“...”

Blueblood wanted to say something, anything to keep the endless silence from continuing, but words failed him.

“...”

Rarity wanted to break the monotony of the empty train ride, but did not want to start anything she wasn't willing to continue.

“...”

How could he communicate to her that he really did want what was best for their daughter without starting a fight?

“...”

What could she say to him that he didn't already know?

Neither Rarity nor Blueblood knew how to begin the conversation. They feared that what could begin as a casual discussion could quickly devolve into a pointless argument, as so many conversations had gone in months prior.

“So...” he piped up at one point, breaking the pattern of silence. Rarity waited for him to follow up with a real conversation, but heard nothing else. And, Rarity was not willing to attempt to start a conversation either. She doubted her self-control, as she suspected he did as well, in case a friendly discussion were to spiral into an argument. It was just easier to continue the journey in silence.

When the train stopped in the Ponyville station, after a long and silent trip from Manehattan, two unicorns stepped onto the platform. They sighed, relieved that they had made it safely to the small town.

By the time they made it across town to Carousel Boutique, the sun was just starting to rise and the businesses around the boutique were teeming with a morning burst of energy. Ordinarily, Rarity's routine would begin around this time as well. After being woken up by the baby, she would get to work to ensure she had enough dresses on display in the store for the casual shopper, and that she had plenty of supplies ready in case somepony placed an order.

Today, instead, once she and the prince walked in through the back door that led to her home, they instantly collapsed on her chaise lounge near the door, exhausted from the stresses of the past week. They looked over at each other for a brief moment and then quickly averted their eyes.

While scanning the walls looking for anything of merit to keep his interest, Blueblood took notice of one of the picture frames on the wall, and levitated it into his hooves. Timidly, Rarity glanced over at the photo as well. The overly enthusiastic and oblivious grin of their filly stared back at them.

“She sure does like to play it up for the camera, doesn't she?” Blueblood asked with a small smile.

“Since she was born.” Rarity nodded.

“She takes after both of us in that regard, don't you think?” he asked, chuckling nervously.

“I suppose,” she responded quietly.

“Look how tiny she is and how much hair she has. It's so curly.” He paused and pointed his hoof at the violet curls in the photo. “You know, when I was a foal, my mane looked just as curly.”

“Of course, yet another reminder of how much like you she looks...” she muttered under her breath.

“She's perfect.”

“I know,” came her whispered response.

“She got the best of both of us, don't you think?”

“I really don't want to have this discussion right now,” Rarity said hastily.

“We never have, though,” he said. “Our conversations are always about what happened to her or what our plans are when she is safe. We never talk about her though. Please, Rarity, I need this. After finally choosing to have a relationship with her, waking up at three in the morning to an empty nursery, and traveling all over Equestria to find her, I need to do this. I can't keep it to myself like you can.”

“It isn't ideal for me either, you know,” she retorted. “You watched her for one week and, yes, you acted as her father, but it is nothing compared to the five months that I spent up all night with her, feeding her, changing her diaper, or just soothing her tears! It kills me that the last thing my daughter saw me do was yell at her father because instead of saying goodbye, I had to deal with your mother!” She paused for a moment to compose herself, then added, quietly, “Now, I fear I may never see her again because after all this time... I was really hoping we would have known more by now...”

“Rarity...” he said quietly, reaching out to her, but she slipped off the chaise lounge and out of his reach.

“If... if you'll excuse me. It has been a long time since I have gotten any sleep and I would enjoy some beauty rest. If you would like to get some rest as well, feel free to sleep on the couch. I assure you, it is more comfortable than it looks.”

The prince eyed the couch warily, but nodded in agreement. A wan smile appeared on Rarity's face before she turned around and made her way up the staircase without another word.

* * *

Sleep hadn't come easy to Prince Blueblood since the night he has been rudely awoken.

It was easy for him to ignore work related stress or the few social anxieties that have popped up at events. They passed quickly with no problems because ultimately he could shift the blame to somepony else in case of a tight spot.

However, include his foal into the situation and sleep became almost impossible. When he had found out he was going to be a father, he hadn't slept for a week, and that wasn't even a life or death situation. When she had gone missing, it had been even worse. He would stay up all night wondering what had gone wrong and why in Equestria the worst things happened to him.

He rolled over on the couch, grabbed the photo that he had picked up earlier, and examined it. This morning had been the first time in days that he had seen any photos of his daughter, and he couldn't help but feel a pang of guilt when he looked into those bright blue eyes. There was no making up for being out of the picture for the first few months of her life, but he did promise her that he would try harder and he didn't feel like he kept to that promise very well when he lost her within a week of making that promise.

