Treacle

Sticky

In the weeks following that fateful night, Carrot Cake made good on Pinkie’s offer three more times: once in the master bedroom, once in Pinkie’s room, and once in the kitchen. Save for the spontaneity of the last one, these rendezvous’ were done carefully, when privacy was assured and they had time to enjoy themselves. Every precaution was taken to maintain their secrecy, and it seemed to work out for them. Carrot become more relaxed and better in spirits, expressing a warmer disposition to friends and customers alike, and Pinkie couldn’t have been happier in knowing she helped bring about this change.

However, not long after their last “session”, something came up that not only spoiled the stallion’s fresh mood, but practically threw a crowbar into the gears of Carrot’s orderly life.

“Y-You’re pregnant?” he half-shouted, his lower jaw threatening to hit the floor of the master bedroom as he gawked wide-eyed at the deliverer of the unfortunate news. Probably the worst place to be told such things, but there was no fault in picking it for the sake of privacy.

“I just found out today, so it’s as much a surprise to me,” Pinkie said in a somewhat inappropriate casual air, given the bombshell she dropped.

“B-B-B-But you said you had protection! That it was okay!”

“And I was protected! Or, at least, I think I was—”

“Pinkie! This is serious!” he yelled, grabbing Pinkie’s shoulders with his hooves to shake her lightly. “Do you have any idea what this means? What it’ll do to us!?”

“I-I’m sorry, Carrot. It was an honest mistake.”

“Honest Mistake?” He let go of the bubbly mare and turned around, only for his lower half to hit the floor while bringing up his hooves to cover his head. “This is one of the worst things that could happen. How could I have been so stupid not to have pulled out?”

“It’s okay,” Pinkie said with a reassuring smile. “I let you do it, so it’s my fault for getting knocked up.”

“But I got you pregnant, Pinkie! Doesn’t having to carry a foal not bother you at all?”

“Well, I hadn’t planned on getting one right now, but I’m sure it’ll be fun, if my time with Pound and Pumpkin are any indication. Also, I don’t mind it being yours. You’re like, one of the few stallions who I’d be alright with getting me pregnant, to be honest.”

At this, Carrot got back up and placed his hooves back on Pinkie’s shoulders. “You’re also missing something very important here: I’m a married stallion! It’s only my wife that should be getting pregnant by me!”

“Oh, right. Whoops.”

Carrot resumed his panic pose on the floor. “I go and ruin your life, Cup Cake will be devastated, and everypony will know me for a cheating scumbag. Why didn’t I stop it when I had the chance? She won’t be able to look me in the eye, or anypony for that matter. Business will drop, we’ll wind up destitute and my kids will starve all because of me. Why, why did I let it come to this. Oh why why why—”

“Carrot, listen,” Pinkie spoke, reaching out a hoof to stir the stallion from his pool of growing misery. “None of that will happen if nopony knows about it.”

“And how will you manage that exactly?” he snapped. “You can’t exactly hide a pregnancy. Those things tend to get noticed when you go around town most of the time planning parties and being with friends. Caring friends that ask questions.”

“Well if they ask, then I won’t say that it’s yours—”

“No, absolutely not!” He stood with a heavy stamp of his hoof. “I won’t let you pin this on some other stallion, especially when it’s my child involved.”

“I wouldn’t do that, either,” she said, somewhat hurt. “I would never do that to somepony else.”

“Then how are you—”

“I’ll find a way, trust me,” Pinkie assured him while placing a comforting hoof on the side of his long neck. “It’s my fault for not having protection, so I’ll fix this without getting you, or anypony else in trouble. I Pinkie Promise.”

“I’m not sure—”

“Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye.”

Carrot paused upon seeing those signature gestures. Pinkie took her promises very seriously, and to his knowledge she never once broke one she personally made. Then again, what she promised raised some major doubts. In the end, though, he relented with a sigh.

“Okay, Pinkie, I’ll trust you. But, you’re essentially saying that you’ll take care of the foal on your own. That just doesn’t sit well with me.”

