Daisy’s Café was as busy as it ever was at lunchtime, with all four outdoor tables filled with ponies happily eating and chatting away. Three longtime friends, having once called themselves the Cutie Mark Crusaders, took up one table, though only two of them seemed to enjoy their plates. The third was picking at her salad like it had kicked her puppy.

“You would think with the way Diamond was carryin’ on that I was tryin’ to extort her or something!” Apple Bloom, a butter-yellow earth pony mare, groused. Her cherry-red mane was long and braided and tied with a bright pink bow at the end, though the cheeriness of it did little to match her dour demeanor. “I swear, I was just tryin’ to get a fair price for what we’re sellin’ her! She’s even more of a miser than her father!”

“I’m just surprised her dad let her handle all the contracts with Sweet Apple Acres on her own!” Sweetie Belle chirped. Her relation to her older sister, Rarity, was evident to anypony that knew the two. Her snow-white coat was primped and pampered until it positively gleamed in the sunlight, and she wore a sapphire-encrusted hairband in her pink and lilac bob of a mane. “I knew Diamond was doing well at Barnyard Bargains, but that’s crazy! Rarity barely lets me work the cash register in the Boutique.”

“That’s ‘cuz, and I say this with all the love in the world, you have no mind for business, Sweetie,” Apple Bloom said.

“I do too!”

“Sweetie, didn’t you once try to spend over a thousand bits on one type of fabric? I don’t even know the first thing about fancy dress-makin’ and I wouldn’t do that!”

“But it was such pretty fabric…” Sweetie Belle whined, poking gloomily at her food. “I thought Rarity could make a lot of nice dresses out of it.”

Apple Bloom waved a hoof dismissively. “Well, maybe Rarity’s just… playing you to your strengths! She has you modelling dresses around the store, right?”

“Yup!” Sweetie Belle said, instantly brightening again. “She has me go to the Canterlot and Manehattan branches to model there, too! And sometimes she even takes me to important fashion shows and parties!”

“So see? Playin’ to your strengths! That’s what Big Mac and AJ taught me when I started helpin’ around the farm. So what if ya don’t have the mind for business? You sure have the face for one!”

Sweetie Belle seemed perfectly content accepting that as a compliment until a few moments passed, then her smile soured into a frown. “Wait… are you saying I’m dumb?”

“Nooo!” Apple Bloom denied exaggeratedly. “I’m just saying your pretty!”

“Pretty and dumb.” When Apple Bloom just gave her a smug grin in return, Sweetie Belle huffed and turned to Scootaloo. “Scoots, say I’m not dumb!”

Scootaloo said nothing as she continued to stare at the bowl of salad before her.

“Scootaloo?” Sweetie Belle asked. “Is everything okay?”

It wasn’t until Apple Bloom’s hoof collided painfully with Scootaloo’s knee that they got her attention. “Ow! What was that for?!”

“Fer ignoring us when we’re tryin’ to talk to you! Now what’s on yer mind? You haven’t said a peep since we got here!”

“It’s just…” Scootaloo mumbled, trying to stall until she decided what she wanted to say. There were so many thoughts and feelings whirling through her mind, she didn’t know where to even begin. “I went to see Nurse Redheart this morning before work.”

“Oh no,” Sweetie Belle said, her brow wrinkling in worry. “Is everything okay? Are you still getting sick in the mornings?”

“Didja have to pee on a stick?” Apple Bloom quipped, smirking deviously. Sweetie Belle shot her a look and she shrugged. “What? The exact same thing happened to AJ when she got pregnant with Ace. Maybe you an’ Will goin at it like bunnies is finally catchin’ up to ya!”

“Oh Apple Bloom, don’t even joke!” Sweetie Belle said. “She has waaay too much to do before she even thinks about having foals! She needs to think about like… her job and stuff! She can’t want to be a mailmare forever. How’s she going to be a professional scooter…er if she’s taking care of a baby? What do you even call a professional scooter-er?”

“I don’t think she’s ever even said she wants to do that,” Apple Bloom argued. “What if she wants to do something else?”

Sweetie Belle groaned and rubbed her muzzle with a hoof. “That’s not the point! Besides, it doesn’t matter anyway because she and Will can’t have foals together! It’s biologically impossible!”

“Tell that to my sister.” Apple Bloom’s smirk was practically audible. “She’s havin’ another mare’s foal.”

“GIRLS!” Scootaloo finally shouted, nearly shocking the other two out of their seats. She gave a heavy sigh. “Apparently it’s not impossible…”

A moment passed in utter silence. Both Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle blinked, their faces completely impassive.

“Did you hear me—?”

She was cut off by an ear-piercing squeal and a pair of forelegs being thrown around her neck so tightly she couldn’t breathe, let alone speak. Just as the edges of her vision were starting to darken, another set of hooves broke her free from the iron-grip.

“Sweetie, don’t strangle her now!” Apple Bloom admonished as Scootaloo gasped for breath.

“But I’m so excited!” Sweetie Belle screeched. By now, everypony at the café had turned to look at them. “You have to tell me everything! How far along are you? Is it a filly or a colt? Is it a pony or a human or something else entirely? Have you picked out a name yet? Oh, I’m so excited for you, Scoots!”

With a groan, Scootaloo let her forehead fall to the table with a thump. “How can this be happening to me?”

