Stepping down from the cab onto the sidewalk in front of Aunt and Uncle Orange's place, Applejack said it again same way she'd been saying it the whole ride back: "I'm sorry."

"It's OK," Fluttershy mumbled just like she'd been doing, but AJ could tell she didn't mean it.

"Honeycomb," she started, but Fluttershy slipped past her and up the steps, the cabbie clearing his throat and nodding to the box strapped to his side.

Paying the fare left her about two bits—Bob Tail had raised his prices since she'd last bought a bottle of his hootch—but AJ had more coin in her bags upstairs. Not too much more, but enough so she wouldn't hafta start worrying. Besides, Apple family credit was good anywhere the Riches ran a bank, and here in Manehattan—

But nunna this wool-gathering was doing any good. "Thanks," she told the cabbie, then she galloped up to the front door, Cloves holding it open. "Miss Fluttershy?" she asked.

He nodded toward the parlor. "Is everything all right, miss?"

Applejack blew out a breath. "If'n you got any lunch sitting around, I'd be much obliged. Give us, say, five minutes?" Time enough maybe to coax Fluttershy into talking....

Cloves nodded, and AJ nodded back before stepping through the doorway into the parlor.

The day curtains filtered the light coming in from the street, made the room soft and inviting, and Fluttershy perched on one of the red velvet davenports across the room, her eyes closed and her face averted, set Applejack's heart to pounding. "Please, honeycomb." She stayed by the door and didn't even try to keep the plaintive tone outta her voice. "I know I done messed this up, but I...I need you to talk to me about it. You and me, we...we can't never have nothing hidden between us, so whenever I do something stupid, I hafta have you tell me—"

"It wasn't you." Fluttershy's voice drifted up, soft as one cricket alone in a field. She raised her head, looked back over her shoulder, and Applejack caught her breath to see fear in those beautiful eyes. "That's what was so...so awful. Him, I expect to be...like that. But that you could even pretend it, it was...was..." Her voice trailed off, and a shiver shook her from ears to tail.

"OK." Applejack didn't dare smile no matter how relieved she felt. When it came to talking, her honeycomb wasn't too different from them wild critters she tended so well, AJ had noticed over the years: she'd rather scurry into her burrow and leave a pony sitting there blinking. But like fixing zap apple jam, sure, one wrong move'd spoil the whole batch, but do ev'rything respectful and proper, and the result was beyond compare. "I know it was awful, but can I please tell you why I pretended the way I did?"

Still looking at her—thank the Mother of Mercy—Fluttershy gave a little nod. Applejack took half a step toward her. "I thought maybe if'n I could get him in a good enough mood, he wouldn't be so ornery as your mom and brother. I thought I could make him think I was the same as him so he'd just open right up and let us get Twilight's sample from him." She took another half a step, kept herself focused on Fluttershy, and shook her head. "I was wrong, thinking that."

Fluttershy nodded more vigorously. "You can never get Dad into a real good mood. He only seems to get happy when he's making fun of somepony." Her gaze drooped to the floor. "I...I should've told you."

"No, honeycomb." AJ wanted to leap across the room, scoop Fluttershy up, cradle her and shield her from all the foul things out there in the world. But instead, she made herself drift over on slow, quiet steps, made herself stop and kneel next to the sofa, bent her head down so she could say it close and soft, "I shoulda seen earlier what kinda pony he was, but by the time I did see it, I'd already started pretending and there weren't nowhere to go but straight ahead." She lowered her voice even further. "Can you forgive me?"

Her half a heartbeat of hesitation sent chills shuddering down Applejack's back, but when Fluttershy nodded, it smelled more real than anything she'd done since they'd left Bolide stretched out on the floor of the Carriage House bar. "But—" Fluttershy said, and a spark of actual, honest anger showed in the look she turned to AJ. "You promised."

It took a fair piece of self-control for Applejack not to whoop with joy: there was her honeycomb peeking out at her! "I did," AJ said, keeping ev'rything quiet and gentle. "And I won't try to sugarcoat it, won't try to hide behind saying I didn't hit him myself and didn't ask nopony else to hit him, neither. 'Cause you're absolutely right. I tricked him and that bartender both into a place where they wouldn't have no choice but to mix it up, and I'm sorry. I—" This admission stuck in her craw a little, made her swallow before she could get it out. "I weren't smart enough to figure any other way to get what we needed and get us outta there."

