYTHING else that is more than likely wrong with you? I thought I heard something about loosing a fight with a door." He said as he stepped closer to the two of use as if we were a glowing lump of radioactive stupidity.

"Heh... Lose a fight with a door? He nearly lost his leg! Damn thing chopped his Pip-buck clean off!"

Life Bloom froze and I watched as his now crimson eyelid began to twitch uncontrollably.

"Ok... to be fair-" I started.

"Just shut up." He said as his eye squinted and his horn began to glow. I waited as the tingly sensation washed over me little by little before settling on my injured leg. Before long a strange new problem began to manifest in the form of not only burning, but searing agony that bit deep into my bones with every passing second. My face twisted and contorted in pain, but by the looks of it, I was not the only one being effected by it. Life Bloom's body was nearly pulsating with pain. His horn began to glow brighter and brighter the longer the spell went on, its light giving of wave after wave of heat. Before I had time to register what was going on, a white and blue flash pushed Life Bloom from his hooves.

The two of us collapsed to the floor. Me clutching my still burning hoof, him curled into a ball and squeezing his head for dear life. What had just happened!? What did they put inside of me back in that hell-hole!? This had to be some sort of thing you should tell your doctor about before they do a spell like that. Celestia only knows what material they used to piece me back together down there, for all I know they used left over batteries!

"What... what the hell!" Life Bloom said as he brought him self back to his now shaky hooves.

"I-I don't know! It just... hurt!" I said still trying to rid myself of the pain that was just now beginning to fade.

"All I could see was a slight taint contamination and some metal rods and everything went white."

"One thing is for sure, whatever they crammed in that leg of yours probably should not be inside of a pony." Cal said.

"I have never seen anything like this before. I would say that we should get to purging your taint contamination, but if your leg did that to me..."

"Great! So now I really AM anti-technology. Awesome..." I said as I timidly began to bare weight on my hoof again.

"Hey... don't feel too bad about it! Look at it this way. Next time we need a hot meal, between the two of us, we make a pretty good microwave oven!" Cal said with a stupid grin.

"You two... You both are the stupidest ponies in the world. You have no idea how painful that was! You would probably both die or his leg would explode." Life Bloom shouted.

"I knew that!" Cal said with a snort. "So do we..." He started but was cut off.

"Just... Just get out. There is only so much of you two I can handle for one day... month... EVER. Take the potions and leave." He said as he levitated two purple vials to us both.

"But don't we owe you some-" I started.

"I said get OUT!" He shouted as he pointed towards the door. Cal nearly ran me over as the two of us scrambled for the door.

"Wait... I had a question. An actual question." I said as I started backing out the door.

"If you don't leave this exam room in the next few seconds..."

"It's about Fetch! Please!" I said hiding behind the door. He let out a loud sigh before cocking an eyebrow at me.

"What's wrong with him? More specifically, Is there anything we can do to help him?" I said quietly.

"Fetch has a condition that is beyond our expertise here, I'm afraid." With every word that he said, the bucks face softened and my heart sank. "It would seem that whatever it is that is effecting him is causing his body to retain elemental forms of low-grade heavy metal Isotopes. Radium, strontium, cadmium and cesium to name them. Combine that with his congenital heart defect and you have a recipe for disaster. We can purge the heavy elements from time to time, but it always returns due to the cadmium, it's like a sponge to his tissue."

"So just keep purging it! Look if it is money you want-" I started.

"IT'S NOT THE MONEY!" He shouted in disdain. "Colts get treatment like that for free here, we are not monsters."

"Well then?" I said giving him my best look of 'what the hell is the problem then'. Life Bloom paused and rolled his eyes at me.

"That's right... You're stupid." He said as he started cleaning up the room that we had trashed. "If we keep running him though the machine to cleanse him, he will die. Think of it as what happened to you and the healing potions. Given enough time where his body is not exposed to the heavy metals, he could possibly heal, but it is far beyond our capabilities here."

"There has to be something that can be done, I mean, he is only five or six years old. That's too young to die." I said as I felt any and all hope that I could do anything to help him slip away.

"Eleven." Life Bloom said correcting me.

"Whatev... What?"

"He is eleven years old." He said again.

"There is no way! He's too small to be eleven years old!" I said in astonishment.

