Rainbow Dash can see Doug’s jaw set hard, like it is carved from a block of stone. And the way he turns just slightly to glance at Rarity, his eyes narrowing in less concern and more vehemence at recalling something. And it must have been something vile, the way his thin mouth scowls; and yet he shakes his head, turning away and coldly regarding the pegasus again.

Knowing how much it sounds like one of those daytime dramas, Rainbow Dash continues unabashedly, “And you’re the sire.”

Doug takes a deep breath, folding his arms against his chest, fists clenching against his tensed biceps. He bounces on the balls of his jackboot clad feet, almost like he’s preparing to spring from his crouched position. “You’re sure.”

Rainbow Dash nods resolutely. Yet she can see the doubt scrawled across his face, and it doesn’t take a genius to suspect Rarity of some hornbrained scheme.

“Don’t,” she cautions as strongly as she can, wishing her words could restrain him like Applejack’s rope as his gaze threatens to tear away from her again. She knows who he suspects: Sight Seer, purely from proximity at the end of that fateful day. Soarin, for all she gushed about the ‘Bolt during their time together. Maybe even Fluffy Clouds, though she never shared the advances the senior weathermare made on her - they both knew how unlikely it was for him to succeed, and she doesn’t think Doug cares much for the stallion. Which would just make the knife that much more painful to twist in his back if it were the case.

Doug’s mouth opens, like he’s going to accuse her anyway, then pauses. Blue eyes stare into magenta for several long seconds.

“But that means…” Doug whispers as he collapses in on himself, legs bending underneath as hands press against his head. Thumbs forcefully massage his temples as he stares blankly ahead, lost in realization.

“Ooh, my head,” Rarity moans from behind him, slowly getting to her hooves with Applejack’s help. “Thank you, Applejack. I must have misheard; I could have sworn I heard Rainbow Dash saying she is pregnant.”

“Ya didn’t mishear,” Applejack says, still concerned for her once fallen friend. “Says Doug’s the sire.”

“But that would mean…” Rarity says as a hoof reaches back, rubbing her belly.

Green eyes stare into azure for approximately one second before Applejack disappears into a cloud of dust, racing for the hospital.

Rarity stays hot on her hooves, barely keeping pace with the far more athletic farmmare.

Rainbow Dash takes a deep breath as she watches the two mares gallop away. She couldn’t bear to guess at Doug’s answer to this question the entire flight here, and deliberately tried to avoid thinking about it. She hates hypotheticals, especially the tough ones, preferring instead to go with her instincts.

As long as she can remember her dream has been to join the Wonderbolts. Her cutie mark only reinforced that, strengthening her resolve to win, and pushing her to do everything to reach that goal. The Wonderbolts are a team of winners; the best flyers and racers in the country, if not the world!

And if Doug answers the question a certain way, a way she can’t bring herself to hope for, she might still be able to live that dream. And yet she feels her animosity fading, her once steely resolve crumbling to nothing.

“Doug?” Rainbow Dash asks, her voice trembling. She dreads his answer to the question even more. And she hates how weak she feels, how she must look, but what the others think is the furthest thing from her mind. “Do…”

She takes another deep breath, wetness staining the fur around her eyes.

Doug looks up, gently rubbing a hand against her muzzle.

It helps, the contact, the same motion that might have guided her lips to his. Dash’s chest heaves, her intake of breath wracking her body. She knows what his answer is going to be, how it will devastate her dreams, but she has to ask.

Because she could never decide between two halves of herself.

She barely ekes out, “Do you want to keep the foal?”

The hand around her tightens, an iron muzzle clamping her mouth shut and demanding how she could even think to ask such a question. “Yes,” Doug says immediately. His mouth opens to continue, and Dash can see the qualifiers forming in his mind. The way he glances towards Applejack, as if he might need her permission. Or to the farm, wondering how they will support not one but potentially three foals. And then he returns to her, gently tugging her closer. His voice is soft. “A thousand times, yes.”

Rainbow Dash can feel the tears fleeing her eyes, unimpeded no matter how hard she tries. “Then,” she cries out as a whimper, afraid of the dying gasp raging inside her, “my dreams are gone.”

And with that Rainbow Dash pulls away and flees in the opposite direction of the other two mares.

She lands at the north end of Sweet Apple Acres. Why she is there, she isn’t quite sure. She could have gone to her Cloudominium and forever stayed out of his reach. Or returned to Cloudsdale, or even the Wonderbolt Academy. But returning here, laying ponyloaf in this soft patch of grass in the shade, can mean only one thing. That she wants to be found, wants to be reassured by her stallion that everything will work out in the end, even if there is no bucking way that is possible.

It isn’t long before she hears that distinct cadence of jingling jackboots, steadily getting closer and closer. Then they slow, yet still approach, until the loud thunk of one hitting the ground is followed by the other, and the soft squish of the grass as he sits next to her. A hand reaches past her wing to scratch at her spine. He slowly travels up, stopping just before the sensitive purple of her mane. And then he waits.

Rainbow Dash stares at the horizon with closed eyes, occasionally dipping her head to the forelegs crossed in front of her, muffling her sobs. Soon enough and the fur there is as damp as that around her eyes.

It takes a few minutes, but she finally speaks. “My life is over.”

The hand resting along her back slowly comes alive, lightly scratching into her coat. “You had such dreams.”

Tear filled eyes open, staring out at the vast expanse before them. “I was going to be a Wonderbolt! The best of the best. I was the fastest pegasus out there! I was-”

She breaks down again, letting out another sob. If it wasn’t for the hand stoically reassuring her, she might have fled, not that it would do any good. Rainbow Dash continues, “And now those dreams are gone. I’m never going to be a Wonderbolt. I might as well just scoot along in the dirt with you.”