A hoof touched her shoulder, and she looked up to see Fluttershy's beautiful, serious face. "He does that," she said. "No pony in the world's as good at breaking things that aren't his as Dad is." She leaned forward and touched a kiss to Applejack's nose, AJ closing her eyes and taking her first real breath in what felt like hours.

Reaching out, she stroked a hoof through Fluttershy's mane, whispered, "Thank you," and rested her forehead against her marefriend's.

The silence this time settled between them all lovely and warm till she heard a quiet clearing of throat. "Luncheon, Miss Applejack, as you requested."

"Thank you, Cloves." She brushed her lips over Fluttershy's. "Feeling peckish, honeycomb?"

"A little," came the answer, and AJ pulled back to see Fluttershy still looking worried. "Do you...do you think I could do it, Applejack?"

That got Applejack blinking. "Eat lunch, y'mean?"

Fluttershy made a little giggling noise, her wrinkly smile the most adorable thing AJ had seen in, well, she couldn't actually recall ever seeing anything near as adorable. "No, silly." She got all serious again. "Do you think I could actually make up with my folks and Burr?"

"Ah." And as much as she wanted to offer something just vague enough to be reassuring— "I don't like saying it, but I gotta be honest. I don't think they're worth the time you'd spend trying."

Flinching a little, Fluttershy nodded. "Still, I...I can't do nothing. I can't..."

Applejack stood slowly. "Well, right now, we can eat lunch. And then—" She didn't want to say it, had done her ding-dangedest not to so much as think about it since first broaching the idea to Aunt Orange yesterday afternoon. But not thinking about it hadn't made it go away. Clearing her throat, she started again: "I think then—" And the words came out with such a thick Manehattan accent, so wanted to look around to see who was speaking. She struggled to take a breath that didn't seem to wanna get taken and said, "Then I think we'll call Bellview and see if my mother is receiving visitors."

If there was one thing Fluttershy knew about, it was being quiet. She and Burr had invented the game "Shhhh" for when Dad was home being grouchy, and even all these years later, she sometimes still found herself practicing the moves they'd come up with.

But what hovered around the table while she and Applejack ate the crunchy sprout sandwiches Mr. Cloves had made for them, while it wasn't awful like silence, it wasn't restful like quiet, either, didn't seem to be either bad or good. And that confused her. Because in all the years she'd known Applejack, she could only think of three or four times they'd ever had bad silence between them, and since they'd become marefriends—was it really only five days ago they'd shared their first kiss and their first—?

Various parts of Fluttershy started heating up, and she put a tiny bit more thought into the spells she always had running through her mind to keep her lacinia closed. But since that first, wonderful day, they'd had nothing but good quiet between them, so very, very good—

Except, she had to admit, the silence after they'd seen Burr. And after they'd seen Mom. And just a little while ago after they'd seen Dad.

But those bad silences had all been Fluttershy's fault, she knew, and they'd all come about because she was too weak to turn the silence into something good and quiet, hadn't been able to use any of the game techniques she'd developed. And the strange, half-silence, half-quiet in the air around them now, Fluttershy had to admit, didn't feel like something that would respond correctly to her usual moves.

Still, she inched a little closer to Applejack at the table, and that seemed to help, Applejack giving her a sweet but tired smile. She made sure to touch Applejack's hoof or shoulder when she reached for the salt or the lovely remoulade Mr. Cloves had set out, and she even fluffed up her left wing so she could trail the very tips of the feathers along Applejack's side. It all did a little good, but not nearly enough.

Probably, she found herself thinking, because "Shhhh" wasn't the sort of game Applejack would enjoy very much. Fluttershy loved the farm pony for more reasons than she would ever be able to list, but near the top was how there Applejack was, how firm and solid and physically present. When Applejack stood somewhere, she was unmistakable, and she did it with such good-hearted honesty that Fluttershy could hardly keep herself from touching her all the time just so she could feel how sure and real Applejack was.

While the whole point of "Shhhh," of course, was to disappear, take up no space at all, and just melt away into the air, three things Fluttershy couldn't imagine Applejack ever doing.

No, the more she thought about it, the more Fluttershy came to understand that this was an Applejack silence. So she would have to use Applejack methods to turn it good and quiet. Even if that meant...talking.

