Noble rejoined us after escorting Bronze out of the building and making sure he was long gone. We had moved the body of the other armored pony into another office. It was early in the morning, a light breeze blew through the broken window. Rose was still sleeping on the chair. I had managed to convince Hermes to rest while I watched Deadbolt; he laid nestled up against the desk. Noble had decided to stay awake with me.

“Any change?” Noble asked. He was looking out the shattered window at the large cityscape around us. It was a still morning, not so much as a radroach was moving through the streets.

“No.” I said standing up away from my unconscious brother. “We need to think of a way we’re going to get him out of here when he wakes up. We can take the elevator down, but after that we still have a pretty long hike back to the Junction.”

He took his hat off and ran a hoof through his mane. “Hermes might have some trouble walking that far too. What about you? You think you can handle the hike?”

I waved him off.”I’ll be fine. I got the elevator working. I doubt walking for a while will be as much of a hassle as that was.”

“You should get some sleep. I’ll watch him for a while.” Noble sat down and leaned against a wall.

We were both tired. I had gotten a little bit of rest, not much, but more than Noble has had today. “No, you’ve been awake a lot longer than I have. I want to be awake when he wakes up.”

He sighed and conceded. “I won’t argue with that. Just keep an eye out. If you even think you hear someone coming, wake me up.”

I gave him a nod and he curled up in his coat. Deadbolt’s chest was still rising and sinking in shallow breaths. He’d been out for hours. Hermes assured me that he would be fine, well as fine as he can be while missing a leg. He just needed rest and would wake up in a few hours. Deadbolt was stubborn, he wasn’t going to let this kill him.

“Uuuugh.” Deadbolt groaned softly as he started to stir.

“Deadbolt!”

He winced at my shout. “Fuck, do you have to yell?”

“Sorry. I’ll get you some water.”

“I can’t feel my leg.”

I froze. He didn’t know he was missing a leg yet. What the hell do you tell someone when they don’t know they’re missing a limb?

It turns out, nothing. Because when I turned around to face him he was already looking at the place his front right leg should be.

“Deadbolt?”

He didn’t answer at first. He just silently stared at the empty space. “Yeah?” He finally replied distractedly.

“Are you gonna be okay?” It was a stupid, stupid question but it was all I could think to say.

“I… don’t know.” He said. That wasn’t like him. He should have yelled about how dumb it was of me to even ask that. He’s clearly not going to be “okay.”

Hermes heard us and stirred. “You’re awake. Thats good.” He grabbed onto the top of the desk and used it to haul himself up. He held out a hoof to Deadbolt “Come on, lets see if you can stand.” Hermes heaved up the larger pony and though he was wobbly and it took him a minute to find his balance, he could stand.

Walking was an entirely different issue. Hermes helped him over to the chair, every step he would stumble forward and need to regain balance. Hermes and I kept him up as he crossed the room and got onto the chair.

Hermes gave Deadbolt a quick examination. He didn’t have a lot of the tools he would normally have access to in the clinic but a field exam was better than nothing. Rose woke while Hermes was giving the exam.

I was asked to wait on the other side of the room so I didn’t crowd either of them. Rose joined and took a seat next to me. “How is he?”

He wasn’t great. He didn’t seem like he was all together. I sighed. “He’s alive.”

After a few minutes Hermes walked over to us. Deadbolt just went back to looking at this missing leg. “He’ll need some time to come to terms with it, but he should be fine. We’ll need to keep an eye on him. In the mean time we need to get him out of here. We need to get back to the Junction.”

Rose looked across the room. “Someone should wake Noble.” We hadn’t exactly been quiet. Apparently, Noble has a pretty sound sleeper. Rose went to deal with that while Hermes and I helped Deadbolt.

“We’re getting you back to Junction 27. We’ll take it slow. You think you can walk that far?” I asked him.

He slowly looked up to be. “How am I supposed to get down the stairs?”

I shook my head. “Not a problem. I got the elevator working. You just have to worry about moving forward.”