"His condition has taken its toll on him over the years. Stunted growth is only one of the issues he has. Temporary memory loss, lack of developmental improvement, difficulty with retention with numbers, weakened bone structure, general lack of attention... Even organ scaring, mostly dealing with his circulatory system." He said, his words failing to find that all too doctor like tone I was used to.

"So the little colt, the one that I had thought was just a kid, is actually a young buck?" I asked trying to not talk about the details of what was... Not going to think about that.

"Don't feel too bad about the mistaken identity, you are not the first and probably will not be the last either. At this rate however, you maybe one of the last few." He said as he sat the papers he had been collecting down on the table and began staring at them. I was ruined. This little colt was older than he seemed, very sick and... dying. I had grown fond of the kid in the last few days, going so far as to wish for a little colt of my own one day, but now I was getting the ultimate dose of parental depression, and he wasn't even mine. But no matter the pain I felt, it would be far worse for Caliber in the end. No matter what I did though, I still had this nagging feeling that something was amiss with all of this.

"Life Bloom?"

"Yes, Joey?"

"Can I ask you about something else?"

"Sure. What is it?"

"What do you know about lavender? I mean I know she is a bitch and can be cruel... but you don't think..."

"What? That she is mistreating Fetch?"

"Yeah... That."

"I doubt it. Not because she is her mother, no, she is defiantly crazy. No, I don't think she has the time or the energy."

"How do you mean?"

"She is working two jobs right now, but before that she was working nearly eighty hours a week to support them both. That kind of thing takes a toll on a mare."

"So you are saying she acts the ways she does because she's tired?"

"Yeah, I would lean on that opinion. I know she suffers from insomnia now that she has to work late shift. Just last week I had to give her sleeping pills to knock her out. She said she had been up for nearly four days and three nights. I can't help but wonder if Fetch wandered off because she had taken a few too many and passed out."

"Even still... She seems hard on the kid. Even you have to see that, right?"

"Well, now that you mention it... Over the last few years she has seemed distant from Fetch, most notably since his sickness began to worsen."

"One more thing, about fetch. A few of us noticed that before we arrived here that he was actually looking pretty healthy. but today he looked dead on his hooves."

"Every time we purge his system, the onset effects of his condition arrive much sooner then previously. It's one of the effects of having cadmium building up in your system, the more that is there, the faster it effects you with acute radiation poisoning. He would go months without issue as a foal... But months became a month, that became weeks... before long, it could be days. I suspect that is why Lavender left Tenpony to find help for him."

"When she came back... how did she act?"

"What are you driving at? Do you know something about Fetch going missing that I don't know?"

"Just curiosity... and a hunch."

"That 'hunch' of your's could get you into a far bit of trouble making insinuations like that. But now that you mention it, she didn't seem totally genuine about being up set. She kept wanting to lay down and sleep and just let the patrols figure it out. If my kid went missing, I would like to think that I would miss nap time to find them."

"Thank you. If you figure out anything that will help him..."

"You will be the first to know." He said with a small smile.

I trotted into the waiting room to see my sister was still waiting in the same spot I had left her in. Caliber was no where to be found however.

"Where's?" I started.

"Stupid the prequel?" She finished for me.

"Cute. Yes, him."

"Oh he is off doing his best to become a victim of a crime of passion. I would say he is probably in her room now."

"So he went to see Lavender. Great. And you did what to stop him?" I asked.

"Oh you know... 'Stop, no, please, you will surely die!'." She said looking back to her magazine.

"Always reassuring to know I have your full support. But if I may ask, why are you being such a colossal bitch today?" I asked as flatly as I could manage.

"Oh I don't know, Joey... Maybe it's the fact that my new colt friend is up there right now with his ex-mare and his child. Call me petty, but this sort of thing is not something I am a fan of."

"Whatever... Pay the mare." I said as I trotted out the door of the clinic and started for the main lobby.

Right, back into the hell-scape that was personally tailored for me by fate itself. I didn't even make it out of the lobby and up the stairs to the apartments before somepony actually tried to trip me! I looked back to shoot an angry glance at the would-be ass that tried to send me tumbling down the stairs but was halted by the face of a little filly blowing me a raspberry. The little shit... With everything that was going on in my life right now, I was now being made to deal with the disobedience of children. And I can't even spake them! What kind of world is this...