He kept a watch on the clock on the wall that loudly ticked away the hours and minutes that he lay on the couch looking at the photograph. After three hours of laying there, arguing with himself about what he could have done to keep this situation from occurring, he slipped off the couch and quietly made his way up the stairs to check on Rarity. The silence, while not terrible, made him nervous. The last time he underestimated a situation, he ended up on a seemingly never ending trip to find his daughter.

Blueblood opened the first door by the staircase and stepped inside. The walls of the room he had just stepped into were painted a nice cream color with a pink accent. The fabrics were all luxurious and posh, and the decor made the small room look bigger. He gawked in awestruck at the small room that was lavishly decorated.

“What are you doing up here?”

He turned around, Rarity was sitting in a rocking chair holding a stuffed animal that he deduced belonged to their daughter.

“Well...” he began slowly. “I just wanted to make sure nopony has intruded in order to wreak more havoc on our lives.”

“No, it's just me,” she replied sadly.

The two unicorns stood in silence, once again too afraid to break the silence. Rarity went back to rocking on the chair, holding onto the bear for dear life.

“You couldn't sleep either, could you?” Blueblood asked.

“No, I am just not tired. I had planned to relax in here while you slept and think about is what I would be doing right now if I had just picked her up from the castle and brought her home as planned.”

“And what would that be?”

“Does it matter?” she whispered. “It won't make a difference. She still isn't here.”

Blueblood shifted around uncomfortably trying to find the right words. “Please tell me about her, and everything about her that I missed out on.”

“I don't really feel comfortable with that right now...”

“Stop deflecting these conversations with me!” He thundered. “You never want to talk about her to me and I don't understand why!”

“You always called her your biggest mistake,” she argued. “You never wanted to know a thing about her and you laughed in my face when I asked you if you had changed your mind. That was just a few weeks ago. Why did you suddenly change your mind? And, how can I be sure you won't change it back?”

“Because I'm here. If I didn't want to be here I would have left. I could have chosen to hide out anywhere, but I chose to come with you because I need to see her again and I need to make up the past to you and her. Please, just let me try.”

Rarity took a deep breath, got off the rocking chair, and stood up in front of him.

“What do you want to know?” Rarity asked defeatedly.

“Well... anything...” He pondered. “When was the first time she used magic?”

“It was about... three months ago. She levitated a book, and then two weeks later, she gave the same book teeth. It wasn't quite the most productive workday after dealing with that.”

He chuckled. “Tell me something else.”

“Well...” Rarity started, as she tried to come up with another story to entertain him with. She smiled and said, “you may have noticed this, but she's very curious and loves looking at her surroundings. One time, not too long ago actually, I took her to the marketplace while I was doing my shopping. She was in her carrier and was as content as can be as I picked up food and supplies. Just as I was about to leave one of the stands, the caretaker stopped me and told me that I owed him more money. Apparently Ivory Lace was so enthralled by something she had seen, she grabbed it when I wasn't looking and wouldn't let go.”

Blueblood smiled and listened as she continued on for a few minutes about the past few months. When she finally stopped, he looked down at her and asked, “do you ever wish that I had stayed? Or are you two better off without me?”

“Yes, of course I wish you had stayed,” she began slowly. “I would have loved the extra help and moral support, but you left and that cannot be changed.”

“Right, of course,” he responded solemnly.

“Do you ever wish you stayed?”

He didn't respond. Rarity looked at the ground, avoiding eye contact. Prince Blueblood simply picked himself up and made his way around the nursery wordlessly until one particular photograph caught his eye.

“She has a photo of me,” he said, awestruck. His silver aura took hold of a portrait of him that sat up on a high shelf.

“Of course she does.”

“No, but it is in her nursery. There is a photo of me in her nursery.”

“Blueblood, you're her father. I know we never got along and that our... journey together lately hasn't helped that, but it never meant that I didn't want you to know her. Why else would I have come up to you at the royal wedding and ask if you wanted to see her?”

“No, I know. It's just... part of the reason I tried so hard to be her father was because she had no idea who I was and it hurt me more than I expected it to. I always just assumed you glossed over my... participation.”

“She is just a baby,” Rarity reminded him. “You cannot expect a baby to understand that. Besides, I'm sure she knows who you are now.”

“Right.”

They dropped the conversation. Blueblood continued to look around the room, trying to find another object available to pique his interest.

“You know,” Rarity piped up, breaking the silence, “back when I first brought Ivory Lace home, most nights I was up at odd hours with her; I couldn't wait for it to end. I was exhausted all the time and I didn't get as much work done as I would have hoped. I can't even count the times that I cursed you in that time frame.” Blueblood lowered his head, she continued. “I would give anything to go back to those days, right now.”

Tears began to slide down her face. Blueblood walked over, put a hoof against her and pulled her into a hug.