“’Cuz ya bumped uglies with your coltfriend while you were in heat,” Apple Bloom said. “Not the smartest move there.”

“The doctors said it was impossible!” Scootaloo argued. “We thought we were safe!”

“But if it was impossible, how did it happen?” Sweetie Belle asked. Suddenly she looked fearful and her voice dropped to barely a whisper. “Scootaloo, you weren’t… unfaithful, were you?”

“No! I would never do that!” Scootaloo pleaded. “But what else could Will think happened? What if he thinks I cheated on him and he wants to leave me? I can’t… I can’t raise a baby on my own!”

“Alright, alright, that’s enough of that,” Apple Bloom said consolingly as she moved to sit next to Scootaloo. She wrapped a foreleg about her shoulders and squeezed gently. “Let’s tackle this one step at a time, okay? Why don’tcha start by telling us everything Nurse Redheart told you?”

Scootaloo used a wingtip to rub at her suddenly wet eyes as Sweetie Belle moved to mirror Apple Bloom, rubbing gently between Scootaloo’s wings.

“Not much,” Scootaloo choked out. Coughing to clear her throat, she said, “She did a blood test and that confirmed it. I am… pregnant. Heh, t-that’s the first time I’ve said it. It’s weird…”

“What else did she say?” Apple Bloom asked.

Scootaloo shook her head. “Nothing. She said I needed to see an OB and set me up an appointment for next week. But she gave me some pamphlets to look over and… I don’t know. I left them in my locker at work.”

“When’s your appointment?” Sweetie Belle asked. “I’ll go with you!”

“Me too,” Apple Bloom agreed.

“Thanks girls,” Scootaloo said, sniffing. “I just don’t think it’s all really sunk in yet, you know? How can I be pregnant? And how am I supposed to tell Will?”

“Scootaloo, Will’s gonna understand!” Apple Bloom said. “That colt’s crazy for you! He gave up his home—”

“His family!” Sweetie Belle cut in.

“—his friends—”

“—everything he’s ever known!”

“All so he could be with you,” Apple Bloom finished. “Do you really think, after all that, he ain’t gonna give you the benefit of the doubt?”

“And besides! We’ll help you out, won’t we, Apple Bloom?” Sweetie Belle chipped in. “We’ll be aunts! So you won’t be raising the baby alone! And I’m sure Rainbow Dash will help too!”

“When she’s not away for Wonderbolts stuff,” Scootaloo groused. Then a thought struck her. “Oh no! I didn’t even think about Rainbow Dash! How am I supposed to tell her?! She’s gonna kill me!”

“Nonono! One crisis at a time!” Apple Bloom chided. “Everything’s gonna be fine! Yer gonna tell Will, and he’s gonna support ya every bit as much as we will. And so will Rainbow and yer Dad an’ everything’s gonna be fine! Now I want ya to say it with me: ‘Everything’s gonna be fine.’”

“But—”

“No buts! Say it!”

Scootaloo sighed. “Everything’s gonna be fine.”

It took several repetitions and the continued assurances before Scootaloo actually started feeling any better. Sure, she was still pregnant at eighteen and she could hear her father’s voice in her head telling her how this was going to ruin her life, but there were other voices now. Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle were there, talking about how excited they were to be aunts and how she wasn’t alone.

She wasn’t alone.

Maybe they were right. Will had given up so much just to be with her. She knew that he loved her just as much as she loved him. She just had to trust him. He was her coltfriend. The man she loved. He was loyal and supportive.

He was mature enough to be there for her when she needed him.

“So who would win in a fight: Saddle Rager or Masked Matter-horn?”

Spike scoffed over the top of his bowl of Bits and Gems cereal. “Oh please, Matter-horn no contest! With those lasers, she can take out bad guys from a mile away! Saddle Rager doesn’t stand a chance if she can’t get close to something.”

Across the small table of the Friendship Castle’s personal kitchen, Will was eating the tuna salad sandwich he’d prepared for lunch and drinking straight from a bottle of Sweet Apple Acres Brand hard cider. Most ponies might have looked at him strange for drinking straight something meant to be taken in shots or mixed with other drinks, but being as large as he was, it took quite a bit more to even get him tipsy. He would have wagered he could drink the entire bottle and still be relatively fine, but he knew Carrot Top wouldn’t appreciate the alcohol on his breath when he got back from his lunch break.

“Well yeah,” he countered, washing down his sandwich with a gulp of cider. “But Saddle Rager’s so tough she’s immune to just about everything. Remember issue number one eighty-three where the Mane-iac dropped that nuclear warhead on Maretropolis and Saddle Rager tried to sacrifice herself to save the city by jumping on the bomb? And it somehow worked? She walked away from it without a scratch! Who’s to say Matter-horn’s lasers would work where a nuclear bomb couldn’t?”

“The idea of a nuclear bomb being stopped by a single body, no matter how indestructible, is completely ridiculous,” came a disdainful voice from the doorway. Spike ignored Twilight as she cantered towards the table with a plate in the grip of her magic and took a seat next to him.

“Twilight, it’s not about what’s scientifically possible…” he tried to argue but Twilight wouldn’t be deterred.

“The real threat of a nuclear bomb isn’t even the explosion itself, even if that would be quite devastating if done in the middle of a crowded city. The problem would be the radiation afterward. Depending on the size of the bomb in question, the destruction could be quite widespread.”

