"Tickets," Applejack said, climbing into the cab ahead of Fluttershy. It was actually her first word in all the long, long minutes since they'd left her mother's room on the sanitarium's third floor.

"Tickets?" Fluttershy had been more than a little worried, following Dr. Pineal down the elevator and to the front door, by Applejack plodding along, her eyes not really focused on anything. The doctor had seemed quietly excited, saying something about Marmalade's reaction to Applejack's visit being a breakthrough and possibly pointing the way toward a new line of therapy, but Fluttershy hadn't been paying that much attention; more than once on the way, Applejack had nearly walked straight into a wall, and Fluttershy had had to lean against her to bend her course away from it. The doctor hadn't seemed to notice that, though...

"Tickets," Applejack said again. She leaned forward. "Cabbie, we'll be heading back to where you picked us up, then if'n you'll wait another couple minutes, we'll be loading up our luggage and making for Central Station."

"You got it," the big earth pony said, hauling the cab away from the curb and all the way around in a u-turn, trotting them back up the street away from Bellview.

"Ummm." Fluttershy didn't like the way Applejack's eyes looked sort of jagged around the edges. "Applejack? Are...are you all right?"

"Never better." She slapped the bench they were sitting on with one front hoof, her eyes focused on the road ahead. "But we got ev'rything we come to Manehattan for, don't we? So if'n we leave tonight, we can be in Vanhoover just in time to catch my poppa's ship when it comes in." A twitch jerked her cheek. "Then we'll be done with all this and can get Twilight's samples back to her right on schedule."

"That's, ummm, nice," Fluttershy said, but it wasn't nice, wasn't nice at all! Something had happened to Applejack during those few minutes in Marmalade's room, and while Fluttershy could certainly make some guesses about what it was, well, she shouldn't have to guess! This was Applejack! She didn't keep her thoughts or feelings bottled up! It was one of the many, many things Fluttershy loved about her: she spoke her mind, plain and true.

Except... That awful little voice slipped like pond scum into Fluttershy's head. She's been speaking with that Manehattan accent a lot since you got here yesterday, hasn't she? And that's not really her, plain or true...

Shocked to hear her whisper talking about somepony other than herself, Fluttershy froze. And earlier today, the voice went on, was she being plain and true when she was being every bit as mean and nasty as Dad?

The ice inside her shattered under the fiery force of The Stare bursting from the center of her brain. But for the first time in her life, Fluttershy bent the power of it inward, turned it against the snide little asides that had haunted her in either her mother's voice or her father's for her entire life. No! she silently shouted. That was just a trick Applejack tried so we could get the last of the samples Twilight needs to find out if my wiggler can make foals and if those foals'll be half-filly and half-colt like me! You know that as well as I do, and I will not stand here and have you call my marefriend a liar!

With a crackling puff, the whisper sizzled away like water on a hot skillet, Fluttershy blinking to see the cab slowing to a stop outside the Oranges' townhouse.

Had she—? Had she just Stared down herself?

But she didn't have time to wonder about it, Applejack already hopping onto the sidewalk, the cabbie unbuckling his harness and stepping away from the cab. "You gonna need any help with them bags, miss?"

"Don't reckon so!" Applejack was taking the stairs two at a time, charging through the front door just exactly as Mr. Cloves was opening it. The butler's eyes went as big as dinner plates, and Fluttershy heard Applejack yelling, "Sorry, Cloves, but we's got a train to catch!"

Fluttershy actually flew from the cab to the front step in order to reach Mr. Cloves more quickly. "Are Aunt or Uncle in, please, Mr. Cloves? We...I'm not quite sure what we're doing, but Applejack seems to think it's time for us to go."

The astonished look on Mr. Cloves's face only stayed another second, then he gestured to the parlor door, Aunt Orange stepping out with an astonished look of her own. "Cloves? Fluttershy? What's all this crashing about?"

"Sorry, Auntie!" Applejack practically slid down the stairs, her packs and Fluttershy's slung over her back, touched a quick kiss to Aunt Orange's cheek, and spun away. "It's been wonderful seeing y'all again, and thanks loads for putting us up. Give our regrets to Uncle and to Tangelo and tell 'em we'll see 'em again next time we're in town, but right now we—"

"Applejack!" Aunt Orange's voice made Fluttershy want to find someplace to hide, and even Applejack screeched to a halt. "You will stop this jiggery-pokery at once! Starting a journey so late in the day? Preposterous! And—" Her lower lip quivered. "Jackie, I...I thought you were going to visit your mother while you were here."