“Help me up.” He said and we raised him to his hooves. Again it took him a second to balance. “I’m not sure if I can get that far.”

Noble hefted up his bags as him and Rose joined us. “Then we’re just gonna have to help ya along.” He grabbed Deadbolt’s bag and added to his own load. Two of us were going to have to double up on bags. Deadbolt wasn’t going to be carrying his and we still had Cure’s as well. As I lifted the other bag I felt someone pull on the other strap.

Rose tore the bag away from me. “No. I’m carrying this one.”

“But…”

“No.”

Deadbolt wasn’t the only one in bad shape. Though he was in the worst. Hermes was recovering from a shot to the chest. We were all tired, a few of us felt sick do to radiation poisoning. I’d been shot a few times in the last twenty-four hours, not to mention have my horn smashed and gave blood. Rose knew that her and Noble were in the best shape of us and while I wanted to argue, she gave me a look that told me not to.

“Alright, lets get moving,” Noble said as he made his way to the door.

Hermes and I stayed next to Deadbolt as we made our way to the elevator. He leaned against Hermes as we walked. He did a little better than the first time. He was managing a few steps before he would stumble. At this rate it would take a while to walk all the way back to Junction 27, but as long as we didn’t run into trouble we would be fine.

The elevator shifted as we entered. “Uh Rivet, do you really trust this thing?” Noble asked as the doors closed.

“I tested it once. Though that was just me.” I hit the button for the first floor and the elevator lurched to life again. The noises that it made on the way down did not inspire confidence in the integrity of the machine. It creaked and groaned at nearly every floor. Thankfully it didn’t break down with us in it. The doors opened again to the sight of the Stable Tech lobby.

Noble went ahead of us as we exited the Stable Tech building. Having him ahead of us would hopefully keep us out of trouble. It was a straight line to The Junction, but it wasn't visible from here, Signs, overpasses and broken down carriages blocked the view.

The trek through the city was slow. Deadbolt leaned on me as we went. I had to hold him up every fourth step. It was exhausting for him to even travel a few blocks in his condition. We had gone under this part of the city last time we took this road so to me, this was new territory. Hermes said that raiders tend to stay away from the main road so we should be safe from them, but that didn’t stop them before when they were being paid.

We made frequent stops to let Deadbolt catch his breath. He didn’t talk much, he only said something when we was getting too tired to keep walking. The fact that he wasn’t complaining was starting to worry me.

A drop of water hit my muzzle . I looked up and another landed in my eye. “Ack.” The rain quickly started coming down. We quickly found some shelter under a bridge that passed over the road, a small brick tunnel passed underneath it.

I set Deadbolt down and he sat up against the wall of the tunnel. I shook off as much of the rain as I could. My leather armor was already soaked and clung to me. “Can’t just one thing go our way today?”

“Should we really be under this thing?” Rose said looking up at the roof of the tunnel. There were cracks and a more than a few chunks of brick had already fallen out. “It look like it could go at any time.”

Hermes shrugged. “I’m sure it will be fine. If it was gonna go I’m sure it would have by now.”

“Okay, if you say so…” She said, clearly not convinced.

Hermes did the same thing he had done the other times we stopped and checked how Deadbolt was doing. Rose had started going through the book she found in the museum. I contemplated taking the memory orb out and watching it, but I doubted we would be here long enough to see the whole thing.

“How’s the book?” I said taking a seat next to Rose.

She shrugged. “It’s about different kinds of bone fractures and how to splint or treat them. It’s actually pretty interesting.”

“Really? That’s riveting,” I said as sarcastically as I could manage and took a sip from a bottle of water. I gave her a wry look as I did.

Rose cocked an eye at me. “Did you really take a victory sip at that? It wasn’t even funny. Besides, when was the last time you read a book voluntarily?”

I set the bottle down in defeat. “I thought it was funny…”

Noble came running out of the rain. His hat sagged with water and his coat clung to him like it was part of him. He stood next to Rose and I as he shook off. Somehow I was soaked and Rose was untouched. “Thanks…” I said as I stood up.

