Dark Light

After the first two yeasr of waking up alone, to nothing but the empty sheets where his wife once lay, Dark Light start to.. not get used to, but more build up a defence against the loneliness that he felt. It was never easy, and it never would be. He thought he could stay strong, he felt that he had to, if not for Shim, then for Flash, but keeping all your emotions pent up inside only results in more pain in the end. He had learned this the hard way. After a fortnight he had basically stopped eating. A month later he was drinking, regularly. After five months he was drinking far too much far too often. He ended up giving him self alcohol poisoning at one point, and at this point he realised what he had done. He had started to ignore everything Shimmer had said to him. He hadn't stayed strong at all, he hadn't found a pony he loved, looked after Flash, he was fundamentally the complete opposite to what Shim would have wanted him to be.

And so he changed. He sent Flash to the colt's god-parents so he could have a bit of time to recuperate and basically get his act together and that was exactly what he did. He got out of hospital a week after he was admitted, and spent a moth getting clean of all his prior destructive addictions, he didn't even touch alcohol for the rest of the year and he managed to get him self to get into a relatively normal, eating habit. He had lost a substantial amount of weight since Shim had died, but he was now getting back to the healthy size and was even able to improve his strength. His friends had supported him every step of the way, but only after he was released from the hospital did he start to appreciate their help. He even managed to return the favour with some of them.

Dash had a bit of a panic attack when Soarin' was involved in an incident during a tour to Saddle Arabia, a few weeks after Dark Light returned home, in which the venue had been attacked by a group of about thirty rouge changlings who tried to destroy the stadium. Fortunately the Wonderbolts and the Princesses present managed to subdue them, but a few of the defenders had been harmed. Soarin' had lead his squad mates into battle and taken the brunt of the attacks from the changlings and had been badly injured in doing so. He had to stay in Cloudsdale's hospital for about a month, during which, Dark Light had managed to comfort her, telling her that Soarin would be fine and baking a pie or two to remind her of her coltfriend. He wasn't the only one, by the end of the month, Rainbow Dash had received *ahem* : Seven pies, eight bouquets of flowers, five boxes of chocolates, had fifteen different ponies round and nearly fifty different cards to comfort her. she gave six of the seven pies to Soarin' and let him have all the cards in the hospital but she kept the rest at home, because chocolate is delicious. Soarin' made a relatively speedy recovery considering his initial state, and the first thing he said to Dash when she saw him was a wedding proposal. To which the answer was a loud resounding "YES!" followed by a surprisingly fillyish squee. The happy mare got another surprise when Spitfire actually asked her to join the team, and another scream of joy ensued.

Rarity's dresses had become the most prestigious items anypony could own. Having been selected by Sapphire Shores to make the best dresses she could make for a fashion show with the largest and widest audience yet, everypony who saw the dresses wanted them. There was a growing demand, and Rarity only had the time to make clothing for a very select few, but being as generous as she was, she didn't choose the highest bidders, she went for the lowest ones. Soon she was commended for her selflessness and she ended up making a fortune off the dresses she sold, despite her clientèle. Twilight had been tasked by Celestia to take charge over Ponyville as her kingdom, she and the other elements of harmony were to safe guard it and to basically be the guardians of the town, and they did a very good job of it. She and Big Macintosh had also married and were preparing to have their first foal.

Fluttershy had not had much interesting developments in her life, aside from the fact that she had tried alcohol for the first time. Pinkie was holding one of her random but crazy fun shindigs, for two reasons: she had basically started a party company for ponies of any ages and in doing so she had basically learned to live off of her parties. She had a party for her friends every two weeks or so, but she was organising parties all over Equestria every few days, which she didn't mind. The second reason was because she wanted to try and keep all of her friends as happy as possible, with a lot of recent events resulting in a great state of depression and with someponies feeling unable to cope, she took it  upon herself to make everypony happy, and that, she did. At this particular party however, there was not pure fun and entertainment, there was one occurrence that lowered the tone. With the shyest and possibly most fragile pony in town trying alcohol for the first time, it was bound to have some repercussions. Fluttershy, being the little pony that could be made of marshmallow, that she was, had managed to get completely hammered after her first bottle of cider, and she was nothing like what she was sober. She had been seduced by a fairly tipsy clover, resulting in the pair waking up the next morning, with Fluttershy feeling really guilty.

Clover relayed the some of the happenings, including the night, to his hitherto marefriend Applejack who, unsurprisingly, ended their relationship there and then. She didn't hate him, but she couldn't forgive him either. She went to Fluttershy's cottage just to tell her that she wasn't mad at her. AJ knew that Flutters wasn't her self when she did it, and she knew Fluttershy well enough to know that she would have felt really bad for doing it. AJ got her side of the story, the full story,and  pretty soon after  hated her now ex-coltfriend, and so she went to give him a piece of her mind, but by the time she got to his home, he a left and only left a note giving an excuse:

Dear AJ

I am sorry for what I did, and I know that you're never going to forgive me, but I just wanted you to know that I do love you.

