“That was a…nice visit, Apple Bloom. We’ll…have to do it again soon.” Sweetie Belle said as she walked towards the door. “Good bye to both of you. Oh, you too kids. I’ll be back soon.”

“Bye Auntie Belle! We love you!” The children spoke together as they hugged Sweetie around the neck.

“Well, I had better get going. It’s really late, and Rarity probably needs me. She’s not the youngest pony in town after all.” She said with a giggle. “Bye, maybe tomorrow.” She glanced over at Big Macintosh discretely. As she walked from the door, she could hear Big Mac walk out the back door. She quickly walked into the nearby group of trees and snuck around to the back to meet up with him.

“Thank you…for everything.” She looked down and blushed. “I really didn’t expect that. All these years…” She knew she needed to be quiet before she ruined it, but she couldn’t. The words were pouring out of her mouth, and there was no way to stop them. She bit her tongue in attempt to stop them from coming out.

“Sweetie, I feel bad for loving you, but I can’t stop it. I need you. I’ve never loved anypony before, but I love you, and if that’s wrong, I don’t want to be right. If this word can’t handle our love, then they can ignore it. We were meant to be together, and that’s that.” He leaned down to her and kissed her again. “Now go, it’s too soon for anypony to find out.”

Sweetie was still hanging on the kiss when he said the last statement, and didn’t want to leave. “Can’t we just let everypony know? What’s the point of hiding? You say you don’t care, and then you go on and hide. Are you lying to me?”

“NO! I just think we need to get used to this first, then we can tell them. I mean, if we’re not used to it, how can we expect everypony else to be used to it? Now go, please.” He turned her around and nudged her back to the exit of the farm. “I love you.” He called as she walked away.

“I love you too.” She began to walk off, scared of her own thoughts. “Is he telling the truth? Or is he simply scared to admit our love to everypony?” She looked ahead, and realized how late it was. She had spent all day and half the night at Apple Bloom’s house. She wished she didn’t have to go. She wanted to stay with him all night. She didn’t want to leave him and go back to Rarity’s boutique.

She whipped back around and ran back to him. As she rubbed her face to his, she looked him in his deep, green eyes again and kissed him again. “Please! Oh, please! Let me stay, Big Mac! You can let me stay in the barn! No funny business, I just don’t want to leave you!”

“Sweetie…I don’t know…” He looked away, afraid of her possible reaction to his denial at her request. “What…what about Rarity? She’ll be awful worried ‘bout you. Besides, it don’t feel right leavin’ ya out here all alone.”

“You say forget about Apple Bloom, well I say forget about Rarity! She won’t care. I’ll tell her that I lost track of time and passed out here. She won’t care! I promise!”

He looked away again, this time thinking about how to respond. Does he tell her yes? Does he tell her nicely no? Or does he tell her no frankly and tell her to leave? “Ugh…” He began, stressed now at the pressure being laid upon him by his new lover. “Fine…you can stay in the barn. I’ll stay here with you ‘till bed, then I’m going inside to sleep”.

“Aww, why?” She interrupted, sharing her sisters patented whine.

“So Bloom and the kids won’t get suspicious. If I tell them I want to randomly sleep in the barn, they’ll want to know why. And what do I tell ‘em? That my newfound love is out there? Then they’ll ask who, and I’ll have to tell ‘em that it’s you!”

“And what’s wrong with that?” She questioned him. “Why is he so scared to tell everypony?”

“I just don’t feel like putting up with all that drama! Look, Sweetie, I love you, and I want all of Equestria to know that I love you, but now is not the time.” He walked into the barn, signaling Sweetie Belle to follow.

As she followed, she saw him pull out a blanket and pillow from the rafters, as if people stayed in the barn all the time. “Why not? Why can’t we just…” She looked down. She knew the answer, and she knew she would lose the battle, but her heart wanted to keep going, even if her mind insisted to stop.

He gave her a look; A passionate look. A look that made Sweetie stop wanting to ask her question and she simply layed down and began to blush. As she laid down, Big Mac got the pillow from the rafters and sat it under her head. “Now just get comfortable. I’m gonna stay here with you for a while. It’s gonna be cold out here, so I’ll try to keep you warm.” He grabbed the blanket and spread it out over Sweetie, then nudged up beside her so that he was laying beside her as she was tucked into the blanket.

