Care from the Heart

by Amethyst_Dawn

Rating: teen
Tags: Slice of Life, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Sad, Nurse Redheart, Other, Romance, Second Person, Rainbow Dash
Length: 4362

You've always chased one dream, one goal in life... to be a hero. You just... never understood what that might cost. Now, two attractive mares are getting closer to you as time passes...

You've always chased one dream, one goal in life... to be a hero. You've worked for it day in and day out, and it has cost you so much that it's starting to worry those around you. Two mares in particular seem especially frightened as they each grow closer to you.

Two Mares, Two Memories, One Love.

Whom will you choose?

Published 2017-04-19 22:20:01 UTC
Last updated 2017-04-20 16:38:30 UTC

Care from the Heart

You wince as the wheelchair hits another rock, biting your lip as pain shoots through your leg. Much to your annoyance, the nurse pushing you down the hospital path chuckles slightly.

"Maybe this will help you remember not to attempt stunts like that in the future?" She scolds. "I swear, this is the third time this week! You really ought to be more careful..."

You merely cross your forearms and ignore her as she babbles on. While she did have a right to lecture you, as this is indeed the third time you've come in for the same hind leg fracture, you've already received this talk from the head nurse: Redheart. You feel a slight flitter in your stomach just thinking about her, but you quickly quell it, attributing it to motion sickness.

"... in fact," Nurse Plaster droned on as she stopped at the end of the path, "I'm starting to wonder if that troublesome weather mare is a bad influence on you!"

As much as you'd love to ignore that comment, she pushed the wrong button at the wrong time. Seething, you wheel around to face her as you step off the wheelchair.

"Look, I know you're not exactly her biggest fan, but she's survived more than you could even dream of!" You bark defensively. The nosy old mare clearly takes the hint of what she could and couldn't get away with around you, as she clamps her mouth shut.

With a satisfied snort, you turn away, and start down the path with a painful limp. You only needed to get home and rest for the rest of the day, and then you'll be back in business. No dumb fractured femur is going to keep you down for longer than that!

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Three Months Prior -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

"Hey, you!"

You stopped in your tracks, still around a mile outside of Ponyville, and swiveled your head skywards once you heard the strange beckoning. You were no stranger to the reputation of the pony behind that voice. In fact, she was the main reason you'd even left your hometown.

"I'm up here, dummy!" She shouted again, prompting you to look up. And there she was: the great Rainbow Dash.

You've always had your fair share of daydreams as to what she would look like in person, but none of them even came close to what you saw that day: her mane flowed in the wind like a prismatic mountain brook, and her cocky smile and relaxed, toned figure painted her into the likeness of a restful panther. Her eyes, however, presented something else entirely. They yearned for adventure, and hungered for a worthy challenge. All while glinting like light amethysts in the afternoon sun.

You find that the breath has been siphoned from your lungs, and your heartbeat is rocketing as your knees grow weaker and weaker. Your throat becomes so dry that you'd swear you tried to swallow a bucket of cinnamon. She seems to notice, much to your dismay, as she cocks her head to the side with a concerned look.

"Hey, pal, you alright?"

No, not even. Your face feels fresh from an oven, and the sound of her voice isn't really helping your condition any.

"I-... uh... I was looking for you, actually..." you stammer stupidly, before kicking yourself in the shin.

"Subtle," you grumble to yourself, "real subtle..."

You feel relief, however, once her smile only grows.

"Lemme guess," she chuckles, rubbing her chest proudly with a hoof: and examining it for dust, "you've heard about my awesomeness, and after journeying across Equestria, you want me to teach you the ways of coolness?"

You feel your jaw slacken slightly as you just stare at her, mind all but blown as she'd hit the nail on the head.

After noticing your silence, she looks back down at you. It doesn't take a second for her smile to drop into a shocked expression.

"Wait, really?!"

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Present Day -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

You smile at the memory as you near the edge of town: it had taken little persuading after that for her to start teaching you all she knew, and you'd taken to doing stunts like a cat to warm milk. As the tricks got harder, however, your expertise began to lack immensely. But, you didn't come all this way to quit now, so you kept on trying.

Unfortunately for you, though, these stunts you keep attempting tend to land you in Ponyville General more often than not. It's even gotten to the point where you have your own room reserved for every other day, directly under the care of nurse Redheart.