“You just know how to take the fun out of everything, don’t you, Twi?” he grumbled. He pointedly ignored her smug grin as he took another bite of his cereal.

She giggled in amusement and fondly ruffled the spines on top of his head. Finally she turned to Will as she started eating. “Good afternoon, Will. How’s work?”

“Fine; mostly same old same old. Yourself?”

“Very well actually!” she said, beaming with pride. “Just yesterday I got to take a trip to Manehattan to help with a friendship problem and I got to see Coco, one of our old friends! It was very nice to catch up with her again! And I finished the rough draft for a treaty Princess Celestia asked me to write. It’s going to help define some trade regulations regarding fine metals and gems mined in frontier lands between Equestria and Griffonstone. You see, there are a number of unclaimed areas between our two nations that are self-ruled and—”

“Twilight, you’re rambling,” Spike said, earning a frown from Twilight as she stuck out her tongue at him. Will could practically see the lightbulb go off over Spike’s head when his grin suddenly became devious. “So, how’s your pen pal?”

The way he said it made it quite clear he was talking about anything but a pen pal. Will’s interest was piqued.

“A pen pal, huh? How come you’ve never told me about them before?” he asked.

Twilight huffed and shuffled her wings awkwardly. “To be fair, there are a lot of things I’ve never told you. She’s just an old friend that travels a lot, so we have to exchange letters to keep up with each other. And we mostly just talk about magic, so she never really came up when we talked! It’s not like I was trying to keep it from you or anything…”

“Just talking about magic, huh?” Spike asked disbelievingly. “Is that why you stay up late reading her letters while giggling like a schoolfilly with her first crush?”

“Spike!” Twilight warned ominously. Even from across the table, Will could see the rosy hue glowing from her cheeks. “She sometimes tells me about the shows she puts on or the ponies she meets! A-and she’s got a great sense of humor! I don’t know where you’ve gotten this idea in your head that there is anything more going on there, but it’s completely ridiculous!”

“Oh Trixie!” Spike said, putting on a farcical imitation of Twilight’s voice. “She’s soooo smart! Did I tell you how she helped me solve Clover’s Quantum Aetheric Conundrum? I never would have thought to bridge the polarized lobes with a third channeling circle! It’s genius!”

Twilight groaned and rolled her eyes while Spike continued unabated.

“Spike, Trixie just lent me her personal spellbook! It had detailed notes on how she casts all of her pyrotechnic spells! I’ve never found illusion-based magic all that interesting, but these are fascinating!”

“Alright, Spike, that’s enough,” Twilight warned.

“Definitely sounds like a crush to me,” Will chipped in, causing Twilight to turn the full extent of her glare on him instead. Spike just reached across the table for a fist bump.

Twilight groaned aloud. “You’ve been spending too much time with Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo; you both just have relationships on the mind!”

“Well that’s what adults do, Twilight,” Will said. “They grow up, they have relationships. Then they build a life with those relationships.”

“I am an adult!” Twilight shouted as she pounded her hooves on the table.

Feeling like they might have taken things a bit too far, Will relented and patted her hoof gently. “Don’t worry, Twilight, we’re just giving you a hard time! Whatever’s going on between you and this Trixie is your business, not ours.”

“There’s gonna be a lot going on next weekend…” Spike said under his breath.

Will wordlessly asked the question on his mind and Twilight sighed in defeat.

“Trixie’s coming up to visit next weekend. It’s her first time back to Ponyville in a long time.”

“They’re going to have a lot of catching up to do,” Spike said, waggling his eyebrows suggestively. “Bow chicka bow wow!”

Twilight groaned and looked down to her plate, having completely given up. Will just smirked as he shrugged.

“Sounds like me and Scoots after the last time Rarity needed me to visit Canterlot with her. We made up for lost time, let me tell you!”

“How is Scootaloo, by the way?” Twilight asked in a desperate attempt to change the subject.

Of course, thinking of Scootaloo only brought to mind that she’d visited the nurse that morning and he still didn’t know how it had gone.

“She’s great,” he lied. “She’s fitting in really well now that she’s on the delivery route instead of in the sorting room all day. She likes getting to go out and stretch her wings. Oh hey, speaking of mail…” He paused to withdraw a sealed letter from the pocket of his jeans. “I got another letter for my family. Mind sending it through when you can?”

“Of course!” Twilight said, taking it with her magic. “Oh! You should come with me if you have the time! I have some good news about the portal!”

Will glanced at his watch. “Uh… sure! If it’s about the portal, Carrot won’t mind if I’m a few minutes late.”

He hurried to finish his plate and when they were all done, Twilight led the way to an out of the way guestroom on the second floor. It had been emptied out of the bed and other such commodities, leaving instead only a tall vanity mirror standing on a small platform in the middle of the room. Though it looked much like any other antique mirror, there was something odd about the way the reflection seemed to glimmer without cause. It was facing away from the curtained windows and the only other light was the steady glow of the enchanted luminescent lights on the wall.

Spike leaned casually against the wall trying to look cool while Twilight trotted straight towards the mirror and hopped up onto the platform. With a surge of her magic, a dark purple oval-shaped gem fastened to the top of the mirror began to glow and the strange glittering on the mirror grew in intensity as a faint hum filled the air. Without further ado, she tossed Will’s letter at the mirror and, with a ripple not unlike a pebble thrown into a lake, it disappeared through the glass.