Clearing her throat but completely unsure what she was going to say, Fluttershy leaned toward her marefriend. "Applejack, I...I'll do whatever you need me to do."

Applejack turned, swallowed her last bite of sandwich, and blinked a few times. "I appreciate that," she said, that sexy and sophisticated Manehattan accent floating around behind her words. "I'm afraid I don't quite know what I might need from you just yet, but..." She smiled. "All the sweet little caressy things you been doing to me all during lunch here have been helping a whole lot." A sudden flex of her neck, and she pressed a kiss to Fluttershy's lips. "I couldn't even be thinking about doing this if'n you weren't here."

The urgency behind the kiss spun Fluttershy's head, words deserting her yet again. I'm glad would be wrong despite how very, very glad she was right at that moment, and Thank you, her usual answer anytime somepony seemed to expect her to respond, wouldn't be right, either.

Looking at Applejack's smile, though— "I love you," Fluttershy said, and once again, she knew it was the rightest thing she'd ever said.

Or was "rightest" not a word?

That wonderful deep chuckle of Applejack's brought her attention back, and Applejack gave her a slightly more leisurely kiss before standing from the table. "Finish your sandwich, honeycomb. I'm gonna tuck this sample case of Twilight's away safe in my luggage, then see Cloves about how we can get into Bellview."

Nodding, Fluttershy watched Applejack trot out of the room, her step neither bouncy nor dragging but—like everything else today—a weird combination of the two. Still, it made sense that Applejack was both excited and nervous about seeing her mom for the first time in a decade, and Fluttershy was absolutely certain the meeting wouldn't be anywhere near as awful as her meeting with Carnation had been. Unless—

Fear tickled her heart, but she knew what she needed to do. Swallowing the last two bites of her sandwich, she stood, padded over to the kitchen door, gave a gentle knock, and pushed it open to peer inside.

The place took her breath away, every counter so clean, the blue and white tiles sparkled in the sunlight drifting through the window above the sink. The stove top, the oven door, the refrigerator, the pots and pans hanging above the island in the center of the room, it was all as neat and tidy as a dream, the sort of kitchen even her dad might've had a hard time complaining about.

"Miss Fluttershy," came Mr. Cloves's rich voice from off to her right, and she turned to see him standing at a small table in the corner under another window, a silver coffee pot in front of him and a polishing rag floating in the glow of his horn. "How can I help?"

"Oh, ummm..." At any other time, Fluttershy might've apologized and backed out of the room. But for Applejack, she needed to...to... She forced herself to take a step forward. "I'm sorry to interrupt, Mr. Cloves, but I...I—"

"Not at all, my dear." Mr. Cloves beamed at her, the rag drifting down to settle on a piece of newspaper. "Many of a butler's tasks are such that a little interruption can be most welcome."

Still blushing, Fluttershy murmured her thanks and took another few steps, coming to the edge of the island in the middle of the kitchen and peering around it at him. "It's just...Applejack and I are going to visit her mother in the hospital, and I, well, I've known Applejack for maybe three or four years now, and till just last week, I thought her parents were both—" She looked around and whispered, "—dead." She cleared her throat. "So I was wondering: did...did you know Marmalade, sir? Before, I mean?"

Mr. Cloves's smiled dimmed a just a bit. "Ah, Ms. Marmalade." He cocked his head. "Without meaning to be presumptuous, Miss Fluttershy—part of a butler's job is quickly getting a feel for the guests in the house—but I would say that she was in many ways your exact opposite."

Fluttershy blinked at the older unicorn, not sure if she wanted to ask him what he meant, but he was going on anyway. "While you are demure, she was vivacious; while you are a pegasus very clearly grounded in your self and your work, she was as flighty an earth pony as I've ever met, passionate and spontaneous. The house always seemed so much more alive when she was in it." His smile dimmed even further. "She was a tragedy waiting to happen, in other words, and the fate that has at last overtaken her is perhaps the kindest possible for a pony of her demeanor."

"I...I think I understand," Fluttershy said, surprised to find that she maybe did. "Butterflies are always so beautiful, but they...they don't usually live very long."

The butler gave a quiet nod. "But now, she shall live forever in her own mind as young and carefree as she was in those halcyon days..."