He leaned over and gave her a kiss, soft and passionate like their first, but longer. This time it wasn’t a sin in their minds. This time they were both in love, and they shared their love through this kiss. It seemed to go on forever, but it was only a minute or two. They didn’t care, however, as the pure rush they both gained from this expression of their shared love made every second feel like days. Big Mac was the first to pull away. Not from choice, but by force. “Ok, I’ll be here, just go to sleep and I’ll try to be here when you wake up.”

She rolled over and yawned. As big as that rush was, she was still sleepy, the sooner she went to sleep, the sooner tomorrow would come, allowing their love to last another day. “I love you Big Mac.”
“I love you too Sweetie.”

---

Applejack was explaining the incident to Skylite, and Rainbow Dash didn’t want to hear it. “I gotta get outta here!” She thought to herself. All of this drama in one day was too much. Dash needed her sleep. Even if it meant knocking herself out. She looked over and saw Skylite crying on Applejack’s shoulder. “Poor kid. Didn’t even know Scoot that well, but knew her enough to be hurt by all this. He’s too young for this.” Dash dropped to her knees, holding in the urge to cry out to Celestia and ask her why she would cause all of this pain to them.

“Dash, you wanna say somin to Sky over here?” Applejack asked. She was crying too, though probably the least of the three. Skylite was too young to deal with all this pain, Dash felt like she lost a sister, and AJ simply wanted to hold strong, and be the flimsy tape that held this makeshift family together.

“Hmm…I don’t really wanna talk about it…” She didn’t, but she knew she needed to. “I loved her…” She looked away, afraid to let Skylite see her crying. “I loved her like a sister. Now though, now she’s half dead, getting surgery, and I feel like it’s my fault. I wasn't there. And the last way I was to her was obnoxious, evil, and mean.” She sniffed, looked up, and had a half grin across her face. “But after this surgery…after the surgery everything will be back to normal. And we’ll start over. We’ll go back to practice. Start back in Appleloosa, and I’ll be a nicer coach. I’ll be a inspiring coach.”
“Dash, ya alright?” Skylite walked up to Dash, who was still shaking and tearing up, despite her forced grin. “Maybe you should sit down.”

“Don’t touch me!” Dash snapped. She didn’t know why, but she did. As Skylite jumped back in fear, AJ grabbed him and gripped him in her softening, soothing way. She turned him around and he began to sob upon her shoulder again. “Sky…” Dash reached out, but put her hoof back down. An apology couldn’t fix all of their problems.
The doctor walked down the stairs with a neutral face. Dash didn’t know what to expect. Was he coming with good news about Scootaloo, or was he returning to provide worse news than he had already announced? He walked up to Dash, and looked down at her dirty knees from when she had dropped to the floor, then looked back up at her purple face from crying. He then turned back to AJ and Skylite.

“Who here is her relative or caretaker?” Applejack and Skylite looked over at Rainbow Dash, who agreed. “Miss Dash. A word with you?” He kept his generic, non-expressing face locked onto Dash’s eyes.

“Uhh…sure?” She began to cry again, but on the inside, she was a tad excited as well. Maybe he was going to say that she was ok. Maybe.

“Miss Dash. Well…we were able to at least begin on the surgery. Then something went wrong.” He looked to his right at the waterless plant in the corner.

“WHAT!? What went wrong? I’ll give you all the bits you need to fix it! Don’t tell me she’s dead! Please!” She dropped to her knees again, looking up at the doctor with broken spheres of pain in place of her eyes. “Please…”

“Miss Dash, I’m…I’m sorry. It’s my job. She lost consciousness again and…well…never gained it again.” He tried to avoid the word died; passed away, kicked the bucket, left us. They never did their job of softening the blow. Saying what he did probably didn’t either, but it was an attempt.

Dash screamed. Her worst fears were all coming to light, all in less than 24 hours. This time yesterday she and Scootaloo were racing from Ponyville to the outskirts of Canterlot. Now, Scootaloo wasn’t there to race anymore. Or practice. Or play. Or anything. She was dead. Gone.

“Miss Dash I…”

“Shut up.”

“Miss Dash?”

“Shut…up.” She got up and began to look around in an angry fashion, as if she was looking for a place to go, to get away from everything. Which she was.

“Dash ya alright?” AJ asked her as she walked by. Skylite had walked out of the room, afraid of the burst of emotion that was inevitable.