“Don’t things we throw through just pop up by that lake?” Spike asked. “You know, where the portal comes out on the other side?”

“Yeah, but its right behind my parents’ house,” Will answered. “My mom says she checks almost every day to see if I’ve sent something through.”

“Awww, I remember when we first moved to Ponyville,” Twilight said. “Mom and Dad sent letters almost every day just to check in. They did the same thing back when I moved into the Palace to be Princess Celestia’s student. Spike was too young to remember that one, though. He was still in diapers!”

Spike coughed uncomfortably while Will sniggered. “Twilight, weren’t you going to tell Will about the portal?”

“Oh yes, of course!” Twilight said. She cleared her throat and suddenly there was a pop! of her magic as a clipboard and a pair of reading glasses appeared in the air in front of her. She placed the glasses on her nose as she perused a number of pages.

“As of 10:00pm last night, I completed test number 17, the long term live stability test. The portal remained open for an entire month straight while I recorded daily readings on aetheric currents and discharge. All readings remained constant with no unexplained spikes, dips or fluctuations. Upon compiling all the data, no anomalies were found. The portal remained completely stable throughout the entirety of the test with no observed detrimental effects!”

Will clicked his tongue as the words washed over him. After several minutes of failing to make sense of them, he shook his head. “You lost me. What does any of that mean?”

Spike laughed. “It means the portal can stay open for long periods of time and nothing bad will happen.”

“Oh! Well that’s good, right?” Will asked.

“Very good, actually!” Twilight continued unabated by the interruption. “Now I know the portal can be safely opened under a variety of circumstances, including varying times and aetheric seasons; it can be opened multiple times in short succession; items can be sent through of varying size and complexity with no observable damage to either the portal or item even on a molecular level; as well—”

“Twilight, get to the point,” Spike suddenly said. Though Twilight frowned and grumbled under her breath, Will was happy for the interruption as everything she was rambling about was flying so far over his head it might as well be in Cloudsdale.

“Fine, to put it simply: I’ve performed every test I can think of on the portal and every one of them has come back with the same result. The portal to Earth, as far as I can tell, is both stable and reliable. I can say with 99.99999% certainty that you can now safely use the portal anytime you wish.”

The breath caught in Will’s throat. It took a moment for her words to sink in. “So, wait… All the testing –all of it, not just this one round– is done? There’s no more? The months of waiting and not being able to do any more than send my family a letter… it’s over? I can go through again?”

A wide, joyous smile bloomed across Twilight’s face. She nodded. “You can go through anytime you want.”

A second passed in silence.

Then another.

Finally, a joyous cry split the air as Will rushed towards Twilight and scooped her up into his arms. She laughed and held on for dear life as he jumped and twirled her around, all the while still cheering like a maniac.

“Oh Twilight, thankyouthankyouthankyou so much!” he said, and then he planted a big kiss on her cheek.

“Alright, alright! Yes, you’re very welcome, Will!” Twilight said, pushing him away. “Now quit! Your stubble tickles!”

Will chuckled to himself and acquiesced to put her down. Standing back up, he ran his hand along the smooth wooden frame of the portal. He could finally go back! Seeing Sarah those months ago had only made him miss his family even more than before, and only being able to send them letters until Twilight finished her testing to ensure everything was safe had been hell. But it was finally over! He could see them again anytime he wanted. They could finally catch up face to face. Maybe they could even come to see his new home here in Equestria. And they could meet Scootaloo and—

The breath caught in Will’s throat. They could finally meet Scootaloo.

“Oh no…” he muttered.

A heavy weight sat in Scootaloo’s stomach as she trudged home from the post office. She’d spent all afternoon distracted, nearly delivering the wrong mail to the wrong address several times as she made her way through her route. By the time she’d packed her uniform and cap away in her locker and strapped on her saddlebags, she was ready for some rest.

Not that she’d get it with what she faced at home. How could she tell Will that apparently the impossible had happened? Though talking with the girls had done much to settle her worries, she couldn’t deny that some lingering dread still lurked in the back of her mind.

But even before she got to whether or not he believed her, there was still the matter of how to tell him. She couldn’t just blurt it out. She’d have to lead into it somehow; ease him into the news. But how? They’d never really talked about having foals before. Sure, he’d made a passing statement about wanting foals once after Carrot Top’s baby was born, but she didn’t know if that was just an in the moment thing or if he really meant it. Even more, he might have meant that he wanted them some day in the future, not now!

By the time she reached the small cottage she’d come to call home, she still hadn’t thought of anything to say. For the first time she could remember, she dearly wished that Will didn’t get off work before she did as she opened the front door and let herself inside.

The living room was empty as she dumped her saddle bags by the couch, as was the kitchen and what she could see of the backyard through the sliding glass door. Continuing down the hall, she heard movement from within their bedroom.

Inside, Will had his back to her as he was shuffling through a stack of photographs. A large white packet lay empty on the bed before him. They had a dozen of them lying around from when Will got his films developed at Shutterbug’s gallery.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hey, babe,” Will said distractedly over his shoulder. Suddenly he laughed. “Here, come look at this!”