Another odd half-silence, half-quiet descended, and Fluttershy wondered if it was something about the Orange family that made things never quite happy and never quite sad, or if it more all this poking around in the past that was mixing things up. Not having an answer, she nodded to him and said, "Thank you, Mr. Cloves."

"Not at all, my dear." He stood, his light-brown magic tapping the lid onto the jar of silver polish. "I shall get in touch with the ward nurse at Bellview and see if Ms. Marmalade is accepting visitors this afternoon."

"Thank you," Fluttershy said again, and while his magic rose up into a cloud around him, she turned and walked slowly back into the dining room, Mr. Cloves's words humming in the back of her brain. She wasn't quite sure how to think about them, but she definitely wanted to think about them, wanted to figure out how she felt being called the exact opposite of—

"Honeycomb?"

"Eeep!" Startling sideways, Fluttershy nearly ran into the wall in the parlor, Applejack grinning at her from the doorway.

"Finish your lunch?" Applejack asked.

Not quite sure how she'd gotten into the parlor—she must've kept walking after leaving the kitchen, gone straight through the dining room, and ended up in here—Fluttershy swallowed and nodded.

"OK, then." Applejack had on her hat, her pack slung over her back, but it was bulging differently than it had been earlier. "Lemme round up Cloves, and we'll see about—"

"Bellview's visiting hours, Miss Applejack." Mr. Cloves had stepped through the doorway from the dining room. "They will be accepting till five o'clock, and the ward nurse informs me that your mother has been in very good cheer today."

Applejack was staring, her mouth open a little. "Well, thank you, Cloves. I don't know how you—"

"Miss Fluttershy informed me of your plans." He gave her a bow, and Fluttershy felt her face go hot. "The nurses are expecting you both, and a cab should be arriving here shortly."

The look Applejack turned toward her had so much love in it, Fluttershy had to catch her breath. "Thank you both, then." She sat, and Fluttershy was almost sure she noticed a little quiver in Applejack's front legs. "I didn't think this place was so far away we'd need a cab."

Mr. Cloves's professional smile did the same sort of quiver. "I would advise it, miss." He bowed once more, his magic pushing open the dining room behind him. "I shall inform you upon its arrival."

"Much obliged." Applejack stayed focused on the door till it finished swinging, then she got up—still shakily, Fluttershy thought—and crossed the room to settle beside Fluttershy. "Don't mind telling you, honeycomb, that this whole thing's got me a mite squirmy. I mean, you heard Aunt Orange! She...she like as not ain't even gonna know who I am..."

Unable to think of anything to say, Fluttershy stretched out a wing and laid it gently over Applejack's back, the muscles there hard and tight. Applejack sighed, though, when Fluttershy began stroking her feathers up and down, and a little of her tension seemed to drain away.

Whether they sat in silence or quiet, Fluttershy again couldn't decide, and she was just thinking she might have to give up her crown as "Shhhh" world champion when Mr. Cloves came in to announce the cab. Applejack rose and headed for the door, Fluttershy thanking Mr. Cloves and following.

"Bellview Hospital," Applejack told the big earth pony in harness, and he nodded, pulled away from the curb, Fluttershy taking the space beside Applejack on the forward-facing bench, the spring afternoon so lovely and clear, Fluttershy thought she might just make a remark about how glad she was that the cabs were open to the sky. She also thought about maybe asking if the cab companies kept a separate fleet of carriages with closed roofs for the winter months or for those times when the weather ponies had storms scheduled.

But in the end, she couldn't bring herself to break the silence—and this time it most definitely was a silence, Applejack's discomfort so palpable, Fluttershy could almost feel it jabbing at her like pins. The cab took a few right turns and few lefts, and a scent of salt water started tickling the air before too long. "The bay?" Fluttershy made herself ask.

"Hmmm?" Applejack stirred almost like she was coming awake, blinked and looked around. "Oh. Yeah. The...the hospital's just a block or two up from the shore." She focused up the street past the cabbie, a large brick wall about a block ahead, some lovely-looking trees visible past its top. "Wonder if Mom has a view from her room?"

Her heart as sharp as a pine cone, Fluttershy pressed her shoulder to Applejack's. "It'll be all right," she murmured.