I brushed off the encounter and quickly found myself on the correct floor. I know this not from memory, but from the sweet sounds of a screaming mare and the sounds of things being thrown. I should have guessed that the moment that the two of them were alone that they would resort to fighting again. Lavender had barely kept her rage in check the last time we seen her, holding back her emotions like a dam that was fit to burst at any moment. My guess would be from the sound that I was hearing now, she was currently flooding Cal with everything that she had held back over the last day or so.

I kept close to the wall as I approached so that I didn't send one of the loose floorboards to squeaking. The last thing that I wanted was to be in the middle of whatever in the hell was going on in there, but I did want to have a listen. Slowly I made my way closer to the cracked-open-door, trotting on the tips of my hooves the whole way. With every step I could make out more of their shadows being cast on the door, their flailing hooves and screeching words coming more into focus. I was so entranced by what I was doing that I didn't even notice the small tail sticking out of an alcove of the hallway and nearly tripped over it. I caught my stumble just in time as Lavender threw what used to be a potted plant into the hallway, sending it against the door across the way.

I looked down to see that I had tripped over none other than Fetch who had found his book and retreated to a safe distance to read it.

"Hey!" I whispered to him. He looked up to me with his green eyes like he always had, but this time I noticed something different. Before I had always thought that he was simply trying to slow his thoughts down enough to process that a pony was standing in front of him, like all kids do. But now, those same eyes painted a much darker picture, one that I could not be sure if he had even seen for himself yet. He was trying to remember who I was. Back in Filly, I had calked it up to trauma, here though, I was shown the very thing that Life Bloom had told me about.

Fetch narrowed his eyes and his smile grew wide as he opened his mouth to shout as he often did. Before he could even get his breath to do so, I planed a hoof to his muzzle and did what any sneaky pony would do to a child.

"Shhh! Don't blow my cover!" I whispered to him.

"Oh! Right! Are you spying on mommy and Caliber, uncle Joey?" He said back to me, his hooves vibrating with excitement. Uncle Joey... I felt a little flutter in my chest towards his simple statement of kinship towards me that almost cleared my darker thoughts of how bad things were going for him. But, in a way, it only made the pain worse.

"Yeah. What are they fighting about this time?"

"I-don't-know. But mommy is really mad!"

"Shocker..." I said as I sat down next to him.

"Yeah. Mom has been mad since I came home. She made me go to bed without dinner last night because I took to long to get down the hallway." He said looking back to his book as he played with the edge of one of the torn pages.

"Bitch..." I mumbled under my breath.

"Huh?"

"I said I have an itch." I said quickly as I started scratching my side. "Watcha' readin'?"

"It's a book Cream gave me on how to bake cupcakes... But I have read it a lot already and it is getting old." I looked down and saw nothing but gibberish about cooking, if only I had something that he could read that was better than old cook book I could give him. Thinking quickly, I dug deep in my saddle bags. After pushing aside the half a pound of dust and grit I found both Camden's journal and the envelope Homage had given me.

"Cupcakes are fun and all... But look what I got!" I said as I brought out the envelope Homage had passed off to me.

"But... there are no words... You can't read that... Can you?"

"Stitches... it's an envelope. Homage gave it to me and said that there was something inside that we should see."

"OH! Like snooping!?"

"Snooping on the highest levels of snoop! This is something she wants me to do. The SNOOPIEST! Wanna read it?" I said with a sly grin.

"Yeah-Yeah!" He said as he tried to use his magic to pull it from my hooves. Together we opened it and unfolded the pages in front of us. On them were dates, locations and what looked like an image that could have been drawn better by Fetch, but had the hallmarks of something that was machine made.

"What is this?" Fetch asked as he poured over the documents. I didn't answer, there was no need to. Everything was right there in black and white, or in my case, purple and blue. The colors didn't show it on the poorly reproduced black and white paper, I doubt anypony but me would know what it was, but there it was. Clear as the sky above the clouds. Thinking quickly, I swept the pages back into my bag and stowed them away from prying eyes. I had to grit my teeth to keep from showing the emotions that I was trying so intently now to hide. Easy Joey, all in good time.

"Hey! I was going to read that!"