She trotted over and hopped up onto the bed where Will absent-mindedly scratched the back of her head while showing her a picture of the two of them smiling at the camera. Will had taken it himself when she moved in to his cottage –now their cottage– and she was sitting atop a stack of boxes to prove it. He had joked back then that it was the only time she’d been eye-level with him without flying.

Speaking of flying, her big sister, Rainbow Dash, was hovering in the air between them, a foreleg wrapped around each of their shoulders. She had taken a day off from Wonderbolts Training just to come celebrate the move with them.

It’d been the first time they’d seen her in a month.

It had gotten better after Rainbow had gotten out of training and had a little more free time, but it was never how it used to be.

“That was a good day,” Scootaloo said softly. She leaned in and lost herself in the comfort of Will’s fingers. “Speaking of days, how was yours?”

“Yeah… it was fine…” he mumbled, still looking at the picture.

She knew what he was thinking about. She knew why he always went quiet when he thought about Rainbow. Unconsciously, her eyes went to the bedside table, where hidden in the back of the drawer was a light blue feather that he thought she didn’t know about. But she did. She had found it long ago. It didn’t bother her that he kept it; if anything, she would have done the same thing.

Rainbow leaving hadn’t been easy on either of them.

“Uh… anyway,” he said, shaking his head as he put the pictures away. “How was the appointment? What’d the nurse say?”

A lump formed in Scootaloo’s throat. It was time. Do or die. She just had to tell him and hope.

“Umm… It, uh… I don’t know how to tell you,” she muttered.

The change that came over Will’s face was so fast and abrupt that Scootaloo imagined the sound of a wagon crashing. He sat down on the bed beside her so that they were closer to each other’s level, his small brown eyes searching deep into hers.

“Scootaloo, what is it? What’d Redheart say? Is it something serious?” he asked in a rush.

Realizing how she’d made it sound, Scootaloo rushed to quell his fears by nuzzling his shoulder comfortingly. “Oh no, it’s nothing like that! I mean, it is serious, but not, like… life-threatening or anything! It’s, um… i-it’s…”

She gulped.

“The nausea is morning sickness. Do you… know what that is?”

A look of dreadful understanding appeared across Will’s face. His voice was low and quiet as he said, “I know what it means in humans…”

Her heart plummeted like a rock into her stomach. Why couldn’t he have sounded excited? She wasn’t sure exactly how much better that would have been, but still!

“Well, in ponies it means that, um… a mare’s… pregnant.”

Scootaloo half-expected him to yell. Or get mad. Or even scowl. She expected any reaction at all. But instead it seemed like he didn’t even hear her. His face didn’t so much as twitch; he just sat there looking at her with the same inscrutable expression.

A moment passed and then another. All the while Scootaloo’s heart was pounding in her chest. Each passing second put more fuel on the fire of her nerves until she felt like she might pass out just from the tension.

It was only when she had opened her mouth to ask if he had understood that he finally reacted: his gaze hardened and he pointedly looked away from her to the floor.

“How?” was all he asked. There was no outright hostility in his voice, but she knew him well enough to hear the barely restrained hurt.

She leaned closer and he pulled away. She didn’t let that stop her as she nuzzled into his shoulder like she was afraid he’d drift away if she stopped. “Will, please, I know what you’re thinking but I didn’t! I never cheated on you, I swear!”

“Then how?!” he barked.

“I don’t know! Will, y-you’re… You’re the only guy I’ve ever been with. Ever. And…” She put her hoof on his chin and nudged him so that he was looking at her again, even though he fought it at first. Closing her eyes, she placed her forehead against his. “You’re the only one I ever want to be with. I love you, Will. I love you so much. And I don’t know how it’s possible, but it is. It is yours. Please… believe me.”

She couldn’t bear opening her eyes. She waited with bated breath, hoping and praying that he would say something. His hand touched her side and she jumped in surprise. A moment later he let out a long, weary breath.

“Okay,” he whispered.

Scootaloo’s eyes popped open to see Will’s own half-lidded, looking down between them. “Y-you believe me?!” she asked, her voice cracking in her surprise.

He cracked a wry smile. “Yeah, I guess I do. I know you wouldn’t do that, but… It’s just so much to take in! It was supposed to be impossible! What exactly did Redheart say?”

Relief flooded through Scootaloo, and instantly she felt a thousand pounds lighter. They still weren’t out of the woods and she knew that, but at least Will believed her.

She shrugged and shook her head. “Not much, really. She only did a blood test that confirmed it. She scheduled me with an OB at the hospital next week though, so we should hopefully get some more answers then. I just… I don’t know.”

Will must have sensed that she could use some comforting, because without prompting he wrapped and arm around her and pulled her close. She leaned happily into his embrace.

“So, a baby, huh?” he mused aloud. “Do we know if it’s, like… a pony or a human or…? I don’t know, some kind of freaky hybrid?”

She let out a pained groan and shook her head.

“Sorry,” he said, chuckling. “Still, we’re having a baby!” He didn’t sound like he dreaded the idea. If anything, he almost sounded like he was interested. “I wasn’t expecting it so soon, though. Have you thought about what you want to do…?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, like do you want to keep it? Or…?”

