The Chance To Say

The necklace was stunning. It was a solid gold pendant in the shape of a diamond, with a large circular emerald in the center, strung up by a chain of solid gold. Octavias mouth was dropped open, and she held her hoof over it. Her head was facing the necklace, but she was looking up at the smiling mare with her teary eyes only.

"Yes."

The words were barely audible. Octavia moved her hoof and wrapped both her front hooves around Vinyl.

"Yes!"

Tears of joy flowed from both pairs of eyes. Vinyl hugged Octavia tightly until she pulled away.

"Here."

Using her magic, Vinyl put Octavias mane in a single straight line behind her head, and pulled the necklace out of the box and gingerly put it on Octavia. She smiled widely as Octavia spun around to look at herself in her vanity.

"Vinyl, it's beautiful."

"I hoped you'd like it."

"I love it! How, and when did you get this?"

"Well, I may or may not have called in a few favours ponies owed me."

"When did you get this? There wasn't-"

"Remember when I had that weirdly long phone call at your friends house that I took outside, and no matter how you craned your neck, you couldn't see me out the window?"

"Wha, was that just a coincidence or-"

"Yeah, remember when I took a weirdly long time getting us drinks? Yeah, my old rehab roomie got me on that one."

Octavias face was a face of pure disbelief as Vinyl walked up behind her. Vinyl saw the reflection of Octavias face change into a warm smile, and suddenly she was thrown back onto the bed. Octavia planted a large kiss directly on Vinyls lips before she could even speak, and Vinyl soon help up her end of the kiss.

"Vinyl, you're amazing. I just can't believe that any of this happened, and that you could put this all together!"

"Oh, now you're doubting my abilities? Jeez, if that's what I have to look forward to, I want a divorce."

Vinyl chuckled a little bit and Octavia joined. The two mares turned back to lay on the bed correctly, and after a few minutes of talking, they decided to go to bed.

"Goodnight Vinyl."

"Goodnight Tavi."

Both turned off their lights and got comfortable in their positions. Just before Vinyl fell asleep, she heard Octavia again.

"Hey, Vinyl?"

"Yeah Tav?"

"Which one of us will have the mare of honor and which one will have the best stallion?"

Vinyls eyes opened wide and she frowned. As she rolled over to look at Octavia, she sighed.

"Uhh, I really didn't think about that."

"Well, I suppose there are a lot of things we didn't think about that will come up later. But, I suppose we'll cross those bridges when we reach them."

"What if we each had one? Like, one of each?"

"Well, I guess that's fair. Although, I'd like to ask, who would you have as yours?"

"Honestly, I'm not even sure. Other than you, I don't have too many ponies that are very close to me. Maybe Hail Toss as my mare of honor, no idea who I'd have for best stallion. What about you?"

"Its between Lyra and Bon-Bon for mare of honor. Best stallion, I have no idea. I guess I'll ask Doctor Whooves."

Vinyl nodded a little bit and rolled over again to go to sleep.

"Goodnight Vinyl."

"Goodnight Octavia."

"Sir?"

WaveMaker snapped awake, and looked up to the doctor with a solemn expression.

"I'd like to talk to you."

WaveMaker nodded and followed the doctor out of the room, glancing over his shoulder at his wife sleeping in the hospital bed.

"Sir. There's something I need to-"

"Just...get to it. Please."

Tears were already forming in Wavemakers eyes, but he knew something worse was bound to start.

"It seems, that the bullet has done quite a bit of damage to your wife's circulatory system. We, aren't fully sure if its, repairable."

Now looking towards the floor, WaveMaker let the tears flow from his eyes down to his face and onto the floor. He felt a hoof on his left shoulder and heard a sigh.

"I'm, sorry."

WaveMaker nodded slightly, just enough to let the doctor know he had heard, and left the hoof leave his shoulder. As the hoofsteps started and faded away down the hall, WaveMaker started losing his grip. He walked back into the room and sat down in the chair, face in his hooves.