“It’s alright, Carrot,” she winked while giving his cheek a light pat. “I can take care of it, and I’m sure this’ll work out in the end. But one thing at a time, starting with me making sure nopony knows about us. Which means that we may have to stop spending special time together.”

“That goes without saying.”

“Okie dokie! So how bout we head back downstairs and do some baking? Plenty of hungry customers are waiting. And don’t forget to smiiiiile!”

She flashed her pearly whites before zipping off to the lower floor, leaving Carrot alone with his thoughts. The matter still stunk to him, and he wasn’t fully able to believe an easy solution to the kerfluffle he just put himself and Pinkie in. But regardless, he forced up a little smile and trotted after his bouncy ward, and did his best to put away his concerns for another time.

For the next several weeks business went on as usual at Sugarcube Corner with nopony the wiser. Pinkie appeared to have been true to the word, never giving any indication that the affair had ever happened. But nature inevitably took its course and the distinct signs of pregnancy inevitably reared itself upon Pinkie’s body. Barely noticeable at first, but as time went on her stomach took on a distinct bulge, which caught the passing eyes of the town’s residents. Nopony confronted her about it and passed it off as a mild curiosity, but eventually the question was raised, and in typical fashion, it happened under the most humble of circumstances.

It was close to three months after Pinkie made her promise to Carrot, and she was enjoying a picnic with her friends by the barn on Sweet Apple Acres on a nice sunny day in early summer. She had a simple hay and daffodil sandwich like the others, with a slathering of chocolate, topped with bonbons and with a side of candy. As she happily munched away, Rainbow Dash brought up the inevitable subject.

“So, Pinkie Pie, we’ve noticed you got yourself something of a… expansion on your gut, there.” Didn’t quite go head-on with it, but nopony’s perfect.

“Uh-huh. Guess I’ve been packing on the pounds,” Pinkie said casually while finishing up her snack.

“Ya don’t say?” Apple Jack asked after taking a sip of her special-brand apple soda.

“Yep. Gotta cut back on the sweets, I guess.” To which Pinkie followed up by guzzling her own bottle of pop.

“Oh please, Pinkie: you burn through calories like it was gunpowder. What’s really going on?” Rainbow pressed her, finally getting closer to the matter.

“Well… okay, I guess I hid it long enough. No point trying to lie about it now that it’s out there, teehee,” she submitted.

“So what is it, dear?” Rarity asked, although she and most of the other girls already suspected the answer.

“Okay, here goes: I’m preggers!”

The announcement got a rise of excited gasps from her friends.

“Whoa, you’re pregnant!?” Rainbow exclaimed with awe.

“As in, you have a foal growing inside you, right now?” Fluttershy asked meekly, a bit of red on her cheeks.

“Yep!”

“Wow, Pinkie, congratulations,” Twilight said.

“Thank you, Twilight. I’m really super-duper excited, too. So looking forward to getting to play with him when he’s born. Or her. It doesn’t matter either way, it’s gonna be great!”

“So when did it happen, exactly?” Applejack asked.

“Why yes, I’m dreadfully curious as well. No doubt it was a romantic, not to mention ravenous encounter,” Rarity said with a gleam in her eye.

“If it’s okay to say, that is,” Fluttershy added.

“It wasn’t anything really special, I’m sorry to say.”

“Oh come on, don’t wuss out on us. It doesn’t have to be precise, but give us something,” Rainbow pried.

“Rainbow Dash, she doesn’t have to if she doesn’t want to,” Twilight chided the fluttering pegasus.

“It’s okay, I don’t mind telling,” Pinkie spoke up. “It’s simple enough, really. It was at one of my parties several months ago. I just hooked up with a stallion, we did the nasty, and then I wound pregnant and telling you guys about it!”

A vocal and physical shrug went out across the listeners.

“Well that was a letdown,” Rainbow remarked, to Twilight’s chagrin.

“Rainbow!”

“Whaaat? I was kinda expecting something more than a one night stand gone wrong.”

“Rainbow!”