Applejack gave a bark of a laugh. "Sweet of you to say, honeycomb, but..." Her voice trailed off, the cab moving along the brick wall to pull up at a gate with a sign over it: Bellview City Hospital. "I can't quite imagine how that'll be the case," she finished. Stepping down from the cab, she bent her head around, plucked a few coins from her bag, dropped them into the cabbie's fare box, and started for the gate.

Drifting down to the sidewalk herself, Fluttershy swallowed and turned back to the cab pony. "Please, sir," she said, the words hard as stones in her throat, "can you wait for us? I...I'm not sure how long we'll be, but we'll need a ride back to...to the house where you just...just picked us up if...if that's all right?"

The cabbie smiled, his rough face suddenly gentle. "Not to worry, miss. Mr. Cloves explained the sitch." He tapped one big front hoof against the street's paving stones. "I'll be right here when you come out."

She almost leaped up to kiss him, but that would've been so very awkward that she just nodded and said, "Thank you." Then she was rushing to catch up with Applejack, talking with the guard at the little window in the gate.

"Yes, ma'am," the uniformed pegasus was saying, flipping through the pages on a clipboard. "Got the both of you right here. If you wanna go on in, the doctor'll meet you at the front desk."

"Thank you," Applejack said, her voice almost one hundred percent Manehattan.

The guard pulled back, the gate rose, and the grounds beyond made Fluttershy smile, trees, grass, and flowers rolling out on either side of a gravel path that led to a lovely, ivy-covered building just ahead, a light aroma of roses mixing with the sea breeze. "How pretty!" she heard herself say.

It was entirely the wrong thing to say, she knew, and her ears were folding before Applejack even grunted, "Yeah," her hoofs making a steady chuff-chuff-chuff in the gravel as she walked to the hospital's front door.

Hanging her head, Fluttershy followed Applejack inside, a pegasus in a nurse's uniform seated behind the big curving counter in the middle of the room. An older unicorn stood in front of the counter, her mane tied back in a tight bun, a file folder floating before her in the silver glow of her horn. "Ah, Ms. Applejack, Ms. Fluttershy, such an honor to meet you." She closed the folder and held out a hoof. "I'm Dr. Pineal, your mother's care specialist and physician."

Applejack just touched the doctor's hoof and nodded, so Fluttershy felt she had to say, "Thank you, doctor, for letting us stop by today."

"Yes. Well." Dr. Pineal frowned, her magic opening the folder once again. "How familiar are you with your mother's condition, Ms. Applejack?"

"Not too." Applejack gave a shrug that looked to Fluttershy more like a nervous twitch than anything else. "She got no memory after 'bout twenty years ago, isn't it?"

"Not quite." The doctor's frown deepened. "The memories are all there. She simply can't face them. And going over the reports of the incidents that occurred the two times your brother stopped by a few years ago, I—"

"Incidents?" Applejack's voice didn't sound like her at all, her eyes wide and focused on the doctor.

Fluttershy moved a step closer to Applejack, the doctor turning some pages. "Your mother became very agitated, both verbally and physically, in a way she hadn't before and hasn't since." Dr. Pineal glanced over the top of the folder. "I wasn't on staff at the time, but the reports say it was literally days before she calmed back down to her usual self."

White rimmed Applejack's eyes. "Mac never said nothing about...about..." She took a shaky breath. "You don't reckon I oughtta see her, then."

"Honestly?" She closed the folder. "I'd not recommend—"

"No." Fluttershy hadn't meant to say it out loud, but the prickly pressure building up in the middle of her head wouldn't let her keep silent. Collecting every bit of politeness she had inside her, she wrapped it around the awful power of The Stare and said as calmly as ever she could, "Please, doctor, we...this is something we need to do."

"You need to upset one of my patients?" Dr. Pineal shook her head. "I can't be responsible for—"

"You won't be." It took even more effort this time to get the words out, the doctor blinking at her in almost the same way that Applejack was. And even though most of Fluttershy's instincts were squeaking at her to find something she could hide under, one of the multiple voices in her head—the one she was choosing to listen to—kept whispering, For Applejack. For Applejack. For Applejack. "I'll take full responsibility."

"You?" Dr. Pineal looked down her snout at Fluttershy. "Have you any training in cases like this?"