Another twitch jerked Applejack's cheek. "We just come from there." And her voice, as cold as a wisp of late winter fog, made Fluttershy not only want to hide but to move permanently into that hiding place. "Doc said we mighta guv her some sorta breakthrough."

Frozen again, Fluttershy couldn't look away, Applejack's gaze darting half-angry and half-sad at her for half a heartbeat. "So I figured long as we're having such luck with our parents, we'd hurry on out and track down my dad." Something almost like her regular look came over her, and she shuffled the four or five steps back to where her aunt stood. "Really and truly, Aunt Clementine, I...I can't thank you enough for being here. We'll have a good, long visit when...when ev'rything's settled, and y'all'll hafta c'mon out to the Acres this summer." She gave her an actual kiss, then made for the door. "You, too, Cloves. Reckon you could use a vacation."

"Jackie, I—" Aunt Orange started, but Applejack was already down the steps and onto the sidewalk.

Feeling like a dandelion in a windstorm, Fluttershy hurried over to Aunt Orange. "I'm terribly, terribly sorry, Aunt Orange. I think that seeing Marmalade has upset Applejack awfully, but she's trying so very hard not to show it, I don't know what to—"

"Fluttershy!" The shout seemed to echo up from the street.

Aunt Orange was blinking, but she moved quickly, embraced Fluttershy, sighed into her ear. "Please, Fluttershy, take care of her. She...she's very precious to us. You both are."

"Thank you." Fluttershy let herself inhale the lovely citrus smell Aunt Orange always seemed to have about her and pushed away. "Thank you."

Rushing out the door, she heard Mr. Cloves' deep voice murmur something, but she was already across the pavement and into the cab before her brain could manage to untangle his words: "Trust yourself, miss. You're stronger than you think." Then the cab lurched beneath her, and she fell more than sat onto the bench beside Applejack.

Applejack gave her a smile, and again she looked so close to her usual self, Fluttershy could almost pretend nothing was wrong. "Careful, honeycomb," she said, and Fluttershy almost cheered to hear her nickname on Applejack's lips for the first time since they'd left Bellview.

Yes, everything was all right now, Fluttershy told herself. She was sure of it. After that whole thing with Dad and everything that had happened with Applejack's mother, it just stood to reason that a pony as flighty as she was would start over-reacting and imagining things.

Except...

And this time, it wasn't the awful sneering voice in her head pointing out how Applejack had run from her aunt and uncle's house with barely a good-bye. How she'd glared so icily at Fluttershy in the hallway. How she was sitting right now all scrunched over against the side of the cab instead of letting her shoulder touch Fluttershy's.

Another silent ride went by, Fluttershy discarding several comments that might've gotten a conversation started. None of her techniques for changing a bad stretch of silence into something nice and quiet seemed like they'd work here, and the darkest sort of fear made her not want to try even the ones that had worked earlier—how horrible would it be if she went to touch Applejack's hoof, and Applejack pulled away??

Wracking her brain, she tried and tried to think of something new that she could do while they passed block after block of buildings, but nothing came to her as the cab pulled up outside the spires and archways of Manehattan's Central Station, the setting sun reflecting orange light from all its windows. Sighing, slipping into her saddlebags, she followed Applejack through the big doors and across the big lobby, stood beside her while she made a deal with the ticket clerk that let them circle back to Ponyville by way of Vanhoover, then shared a supper of potato perogies and blueberry pie with her at a little shop beside the platform while they waited for the train to start boarding.

Evening had come down by the time they got onboard, the bed already folded down in their compartment, and tucking her saddlebags into the little closet, Fluttershy was sure that every part of her body was trembling. Two dozen words, maybe: that was all they'd each managed to squeeze out between them in the past couple hours, and she felt like she was going to explode! She wasn't any good with words—she never had been! What was she supposed to do to get Applejack to tell her what was—??

"Well." Applejack's voice, and Fluttershy nearly jumped out of her hide to hear it. Standing by the closed door of their compartment, she looked back to see Applejack tossing her hat onto a wall hook, the rising moon shining in cold, gray flashes between the houses and trees rushing by the window just past the bed. "Reckon I'm gonna turn in." And she climbed up onto the mattress, pressed her head into the pillow.

Desperate and doubtful but refusing to freeze, refusing to do nothing, Fluttershy took a breath and reached out a hoof.

"No."

For an instant, her headache digging like a tick into the back of her left eye, Applejack figured she musta heard wrong. Raising her head from the pillow, she stared to see Fluttershy sitting gentle and demure with eyes downcast by the compartment door, her yellow hide somehow gleaming like quicksilver in the moonlight.

And she was wearing Applejack's hat.