Sure, it hurts each time you crash, and maybe you've broken most every bone in your body at least once, but you are determined to become a great hero someday: and heroes don't come out of nowhere.

Besides, it's not like your numerous visits to the hospital didn't have their upsides as well: good food, warm cots, friendly staff. And, most notably of all, Head Nurse Redheart.

You've certainly enjoyed the countless chats you've had with the dedicated nurse, as each of you didn't really get much of a social life. You feel partially responsible for the lack of action in her life, but she lights up like a star whenever she sees you in the waiting room. She’s one of the few ponies you feel comfortable calling a friend.

You smile again as you remember the first time you were sent to her care...

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Two Months Prior -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

You shout in pain as the foal next to you pokes the leg you're holding curiously, startling everypony in the waiting room. The mother apologizes profusely, but you quickly assure both her and her teared-up son that it's nothing to worry about.

Eesh, some ponies can be so sensitive. Besides, it's not his fault that you hurt your foreleg by jumping off a cliff. Rainbow should really be more clear as to when it’s an actual dare, and when it's a joke. Either that or you need to work on not zoning out in her eyes when she's talking, but hey, they're distracting!

"Anon?"

You smile, and lift your good leg. "Here!"

The receptionist looks over to you, and frowns nervously at the sight of your foreleg. "Uhh... shouldn't you be in the emergency room?" He calls over.

You wince painfully as you look down, seeing the bone nearly poking out of your skin, and look back up with a shrug. "I didn't think it was that serious."

"It's broken." He states blankly.

"Yeah?"

For some reason, the receptionist finds it necessary to massage his brow. You can't help but wonder at the odd fellow, and you hope he doesn't suffer from these headaches often.

"Nevermind," he groans, "Nurse Redheart will be in to see you short--"

"Don't bother calling, Bell, I'm here now."

You turn to see the source of the feminine voice, and quirk your brow at the sight of the owner. She was a rather attractive mare, with a soft pink mane and ivory coat, and you make a mental note of her manestyle. More specifically, how you think she should just let her mane fall naturally, instead of keeping it in a bun.

Then again, that might just be the result of you constantly clinging around Rainbow.

She gives you a weird look, like a teacher who just caught you throwing spitwads at the bratty kids in class, but who doesn’t know if they should scold you or award you. Shaking her head with a slight chuckle, she walks up to you and extends her hoof.

“Something tells me I’m going to be seeing a lot of you, sir.”

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Present Day -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

You chuckle humorously as you remember that the first time you saw her, you had broken the exact same leg you had gone in for today. You twist the doorknob, and unceremoniously enter your own personal suite. The inside of your house is humble at best, and can be generously described as ‘lived in’. And while you might not be the tidiest of ponies, but at least you can keep your home clean enough to navigate.

Carelessly, you sweep some old clothes off your couch- which you note as odd, given that you don’t remember the last time you even wore clothes -and plop yourself lazily onto its welcoming cushions…

… before immediately regretting that decision, as your leg protests your actions vehemently.

Groaning in pain, you still jump slightly when you hear a knock at the door.

“Come in, RD,” you call lazily, “you should know it’s not locked.”

The door slowly glides open, and you swivel your head to peek at the Pegasus entering your humble abode. She’s hung around many a time before, granted, but you still can’t help repeating your least-favourite habit:

“Apologies for the clutter, but you know how it is. Still moving in, yadda yadda…” Rainbow chuckles slightly at your deadpan, before her face takes a more serious setting.

“Look, kid,” she starts. Uh-oh, whenever she begins like that, it’s never been good news. And you choose to ignore the fact that you’re a year older than her.

“I appreciate that you want to work as hard as you do to be awesome, but this--” she gestures to the cast on your leg “--is hardly the first time you’ve had to wear one of those because you fouled on a stunt, and it’ll only hurt more each time you break something.” She bites her lip, and starts to back away. “Now this doesn’t come easy from me, but you need to slow down, kid, or the next injury won’t be as pleasant as this one.”

Suddenly, you feel aggravated, and your brow furrows. “You want me to quit?”

She grows defensive. “No! I just… you’re getting hurt too much, and you don’t need to push yourself to this extreme.”

