"The world tells me that God is in Heaven and that my son is in Hell. I tell the world the one true thing I know: If my son is in Hell, then there is no Heaven--because if my son sits in Hell, there is no God.”
It wasn't the first time Granny Smith had sat at the side of a hospital bed. In fact, right now was all too familiar to her. That scent of things being too clean, like nopony had ever stayed in the room. How all the furniture was in places just slightly wrong for habitation, even if they were right for the way nurses moved. Or how the lights - usually painfully bright - were dimmed for the evening as patients all around the ward tried to sleep.
Applejack wasn't sleeping, though it was damn close. The heart monitor showed the beat still - steady but slow as the young mare hovered just beyond the edge of consciousness.
And it was good that she did, so she didn't see her grandmother cry.
In the bed, Applejack was nearly as pale as the bandages that covered her left eye, both her foreleg cannons, and - as Granny knew despite the sheet - wrapped around her barrel. Those injuries weren't the ones to worry about, though. Ponyville's doctors had plenty of experience with broken bones and twisted hooves. What had kept Granny Smith at the bedside for the past two days was what coursed through Applejack's veins: a foul venom that was rare, slow, and assuredly deadly. A parting gift from the dark monster the Bearers had faced in their last defense of the town.
The door opened, cracking just enough to let a pony in along with the soft shuffle of the nurse's station outside. Rarity slipped in with barely a sound of her own, closing the door behind and coming to the opposite side of the bed. Both of their gazes locked on the slow rise and fall of Applejack's chest.
No words were said - not immediately. Rarity quietly didn't acknowledge the old mare's tears, letting her dry her eyes and regain her veneer of strength. It took a good minute before those signs of weakness were wiped away and Rarity spoke.
"The curative's nearly ready," she stated in an unnecessary half-whisper. "Twilight has been working with Zecora and they have prepared all that they can. The only thing left is for Rainbow Dash to return with the last of the rare herbs Zecora needs." Rarity paused for a reaction but got none. "While she's fast, going to Farasi and back does take time. So there's, well. There's little to do but wait now."
Granny Smith's response was an emphatic "Mm."
Rarity shifted uneasily on her hooves. "I…" The words she wanted to say failed to come, because while she wasn't Honesty, Rarity couldn't bring herself to make a comforting lie. So she tried a different angle. "The odds are better than fifty-fifty, at least."
"Ain't one parent in a thousand who outlives their children," Granny pronounced quietly. "Maybe one in a million who outlive their grandkids."
They were simple words, but they made Rarity flinch. Still, an old conversation tickled her mind and she faintly voiced it without really thinking. "Twilight talked to us once about the concept of cumulative odds. It was during one of her freakouts: the idea is that while beating the odds once is relatively easy, it was entirely another to beat them again and again. Succeeding twice at a fifty-fifty was only one chance in four; three times was one in eight and so on. In our lives, the seven of us are at risk quite often. Sooner or later, the odds would catch up. She was inconsolable for hours about how it was only a matter of time before one of us would suffer. We talked Twilight down from her statistical fear, but we all knew it was true." She drew a long, shaky breath. "I always hoped it would be me."
Granny didn't look away from her granddaughter. "Too generous to share the pain?"
Rarity let a quiet and lilting laugh slip out. "That and it was easy to construct a suitably dramatic moment in my head for it. I cannot resist good drama."
The old mare didn't laugh back.
"But we all knew it was most likely to be Applejack or Rainbow Dash," Rarity admitted soberly. "They were ever at the forefront when trouble came to blows. It was--is simply their nature."
Things became quiet once more as Rarity's mouth stopped running and Granny Smith's stayed shut. The silence grew past comfortable and into awkward.
Rarity shifted on her hooves. Granny didn't move.
"I… I should go," Rarity finally voiced as she rose.
"Sit." Granny wasn't requesting.
Rarity sat.
Finally looking away from Applejack, Granny's weary eyes met Rarity's own. "You religious?"
Another uncomfortable shift. "Not as such. My parents profess their faith on paper, but I cannot remember them ever expressing it in practice." Rarity's lips pursed. "And I fear I can't say I'm any better on that front."
"Ah ain't," Granny pronounced. "Not anymore."
"...Oh."
The old mare nodded. "I was once. Then I sat at my son's bedside, right about like this, and Ah prayed. Prayed hard as horses for just one thing back for all my life's good deeds. To take me instead of him."
A chill clawed up Rarity's spine, making her shudder.
"Then Ah prayed the same prayer at his wife's side." Granny didn't fill in the blanks that they both already knew. "After that, religion didn't hold much for me." She looked back to the bed and its patient. "But here Ah am at my granddaughter's bed, prayin' the same hopeless prayer. Because there's nothin' else to do but pray."
With a little frown, Rarity shook her head. "Applejack would never accept that. She'd never let you trade–"
"Ah don't care!" The burst of fury and energy drove Rarity back in her chair, though the old mare didn't move from hers. "This ain't about what she wants." Granny's voice wasn't much more than normal volume, but in the quiet of the hospital room it boomed like thunder. "She can be mad at me all she feels like." All the fire burned down to a sizzling cinder as quick as it came. "Ain't like Ah'll survive losing her anyway."
Rarity opened her mouth - and was cut off by a click of Granny's tongue. "Don't. It's the truth. Only reason Ah survived losin' my kids was a gut full of stubborn that somepony had to raise those foals. But these days…" She swallowed hard. "Big Mac's more'n capable of handling himself, and Apple Bloom's practically full grown."
For a moment things were quiet before Granny added, "Grief'll kill a pony sure as any other poison."
"I suppose…" Rarity hesitated. "I suppose there's no point in talking about the bright moments in their lives, is there? Remembering the positive and such?"
Granny shook her head. "Ain't forgotten that. But it's, well." She motioned towards the door with her chin. "This's the original part of Ponyville Hospital. Before they expanded an' put in the new wings. My husband died here a lotta years ago. Then Bright an' Buttercup. Now Applejack."
"She's not dead yet," Rarity insisted with her own burst of strength.
"Not yet," came the gloomy response.
"Perhaps not at all." Rarity only just barely didn't snap and took a moment afterwards to gather her emotions back under control. "I know this seems dark, but hope hasn't yet died."
Sourly, Granny Smith talked around Rarity's empty assurance. "Even if that fool pegasus gets here in time, there ain't no guarantee about the damage that's already done. That filth ain't gentle on the body."
"Applejack is strong," Rarity defended. "Her other wounds will heal - a broken rib or two will hardly slow her down - and the effects of this shall pass." Rising up from her seat, she inched around the bed to sit again beside Granny. "She'll be okay."
The old mare looked to the unicorn, eyes still red and wet. "D'you really believe that?"
Rarity set her hoof atop Granny Smith's. And she didn't lie. "It is my prayer that it's true."
The two leaned against one another for support as - half a continent away - the distant echo of a rainboom passed from sea to shore and a pegasus on a mission returned to Equestrian skies.
Author's Note
Before someone drops in to Um Ackually me on the statistics of parents outliving children, please be aware that said statement was creative hyperbole and this is a magic land of talking horses. Because I know there is at least one person out there who read that and immediately looked up the numbers. (That person was me, the stat is actually way higher.)
Chapter title from The Lasts Days of Judas Iscariot.
Special thanks for assistance by daOtterGuy, The Sleepless Beholder, and EileenSaysHi.
An additional nod to Estee's heart-murdering story Advance Directive for putting the thought of cumulative odds into my head.