“No problem.” He looked over at Deadbolt on the other side of the tunnel. “How’s he doing?”

I looked over and saw Hermes handing Deadbolt some water. “He’s powering through but we’ve had to stop a lot. How are things ahead?”

“Well there's good news and bad news. Bad news is well… That.” He said pointing over his shoulder at the rain. “The good news is that I made it up to the Junction and saw no one and with the rain I really doubt anyone is going to go out of their way for us. It’s also not much further so we should rest up for a bit and see if Deadbolt can make it in one trip.”

I nodded and Noble went and sat down by himself. He pulled out a small black book and started writing something down. I couldn’t help but going over and asking about it. “What’s that?”

He looked up with the pencil in his mouth, then spit it out. “Oh this? It’s a diary.”

“You have a diary?”

“What’s wrong with having a diary? I write down things in my life I think are important. It’s a good way to get things out.” He said and picked up the pencil again.

I guess I didn’t really have a response to that and left him alone. I paced around, resting wasn’t something I wanted to be doing right now. Between worrying about Deadbolt, Hermes not wanting me to crowd him while he was talking to Deadbolt and the boredom of being the only one without something to do during downtime, I really couldn’t sit still.

I kicked one of the bricks that had fallen out of the ceiling. I watched it as it flew over and smashed into the wall. *plink...WROOF* The ceiling gave a sudden and violent shift. “Uh… guys?” Everyone slowly stood up as if doing it slowly was going to stop the inevitable. .

A large section of bricks came crashing down feet away from me. “RUN!” Rose shouted. Noble and I looked at each other and both bolted to get Deadbolt. Hermes was nearly thrown out of the way as we lifted Deadbolt and started moving.

The side of the tunnel we entered from shifted again and collapsed behind us. We rushed as fast as we could out of the tunnel. It crumbled behind us. A plume of dust shot out of the rubble as the last of it went just as we passed through it. The rain quickly stifled it.

Rose,Deadbolt and I all glared at Hermes. “Okay so I was wrong about it collapsing. Rivet was the one who caused it.” And just like that the glare turned to me, joined by Noble.

“Maybe we should just get going,” I suggested

Thankfully Noble wasn’t lying when he said we weren’t far from Junction 27. Deadbolt managed to power through until we got to the gates.

The guards saw Deadbolt and sent someone to the clinic to get a stretcher. A doctor came running back with him and we laid Deadbolt down onto it. Noble and the guard were the ones who lifted him and took him to the clinic.

We brought Deadbolt into the clinic and helped him onto a bed. “Hermes, what the hell did you get into out there? Where’s Cure?” The doctor asked as we entered the clinic.

Hermes bit back his answer. “I’ll talk to you later Heart. Go get me an IV of the strongest painkillers we have.” The way Heart looked at Hermes said that he understood what happened to Cure.Hesitantly he dashed off to get the medicine.

Hermes sighed. “You guys should go back to the hotel. Get some rest. We’ll take care of Deadbolt.”

“What about the supplies we have?” Rose asked.

Hermes dismissed her. “I’ll come by and get them later. Seriously, you guys go relax for a while. Deadbolt’s in good hooves.”

I was reluctant to leave Deadbolt but Hermes assured us that he would be fine. After making it all the way back here, I knew he would be. I just felt like I should stay with him.

Rose, Noble and I went back to the hotel. Noble and I shared a room again, letting Rose get her own this time. Noble was on one of the beds and out before I could even get out of my armor. Getting to sleep was hard. I was nauseous still, I hadn’t eaten anything. My headache had mostly subsided but there was still a small niggling in my head, but it was bearable. That combined with my normally inability to sleep made for a long night.