Doug slides along her wing, gently tugging it away from her barrel. She lets it go reluctantly, even though the unpreened wing is bothering her. “I’ve been there, Dash. I know what you’re going through.”

Rainbow snorts. “Oh ya? You wanted to fly with the best?”

“Heh, not quite.” Doug sighs, a glum look overtaking him as he recalls the memories. “During college, I was one of the better engineering students. Not the best, but up there. I had a plan: I had a scholarship, I would sail through college, graduate, meet someone, settle down. Work a nice office job designing planes.”

“Which you can’t tell me about,” Rainbow Dash pouts.

Doug stares off in the distance. He knows it’s a breaking point, a line in the sand, that once he crosses there won’t be going back. But, if what Rainbow Dash is saying is true - and he believes her, wholeheartedly - then it’s a line he’ll cross and not look back.

“An airplane is… it’s like one of the chariots I’ve seen a pegasi pull around in the sky. It's a machine humans build that replaces the pegasi portion of a chariot. Except they’re gigantic, with the larger ones able to carry the equivalent of hundreds of ponies and their cargo.”

Rainbow looks at Doug in disbelief. “I thought you said humans didn’t have magic, and couldn’t fly.”

“Well,” Doug says quickly, “we make do with machines instead. Great big engines that burn gasoline or other oils.”

“Engines?” Rainbow Dash asks, curious at how a train, especially one not infused with magic, could keep that many ponies aloft.

Doug chuckles. “To explain everything that goes into a plane would take a long time. I have no idea if I could rebuild one here, and frankly, I’m not sure I want to. Anyway, in my original plan, I was going to get a job designing those planes. Or maybe the airports those planes landed at, maybe something different. But, I was careless. I let my enjoyment of gaming push my obligations with studying to the side. I ended up losing my scholarship.”

Doug shakes his head, holding onto Rainbow a little closer. “After that, I got depressed. I thought my dreams were over. The life I planned was about to get a lot harder. I would need to take out loans and work multiple jobs to stay in school. I ended up transferring to a different school, and a different curriculum, working with planes instead of designing them."

"Humans do that?" Rainbow Dash says, glancing at her cutie mark. Would she give that up to do something else?

Doug nods. "Yep. We spend years training, sometimes. And that led me to the job I had before I came here, and you know what? I loved that job. A lot more than working on the engineering side of things.”

Rainbow seems to perk up a little at this, but it’s still not enough. “So, you think this will all work out, huh? Well, I’m glad it worked out for you, but I don’t see how this will get any better.” She motions to her barrel, pushing Doug’s arm away with the motion.

Doug moves back into position, continuing to rub her wing. “Well, I’m not going to pretend that I know how things will work out. I do know that wallowing in your depression won’t make anything better, even if things look hopeless. I think it’s part of why I adjusted so readily to living here in Equestria. I try not to let these things get me down; I know that there is always hope, even when it might not seem like it. That was one of the ways I dealt with my depression.”

“Well, what good is feeling good about this going to do?” Rainbow Dash sighs, even as she presses against him. “I mean, it’s not like we have anything going between us.”

“You think so?” Doug says, swapping to her other wing. He has to strain to pull it across her back.

Rainbow Dash sinks into her hooves, even as he tugs her around by the wing. “Well, we kinda rushed what got us into this position.”

Doug nods as he gets up, straddling Rainbow Dash’s back as he works along her wing. “I seem to remember somepony who was worried about the opposite happening.” He reaches down to scratch at the side of her neck, grinning as Rainbow Dash leans into his hand with an appreciative coo. “We certainly did rush things then. I think that is part of the problem now; you see a lack of intimacy because we performed an act that should have been full of love. Instead, we performed it mechanically, just to... scratch an itch. Now that something happened, and maybe even if nothing happened, you have these feelings towards me, feelings of attachment and loyalty, but they feel hollow. Like they are built on the lack of feelings we had for each other instead of the love these acts should represent.”

Rainbow looks back at Doug, tears in her eyes. She rolls over, still trapped between his legs. Her forelegs wrap around his waist as she pulls his chest to her muzzle. “We bucked up pretty bad, didn’t we?”

Doug holds Rainbow tightly against him, lightly patting her back. “Only if you want to look at it like that. I choose to think that we created something wonderful together, and it took a bit more elbow grease to get there.”

Rainbow laughs into Doug’s chest so hard it turns to a whinny. “You really believe those whorse apples?”

Doug shrugs like it’s not even a contest. “If I had the choice of that or depression? You bet. The world can be what you make of it, Rainbow; if all you see is broken dreams and crushed possibilities, then that’s all there is. But if instead, you see the windows that get opened, and the concrete you can make from the dust? You might find that everything works out, just maybe not the way you thought it would.”

“So how does this get better?” Rainbow Dash looks up, staring into his eyes. “What route takes me back to being a Wonderbolt, to living those dreams?”

Doug holds Rainbow close, nearly pulling her on top of himself. “I would say it starts off by picking yourself up, stop wallowing here in the dirt. You’re Rainbow Dash, and you’re not going to let something like this hold you back, are you?”

A smile flickers across Rainbow’s muzzle, “Yeah! I’m totally awesome!” She nuzzles into his chest again. “So, what happens with us?”

Next Chapter: Ch. 72 - Windshriek Estimated time remaining: 6 Hours, 9 Minutes