Applejack opened her mouth to ask what in the bright blue above was going on here, but Fluttershy raised her head, then, and her eyes—

Sweet Mother of Mercy, her eyes looked solid black and deeper than the darkest midnight. "You won't be turning in just yet," Fluttershy said.

The weird glow about her and the tension behind her words—had Fluttershy honestly just contradicted her??—made AJ's blood go all ice-watery. And then...then Fluttershy stood, those black, black eyes locked on Applejack's, her wings slowly unfurling, perfect as rose petals at the touch of dawn. "Back at the Art Institute," Fluttershy went on, her words quiet but intense, "when I opened my wings, I heard everypony in that room gasp. But I was looking at you, Applejack. And I'm not sure if I heard you make any noise at all."

The objection Applejack began forming in her throat sputtered to nothing, Fluttershy's wings billowing forth from her sides, and the last of Applejack's headache vanished in a jolt of sheer wonderment. They couldn't be as big as that, seeming to fill the compartment from wall to wall, couldn't be that creamy and curvaceous and majestic. Nothing could be!

"So now." Fluttershy gave a slow smile that sent another jolt through Applejack. "I want to hear from you about them." Her wings flexed with an unearthly grace, Fluttershy drifting into the air and settling onto the bed at Applejack's rear hoofs. "I want you to tell me—" Fluttershy leaned forward, and Applejack's eyes went wide, the pegasus trailing her feathers soft and gentle down Applejack's side. "What does that feel like?"

"Guh!" was all Applejack could manage, pure pleasure crackling along her every nerve.

"No, no," Fluttershy said softly, and the stroking stopped, Applejack gasping like she'd had the glass dashed from her lips afore she'd managed more'n a mouthful. "Words, Applejack." That indescribable caress resumed, made Applejack's head snap back into the pillow and her eyes clench shut. "Tell me what's it's like."

"Like?" Her voice cracked, and so did the piles and heaps of mush that'd been blocking up her brain all afternoon, the electric glory of Fluttershy's touch slicing through it and boiling it away. "Like the day of Winter Wrap-Up," AJ forced out, somehow shaping the sensations into sensible sounds. "I'm cold and wet and covered with mud and cursing the seeds and the weather and the earth and the sky their very selves. I got nothing but trouble, nothing but heart-ache, nothing but muscle-tearing toil ahead of me all the days of my life, and then..."

She wanted to dissolve into moans and whimpers, but she needed the words, needed them like she needed air, like she needed these feelings never to end. "Then there's a whispered little whoosh, the earth breathing and the sky dancing, and the first warm breeze of spring comes wafting down over me, gets me goosepimply and tells me life's worth living again!" She flailed her front legs down, wanted to bury her hoofs in the downy depths of those wings, but they whisked away, left her cold and grasping at nothing but bed linens.

"And this?" that sweet voice asked, the feathers now dancing teasingly across her chest and stomach. "What's this like?"

Gritting her teeth, she shoved the words past the spasming muscles in her neck, her hoofs pawing at the sheets. "Like the doggiest of dog days in summer!" Bottle rockets popped and sparked inside her. "It's a hunderd and ten in the shadows of the biggest trees in the south orchard, but I'm out in the fields nowhere near 'em! The sun's beating me down and sucking the water clean outta me, and I'm stomping and snapping, stomping and snapping, getting the corn shook down and brung in! And then, right then, right when I think I'm gonna vaporize into nothing but a fine orange and yellow mist, down comes a cool, liquid breeze to tell me there's evening a-coming and rest on the way."

"Mmmmm," she heard, and Applejack started to open her eyes, wanted to see Fluttershy, to tell her—

But then those wings, those feathers, the luscious warm haze and cool tickle of them, they moved again, trailed down her stomach to her lacinia, Applejack's whole world exploding with white fire. "And tell me," came those maddening gentle words. "What does that feel like?"

Applejack's lacinia tore open like she'd never had one, Fluttershy's pinions against the sensitive skin beneath more than enough to trigger orgasmic convulsions that shook Applejack from ears to tail. "Please!" a voice screamed, and she knew it weren't Fluttershy's so it had to be her own.

"Words, Applejack."

"Words??" She couldn't move, couldn't think, could only feel the exquisite agony wracking over her. "Like I'm laying in bed after you showed yourself to me and then said you weren't for me! Like knowing the only pony I ever wanted in my whole life didn't want me back! Like an itch inside me ev'rywhere and plunging my own hoof up there wanting to scratch it and not ever getting no relief! Never getting no relief!"