"Let's not read THAT one buddy." I said as I messed up his mane with a wing. "How about this?" I said as I slid the journal between us.

"What is it?" Fetch asked as I undid the clasp and opened it to the first page.

"It's a journal, my da... the buck who raised me wrote this."

"Your dad?"

"Kind of. He raised me, taught me nearly everything I know about trading, took me all over Equestria. He wrote everything that was important down." I said as I flipped through the pages. "Here is where he got Shale, my big sister. This one is about the time Lue got stuck in an air vent..." Fetch giggled at the thought, all the while with me flipping the pages of Boss's journal. Before long, we had read through nearly half of it with the only breaks being when I would stop to tell him more details of what happened back then. Much of what we were reading was material I had not even seen myself, thankfully I was able to skim the pages about Bit Scales before Fetch could lose what was left of his innocence. If his run in with the underwear apparatus had not done it, that damn sure would.

"Hey! What's that?" He said pointing to a rounded grey edge that was just poking out of a page near the back of the tome. With a wing tip I flipped the page open to find... a wing tip? It was one of my feathers, a primary if i was right, but it was way too small to be one of mine.

"OOOOOH... It's a feather!" Fetch said as he turned it over in his magic. The tip of the base had been stained with black ink and the vein showed the signs of nibbling or improper preening at the very least. "Look! It is the same color as yours!" He said as he held it to my wing. Sure enough, it was the same color, albeit a bit faded in color. I looked back down to the journal to see that something had been written on the same page.

"Dear Joey, I read the journal, and for some reason Boss never included the story of how he found you. I hope you don't mind, but I wrote it down for you as best as I can remember him telling it. I think this is one of your foal feathers that he used to write with, I hope you don't mind me using it. Love, Shale." I read the words aloud in stark confirmation that the small grey feather had been one of mine, one of my first to shed at that. Boss had thought enough of it to keep it all those years. That or he needed something to write with and ripped one out. I choose to believe the former.

"So this is a baby Pegasus feather?"

"My feather at that."

"COOL!" Fetch said as he continued playing with it. Beside us, the battle was really starting to heat up, shouting had turned to screaming, giving little to the imagination of what they were saying. Even Fetch was having a hard time blocking out the obscenities that were now flowing from the door way like water down a stream. "PIECE. OF. BRAHMIN. SHIT!" being screamed in full anger gives a very different effect when it's not aimed at yourself. Doing my best, I tried to ignore them and began reading aloud the story of how I came to be in this world, to the colt that was quickly finding himself in the same place.

I read the words just as Shale had wrote them for me, line by line, word by word. Doing anything I could to keep the documents I had seen out of my mind as focused on the job at hoof. Before long, the the shout and screams could no longer be ignored by either of us. I found myself pausing to try and listen into bits and pieces of the 'conversation' they were having. Fetch had to keep reminding me to read and not listen in. His pleas felt more out of necessity than actual curiosity. But with his own mother screaming works like 'little runt' and 'the sick kid', I couldn't say that I blamed him.

"Uncle Joey? What happened next?" Fetch asked as he tapped the journal between us.

"Then..." I started, doing my best to keep my composure, I pushed the rage to the back of my mind and began to read again. "Boss took the little colt from his father and stowed him away safely, just has the colt's father had begged. His mother wept for their loss but knew that it was the only thing that she could do to keep him safe." With every word I read I was feeling a all too strong connection to Fetch in doing so. We had both been cast out, we both had been found, but he was the one that needed somepony to save him now. Wasn't that exactly what Caliber was trying to do? Wasn't it what we were trying to do?

"What happened to the little colt in the story?" Fetch asked. I had once again let my attention drift to the room beside me where his screaming mother and now pleading father were.

"Fetch, why don't you try and read this aloud. You are quite the reader yourself now after all. I think I should go and check on your parents." I said as I stood from beside him and began to trot away.

"J-Joey?"

"Yeah?" I responded, freezing in my tracks.

"I... I don't want to go... back to my mom..." Fetch said, looking up to me with wide eyes.

"Fetch..."

"She... She doesn't want me, does she?"