“I just wish I was there to protect her,” she choked out.

“Consider yourself lucky to not have been there,” he responded. “There is nothing worse than stumbling upon an empty and charred nursery and knowing that, despite being right down the hall, you weren't there to stop it. I was there to protect her and I failed, and I regret it every day.”

Neither of them said anything. He just held on to her as she cried.

* * *

Rarity woke up in her own bed just as the sun was starting to set. She had finally agreed, after crying on the prince's shoulder for a while, that it wouldn't hurt to try to sleep. And, with a little help from her medicine cabinet, she was able to get the rest she desperately needed. She decided that it was a good step in the right direction. The next would be getting out of Ponyville and finding her missing foal.

She threw on her robe and with a sigh, she walked downstairs and sat on the couch next to Blueblood, who was thoroughly engrossed in a pile of papers held in the silver aura of his magic. He looked up at her from the papers and frowned.

“Why did you keep these?”

“I think the more important question is, why are you going through my things?” she inquired, annoyed. Her blue magic quickly snatched the pile of papers away from his own and were quickly put back in their original position, before the prince could voice his response.

“I was looking to see if perhaps you missed something in Fancypants' demeanor before you went on a trip with him, but I ended up finding all of the letters that I sent you. I didn't even know you had them still.”

“Of course I do. They may not have been nice, but I kept them as a reminder for those dark days as to why contacting you would not make anything better.”

“Right, sure.” Blueblood rolled his eyes. “I would just like to know where you keep Fancypants' letters. I know you don't want to believe it, but considering everything he knows, he seems to be a very big suspect in my book.”

“Absolutely not! He lied to me, but he would never do something like that. And what about you?”

“What about me? Are you insinuating, once again, that I had something to do with this?”

“No, but I am curious as to who you came in contact with that day. All of those ponies could be just as much a suspect, you know. You are the primary target.”

“Many ponies,” Blueblood replied simply. “It was an ordinary day in almost every way. I met with a few ponies that morning to discuss problems they wanted the princesses to know about. After my meetings, I spent the afternoon with Ivory Lace. Then, once she was in bed, I went on a date.”

“Oh,” she said raising an eyebrow. “You didn't mention that before. Did anything or anypony seem off that day? Any of the ponies you met with, or your date perhaps?”

He racked his brain trying to recall what had happened that day. Although it had only been a few days ago, the day things changed seemed like ages ago. Nothing that happened before the foalnapping seemed out of the ordinary, but there were a few questioning ticks about some of the ponies he spoke with that day that made him wonder if something was really going on under his nose.

The prince walked out of the room without another word and came back with a piece of paper and a pen and started writing things down.

“Blueblood, what are you doing?”

“I have a plan that we can put in motion tomorrow, don't you worry,” he responded quickly without looking up from the paper.

“Pray tell, what is your brilliant plan?” Rarity asked, craning her neck to look at the paper.

“Don't worry about it,” he quipped, moving in front of her to block her view.

“Well how do you know it will work?”

“I don't,” he said before folding the paper up and standing up. “In fact, it could go horribly wrong. I could end up losing my life and you could end up losing custody of Ivory Lace, but it could also go very well and we could have our daughter back without either of us having to sacrifice our freedom. It lends the question though, do you trust me?”

Rarity pursed her lips together and glanced at the wall behind the prince.

“Look, the way I see it, there are not many options for us to choose from. I know I messed up, I treated you horribly, I abandoned our daughter, and I never made anything easy for you. I know you think I am a horrible pony, but I may have a way to turn that around and get her back. Believe it or not, I care about her just as much as you do and all I want is for her to be safe. Please just trust me on this, even if it is the only thing you do for me.”

“Fine,” Rarity said with a sigh. “In the spirit of starting over, yes, I trust you to do this.”

“Thank you. And I understand you have just as much stake in this as I do and I respect your back up plan.”

“Pardon? I honestly have no idea what you mean by that.”

“What I mean is, that I trust that if you have a back up plan, it will be in good use. We are both very stubborn ponies, but between the two of us, we will find a way.”

They made eye contact with each other and smiled.

“I have a feeling though, we will have our daughter within the week and whatever happens afterward is between us and nopony else.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes... as long as all goes well, and I am sure it will.” He smiled. “Now, if you will excuse me, you may have gotten some sleep, but I haven't. It has been a few days and we are both going to need our strength.”

He watched as she left the room, waiting until he heard the soft click of a door closing behind her. Blueblood slipped out of Carousel Boutique's door and onto the streets of Ponyville.

Author's Note

Thank you Nyerguds for proof-reading and editing this over and over again.
And thanks to everybody who is still sticking around, reading this, especially considering it's been awhile since the last update.