"Relief?" asked a hot, panting whisper. The wings brushed along Applejack's inner thighs, and crying out, she threw her hind legs wide, sure a blast of steam went bursting from her vulva; crying out again at the perfect solidity sliding between her lower lips; crying wordlessly to feel the by now wonderfully familiar shape of Fluttershy's penis filling her to the very brim. Fluttershy's mouth covered hers, muffled her next cries, those wings wrapping her in satin, silk and lace, each pump of Fluttershy's body shattering her, scattering her, casting her into a joyous maelstrom that spun her on and on and on and on to climax after climax after climax...

Until slowly, languidly, she found herself back, her reconstructed body as boneless as custard and never wanting to move again. And why should she? Everything in her and around was so smooth and balanced, so absolutely at rest and at peace, any change—any change at all—would be a step downhill.

But she did hafta admit she was breathing, and that was wonderful, too, the in-and-out of her chest, and the beautiful, unmistakable scent of her beloved honeycomb—

Which made things start twitching in her head, made her blink and stretch herself along the bed sheets till she was looking up at Fluttershy lying beside her, Applejack's hat just visible squished between the back of Fluttershy's head and the wall of the train compartment. Fluttershy was smiling that smile of infinite compassion, her deep turquoise eyes still nearly black in the moon's silver light. "Now," she said so soft and so gentle. "Maybe you can tell me what happened to you at Bellview this afternoon."

Tears blurred Applejack's vision, and she buried her face in Fluttershy's neck where the curl of that luscious pink mane spilled over. "I hated you," she coughed out, the words as hot and horrible as vomit against the back of her teeth but needful, oh, so terribly needful... "She's my mom, and she was hanging onto you and crying to you! She wouldn't even look at me, and saying she thought I should hate her?? How could I hate her?? And how could I hate you?? Of course she'd go to you for comfort! That's your talent! It's what you do! But I just...I wanted her to...and she wouldn't! Not to me..."

Fluttershy's hoofs rubbed Applejack's back, her wings cozier than any blanket could ever be. "She said she loved you. You heard that, didn't you?"

Applejack groaned; she'd been trying all day to tell herself exactly that. But— "She weren't saying it to me. How could she? She don't even hardly remember me." She sighed. "She was seeing Aunt Clementine there, not...not me..."

"No." Again, hearing Fluttershy come out with a straight denial like that, it made Applejack's ears fold, made her pull away and meet her gaze. "The doctor said your mother does remember. She just feels so horrible and guilty about everything, she doesn't want to think about it. She knew who you were. And being able to say that she loved you and hearing you say it back, that..." Fluttershy sniffed, her eyes going a shimmery. "That's why the doctor said she'd maybe had a breakthrough: because of those words..."

The tiniest bit of hope wavered in Applejack's chest, but her next thought nearly extinguished it, nearly made her push herself out of Fluttershy's embrace completely. "'Cept nunna that helps with the way I got so mad at you. I was just so...so—" She wanted not to say it, wanted to lapse back into the silence she'd used all afternoon to stop herself from dealing with these horrible, horrible feelings.

Which was pretty much exactly what Mom had been doing all these years, weren't it?

Taking a breath, she pushed herself along the bed till she could look straight into Fluttershy's eyes. "I was so angry at her for being who she is and so angry at myself for not being who she needed me to be that I...I turned it all toward you. But I knew that was wrong, so it just made me get angrier at me, and then I couldn't look at you no more 'cause I figured I was a heel and I didn't deserve you and I couldn't...couldn't stand, well, anything. I had to get on outta there. Which didn't do no good at all with you right there to remind me what a monster I was being, and it all...it all just kept getting worse and worse and I didn't know how to stop, didn't know what to do." She swallowed, forced her gaze to hold Fluttershy's. "Can you ever forgive me?"

Fluttershy looked as earnest as AJ reckoned only she could. "If you can forgive me."

It took Applejack a second to find her voice. "For what??"

"I..." A shiver ran through Fluttershy so strongly, Applejack could feel it. "I couldn't think of a way to make you talk to me, either. So I...I remembered at lunch when you said me touching you helped. And I just wanted to help you so much and you were so sad and so...so beautiful, I—" She shivered again. "I didn't mean to get so out-of-control with my wings, but once I started, it was just so...so—" She was blushing furiously. "Just so good. And I...I'm really, really sorry," she finished in a whisper.

"Don't be, honeycomb." Applejack couldn't stop a shiver of her own, her body still more'n a little custardy from Fluttershy's glorious onslaught. "Where I was going, I needed a little tumble therapy to bring me back." She kissed her marefriend's nose. "Just like always, you knew the exact right thing to do."