Your face remains stern, but you feel your muscles relax a little bit. You can see her point, but she’s asking you to take a step back, and even though you’re not sure why: the very thought of pulling back now is unthinkable.

“Fine, I’ll rest for the night, RD.” You sigh irritably, lowering your head onto a throw pillow. “But I should be outta this cast by tomorrow afternoon…”

You pause just long enough to hear her stutter in disbelief, before smirking to yourself. “... And at that time, expect to see me at Ghastly Gorge, because I’m jumping it.”

“WHAT?!” She shrieked, jumping into the air with eyes that bored such a fierce glare into you that it caused you to cower slightly. “You literally just got home from Ponyville General, and you’re thinking of jumping the GORGE?!”

You lift up a pillow to protect yourself as you cringe. “Uh... yeah?”

For a second, all you hear is her furious snorts, before the click of four hooves landing on the wooden floor greets your ears.

“Fine,” she sighs.

Surprised, you glance over the pillow. “Uhh… fine?” You repeat, doubting your own ears.

“Fine,” she confirms: her expression blank, and her tone cold. “If you want to be a complete idiot, and get yourself killed, then I’m not going to stop you. But realize this,” in a blink, she was face-to-face with you, and the anger that burned in her eyes took up most of your vision: “there are some ponies in this town who will die inside if you screw up this time, and get yourself killed.”

In another blink, the front door slammed shut, and Rainbow Dash was nowhere to be seen: leaving you in a pile of confusion.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- The Next Day -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

You gingerly place your rear hoof on the ground, leaving the other three on the skateboard you’re planning on using. It wobbles a bit beneath you as you ready yourself to kick, taking a deep breath as you gaze down the ramp: Ten yards of drop before it cuts upward, hopefully providing enough inertia to propel you over the gorge and safely onto the pad on the other side.

Sweeping your head to the side for a moment, you look over to a cloud a few yards away, on level with the platform you’re perched atop of. On it, Rainbow Dash eyes you with a dead expression, the only factor giving her face life being the slight moistness of her eyes.

Giving her a confident smirk, you kick off, and soon find yourself careening down the slope. You’re about halfway down when the board starts to wobble, and you barely leave the jump when everything goes horribly wrong. The skateboard disappears from under your hooves, and the world becomes a blurry vortex as the canyon wall draws closer.

You barely hear somepony scream your name before you black out.

Author's Note

Aaaaaand here it is!

Finally catching up to all I've run behind on. :twilightsmile:

As always, please let me know what you think, and notify me of any mistakes, inconsistencies, typos, yadda yadda. :ajsmug:

She was with You from the Start

*BEEP*

*BEEP*

*BEEP*

You are completely blind, unaware of your surroundings. The only things you can comprehend are an annoying squealing, and a dull hum that won’t let up. You try and open your eyes, and find that your movement is completely uninhibited, like you’re floating in space. You look down at your hooves, but find you can’t see anything until a brief image flashes into your head:

“ANON!”

You see a stone floor, and a lot of pebbles. The scene is blurry, but you can see a prismatic burst approaching you, and something thick and red growing on the stone.

You shake your aching head, and try to clear your mind when another picture shoots in.

“Please live, don’t leave me with this...”

You see a white blur stretching and morphing into several blurs that gently cover you, and a small gray glob covers your mouth, and you relax from a tension you didn’t know you were feeling.

Slowly, you allow your eyes to close, blocking out the abyss that you were floating in.

“I won’t let your life slip out of my hooves, Anon. You. Will. Not. Leave. Me.”

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Time Unknown -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

You stir, your mind an incomprehensible haze of jumbled thought and overloaded senses. You feel the bed beneath your back before you see it, and all your vision can tell you is that you might be under attack from a wire monster as you see numerous tendrils jabbed into your legs, arms, and nose. Your headache increases thricefold, and you feel a bizarre warmth on your chest as your vision clears.

You find yourself in a dark room, and several bloody bandages cover the entirety of your body, leaving only small specks of your coat uncovered. Miraculously, you can still swivel your neck around, but it takes a lot of effort. Which might be for the better, as it hurts when you try to move it too fast.

You see Rainbow passed out in a chair across from you, and even though your sight is still blurred, you can see that her mane and coat are both ragged like she’d stayed up for hours. Out of nowhere, your throat decides this is the perfect time for you to cough.