"I just fucking can't believe this."

He muttered phrases over and over to himself until he heard a soft groan from beside him. The figure in the bed moved slightly, and WaveMaker stood up and put his two front hooves on the rail of the bed.

"Skyline? Sweetie?"

"H-hey. Hey baby, h-how are you?"

Skyline Breezer could see that her husband had been crying, but she asked the question in case there was any good news.

"I've... I've been better. But that doesn't matter, not anymore. How are you?"

"Tired. So much of this shit's been draining me lately, sleeping doesn't seem to help either, which is a little ironic."

Skyline Breezer chuckled and raised a hoof to run it through what was left of her mane. A small amount of strands fell off of her scalp and cascaded gently down to the floor.

"Anything you want?"

"Well, you got another one of those jellos?"

"I can go get one."

WaveMaker stood up and started walking out the door before Skyline Breezer could get another word out. She sighed and looked around the hospital room. She had been out in one of the 'one patient only' rooms, so there wasn't another bed or any other machines in the room except for the ones around her. She looked up at the hear at monitor and listened to the slow, steady beat. She turned her head the other way when she heard the door open again, hoping to see WaveMaker. Instead, the pony she saw was the doctor that had been running her tests. He smiled a little bit as he walked in, but the smiled faded as he reached the bed.

"Miss Breezer. I have some bad news."

"Y-yeah?"

"I'm..I'm afraid that there isn't any way to reverse the damages. I've discussed this with your husband, but he hasn't responded with any sort of decision. I'll, give you two the time you need."

The doctor nodded solemnly and turned to walk out of the room. Tears were running down Skyline Breezers face, and not soon after the doctor left, WaveMaker walked in.

"Hey sweetie, I know you don't like green as much, but it was all I c-"

WaveMaker stopped himself short when he walked in and saw Skyline Breezer, and the tears upon her face.

"Skyline? What's wrong?"

"The...the doctor talked to me. I know he talked to you too."

"Yes...yes, he did."

"I know I said earlier that, I knew I was gonna die, but, I never actually thought it would happen."

WaveMaker moved closer to the bed, and the couple wrapped their hooves around each other. The embrace lasted for what felt like forever to both ponies, but still neither wanted it to end. They eventually separated when they heard the door creak open.

"Hey?"

The southern accent seemed a little familiar to WaveMaker, and he smiled a little as he turned around.

"BrickLayer, hi."

"Hey. I heard about what happened. I wanted to come talk to her."

"Yeah, sure. Skyline Breezer, sweetie, this is BrickLayer. I met her in the ER waiting room a while back."

"Nice to meet you."

"Yeah, nice to meet you too."

"So what's the situation?"

BrickLayer sat down in a chair and pulled it up beside the bed. Skyline Breezer smiled, but sighed as she looked at the other mare.

"Well, it's not what one would call a great situation. I'm kinda backed into a corner here, and there's really only one way out, ya know?"

"Damn. I hear what you're sayin' though. My cousin had somethin' kinda like this."

"Cancer?"

"No, but he got shot on stage. Three years back, middle of a song. Guy ran up there and shot em' in the chest. Didn't think he was gonna make it."

"What happened?"

BrickLayer sighed and looked at the floor for a second, biting her bottom lip.

"Well, he was in the hospital for a while, then he was home, then he was right back up performin' again. He pulled through just fine. I always had that little bit of hope, and sometimes I feel like that's the only thing that helped."

The three ponies in the room sat silent for some time before a doctor eventually came in.

"Sorry miss, but visiting hours are over."

"Oh, ok."

BrickLayer got out of her chair, but turned to Skyline and smiled.

"Just keep hoping Skyline, I know you got this."

"Thanks BrickLayer, I sure hope so."

BrickLayer smiled and the doctor guided her outside the room. After closing the door, he walked over to the two other ponies in the room.