His words resonated in my mind, cutting through that mental wall I had built up to protect myself from all of the anger I was dealing with. I didn't respond, I couldn't! How do you tell such a heinous thing to a child, how could you be so cold, so cruel to make a colt feel like he was unwanted, even if it was the truth. You don't, simple as that. You buck up or you get out of the way and let somepony else do it.

"Just keep reading Stitches, you are doing great." I said as I rounded the corner into the room. From behind me, through muffled sniffs I could hear him reading quietly to himself has he tried to learn more about the little Pegasus that had been given back to the Wasteland.

"Fine! I sold him! How does that make you FEEL, Caliber! You wanted the truth? I couldn't stand the thought of raising a child by a father as worthless as you! He's a sick kid! YOU cursed me with a SICK kid!" Lavender barked back to Cal. Even from my spot just outside the doorway, her words bled through the walls like Ice cold water.

"He... he didn't runaway? He wasn't taken by slavers from you? You just..." I could hear stammering at the blow that Lavender had just dealt to him. My rage had only began to boil when I saw the documents, but now it was ablaze. I should feel sorry for this, at the very least I should be showing how angry I was, but I was past that point. Nothing I could conger as an expression could show what I was feeling in this moment. I felt nothing. Some how this mare had found a way to break every moral I had, every emotion I felt and every action I wanted to do on reflex, and she wasn't even aiming it at me.

"-you are absolutely worthless! Why would I want to raise a carbon copy of him for myself!?" Lavender bellowed in Calibers face. The once proud buck had been reduced to a cowering mass that had been backed into a corner. "And you! You are nothing more than some do-good fuck up that just HAS to meddle where he does not belong! Everything was fine before either of you came along! I was actually happy for once!" She screamed at me, but I didn't react. Instead I put a hoof on Cal's shoulder and started to guide him back to the door.

"Com'on Cal, time to go."

"We... We can't leave him here. Not like this..." Cal mumbled as I helped him out the door. He had been broken, mentally and physically. Lavender had found a way to hurt the buck who had always had something clever to say back and left him destroyed. She had hurt Fetch and in doing so found his chink in his armor.

"Go help Fetch, he's in the hall reading." I said as I stopped walking, closed the door behind him and rolled the tumblers on the lock.

"Well!? What are you waiting for!? Are you not going to follow your two little pieces of shit?" She said as I slowly turned to face her.

There are times in everypony's life where they make choices. Boss chose to help when nopony else could, Shale chose to stay when she could have gone home at anytime and Caliber chose to be a parent when nopony else wanted to. Choices... some of them will haunt us for a lifetime, some will give us fond memories, but they are almost always for our own gain. I had forgotten about Fetch when he needed me most because of my own want for love and even Zuri had ran out of fear of being hurt. That's the problem with ponies, when the caps are down, they will look out for number one and forget about the poor colt in the hallway who desperately needs somepony to love and care for them.

Lavender had unknowingly been poisoning Fetch for years with the very same powered milk Cream had gave me. Cadmilk. Cadmium. The very thing linking the radioactive poisons to Fetch's condition, was the one 'good' thing she had been doing for her kid. The stuff was fortified with it. Whether she knew it or not, made no difference at all now having heard her say it aloud. CadMilk, with the active ingredient Cadmium is fine in small doses, but over a lifetime can have devastating effects and in large quantities it can be fatal . When she saw that his medical bills would probably mean her expulsion from the Tower, she decided to sell fetch to Slavers and pass it off as him being taken.

But she had not counted on somepony watching her every move as she did so. Somepony that despite the odds managed to look at a monitor just in time to see Lavender pass off a sleeping Fetch to Slavers. Sleeping pills were given to her just the day before Fetch went missing, Life Blooms guilt had he known they had been used on the poor kid would be more than enough for her to stand trial. Homage had known to send me to Filly, she knew right where I could find him, because she knew he didn't run away. She had shown me that with the images... Lavender slipping pills into a bottle of water and giving it to fetch. Lavender picking him up and carrying him on her back. Lavender... Exchanging caps for a sleeping colt...