*Ghoaph!*

You see a clump of white leap off your chest with a slurred scream, which you had no idea was even possible, and Rainbow jumps slightly in her seat before tiredly moving her eyes towards you. Once she sees you staring back through the bandages over your face, she lights up with a relieved smile.

“Anon! You’re finally awake!”

You tilt your head, as Dash hadn’t moved her lips, and you notice that the white thing that fell off of your chest was now standing beside your bed: beaming a wide smile that was more sincere than any you’ve seen before. Once your eyes finally clear, you find yourself lost staring into a pair of stunning blue orbs as deep and bright as the sky.

“R-... Redheart?” You ask, wondering how eyes as wonderful as those had remained unnoticed by you all these months. She silently nods, and you just now notice how the coat on her cheeks is matted down by tears long since spent. Her eyes were puffy, she had dark circles underneath them, her tear-stained cheeks shone, and her messy mane looked like she hadn’t brushed it in days. And yet, you find that your heart has jumped into your throat at the sight of her beauty.

Slowly, you shake your head to stir your mind from its stupor, and brush off the newfound emotion as a result of the drugs. “H-how long was I out?” You ask.

“Five days, six hours, ten minutes, and thirty-four seconds.” Redheart says shakily, obviously trying not to laugh or cry as she carefully pats your shoulder. “But who’s counting?”

Guilt punches you in the gut, and you lower your head. Of course she would be fussing over you if the stunt went wrong. Looking back on your calculations, how could the jump have gone right? You’d risked your life for nothing more than your own pride, and your closest friends were paying for it. Knowing them, they probably stressed more over the past five days than you could even imagine.

Getting slightly teary yourself, you glance over to Rainbow. All she manages to do is give a slight chuckle as she shakes her head, before falling asleep again.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Months Later -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

After a while of a liquid diet, supplied mostly through straws and the numerous tubes in your legs, the casts were ready to slowly be taken off. It took a few days, but soon you were resting in the hospital bed, completely free of any tubes or casts. You weren’t completely healed yet, but you’d learned your lesson about risking harm once you saw just how extensive the damage was. Apparently, even during the falls where you thought you were unharmed you were cracking your bones, and falling to the bottom of Ghastly Gorge shattered almost thirty-nine percent of the bones in your body.

Rainbow came over to hang out a lot during your ‘vacation’, and you mostly listened as she talked, enjoying her stories while waiting for your jaw to set. But the pony you saw the most of was Nurse Redheart herself, after she’d gone home for one day. You had heard from the nurse caring for you that day that Redheart was in charge of the operation that saved your life, and that both she and Rainbow hadn’t slept until they crashed three hours before you woke up. She barely even left your side, except to eat at the cafeteria.

Slowly, you felt your heart recede from Rainbow Dash, and grow towards Redheart herself as you talked with her more and more. With her as your nurse, the days turned into hours, and the hours into seconds. You barely believed it was even two weeks when they said you’d been in casts for three months.

Now, with the restraints removed, you are able to completely relax as the hospital bedding felt softer than you ever remembered. And since you’re feeling a little better, you figure that the next time you saw Red, you’d ask her the question that had been slowly nagging the back of your mind.

As if on cue, she skipped into the room like the little ball of sunshine she was, her hooves clicking cheerfully on the linoleum.

“Hello~!” She practically sang as she trotted up to your side, and fiddled a bit with the machines. “How’s my favourite patient today?”

“Almost as chipper as my favourite nurse,” you reply with a chuckle. She beams at that, though not directly looking at you yet, and you just barely catch the bridge of her nose turning a slight shade of pink. ‘Now’s as good a time as any...’ you think to yourself, before taking a deep breath.

“Uhh… exactly how bad was I?” You venture, immediately regretting the question as Redheart’s mood visibly dims as soon as the words leave your tongue. She slowly looks down at you, and smiled a gentle, calming, yet worried smile.

“Bad,” she sighs, “really bad. Dash had only just gotten you here in time before you bled out, and we almost lost you nine times in the first surgery.” Lowering her head, she chuckles slightly. “I was wrong, Anon. So was Plaster. We thought she was bad for you, and we never believed her when she said you were the one pushing yourself to these extremes.”