"I thought I'd give you a few more minutes. I figured you two would have a bit to talk about."

"No, we don't?"

Both the stallions in the room opened their eyes widely at Skyline Breezers quick response.

"Honey..."

"Keep me on life support."

"I hereby sentence you to life imprisonment, with no chance of parole."

The words followed by the slam of the judges gavel brought a strange feeling of happiness to Vinyl and Octavia. Vinyl sighed a sigh of relief as she watched the police ponies cuff Open Mind and start walking him out of the courthouse. There were a few seconds of ominous silence after they left before ponies started leaving. Vinyl and Octavia got up and walked outside, not feeling any particular reason to stick around.

"Ah, does it do me good to know that that fucking psycho is locked up now."

"Yes, I'd say that's quite the relief. No more worrying about him means we're almost one hundered percent care free."

"Yeah, I guess we are."

Vinyl chuckled and looked up at the open sign flashing in the window of the bar they were beside.

"Hey, how 'bout a round for celebration?"

"Vinyl, it's four in the afternoon, should we really be drinking?"

"C'mon, I wanna show you what it's like to be a rockstar."

"You were a DJ!"

"Don't ruin this for me!"

The two mares laughed as they entered the bar and sat down at the counter. A unicorn stallion with a blue coat and black and white mane walked up and smiled at them.

"What can I get for you?"

"A glass of whiskey for me please."

"Um, I'll just have what she's having I guess."

"Wonderful. One moment."

The bartender walked away, and the couple took the moment to take a quick look around the bar. Almost nopony was there, save for them, the bartender, and a group of three stallions in one of the corner booths.

"Here you go girls, enjoy."

"Thanks."

"Thanks."

"Wait a minute, I recognize you. You were one being followed by that guy on news today."

"Uh, yeah. Yeah, we were."

"And now he is locked up! Opa! Round is on the house for you."

"Wow, thanks. To crazy stalkers."

"To crazy stalkers, and even crazier brides to be."

Octavia chuckled at her joke and lightly tapped her glass against Vinyls raised one. They both drank roughly half their beverages in one go, and sat them down with a sigh.

"Vinyl, I meant to ask this, but I forgot to this morning."

"What's that?"

"Are we going to set a date for the wedding anytime soon."

"Hmm. I never really thought about it. I guess it should be sometime soon, right?"

"Well, there's no rush, but there's no harm in getting it done sooner."

Vinyl took another sip of her drink and looked at the floor for a minute as she thought.

"Why don't we do it close to the winter? That's when we first met, and that gives us about four months to plan everything out."

"That seems reasonable. Is it settled then?"

"Four months today?"

"Sounds like a plan."

Octavia smiled as she held her glass up for another toast. Vinyl met it and both mares drank the rest of their drinks.

"Not used to drinking in the afternoon like that."

"Don't worry, I'll get you some crackers or something."

"Why?"

"Absorbs the alcohol, might help a bit."

Octavia laid down on the couch and Vinyl went to the kitchen. After searching through a few cabinets, she returned to the living room with a box of crackers.

"Here you go."

"Thanks. Oh, I meant to tell you, I have to go back to Ponyville tomorrow."

"Why?"

"First off, I need to tell Lyra and Bon-Bon about the wedding, and second, there's somepony else I need to talk to about it."

"That doctor guy you talked about?"

"Yes. Him. Have to ask him about being a best stallion."

Octavia chuckled slightly nervously, prompting suspicion from Vinyl.

"Wait a minute, are you planning something I shouldn't know about?"

"What? No. I go into Ponyville every now and then, I like to catch up with Lyra and Bon-Bon."

Vinyl was still suspicious, but she sighed and smiled at her fiancé.

"Alright, I guess I'll let you have this one."

"Good. Excuse me for a moment."

Octavia stood up and walked into the bathroom on the same floor. She shut the door and let out an extended sigh.

"That was close."