By the time I woke up the next morning Noble had already woken up and left. It’s strange how I always feel so much more tired in the morning than when I go to bed. I yawned as I limply rolled out of bed. I stood on my hind legs while trying to get my armor on. *Crack!* My head slammed into the wall when I inevitably fell. “Ouch…” I groaned. Thankfully I didn’t hit my horn for once. I knocked on Rose’s door as I left my room. Either she was still asleep, which I doubted, or she was already outside.

I found the two of them outside at a table. Rose waved me over and brought out an apple for me as I sat down.

“About time you woke up.” Rose teased.

I gave her a sarcastic chuckle. “Either of you two visit Deadbolt?”

Noble nodded. “Yeah, I helped Hermes bring the supplies over to the clinic this morning. He was still sleeping.”

“What did they say about the supplies?”

Noble tipped his hat up. “Well they were happy we brought so much back with us. They were even happier to hear that was just a fraction of it.”

“What about what happened to Cure?”

He shrugged. “Donno, I assume Hermes told them last night. Anyway, I’m leading a group out to collect some more here in a little while.”

I was about to tell him I was coming, but he knew I would and shot me down before I could even open my mouth. “No, Rivet. Hermes told me to relay something to you. he said to tell you to ‘take a fuckin break.’ I think were his words.”

Rose was nodding approvingly. “You’re to go back up to your room and take it easy today.”

Noble turned around a pulled something out of his bag. It was a clear bag filled with an orange liquid. “Radaway, you drink it and it cleans your body of radiation. It’s better if you down it all at once, it tastes awful. Oh, got something else for ya.” He reached back in and pulled out a shining silver pistol. “To replace the one you lost.”

“We barely had the caps for the hotel rooms. How did you afford this?”

He chuckled at me. “I sold all the guns those raiders in Stable-Tech had. Picked ‘em up after I took bronze out of the place.”

“Theres no way you fit all of those guns in your bag with all of those medical supplies in there too.”

He laughed again. “You haven't been in the wasteland long. You learn to pack things together nice and tight. Anyway, its forty-five caliber, it’s got a lot more power than that tiny nine millimeter you were carrying before.”

“Thanks,” I said as I picked up the gun.

Rose clapped her hooves together. “Alright, now back to your room. I’ll check on Deadbolt later and tell you how he’s doing.” And with that she shooed me back to my room.

I laid in bed for a while inspecting the gun that Noble had bought me. It wasn’t immaculate, but it was one of the best maintained weapons I had yet to see. I did find a small bit of rust starting to form on the bottom, under the trigger. I looked up at my horn, the headache had faded but levitating objects still stung. I had no idea how an actual spell would effect me, probably poorly.

My horn lit up. The pistol was engulfed by the glow of my magic. Then...nothing, absolutely nothing happened. My head didn’t explode into pain, nor did the slight rust on the gun clean itself. I tried again, same result. Then again, nothing. I wasn’t particularly great with magic as it was, now I couldn’t even use the one spell that I was good at.

“Great…” I moaned as I let my head fall back onto the pillow. Tossing the gun aside I saw my bag was open. Hermes and Noble probably looked through it to get the medical supplies I was carrying. I could see the glass memory orb laying inside.

Again, I almost made the mistake of grabbing it with magic. Instead I just levitated the entire bag over to me and felt a stinging in my head as I did. I pulled the orb out and set it on the bed. I didn’t have a chance to finish watching this yet. I move around a bit and made sure I was comfortable. I touched my horn to it and winced at the sting of touching the broken horn. Then sent a spark into the orb. Again the room was torn away and replaced with the office.

I watched the scene play out again. Applejack surprising her sister with a visit. The two politely talking between each other about their work, Applejack tip-toeing around something she actually wanted to say.

“Applebloom, I didn’t just come to talk. I need your help with something.” Applejack finally said. She wasn’t looking Applebloom in the eye. Whatever she wanted, it wasn’t something she was proud of.

“What is it Sis? You know you can trust me,” Applebloom said trying to comfort her sister.

Applejack reached back into her bag and placed a tiny black chip on the table.