She sighed and shook her head. “No, I haven’t. I’m still waiting for it to really sink in, you know? I can’t think about any of that right now. Not tonight. We can worry about it tomorrow, can’t we? Please? I just want… I don’t even know what I want.”

It was all just too much for her. It had only been a single day and yet it felt like her entire world had been turned upside down. Things didn’t feel as hopeless now that she knew Will was on her side; instead she just felt like she’d run a hundred miles in the last five minutes.

“You know what I want?” she finally asked, breaking the silence. “I want to order some pizza, watch a crappy movie and take the night off! Everything else can wait. And you know what else I want? I want sex!”

Will chuckled at her exuberant outburst and leaned in to nibble her ear, causing her to purr happily. “You want that before or after the pizza and crappy movie?” he asked.

She thought for a moment. “After the pizza. We’ll need something fun to do when we get bored during the crappy movie!” she said like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“Pizza then movie then sex it is!” Will said. He reached up and scratched his fingers through her mane in the way she loved so much. It was comforting, sort of like how her dad groomed her when she was really little. She just felt safe and secure.

They both sat there a while, neither quite wanting to move and end the moment. It had been such a long day, and for all the things she’d been told, first by Nurse Redheart, then the girls and Will himself, it still felt like nothing had actually been resolved. The creeping doubts she tried to push back refused to be quelled entirely. Nor would they, she felt, until they got some answers, but that would have to wait.

Eventually a small scratching sound came from outside the bedroom door before it opened and their pet tortoise, Tank, popped his head in. Scootaloo smiled at his wrinkly green face. He wasn’t technically their pet, of course; he technically belonged to her big sister, Rainbow Dash and they were just watching him. But over time they’d come to consider him part of their little family regardless.

“Looks like someone else is hungry, too,” Will said as Tank trundled slowly across the room, even though the tortoise had given no sign of being so. “Should we go order that pizza, then?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Scootaloo sighed and regretfully slid off his lap so he could stand. She patted Tank’s head fondly, all the while still feeling hesitant. “Will?”

“Yeah, babe?” he asked, stopping at the door.

She thought over her words carefully. “We’re gonna get through this, right? Everything’s gonna be okay?”

She chanced a look up and found him smiling comfortingly. “You’re just pregnant, Scoots. It’s not going to be the end of the world. We’ll just take it all one step at a time. Together.”

“Together,” she affirmed, feeling just the tiniest bit more confident.

Scootaloo stepped out of the shower, running a towel through her mane. It was a little embarrassing having to use a foal’s stool to be able to get over the lip of the tub, but Will needed it to fit his stupid huge body. So she had to compromise, but in the grand scheme of things she felt it wasn’t all that bad. It was worth it to be able to bathe with him and have him run his hands all over her body. Normally they bathed together more often than not, but this time she was alone as he’d volunteered to run out to grab their dinner.

She sighed as she caught sight of her reflection in the mirror. Eighteen and pregnant. She may not have ever been the goody four-shoes that Sweetie Belle was but she never imagined that’d be her. She had never even thought about foals until Will and his dumb face came into her life. Then he made her love him and nearly left her all alone but then came back and swept her off her hooves and now look at her.

It was all his fault.

A tired chuckle escaped her as she finished drying her mane and did the same for her tail. Even if it wasn’t entirely his fault it still felt good to pretend it was. She’d just make it up to him tonight.

Like he’d heard her thoughts and came running, she heard the front door open and close. Throwing her towel into the hamper, she trotted out to see Will sitting a pizza box on the living room table, along with a six pack of cider bottles.

“Oh thank you, I can’t tell you how much I need this!” Scootaloo said in relief, trotting past him to grab a bottle and crack it open. Upon taking a drink, however, she found herself disappointed. “This is just regular! Since when do we not drink hard cider?”

Will lowered himself to the floor to sit next to her and rested his back against the couch. “Since you’re pregnant and can’t drink alcohol anymore.”

Scootaloo found herself speechless when she realized he was right.

But that didn’t last forever.

“DAMMIT!” With a frustrated groan, she slumped to the floor and let her head fall to the table with a loud thud! “I just got to start drinking and now I have to stop!”

Will, being the jerk that he was, laughed at her misery even as he offered her a comforting back rub. “C’mon, it’s not so bad! It’s only going to be for the next few months, right? I’ll even stop drinking with you, how does that sound?”

She rolled her head upon the table so that she could give him a deadpan stare. “Sounds like we’re both going to be pissy.”

Will rolled his eyes as he opened the pizza box and grabbed a slice. “Then we’ll just have to have more sex to work off the extra stress.”

She considered the thought as he offered her his slice and she took a bite. “Mm. I guess that wouldn’t be so bad. Are you still going to want to sleep with me when I’m as fat as a cow?”

“You know, I don’t think Bessy over at Sweet Apple Acres would appreciate that stereotype,” Will admonished.

Scootaloo couldn’t help but smirk despite herself. “Shut up! I’m trying to be moody here!”

Will grinned and leaned in to kiss her forehead. “Babe, I would still think you were the sexiest mare in the world even if you had the biggest pregnant belly in the world. Maybe we’ll get lucky and you have triplets in there!”

“LUCKY?!” she yelped. “Celestia help me, Will, don’t even joke! That would break my vagina! Is that what you want? Me to have a broken vagina?”

