"Stop, thief! Get back here!" cried a mare, chasing after a small tan-yellow colt with a brown mane. She manages to catch up with him, and used her magic to grab a hold of his tail which stumbles the colt.
The colt lay on the ground with his hooves over his head, trembling slightly.
"Let me see!" she barked.
The colt simply lay on the ground while the pharmacist rifled through his saddlebags as the scene gathered more spectators, including an older looking earth pony stallion who ran a small, independent takeaway food stand.
"What did you steal!?" she pulls out of his bags a bottle of cough syrup, and three trays of antibiotics. "What are you going to do with this?" she demands. "Answer me!" she screams, giving him a push to get his forelegs off his head. This elicited an uneasy response from the few ponies who were watching the scene unfold.
The colt didn't say or do anything, he just lay on the ground as a few tears made their way down his cheeks.
"I-, I was going to give them to my mum..." he finally manages to say.
This particular stallion who was watching walks over. "Wait a second!" he says. The cook looks down to the colt, and offers him a hoof to stand up. The colt gets up, but his gaze remains fixed on the ground.
"Is your mum sick?"
The colt barely raises his head but lets it fall even lower, indicating a yes.
The cook reaches into the front of his apron and pulls out a few bits, giving them to the pharmacist and taking the bottle and few trays of pills.
"And don't you do it again!" the pharmacist scolds, angrily going back into her store.
The earth pony calls back to a small filly standing at the food stand, watching everything take place. "Sweetie, veggie soup!" Not half a minute later the filly comes running back out with a bag of soup.
The stallion puts the bottle, medicine, and soup in his saddle bags. The colt simply looks up at him in wonder, and bolt off down the street.
_* Thirty Years Later *_
What was once a small takeout stand operated by a lone stallion and his daughter, had now grown into a cafe. It was significantly bigger than his old stand, but it was just big enough to accomodate himself and his daughter. His grandson also helped out from time to time after school. The cook was a nice guy, and he often helped out other, less fortunate ponies whom had no money or place to live by giving them small portions of food out of pocket. This attracted a lot of attention from the ponies of the town, and they often payed it forward by giving him money in return to help pay what otherwise be the losses from giving away food.
On this particular day after handing out a small vege burger to a mare, the stallion called back to his daughter to call out the next order, but he would not get around to cooking it. A sharp pain assaulted his chest and he slumped forward, bumping into the deep fat fryer and dropping the metal basket from his teeth into the boiling oil. He fell to the side, onto the ground clutching his chest with his hooves knocking over a few other items around him.
"Papa!" screamed his daughter, rushing over to his side. The ponies eating at nearby tables saw what happened, and rushed over to help while others gasped and whispered between themselves. "Quick, somepony get an ambulance!"
***_***_***
The mare, the daughter of this frail, old stallion sat at her fathers side in hospital clutching her son as they both wept. The doctors there say he had suffered a heart attack, and he was lucky to be alive when they got to him.
He lay in bed asleep, hooked up to a respirator which was breathing for him. The Doctors say he would make a recovery, but he can't go back to work or risk further complications.
Silently, a nurse walked into the room with an envelope and a remorseful look in her eyes. She put the envelope down on the bed, and walked out. The mare picks up the envelops with apprehensive curiosity, and tears it open.
Summary of medical expenses.
Diagnosis: 5000 bits
Private Care: 9042 bits
Uninsured: 10,893 bits
Other: 4852 bits
Total Cost: 29,787 bits
There was no way she could afford to pay this. There was only one thing she could do to pay off the bill. She had to sell her fathers cafe.
Leaving for the evening to go home to put her son to bed, she went down to the cafe to write a simple sign which she taped to the front door then went to bed. They wouldn't open the next day, and everyone found out why.
"Urgent! For sale. Offers welcome."
Back at the hospital, alone while her son went to school, she woke from a nap to find another envelope under her hooves. She didn't know when she had fallen asleep, but thought it must have been from crying over telling her sleeping father she had to sell his business to pay off the hospital bill.
The next piece of paper had another bill in it, but this one more welcoming.
Summary of medical expenses.
Diagnosis: 0 bits
Private Care: 0 bits
Uninsured: 0 bits
Other: 0 bits
Total Cost: 0 bits
All expenses paid thirty years ago with; three packs of medicine, a bottle of cough syrup, and a bag of veggie soup.
Best regards, Doctor Stable.
Thinking back thirty years ago when she was just a filly, she remembered a small colt running out of a store. Her father had given some bits for a few things a colt had stolen, and she remembered the bag of soup too. Her eyes widened with the realization.
It couldn't be...
She glanced up to the doorway to see a stallion standing there with a stethoscope around his neck and dressed in his white doctors coat. Only, she noticed something about him. He was tan-yellow with a brown mane.
He only smiled, gave a nod and walked out the door and down the hallway.