Somewhere, in some other cosmic body I would hope, there would be another timeline where Fetch had two loving parents who would stop at nothing to protect him, do anything to heal him and keep him safe. But the universe doesn't work like that. This was here, this was now. I could only pray that neither of them could hear the muffled screams from Lavender as she slowly choked to death at the hooves of a buck who could only hope he was doing the right thing. Even if the right thing to him, was murder. Caliber didn't have the strength, he would never be able to look Fetch in the face again if he had to do this himself. I didn't have that problem. I needed this. With every bit more pressure I applied, I felt a weight being lifted off my back. With every crack of bone, I felt my heart ache a little less for the poor colt in the hallway.

I let her lifeless body fall beside me on the floor. Even though I had expected to feel some semblance of remorse, I didn't. It could have been the fact that she tried to hurt my brother by selling his child into slavery, it could have been that when I looked at Fetch maybe I saw myself in him. Alone, wanting desperately for somepony to love me, hoping that somepony would save me from the hell I was doomed to live as a child. If Somepony had paid that price for me, and spared me the heartache, who would I be to not do the same.

I shook the old pillow from its case on Lavenders bed and made my way to Fetch's room. When I opened the door, I had hoped to have the sight of a child's room filled with toys and messy from playing. But just a few scant toys and books littered an otherwise empty floor next to a few blankets in the corner. If I did had any remorse, I left it in that room. I stepped over the body of the lifeless monster who had once called herself a mother and dropped the documents on the ground beside her. If anypony found her, they would know why she was dead.

I opened the door to the apartment, locked the door and slowly closed it behind me. Fetch and Cal were still curled up on the floor, but the book was closed. Instead he had resorted to talking to him about spending more time together. It was not until I tapped him on his haunch that either of the two paid me any attention.

"Yeah?" Caliber respond, still visibly shaken from his ordeal with Lavender.

"Let's go." I said and I scooped up my journal and placed it in my bags and started down the hallway.

"Wait!" Fetch shouted after us. "Can... Can I come?" He asked, tapping his hoof to the floor impatiently.

"Seriously, Fetch. You have got to stop falling behind. We almost forgot about you." I said as I cracked a smile. Caliber and I watched as his grin grew from ear to ear and he began to near levitate his way towards us. I lifted him with a wing and dropped him on my back as we three trotted down the hallway towards the elevator.

"Does this mean I can be a member of the Coyote Pack!? Do I get to stay with you guys!? With my dad!? With you!? Oh! Do I get a gun!?" Fetch yammered on.

"Slow down, but... Let's see... Yes, yes, yes, duh and ask your dad, I'm not going to tell you again." I said as we boarded the elevator. Fetch looked to Cal with stars in his eyes and his hooves to his mouth.

"No! You are too young for a gun!" Cal said in his best parenting voice.

"Awwww...." Fetch slouched on my back, his four hooves dangling like limp noodles at my sides.

Caliber looked at me, but didn't say a word. He didn't have to, his tear filled eyes said it all. Happiness, freedom for Fetch, a kid of his own that wanted nothing more from him than his time together and love. Fetch's happiness had made its mark on the both of us, more than either of us could have ever imagined. For me it was the knowing that he would soon get better and have a chance at life, for Caliber it was just having him in his life. But for Fetch, the little colt that nopony cared to love, he was just happy to have a family.

I reached a wing out and pulled Caliber close to the two of us. "Brothers" I said with a near cracking voice.

"Yeah well... I still don't get a gun..." Fetch said as if he would never be happy again.

"Maybe for your birthday... if you are good and don't set me on fire again." I said as the door closed and we left behind a life not worth living.

Author's Notes:

Holy moly! I'm not dead, you are still here and this is a new chapter. Full disclosure. This chapter took too long to write. WAY too long. But here is why.

I lost interest.
Not because I got bored of the story, no way! But for a few reasons...

1. I'm a dad... again. I now have two perfect little boys in my house, Hunter Willis and Joey Kade... YEAH I DID IT! You ain't a true brony until you have a kid and name him after two of your lead characters in your stories lol.

2. Work and stuff... Also going back to school so there is that.

Also I'm sleepy and this chapter needs to be put out. Yes, the show will go on now that I am past the hardest part of this damn thing... Oh yeah, I wrote another entire completed story in the time I was away.
Feel free to check it out in my profile, I'm actually very proud of it! It's a bit more fast paced than this fic, but still a healthy 70k+ read. It's call 'Letting Go', a story that was inspired by my mother (grandmother, but you get the idea).

Thanks for sticking with me!