Bullshit the first word that came to her head after reading that sentence

The reason I'm skipping tow is because, quite frankly, I am to scared to deal with any potential problems in the future. I don't want to see this town any more, I'm never come back, and I don't want to know anything about the trouble I caused. I wouldn't be able to deal with it, I never will be. Tell Fluttershy that I'm sorry that I took advantage of her and I hope that her future is bright.

Goodbye,

Forever

Clover.

As soon as AJ had read the letter, she tore it up in a fit of rage. She told her brother - who simply said he would kill the arsehole the next time he saw him - and then forwarded the message begrudgingly to Fluttershy, wishing she could give more information. She continued to check up on her for the next few weeks, but there was a sudden change. Fluttershy was pregnant.

AJ got everyone she thought could do something to provide as much assistance as possible. People, made food, helped care for the animals, made sure Flutters wasn't needing for anything and generally keeping her happy. One jet black stallion in particular  had managed to give Fluttershy something nopony had given yet. Hope. The ponies name was Thunderlane and the two had stared to get along well, with him providing some vital help with the animals. The two ended up getting together, and after a few months they were, as with Soarin' and Rainbow Dash, engaged. After the foal arrived, the couple raised him as is clover was non-existent. Thunderlane was the foal's father, in both the foal's and Fluttershy's eyes. They decided to name the filly pegasus Dandelion, and the three lived a normal family life, with plans to give Dandelion a younger sibling.

AJ and Dark Light had started to become very close after Clover's disappearance, as Dark Light was the only pony, it seemed, that actually realised she might be suffering too. And suffering she was. She had blamed herself for Fluttershy getting pregnant but Dark Light managed to tell her that she wasn't to blame for anything. Clover was the only one who was to blame, and even if AJ was at fault, if this hadn't happened, Fluttershy would never have met Thunderlane, and she would never have been as happy as she was now. That seemed to coerce her out of her previous mindset, but the prince didn't stop checking on her to make sure for certain that she was fine. After about a month or two, the pairing seemed to have revived some of the feelings they had once had for each other, and realising that denying those feelings now would not only be insanely difficult, but foolish. The barriers that kept it from happening earlier were no longer there, but Dark Light still loved Shim like no other and although he felt awful for falling in love with an other pony, even though the one he had loved the most had passed away.

AJ, helped him through it. Through the guilt, the trauma, the depression, the alcoholism, the sadness, the anger, everything. He realised that he had been given a last request by his wife. She had told him that if he fell in love with somepony, anypony, he should marry them. For Bold Flash. His son. The most important thin in all the world to him. Sending him to his god-parents was the hardest thing Dark Light had ever done, but giving him a mother, even if it wasn't his birth mother, was something that he realised was Important - and so he did. Him and AJ not only got married, but also gave Flash a little sister, whom they called Orchard. She was a pegasus, but she would obviously have an increased amount of strength due to the fact that her mother was the strongest mare from Equestria to Horstralia. The now husband and wife, moved into the farm, with Big Macintosh moving into Dark Lights old house after Dark Light had been insistent on them doing so. Spike now lived in the library by himself, which he enjoyed. He liked being considered responsible enough to live by himself.

After Three years, Dark Light  had managed to build a life for himself, and his son. He would tell his son about Shim when he was old enough to understand, he wanted his son to know the truth about her. Without whom Dark Light wouldn't be alive. The life they had was worth keeping, and Dark Light would never, ever, let it go away. Not until the day he died.

----------Epilogue-----------

Dark Light was staring out the folded in top section of the door to his house, looking up at the night sky and thinking about the events of his life.

"Light? Sweetie, where are yah?" The voice of his wife called, as she walked down the stairs.

"By the front door AJ. Are Flashy and Orchid asleep?" He responded. AJ walked up to him, kissed him and gave him a smile.

"yessiree," Dark Light kissed her back, smiled and started to walk towards the stairs. "Howsabout we stay downstairs, maybe just go up to the hill and look at the sky? Ah'd like to spend some time alone with yah, since we ain't had much time together recently. What with the foals an' all,"

"I like the sound of that, I'll bring a blanket," He said, smiling, before he grabbed a blanket and the set off the the hill, through the apple orchard. When they reached it, the two lay down next to each other an just looked at the night sky, with the thousands of diamonds suspended in the dark void background. "AJ?"

"Yeah, sugar cube?"

"I love you,"

"I love you too,"

The two kissed, and soon after fell asleep under the beauty of the night sky.