As her eyes opened, all she could see was a blinding white light. Where was she? She didn’t remember. All that was running through her mind right now was that she wanted to close her eyes and go back to sleep, get rid of that pesky light, but voices stopped her.
“…going to…okay?” a jumbled voice spoke. It was incoherent and barely understandable.
“…in ti…be fine,” another voice joined in. That one was fuzzy too, only this time it sounded different, more masculine.
“Hey…waking up…!” What was that? Waking up? From what?
Indeed she was. Her eyes started to flutter open and her surroundings started to become a bit clearer. From what she could tell, she was in a white room, lights flickering above her lazily, burning out for one second, then bright as day the next. A beeping was heard in the background, thumping rhythmically. Funny, it sounded almost like…
"A...heart monitor..." she realized solemnly. So that’s where she was. A hospital. "Great..."
Her blurred vision started letting up, and she could make out that she was in a hospital bed, and had something poking into her, most likely an IV drip. She saw colors at the foot of her bed and around the sides. Purple, white, pink, yellow, and orange. It was then she realized the colors were ponies, and that those ponies were her friends.
She grunted, and started to crook her fore leg up so that she could lean on it, but a gentle push forced her back onto her bed.
“Don’t try to get up,” a soothing voice said, and saw Twilight Sparkle pushing her back down gently.
“Ungh…jus’ wha’ in tarnation happened?” she said in an accented voice.
“You were in an accident, and got hurt, Applejack,” a male voice told her bluntly. He was an orange unicorn with a brown man, and looked an awful lot like Caramel, the pony that worked for her family.
Applejack frowned slightly, and looked at herself. Her right fore hoof was bandaged and in a sling, probably broken. She saw that one of her hind hoofs was propped up in a cast as well. That would definitely hinder her applebucking for the season, and Big Mac couldn’t do it all by himself.
“Two of your limbs were broken and you have a few cracked ribs, but all in all, you should be back to normal in a few weeks,” the Doctor told her.
“An’ just how many weeks is that?” she asked, frowning.
“Five or six, maybe four if you take it easy,” he said nonchalantly.
“Four weeks!?” she sputtered, regaining her strength enough to sit up. “What about Macintosh? He cain’t do all dat buckin’ by himself!”
“Oh, darling, don’t worry. He’s hired a few ponies to help with the work. Everything will be fine,” Rarity promised, giving her a sympathetic look and placing a hoof on her shoulder.
Applejack sighed skeptically and looked back at the doctor. “Are ya sure? It cain’t come off earlier?” she tried.
“Not if you want to applebuck again. You’re going to have to let that leg heal properly if you want to get back to normal again,” the doctor defended, not giving in.
She sighed and gave in. Getting these things off at an earlier time wasn’t worth her not being able to applebuck and help with Sweet Apple Acres. That thought triggered something.
“Speakin’ of applebuckin’, where’s Granny Smith, Mac, and Applebloom, are they okay?” she asked, worry evident in her voice.
“Yes, they’re just fine. Worried about you, but fine,” Twilight assured.
Applejack let out a sigh of relief, then winced in pain as a sharp sting went through her chest. She brought an arm up to hold her chest, trying to stop the pain. After a few seconds, she released her grip and leaned back against the head of the bed.
“…how long have Ah been out?” she asked, suddenly curious.
“Um…a-about a week and a half,” Fluttershy’s timid voice told her. It sounded sad, almost broken.
“Week and a half!?” Applejack shouted in disbelief. “Jeez…”
“Yeah, it was like you were sleeping, only we couldn’t wake you. Or, at least, the doctor said we couldn’t. Believe me, if we could’ve we would’ve! But we’re so happy that you’re awake now! You didn’t really miss anything, except for…” Pinkie Pie stopped suddenly, and trailed off. It felt like she was frozen, but then she started to look down and Applejack could see tears starting to well up in her happy eyes. Suddenly she stopped herself and the tears disappeared.
“Hey, maybe I could throw you a get-well-soon-party! Yeah! That’ll be fun!” Pinkie smiled, happy as ever.
Narrowing her eyes slightly, she returned the smile. “Yeah, Pinkie, that’s sounds great,” she nodded wearily. In truth, she wasn’t really in the mood for a Pinkie-Pie-Party right now, but at least it was something to look forward to. Her mind then turned somewhere else. “But, could ya tell me what Ah missed? Sounds mighty interestin’.”
Everyone in the room stopped breathing for a second, but it quickly retreated back to wherever it came from.
“Don’t be silly, you didn’t miss anything. What makes you think that?” Rarity said quickly.
She wasn’t the Element of Honesty for nothing. “Come on now, Ah cain tell yur lyin’. Besides, Pinkie even said Ah missed sumthin’,” she pressed.
The doctor and Twilight exchanged sad looks and the doctor quickly left the room, leaving the broken pony alone with her friends.
“Well, what’s ‘is problem?” Applejack muttered, crossing her good arm over her bandaged one. It was then when she looked across the room she just noticed that every one of her friends was there. All except one. One that she wanted to be there the most.
“Where’s Dash? Thought she’d be here,” Applejack asked expectantly. It was right after that certain question did the atmosphere in the room turn dark and depressing. Fluttershy started to cry softly, and Pinkie came over to her, pressing the yellow pegasus into her chest gently, crying tears of her own.
“…what? Where is she?” Applejack asked again, looking at the two unicorns at her bed side.
Rarity looked down. It seemed she was struggling to hold back the salty liquid as she looked at the ground. She squeezed Applejack’s shoulder a bit tighter. Twilight grabbed onto her good hoof gently and looked her straight in the eye.
“Do you remember what happened? How you got like this?” she asked softly, holding onto Applejack’s hoof with her own.
Applejack forced herself to dig down into the depths of her subconscious. It was hazy, and mostly unclear. All she could remember was a huge storm. There was also that thunderclap, and that one bolt of lightning that struck that one try, and…and a flash of rainbow before everything went dark.
“Wh…what…?” she struggled to form words, struggled to even get coherent sounds past the lump in her throat. The orange farmer could feel salty tears start to roll down her cheeks.
Twilight spoke again. Her voice was quiet, and sounded cracked and broken. “She…was under the tree…we got you two
here as fast as we…c-could…but…it was too late for her…” Twilight got out. The earth pony could tell she was bravely trying to stay strong for her, but was ultimately failing.
“R…Rainbow took the tree for you. It would have crushed you, but she took it instead…she saved you, AJ…but she…didn’t make it…” Twilight whispered sadly.
It wasn’t real. She didn’t want to believe it was real. Rainbow Dash, her best friend…was dead? She sacrificed herself…for Applejack?
“No…” Applejack gasped weakly, trying to force back the sobs and cries that were bubbling in the back of her throat.
The lavender unicorn took the hint and latched herself onto the strong earth pony gently, holding her tight, trying to comfort her. She could feel Applejack shaking, and just held on tighter.
“D-Dash…no. No! NOOO!!!” Applejack screamed out, willing herself for it to all be a dream. A dream where she could wake up from, and the rainbow-maned pegasus would be there in front of her, and everything would continue on as normal. But she knew it wasn’t. This wasn’t a child’s dream where you could lie and say that everything would be fine. This was reality. And reality meant that she was never going to see her best friend again. She sobbed into Twilight’s chest heavily, latching onto her like Applebloom had so many times before, whenever the little pony had nightmares.
Her agonized cries echoed down the hallway, but she didn’t care. She didn’t care about anything right now.
She just wanted her friend to come back.