The smile that blossomed over Fluttershy's muzzle made AJ kiss her again, but then Fluttershy said, "It's just that from now on, we both have to remember to take your advice."

That got Applejack blinking, and Fluttershy gave a crisp nod, her mane rustling along the sheets. "You told me earlier that you and I have to talk about things when they come up." She closed her eyes. "I...I know that's going to be hard for me, but I never thought it would be hard for you, too." Those eyes came open again, and the love in them made Applejack want to leap up dancing and cuddle in closer both at the same time. "Oh, and if you won't let me call myself a monster, well, I won't let you call yourself one, either."

Moving forward, Applejack slid her hoofs into the softness of Fluttershy's mane and kissed those perfect, perfect lips. "Honeycomb? You got yerself a deal."

Fluttershy gave a happy little squeak and tucked her head below Applejack's chin, Applejack having to close her eyes at the feel of her, at the thought of her, at the whole entire idea that somepony as wonderful as this would want anything to do with a dusty old farmer like—

"Oh, and..." Fluttershy untucked herself, a surprisingly stern look on her beautiful face. "And I don't ever want to hear you say you don't deserve me, either. Because I'm the one who doesn't deserve you."

All AJ could do was gape at that, Fluttershy's sternness already dissolving, her eyes getting a shimmer to them. "You've given me so, so much, Applejack. I mean, you gave me a family after I'd spent my life living with, well, you saw my folks. But when I came to Ponyville and Rainbow brought me around to Sweet Apple Acres and I met you and Big Macintosh and Apple Bloom and Granny Smith, you...you gave me a whole different way of looking at family. And then...then you gave me your friendship, and after that, you gave me all of Ponyville."

"Gave you?" Applejack blinked, then tapped a hoof gently against Fluttershy's chest. "Honeycomb, nopony done gave you them things. You earned 'em fair and square."

That got Fluttershy blinking, and Applejack tapped her hoof the tiniest bit harder. "'Cause of who you are and what you do, you made yourself indispensable to the town and...and to me." AJ swallowed. "And as for me giving you anything, I mean, what've I got really? With the Acres, it's more like I belong to it than it belongs to me." Her ears flicked at the sound of a guitar strumming a simple, quiet three chord pattern, and she smiled. "Heck, I don't much like to think it—"

Taking a breath, AJ let the words drift up from her heart, let the music rise from her soul, mixed them both together and sang, "But my love is all I've really got to offer, a love I only know because of you. I never saw the light until you hove into sight: it's true." She touched a hoof to Fluttershy's cheek. "It's true."

Eyes going wide, Fluttershy's jaw dropped. AJ slid her hoof to her marefriend's chin and continued: "But my love won't shelter you from sudden rainstorms, can't tuck you in if you're down with the flu. My heart and hoofs and head: those'll do more good instead. It's true." She shrugged. "It's true."

Fluttershy shivered again, and Applejack was sure the pegasus had never looked more beautiful. Stroking her mane, Applejack sang, "What is love? Just a word, just an ember. What I promise to you is my fire. Let you know, understand, and remember that I'm yours, and you're all I desire."

The guitar began working into a key change, and Fluttershy threw herself around AJ. "Oh, Applejack! That...that's everything I could ever dream of!" She pulled back, once again all blinking and earnest. "I only wish I had something anywhere near as wonderful that I could give to you..."

Her smile deepening, AJ slid into the final verse: "Just be the sun that wakes me ev'ry morning, and be the moon to show when day is through. If you hold me, I can feel that love is something real: it's true." Three final descending chords, and Applejack whispered the last two words. "It's true."

Nothing but the rattlety-clack, rattlety-clack of the railroad car for a moment, then Fluttershy squealed and squirmed herself deliciously against Applejack. "Oh, yes, Applejack! Yes, yes, yes, yes!" She was absolutely glowing again in the moonlight, her wings doing glorious things along Applejack's back and sides. "Say you'll marry me! Please, please, please say you will!"

"Well, now." Applejack had to chuckle, that perfect peacefulness flowing back into her. "'Tweren't exactly the way I was planning on getting that question popped, but I reckon it'll do." She bent her neck to kiss the top of Fluttershy's head, tucked once more into the crook of her neck. "You and me, honeycomb. You and me."

Author's Notes:

In my brain:

Applejack is serenading Fluttershy with the song "That's All" written in 1952 by Alan Brandt & Bob Haymes. There are a lot of versions of it out there on the internet, but this one by Jennifer Zarine is a nice, simple arrangement, one suitable for Applejack.

But, of course, Applejack isn't allowed to sing that song in the body of the story anymore, so I wrote her another one instead.