“So, um, you didn’t want to have it?” Fluttershy asked carefully.

“I hadn’t planned on it, but I’m still looking forward to having one. Been something of a dream since the twins came around, hmhm.”

“While I don’t condone your engagement of unprotected intercourse, I suppose I can be fine with it if you’re getting something out of it to make you happy,” Rarity waved with an accepting hoof.

“So who’s the lucky stallion that we’re gonna have to hogtie and drag to the altar for yer benefit?”

“Really, Applejack, it doesn’t have to be so forceful,” Rarity playfully chastised the farmpony.

“Well it’s no worries, guys, since I don’t know who it is.” Pinkie’s response garnered some curious looks from her friends.

“What do you mean ‘you don’t know’?” Rainbow asked. “You did the dirty, so surely you had to have gotten his name. Or at least what he looked like.”

“That’s the funny thing about it. It must have happened when I was asleep during the party. I must’ve been really tuckered out, so I couldn’t tell you who it was.” She stopped to look at the wall of firm, blank stares that her friends were giving her. The moments of silence that followed started to wear at her smile. “...What?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t think we heard you correctly,” Rarity was the first to speak. “Did you say you were asleep?”

“Uh-huh. That’s what I said.” Another, though shorter moment of silence, after which Rainbow Dash took it upon herself to put the pieces together for the group.

“So, you’re telling us… that at the party... some stallion, had sex with you… while you were unconscious.”

“Yepper!” That’s when a dawning realization came to Pinkie Pie a little too late, making her drop her smile like a bad habit. “N-No wait—”

“Dear Goddesses, that's horrible!” Rarity cried out, sealing the fate of the conversation to Pinkie’s distress.

“Somepony did that to you?” Twilight shouted in disbelief.

“What lowdown snake would do something like that?” Applejack asked in wrath.

“Somepony who won’t be able to walk once I’m done with him!” Rainbow punctuated with a banging of her hooves. Seeing the hypothetical torches and pitchforks rising among her friends (except maybe Fluttershy), Pinkie made a last-ditch effort at damage control.

“Uh, hey, guys, it’s nothing to freak out about. I don’t mind it at all. No biggie, really.”

“No biggie?” Twilight replied as, looking as though she’d been slapped in the face. “Pinkie, you were raped! There’s no telling what else they could have done to you aside from getting you pregnant!”

“But I’m fine, honestly! I’m just the same ol’ fun-loving me, only with an added passenger on the party wagon.”

“This is no time for jokin’, girl,” Applejack chided. “There’s some varmint out there who made you a single mom without yer consent and has some major answerin’ to do.”

“Okay, girls, here’s what needs to be done,” the alicorn announced, taking reign of the crisis. “If it happened at one of Pinkie’s parties, then it’s likely to have been someone who lives here in Ponyville. Since nopony’s moved out of town these past few months, then they’re still very likely around.”

“So let’s go nab some stallions and find that scumbag!”

“Not so fast, Rainbow. It’d be easier if we find out which party it happened at, thus narrowing down the list of possible suspects.”

“Good idea, darling,” Rarity firmly nodded. “It would do no good to start rounding up every stallion in Ponyville.”

“No guys, really, there’s no need to—”

“It’s just so scary that something like this has happened,” Fluttershy interrupted Pinkie, surprisingly enough. “I hope we can find out who did it soon, for Pinkie’s sake.”

“But girls, I’m okay wi—”

“And every other mare in this town,” Applejack spoke up, to Pinkie’s mounting dismay.

“Right, so let’s head back to the castle. I’ll need to do some research so as to determine where to start. Pinkie, I’ll need you to come as well so I can do an examination of the foal for extra intel.”

“There’s no need to, Twilight, I’m being—”

“There’s no time to lose! Off to the castle!”

“Right!” was the the resounding group reply, as five of the mares got up and dashed from the barn and toward the Castle of Friendship. Pinkie merely sat and stared at her retreating friends, worry and guilt steadily filling her head over her massive slip-up.

“Oh no…” she whimpered.