Applebloom looked down at the little computer chip. “You’re gonna need to explain sis…”

“Applebloom, I can trust you with anything, right?” Applejack asked.

I could feel Appleblooms confusion. “Uh, yeah, of course. You know that.”

Applejack took a deep sigh. “This is a key. What it opens is something that I hate. I wish I could tell you what it is but I need you to trust me. Hide it, I don’t ever want to see this thing again unless there are no other options.”

Applebloom looked between her sister and the chip, more confused than before. I mirrored that confusion. “What are you talking about?”

The world ripped away again and I found myself back in the hotel. I grabbed the orb and shook it. “Why would it end there?” I tossed it and it thudded softly on the other bed in the room. “Dammit, so close, again.”

I laid in the bed thinking for a while after I watched the orb. I thought about a lot of things: who were those two mares? Why were they important? Why did Applejack want her sister to hide the chip. But mostly I thought about something Applejack said: “I can trust you with anything.” I mouthed to myself. Those sisters were the opposite of Deadbolt and myself. Why though?

I couldn’t even remember. It had been so long. We’ve hated each other longer than I can actually remember. I felt selfish. Deadbolt had been trying to look out for me, and he lost a leg because I refused to listen to him. Slowly, I got up from the bed. I was going to go talk to him.

I make my way out to the lot and across to the clinic. Rose was sitting next to the bed Deadbolt was at, Hermes had just come over to check on him.

“Rivet, what are you doing up? I told you to rest,” Rose said, giving me a stern look.

“You two mind if I talk to my brother, alone.”

Hermes shrugged and walked out. Rose looked at me, obviously a little confused on why I would ever want to be alone with Deadbolt. “Um, okay. I’ll be back at the hotel if you need me.”

“What do you want, Rivet?” Deadbolt asked as I closed the curtains around us.

I took a deep breath, then sighed. “I wanted to say, I’m sorry.”

I was getting a lot of confused looks today. “For what?”

“For everything. Being difficult all the time, refusing to listen to anyone. And I don’t just mean recently. I’m sorry for always being so difficult back in the stable. I was thinking about something you said back in Marefield. This isn’t the stable anymore. I want to bury the hatchet.”

I don’t remember the last time I saw Deadbolt speechless. “Thanks, Rivet.” Was all he said.

I sat down next to the bed. “We’ve been at eachother's throats for so long. I don’t remember what caused us to hate eachother so much.”

Deadbolt thought for a moment. “I think I do.” He started. “It was around the time Dad died. I took over as head of the maintenance team. I think it was just stress, I was kind of an ass to everyone. I didn’t know what I was doing and I needed your help.”

“Why didn’t you just ask?”

He scoffed.“You know me. I was too proud to ask my little brother for help and you were always annoyed that I was giving you a lot of extra work without talking to you about it.”

I sighed again. “Sorry, I don’t I think ever realized how stressed you were.” We were both stubborn. He needed help keeping the stable running and I did nothing but complain. We just let that fester for years. “Hey, what was Dad like? You knew him a lot better than I did.”

Deadbolt gave me a surprised look. “you weren’t that young when he died.”

“Yeah but he was always working. I barely ever saw him. He died shortly after I got my cutie mark so I didn’t even really get to work with him.”

He shrugged. “Not a lot to say. He was nice enough, worked hard, don’t really know what else to say about him.”

I stood up and took a step toward the curtain. “I’ll let you rest.” I paused before swinging the curtain open and turned back to him. “I just need to know: Do you blame me?”

His face turned from a half smile to a scowl. “No,I blame those bastards that drug us out into this hell hole.”

“Thanks, Deadbolt.” I closed closed the curtain behind me.

Rose was waiting for me when I got back to the hotel. “What was that about?”

“Don’t worry about it. I just needed to talk to my brother,” I said, giving her a reassuring smile.

“Did you at least ask him about the lock picking?”

Author's Note

Been a while but I finally got another chapter out. As always, thanks to Snowfall1775 for proof-reading and editing.