“No…I’m not. And neither is Scoot. Neither WAS Scoot…” She stopped walking and looked around angrily again.

“Oh no…Dash…come sit down. Please.” She stood up and put her hoof around Dash’s neck and began to nudge her towards the seats.

“GET OFF OF ME! NO, I DON’T WANT TO SIT! Now stay here. I’m going outside. Don’t follow.”

“Dash, this isn’t healthy, you have to let it out girl! Please? Just come over here, ya aint gotta sit, and cry it out. Nothing you do is gonna make this situation any easier, but we can do it together.

“You act like you don’t care! Why don’t you care Applejack? Hmm? You don’t care that the closest thing I ever had to a sister is dead? You don’t care about me wanting to be alone? You don’t care that I’m heartbroken? No…you don’t. You don’t understand, that’s all. You think I can just sit down and blow this off? No. And as if this is the only problem I’ve had today? I’ll bet you don’t even know about Gummy? Did you know he’s dead? Ya. He’s upstairs now. Layin’ on some inspection table cut open with half of his organs out. Something, or someone killed him. And now I find out Scootaloo is dead!? It’s my fault too! I should have been nicer, I should have been there with her too!”

“Dash, this aint your fault, and ya I knew ‘bout Gummy. That explains why you were here in tha first place.”

“IT IS MY FAULT! She always tried to practice without me. I worked her too hard, especially since we came back here. I wanted her to do good, so I over worked her. She like practicing on her own ‘cause she didn’t have to put up with me. If I had just…”

“Dash…you simply wanted her to be good. So maybe you were a little harsh, you just coached the way you thought was suitable.” She knew this was a lie, but Dash was scaring her, and she needed a way to calm her down.

“Oh. Another thing, did ya know about Twilight?” She turned around finally, tears flying from her face as she whipped her neck around to face Applejack. “Ya. She’s insane now. Worse than ever. And guess who she blames. ME! She says that it’s because I left that all of this is happening. I didn’t want to believe her, but I guess she right. It’s all my fault. I had to leave and try to get famous.”

“You had to; it was your dream, and your destiny. And you had to help Scootaloo out too.”

“I didn’t do it for Scootaloo. I did it for me. I thought if I could make her good, I could show I was an awesome coach. I did it for me. You see? I’m a self-centered, evil, jerk.

AJ knew this was true, but she didn’t want to say it. She just looked down at the floor. Even if Dash saw, she was in her own world, and it wouldn’t change anything.

“It’s all my fault! All of it! MY fault that everything is going so wrong!” She began running around frantically, yelling about how everything was her fault. Then, she ran head first into a wall, and began banging her head into it, repeating the phrase “My fault!” with every blow.

The doctor, who had been listening to the conversation until Dash began running around like a lunatic, returned with two bigger doctors by his side. The larger of the two had a grey coat and black mane, and the smaller donned a coat of white and navy blue mane. The larger one ran and jumped onto Dash, gripping her by the neck and pulling her down as he wrapped his legs around her to hold her in place.

“LET…ME…GO!” Dash screamed as she tried to break free in her now unstable condition. She was no longer a possible threat to others, but now an enormous definite threat to herself. Releasing her now, after they had attacked her, could have catastrophic results, ones that they weren’t willing to pay. As the larger doctor kept his grip on Dash, the smaller doctor ran up and stabbed her in the neck with a syringe, releasing the fluids inside into the vane on the side of her neck. She kecked a few more times at the sudden pulse of pain that swept through her body, then relaxed. She slowly dropped her head and closed her eyes, her whole body relaxing at once.

“Is…is she dead?” asked a now present and up to speed Skylite.

“No. Simply unconscious. She has been sedated so we can carry her to the mental ward and put her in a cell.”

“THE MENTAL WARD!?” asked the brown and orange ponies in unison.

“Well, we can’t allow her to leave under this condition. It’s simply a danger to herself as well as others. She’ll spend the night with no medication, and we’ll see how she’s doing, and if she seems to be healed, she can leave.” The doctor had the usual blank face that he had lost only when breaking the news of Scootaloo’s death.

“But…she’s not insane. She’s just stressed. All this that’s happening; Gummy died. Then Twilight flipped her top, then this. It’s a little much, and she’s kinda snapping under the pressure. Insanity is a harsh word, Doc.” Skylite defended Dash with all of his knowledge and power, but to no avail. Dash was going to the mental ward, and nopony could stop it.

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