As much as she wanted to point to her years taking care of Ponyville's animals and the various creatures at the edge of the Everfree Forest, well, she didn't really have any sort of training for that. "Ummm..." She'd never thought more quickly in her entire life. "I'm an Element of Harmony, doctor, and my friend Applejack is, too." Though it probably would've sounded more impressive, Fluttershy was sure, if her voice hadn't been shaking so badly...

For Applejack. For Applejack. For Applejack.

Closing her eyes so she wouldn't have to see the skepticism on the doctor's face, she whispered, "Please. We won't stay long, but we...we just have to try..."

The silence then wasn't exactly a silence, Fluttershy was surprised to notice. Squinting one eye open, she saw Applejack looking back at her with so much love, she just wanted to melt. Dr. Pineal was looking a little misty-eyed, too, and after a moment, the unicorn heaved out a sigh. "Three minutes," she said. "I'll be monitoring the room the whole time, and at the first sign of trouble, I'll be in and you'll be out. Understood?"

Fluttershy could only nod, and she gave a little sigh of her own when Applejack's solid warmth pressed against her. "Thank you," her marefriend said.

"You're welcome," the doctor answered, shaking her head and turning away even though Fluttershy wasn't sure Applejack had been saying it to her. "Right this way."

Dr. Pineal led them to an elevator, and they rode it up to the third floor. Another nurses' station sat just outside the elevator door, and Fluttershy liked the look of the ponies there, their smiles a little tired but genuine. "She's in room 301," the doctor, turning left. "Mrs. Orange visits at least once a week, and she'll often bring some of your mother's former school friends along." She gave a lighter sigh. "Your mother usually thinks it's her mother and her aunts, but she happily plays board games and chats with them: she tells them that she's here recovering from a bad bout of the pony pox, or that she's just had a tonsillectomy."

The hallway was carpeted, muffling their hoofs, and the late afternoon sunlight slanting in from the window at the end of the hall brought out the warmth of the slightly beige walls. "It, uhh..." Fluttershy cleared her throat even though there was nothing there to clear. "It's a lovely facility you have here, doctor."

"We try." She stopped at the door just to the right of the window, the number 301 painted on it like it was a regular hotel room or an apartment, and she looked so serious, Fluttershy almost took a step back. "The mirror on the other wall has a spell on it so we can see and hear everything that takes place in the room up at the nurses' station. So the minute anything I don't like starts happening, I will be knocking on this door."

Fluttershy started to nod again, but Dr. Pineal was already turning to the door, knocking briskly, and pushing it partway open. She stepped through and looked past it into the room. "Marmalade? You have visitors."

"Marvelous!" came a cheery voice, and Applejack froze in place beside Fluttershy. "I've been feeling ever so much better today, doctor, and now to have guests as well?" The door came the rest of the way open, and there, blinking and smiling beside the doctor, stood a middle-aged, honey-colored earth pony in a white sundress much too young for her, her mane and eyes—

Fluttershy froze as well. The mare was so clearly Applejack's mother that Fluttershy would've known her if she'd just passed her on the street. The shape of her ears, her cheekbones, everything about—

"Clementine!" The older mare's face lit up, and she rushed past the doctor, threw her front legs around Applejack's neck, peppered her cheeks with kisses. "Oh, sister! It's so good of you to stop by! It seems like simply ages we've been apart!" She skipped away back into the room. "But come in, come in! I must give you the grand tour!"

Applejack was quivering but otherwise unmoving. Quivering more than a little herself, Fluttershy came up behind her and nudged her flank, Applejack shying forward till she was halfway through the door. Fluttershy kept right behind her, though, pushed again, and Applejack scooted the rest of the way in. Dr. Pineal gave them both what Fluttershy could only call a stern look, then moved back out into the hallway, the waver of her magic pulling the door closed.

Her heart hammering—For Applejack. For Applejack. For Applejack—Fluttershy shuffled around and saw a light and airy bedroom suite smelling faintly of marshmallows: a sofa and some bookshelves stood on this side of a table that divided the room in two, a few reclining chairs and a canopied bed on the far side. Applejack stood a few paces further in, staring around as well, and Marmalade was sort of grinning over her shoulder beside the table. "As you can see," she was saying, "not a palatial mansion, but just right, I find, for my convalescence." She cocked her head at Applejack. "Far be it from me, Tiny, to question your fashion choices, but that hat! It—"

She stopped, a frown twitching over her snout as quick as a hummingbird's wing, but then her smile was back bigger than ever. "Or is it a costume ball this evening? Oh, how I wish I could attend! Perhaps you and your friend could smuggle me out! Ever since my fever broke, I've felt nearly my old self again, and a turn or two about the dance floor would be just the thing to get me fully back onto my hoofs!" Her gaze darted over to Fluttershy. "But c'mon, Tiny! Don't keep me in suspense! Introduce us!"