“No, I suppose not,” Will said solemnly. “I definitely like your vagina not broken.”

Scootaloo nodded with authority as she stood and hopped up onto the couch with a flutter of her wings. “Now, put in the movie and pull the table closer so I can reach the pizza. I need to not think about babies right now.”

“Yes, Princess,” Will said, giving as much of a sarcastic bow as he could from his sitting position before getting up to do as she ordered. Scootaloo had to admit she got a certain rush of satisfaction in bossing him around.

The feeling was replaced by affection as she saw the title of the movie pop up onscreen. “Awww, Nightmare on Saddle Street 4, my favorite!”

Will smiled as he took a spot next to her. “I figured if you aren’t feeling good, what other movie could you want to watch?”

“I knew there was a reason I loved you,” she said lovingly as she went to kiss him. She had to stand up on the tips of her hooves to reach, even sitting down as he was. Once they broke apart, she helped herself to her own slice of pizza and settled in to watch the movie.

She lay on her side with her head resting in Will’s lap. His thigh, she had found, was the exact perfect height for her to lay her head on comfortably, and being so close to him always –and that means always– ended up with Will’s hand on her somehow. This time, he was slowly stroking along her side, just under her wing from shoulder to just short of her cutie mark.

As they were wont to do anytime they were together for any length of time, Scootaloo and Will couldn’t help but mess with each other. It started with Will licking his finger and sticking it in her ear. To which Scootaloo decided to lick the slice of pizza he was trying to eat, which didn’t seem to faze him in the slightest when he ate it anyway. However he responded by pinching a particularly sensitive spot under her wing that sent her into a fit of laughter as she tried to fight him off.

Her struggles only prompted him to renew his efforts to tickle her and the next thing she knew she was half-sprawled across his lap, gasping for air as he continued to dig his fingers into her stomach and thighs. They moved in wicked little circles, setting her skin alight with each slight movement.

“S-stop! Haha! St-STOP!” she yelled, jerking to one side in an effort to protect the thigh he was aiming for only to open the other to another assault. She even tried biting his arm when it came close –not hard, of course, even in the moment she didn’t want to hurt him… too much– but he just twisted it away and instead went for pit of her foreleg.

“AGH! NOnonoNO!” she squealed, completely at his mercy.

Finally he stopped and she was able to take in a breath of fresh air. The moment of respite didn’t last long however as she immediately found an arm wrapped tightly around her middle and the next thing she knew she was upside down.

He had her pinned to his chest facing away from him, hanging from his grasp as he returned to tickling her thighs with gusto. Only this time, he also danced his hand around the rest of her lower half, hitting in turn from her haunches to her cutie marks and even around and under her tail. And every time she tried to protect one place as best as she could with the limited reach her position offered, he simply backed off and attacked somewhere else.

So distracted was she by his fingers and the fact she couldn’t breathe from laughing so much that it took her almost a minute to realize that Will’s tongue was inside her. His cheeks were smooshed between her own with his chin wedged up underneath her tail. He wriggled the long wet muscle from side to side, rolling up and down; everything he could seemingly do to hit every inch of her insides. And every time his tongue slid across that one spot inside her, the one that he had helped her find with his amazing, treacherous little fingers, an electric pulse of pleasure raced throughout her body.

All the while his fingers continued dancing across her stomach, legs, and most notably, her hip joints and teats. Her body was hyper-sensitive from the tickling. Every single twitch he made left her skin on fire.

It wasn’t until a great feeling of release wracked her body in unbelievable pleasure, cumming harder than she could ever remember, that she even realized she was turned on.

When the bliss had passed, she found herself lying across Will’s lap. He had finally stopped tickling her –his hands instead lovingly brushing her mane out of her face– and her breathing was slowly returning to normal.

“I don’t know…” Scootaloo said between deep breaths, “whether I love you… or hate you right now!”

“You know you love me!” he countered like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “I’m completely irresistible.”

“Oh, yeah, toootally irresistible,” she said, rolling her eyes. With nothing else to focus on, she glanced at the TV to see the final scene of the movie playing. “Aww, you made me miss everything!”

Will also looked at the screen and shrugged. “Wasn’t what we did more fun though?”

Scootaloo reluctantly nodded regardless of how much she liked saying he was right. Finally she took a deep breath and held her forelegs straight up in the air. “Alright, help me up, jerk.”

“Where’re you going?” Will asked even as he lifted her up and onto her hooves. Rather than walk away, however, she instead flopped down onto her side on the couch next to him.

In response, she extended a hindleg to brush her hoof across the obvious tent in the front of his pants. “I wasn’t the only one who liked all that, I can see. Now I want something a little more… filling, Dear.”

A wide, dopey grin that he probably thought looked suave came across Will’s face at her words. Shrugging like he was resigning himself to his fate, he began unbuttoning his pants as he lay down behind her. The couch bounced as he shimmied the jeans down his hips and she couldn’t help an eager smile as he lifted them over her to drop them to the floor.

Before anything else, he kissed her neck. Long and tender, he held there sucking at her skin and fur; his breath blasting across her coat in hot bursts. His hands returned to her sides, though this time not to tickle but to hold. The rough callouses on his knuckles scratched her skin oh-so-pleasantly as he rubbed down across her chest and stomach.

Finally something warm and firm prodded against her folds and she shivered at the familiar and welcomed contact.

