Big Macintosh caught himself staring blankly at the wall again. The draught pony was lost in his own thoughts, not only about Apple Bloom, and her current status, but the way his life was going in general.

Big Macintosh felt somewhat guilty that he was spending all his time here at the Royal Hospital and none of it at home. He’d left Braeburn to deal with the farm chores all by himself. He knew his cousin understood, and naturally wanted to help. That didn’t make him feel any better.

Sweet Apple Acres had been in financial trouble for the last few years, ever since Big Macintosh’s grandfather had died. Granddaddy had always taken care of the business side of the Apple Farm. While Granny Smith had done the actual farm work. She knew everything there was to know about the growing side, but when it came to business... she didn’t have a clue.

Years of mismanagement had sent the Apple Family swarming in debt, and it had only gotten worse with the passing of Granny Smith during the winter.

Applejack had inherited both Granny Smith’s talent for growing, and her talent for business. This was why she let Big Macintosh run the business side of it, because unlike her, he actually knew what he was doing.

One would not have been able to guess by looking at him, but the simple farm pony was actually quite intelligent. He’d been attending the University of Canterlot for the last six years, taking classes during the winter semester, bucking for degrees in agricultural science and business management. It was taking longer than he’d like, but considering that he could only manage a single semester per year, it was slow going from here on in. He couldn’t afford to be away from Sweet Apple Acres for more than a year.

Applejack didn’t know a thing about business, and despite allowing Big Macintosh to take care of that side, she had liked to poke her head in anyway. Several corporations had made offers to distribute Sweet Apple Acres apples all around Equestria for a very reasonable price. It would be enough to keep the farm from defaulting for the next several years. Applejack had butted her head in and said no, of course.

Big Macintosh didn’t want to sell all his crops off to a corporation either. But splitting the profits with a corporation would be better than having no profits at all. Big Macintosh had tried to explain this to Applejack many-a-time, but to no avail. Since Granny Smith’s passing, it seemed like all the two ever did was fight over everything as insignificant as how to run the farm, to something as important as Apple Bloom.

Apple Bloom... Applejack had grown unreasonable in the last few months, she’d hurt Apple Bloom badly for disobeying her, now Big Macintosh sat around the Royal Hospital, day in and day out, hardly ever leaving his little sister’s side.

Apple Bloom had been placed in a magical coma. She was healing, ever so slowly, but she was indeed healing.

On some days, Big Macintosh was joined by his kangaroo friend, Corporal Elliot Southerland, who he’d gotten to know very well over the last month, Elliot was very fond of Apple Bloom, and had been part of the reason why Apple Bloom was here now.

Elliot had given Apple Bloom and her friends a ride on his tank, which had angered Applejack to no end. When Applejack confronted Apple Bloom about it, the filly told her off, causing Applejack to get angry and beat the ever loving day lights out of her.

Big Macintosh suspected that Elliot blamed himself for what had happened. Big Macintosh did not. He blamed Applejack.

This had been bound to happen sooner or later, Applejack had become increasingly hostile towards her friends, her family, and frankly everyone she met. As the days went on, she got angrier. It didn’t excuse her behaviour, but they were heading for this for a very long time.

What Applejack had done was unforgivable. Big Macintosh was certainly in no hurry to offer forgiveness.

“Big Macintosh?”

Big Macintosh turned his head towards the door; standing in the opening was Twilight Sparkle.

“‘Ello Miss Twilight,” Big Macintosh said. “Somethin’ Ah can do fer ya?”

Twilight trotted into the room and sat down next to him. She told him her tail, sparing no detail of the Siblings Nightmare, what had happened to Applejack, and what had brought them to this point. Big Macintosh listened intently.

“I know that sounds crazy...” Twilight began.

“‘Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't,’” Big Macintosh quoted, catching Twilight off guard. “Ah believe ya. Ya’ll might be surprised, but Ah’m a learned pony.”

Twilight wouldn’t have guessed. She didn’t know Big Macintosh that well, he rarely came into town, and even when he did, he always looked incredibly bored and disinterested in everything around him, but she supposed that behind that bored expression, ticked a very active brain.

“Ya want me ta keep mah eyes on this Nightsinger fella, well he’s been takin’ care o’ mah sister, so you believe me Twilight, Ah intend to.”

“Thank you, Big Macintosh... is Apple Bloom doing all right?” Twilight asked.

“Eeyup.”

...

The night came and went; Doctor Nightsinger received the test results of Tia’s stomach pump back. What he found shocked and disgusted him to no end. He went out into the waiting area where Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash, and Vinyl Scratch had all fallen asleep, leaning on each other’s shoulders.

Family or no, these mares were better than nothing.

“Excuse me,” Nightsinger said audibly enough for them to hear.

The three mares opened their eyes slowly, looking up at the pegasi doctor.

“I have the results back from the stomach pump... family or not, I figured that you wanted to hear this. The contents of your little filly’s stomach had large amounts of meat. Considering how much she was vomiting, I’m surprised that there was still any left to pump out... but that’s not the disturbing part, further analysis on the meat revealed it to be several organs... from a pony.”

The trio of mares’ mouths dropped open.

“Multiple... ponies in fact, the lab is doing further testing to see if they can’t identify DNA and see who those organs belong to.”

Twilight wanted to vomit. The idea of a pony eating meat was disgusting enough... the idea that Tia had eaten parts of another pony were even worse.

“I don’t suppose you three would know anything about this?” Nightsinger asked with suspicion.

They each shook their heads no, too stunned to speak.

“Figured as much,” Nightsinger said. “As you can figure, there isn’t going to be anypony seeing her until this mess is resolved. I highly suggest, and by suggest I mean ‘get out, or I’ll have security escort you out,’ that you go home.”

Nightsinger turned and went around the corner, leaving the three mares confused as to what they had just been told.

“What a piece of work he is!” Rainbow Dash seethed. “I think I preferred him when he was trying to kill us.”

Twilight frowned. “I don’t suppose you still have your Canterlot apartment, would you Vinyl?”

“Still mine for another few months!” Vinyl said with a smile. “Been meaning to get all my crap cleared out of it, glad I didn’t.”

“Glad to see your laziness is working out for us Vinyl,” Twilight said with a smirk. “We’ll go there. I for one don’t intend to leave this city without Tia.”

“You know we both got your back Twilight!” Rainbow Dash said.

“Whatever you decide we’re going to do, we’ll do!” Vinyl said grinning.

They’d give Nightsinger his time, but not a second longer.