Applejack's mouth moved, but the only thing that came out was "Uhhh..."

Marmalade rolled her eyes. "Clementine! What am I to do with you??" She sprang across the room and held out a front hoof. "As I'm sure you know, I'm Orange Marmalade, and any friend of my sister's is a friend of mine!"

And the words came out of Fluttershy's mouth before she could even think about stopping them: "I'm a friend of Applejack's."

Absolute silence engulfed the room, all the color seeming to drain from Marmalade's whole body, the wrinkles around her eyes becoming more pronounced as they opened wider and wider. "No, no," she whispered. "I...I can't see Applejack. Can't."

A choking gasp from behind her: "Mama, I—"

"Can't!" Marmalade coughed it more than said it, her lips tight and her ears folding flat against her head.

Meeting Applejack's anguished gaze for a second, Fluttershy held a hoof up, then drifted forward, not letting herself stray from the fevered shine she saw coming into Marmalade's eyes. "You're safe here," Fluttershy told her in the same way she would tell a bird whose broken leg she was splinting or a possum whose babies she was helping deliver. "You know you're safe."

"Can't!" The word lashed out quietly but just as quickly as Marmalade's hoofs, grabbing Fluttershy's between them and squeezing hard. "She hates me!" Marmalade pulled Fluttershy close, her voice no louder but thick with pain. "Please! Tell me she hates me!"

Fluttershy didn't resist, kept all her attention riveted on the older mare, their muzzles nearly touching. "Why do you want her to hate you, Marmalade?"

"She must!" Marmalade hissed. "It's the only way I can know she's still true! That she isn't infected with our lies!" That vanilla smell washed over Fluttershy, Marmalade's hoofs sliding up to grip her shoulders, those Applejack-green eyes widening again. "Mackie and Jackie and, oh, my sweet little Bloomer, they...the only truth I ever had in me came out in them. They...they can't ever see me all shallow and sallow like this! It would...it would kill me..." She buried her face in Fluttershy's chest, dampness spreading there. "Kill me.... Kill me...."

The tiniest of groans prodded Fluttershy's ears, and she looked over the top of Marmalade's head to see Applejack standing like some statue, her face so bunched up with grief, Fluttershy almost cried out. But then the weeping against her chest suddenly stopped, Marmalade letting out a gust of a sigh and pulling back. "Oh, dear," she said, wiping a fetlock over her eyes. "I...I don't know what came over me." She gave a faint smile. "I'm so sorry; I suppose it's just as well I'm not going to the ball with you both this evening."

A knock at the door, and Dr. Pineal pushed in, her eyes narrow. "I'm sorry, Marmalade, but visiting hours are over."

Marmalade's smile wavered. "Thank you, doctor. I...I believe I shan't even argue, I feel such a need for a nap." She plodded around to face the still-stricken Applejack. "Forgive me, sister. My health, I fear, continues fragile." She reached for Applejack's cheek, her hoof shaking more and more violently the closer she got, but when she finally made contact, the touch was as steady and gentle as anything Fluttershy had ever seen. "I love you, Clementine," she said. "Thank you for coming to see me."

"I—" Applejack's voice sounded like a sack of broken glass. "I love you, too,...Marmie."

Another shadow of a frown flitted across Marmalade, but it was gone almost before Fluttershy could notice it. Then the older mare was moving away, her hoofs dragging slightly, her head drooping. "Yes," she said. "A...a nice bit of a nap before supper."

As soon as her back was to them, Fluttershy jumped to Applejack's side, her marefriend colder than the first snowfall of winter. "Applejack?" she whispered, nudging her shoulder.

Applejack just shook her head.

"Well." Dr. Pineal was watching Marmalade climb into bed across the room. "That went a great deal better than I expected."

But Fluttershy, looking back at Applejack, wasn't so sure.