“You know,” Will whispered into her ear between nibbles, “this is how we got in this mess in the first place.”

“True. But we can’t make it any worse so we might as well make the most of it!”

He took a moment to consider that. “Hmm. Also true.”

With a single thrust he was inside. His member, throbbing to the beat of his heart, felt like it belonged within her, as if he was perfectly designed just for her. His length just long enough to kiss the entrance of her womb, his girth just enough to stretch her sensitive walls oh sooo wonderfully. Even his tapered head, a bit strange compared to pony anatomy, allowed him to enter her smoothly, then rub all the right places as he pulled out. She felt whole when he was inside her. Filled. Completed.

It was perfect.

Scootaloo could remember the first time they’d been intimate. Will had been so gentle – so loving, like he’d been afraid he’d hurt her if he went too hard. In the time since, they’d had plenty of time to practice and learn about each other and he had learned one thing about her.

She was not so fragile.

She may have been smaller than some mares. She was kind of short and skinny, and she was practically tiny compared to how freakishly large he was on his weird two legs, but she could more than take anything he could throw at her.

There was no need for him to hold back and so he didn’t. He pulled back until even his head slipped out from her grasp, leaving her whining in disappointment, only to slam back into her with all the force he could muster. His hips colliding with her haunches pushed her across the couch, leaving him to have to hold her even tighter and pull her back into him. The force left her gasping as a bolt of bliss that shot up her spine.

“I-is that the best you’ve got?” she muttered before he could get situated to go again. “E-even Sweetie Belle could –ungh– go harder th-than that!”

“Why?” he asked, giving her a series of quick, short thrusts, leaving her feeling suddenly breathless. “You know that from experience?”

With her mind on other things, like the dick that currently felt like it was close to splitting her open, it took her a moment to realize what she had implied, but once it dawned on her she felt her cheeks going crimson.

“Sh-shut up and fuck me!” she muttered embarrassedly.

But he didn’t. Instead, one of his hands wormed underneath her while the other grabbed her stomach. The next thing she knew she was on her back with Will’s stupidly cute face smirking down at her. The whole time his member had stayed inside her, and even if feeling it swivel inside her hadn’t been pleasant enough, as he pushed deeper his tip brushed that one particular spot that sent shivers through her legs and nearly shut down her brain with arousal. It was like all the sensitivity of her walls were duplicated and put into that one little inch of flesh. And from the position they were in, he ran right against it every time he so much as breathed!

Scootaloo felt like she was going out of her mind with all the sensation bombarding her. Every twitch, every inch of his member sliding in and out of her without stop – without recourse or remorse – left her feeling like she was drowning in a sea of endless, agonizing, tantalizing tingles that refused to let up or give in.

She had to grab on to something just to feel like she wouldn’t drift away. Her hooves scrabbled for the first things they could find: one on the couch, and one on Will’s side. She trailed it down across his smooth skin onto his stomach, where she could feel every flex of his strong abdominal muscles.

Suddenly his hand was on her hoof and she grabbed it like it was her only hope.

The dam broke.

She was lost in the rush as everything went white.

Everything was hot when she finally floated back down to the world around her. Hot and distinctly wet, especially around her haunches and tail. But she also felt a very, very pleasant warmth sitting just below her stomach and smiled.

The overworked nerves of her folds flared in protest as Will slid out of her, making her wince. Feeling immensely comfortable, she settled down into his embrace as he wrapped her tight in his arms.

“Will?” she whispered just before sleep began to take hold. “No matter what happens, I love you.”

Silently, he leaned down to place a kiss on the top of her head before cuddling up next to her. “No matter what happens,” he echoed.

And then, as they lay in the dim light of a long forgotten movie playing on the TV, all she knew was relief.

Will lay awake as he watched the blank TV screen. The movie had long since stopped. Scootaloo was fast asleep –not an uncommon affair after a particularly passionate session of love-making– and normally he would have joined her, but not tonight. Tonight, insomnia kept him up.

He continued to scratch at the back of her mane while she snored softly, like she was purring. The gesture had certainly become a comforting one for him nearly as much as it was for her and at that moment his nerves needed soothing. Everything she had told him, all the fears and worries he’d been too proud to share whirled in his head like a swarm of buzzing hornets.

Sure he had thought about having kids someday. But he hadn’t expected it to be anytime soon, let alone his own! He had thought in a few more years when Scootaloo was older they’d talk about adoption or something. And now here they were, possibly having a baby when they weren’t even married. Hell, they hadn’t even been dating a year! He wasn’t ready to be a parent and he highly doubted Scootaloo was, either.

But what was done was done, he realized. The only thing they could do was accept it and move forward.

He shuddered at the thought of having to tell Scootaloo’s dad, Flip Trick, that she was pregnant. Let alone Rainbow Dash and her parents, who were every bit as protective of her as Flip was. And that wasn’t even getting started at the prospect of telling his own parents.

He sighed.

“Scoots,” he whispered, “how am I supposed to tell my family I got you pregnant?”

Of course, she had no answers for him. Not that he had expected her to, even if she had been awake. But still, the question plagued his mind.

How was he supposed to tell them he was having a baby, when most of them didn’t even know he was dating a pony?

Author's Note

This chapter was written with a ton of help from my good friend, PuPu.