Her blush becomes apparent when she glances back up to you. “I suppose… I didn’t want to believe you were doing this to yourself. I wanted her to be the one demanding more and more of you, so that I could--...” she cuts herself off, lifting her head and taking a deep breath. “But I was wrong: she swooped in here screaming for someone to help you, and babbling on about how she should have stopped you. I’ve seen her fake pain before, and what I saw then wasn’t that. She’s… she’s good for you...”

You tilt your head slightly as you listen to her, there’s an odd tone to her voice that sounds unnatural for her. A sad sort of acceptance that confuses you, and her repeating the phrase ‘she’s good for you’ is only deepening your befuddlement. That is, until a light clicks in your head, and you reach your hoof out to hers.

“She might be good for me…” you offer slowly, “but I’m not sure she’s right for me.”

Redheart’s eyes shoot wide open, and her pupils almost disappear into pinpricks as her face turns bright red once your hoof touches hers. “B-but…” she stammers, but you don’t let her finish.

“Rainbow got me here, yes, but it was you who never gave up on me. I talked with the other nurse that day you went home: you weren’t asked to take over my surgery, but you immediately took charge. You knew every bone in my body, which medications I was allergic to, and even where most of the fractures were. You saved my life, personally, nine times in one surgery, and guarded my bedside like a bulldog until I woke up.”

Her jaw dropped as you snickered. “And I mean that last one literally, they showed me the security footage of how you reacted when a doctor brought in the wrong medication: all you had to see was the label before you started snarling, and standing in front of my bed like a mother pup.”

She mutters something about killing the night guard as her blush turns her face into a tomato, before returning her attention to you. “W-what about Rainbow Dash? Aren’t you two a thing?”

You shake your head. “As far as I can tell, we’re just friends.”

Slowly, you feel your own face start to burn as you decide to make a move. Hoping seven months is enough time to wait, you lift your hoof from hers, and reach towards her head. You touch her mane, gently, and start to draw her head close to yours. It’s plain she knows what is happening, and she doesn’t fight in the slightest. Halfway there, she closes her eyes and tilts her head, and you decide not to let her do all the moving as you lift your head to hers.

As soon as your lips meet hers, you feel a bolt shock through your entire being as your own eyes slide shut. It’s not the fireworks you’d always thought it would be, but it was something better. It feels peaceful and therapeutic, like a scented candle burning in the depths of your heart. As soon as you feel it, you know that this is what love truly is.

After what felt like seconds, you break the kiss, and smile at her as she opens her eyes. Her blush has diminished slightly, but she’s wearing a grin as dopey as yours. She starts to giggle, then laugh, and then cry as she snuggles her head under your chin, putting both forehooves on the bedside.

Just then, you notice a movement in the corner of your eye, and look to see Rainbow Dash standing in the hall just outside the open door, jaw slack and eyes wide as dinner plates.

“Rainbow…” You begin, before her face starts shifting. Her pupils grow at a leisurely pace until they swallow the whites of her eyes, and her mouth moves at equal speed until it forms a grin that couldn’t be any wider.

“FINALLY!” She booms, breaking into laughter. “I’ve been waiting for you two to kiss ever since the third time you were admitted!”

Redheart lifts her head from your chin, and glances back at Rainbow. “Was… was I really that obvious?” She asks, somewhat indignantly.

Rainbow takes a break from her laughing fit, and just stares at her with a flat expression. “The first time we were waiting for him to wake up from an operation, you were just staring at his face and blushing. It took three minutes for you to realize I was talking to you!”

You chuckle as the nurse rubs the back of her neck with a hoof, and reach over to pat her on the back.

“I hope the next time I see you won’t be in this hospital?” You ask, giving her a wink.

She glances back at you, and smiles. “As soon as you get out, dinner and a movie sound good?”

“Perfect, my tre--”

She silences you by gently stuffing her hoof in your mouth, and gives you a sideways smile. “And before you say it’s your treat, look at your checkbook to see if you can afford the hospital bills and dinner and a movie.”

You grin sheepishly. “Fair enough,”

Author's Note

Let me know if this one lives up to its predecessor! :yay::heart::twilightsmile:

Until Next Time, God Bless You!

~Amethyst Dawn. :heart: