Author's Note
Just a bit of a disclaimer, how I have AJ speak in this story is not typos. It's me trying to capture her accent, and all done on purpose. Enjoy!
Tragic News
Applejack fidgeted nervously one summer afternoon. She should have been out applebucking with Big Mac and Apple Bloom, but instead she was cooped up here in this dagnabbed hospital. On such a perfect summer day, too!
It wasn’t even like she wanted to be here. The past few weeks, she’d been having terribly painful cramps in her stomach. It was like she’d eaten some bad food, but lately she’d actually been eating very little, and there was almost no way that what she’d eaten had been spoiled. It was an absolute mystery to her why these cramps wouldn’t go away, even with herbal remedies.
She’d even gotten so desperate as to make the long journey to Zecora’s hut in the everfree. Zecora offered the mare a potion to alleviate said pain, but even that had seemingly no effects. This frustrated Applejack to no end, and she knew when the potion didn’t work, it was time to visit the doctor. Much to her chagrin.
Applejack didn’t hate hospitals, she just saw them as a waste of time. Not because she disregarded her health so easily, but these doctor’s visits tended to drag on and on like the sun during an extremely hot day. Not to mention the air in the place was stuffy and reeked of chemicals. Nothing like the clean country air out in the orchard.
Finally, after felt like an eternity, the doctor finally came back into the checkup room she was occupying. ‘Finally!’ Applejack shouted in her own head. That had of been nearly an entire hour wait!
“Finally, doc! Alright, what news d’ya got fer me?” Applejack asked the doctor, in that typically thick southern drawl her voice carried with it. The doctor looked through his notes for a moment, before he sighed and looked at Applejack with a sad look of regret etched onto his features.
“Applejack…I need you to sit tight. I have some very bad news to share with you.” The doctor said as he moved into the chair next to the examination table Applejack was currently laying upon. The doctor took a few moments to take in some very deep breaths, before he finally spoke up.
“Applejack…there’s no easy way to say this. But we checked and re-checked all of the lab results. We re-ran your blood through the analysis, looked at family history, everything. And well there’s…” Applejack suddenly cut the doctor off with a move of her hoof.
“Doc, ah ain’t gettin’ any younger! Do y’all mind jus gettin to teh point?!” Applejack said behind partially grit teeth, not appreciate the stalling. She wanted the doctor to just get to the point already.
The doctor got her message, and he seemed to recompose himself. “I’m sorry, Applejack. I’m just new at this. This is my first week as head physician here. Alright, here goes.” The doctor said as he took a breath before continuing.
“Applejack, you’re infertile.” The doctor stated very matter-of-factly, his ears flattened against his skull in a show of sadness that he had to be the one to break the news to the mare. Applejack, for the longest time, just sat there, not believing what she had just heard coming out of the doctor’s mouth. She blinked dumbly for the longest time, as if the act would erase what she just heard.
Finally though, Applejack shocked the doctor by just letting out a laugh. A hearty laugh, the kind of laugh she would let out when Pinkie would pull a good prank on somepony. The carefree, heartless laugh her friends knew her for.
“Ahah! Good’in, doc! Telling me ah’m infertile…very funny! Who put y’all up to this, was it Rarity? Pretty dark humor, ah’ll have tah get ‘er back fer this!” Applejack said with another laugh to punctuate her sentence. She laughed for a couple more seconds, before staring at the doctor, finding to her dismay that his face remained unchanged. He still carried that sad, stone cold demeanor on his features.
“Wait…y’all…y’all are really serious…” Applejack said, her voice barely above a whisper as the realization dawned on her. She looked at the doctor for a few long moments, horror etched upon her own face as she realized what this meant.
“In…infertile…as…as in…ah’ll never have…” Applejack said lowly, her voice choking up into something akin to a whimper at the end of her sentence, not having the strength to finish the sentence with that…final word.
“I’m so sorry, Applejack. Let me explain to you. You have ovarian cysts, Applejack. Ovarian cysts are solid or fluid filled sacs that form inside your ovaries. You had a cyst inside each ovary, and they became infected. This caused scarring in your fallopian tubes and caused you to become infertile. The pain you’ve been feeling the past few weeks is because you went into heat. You didn’t recognize it as heat because your body has been unable to drop eggs from your ovaries into your uterus, thus you never properly felt the heat. This is extremely rare. Equestrian medicine only sees such a case once every year. I’m so sorry, Applejack. The cysts should be able to go away in time with medicine and proper treatment, but the damage has been done, and cannot be reversed…” The doctor said softly, sighing sadly. This was the hardest part of any doctor’s job, delivering bad news to his or her patient. Sometimes, the pain of this was so intense the doctor sometimes wished he had never taken up medicine.
Applejack just sat there for the longest time, not seeming to do much of anything, let alone speak. After a while, she just gave the doc a smile, and grabbed her release papers right out of his hooves. “Hoo-wee! That’s a relief off mah shoulders! Thanks, doc! Ah’ll just be headin home now!” Applejack said to the doctor, smiling and seeming…happy, much to the doctor’s disbelief.
In the blink of an eye, Applejack left the examination room, and headed straight for the exit of the building. Once outside, she trotted away from the hospital, but not on the main dirt road that led away from it. Once she was safe from and passersby, Applejack let it all out.
Suddenly, she collapsed, falling flat onto her barrel and burying her face into her own forehooves. And, she cried. The big, strong Applejack. She cried. And not only did she cry, she full on sobbed, all sorts of mental reserves and usual toughness the mare carried on her shoulders gone and forgotten in that moment.
Soon, hot tears of pain and sadness left her eyes, and landed onto the soil below her, making a light muddy mixture. The sensation was so foreign to Applejack. She was so used to being the strong mare, being the tough mare, the feeling of crying was something so alien to her. The liquid leaving her eyes made them sting in a fashion that made her eyes hurt, and she wished she could stop crying.
But, with the horrible news she had just been dealt by the hooves of her doctor, there was just no way to hold back the floodgates, to keep the dam of despair back. She had to get her tears out, as much as it hurt her to do so.
Applejack must have spent a grand total of fifteen minutes, wallowing in her despair. In that moment, she couldn’t help but feel like Rarity, with all her crying and bellyaching. But the news really did hurt her that badly.
Applejack had wanted foals for as long as she could remember. Ever since she took over Sweet Apple Acres with Big Mac, she dreamed of finding a nice stallion, settling down, and having foals she could pass the farm down on to. Now, with this horrible news that she would never be able to do so, it felt like her entire world was crashing down around her.
She couldn’t have foals. She couldn’t have foals. She couldn’t have foals. She couldn’t have foals…
No matter how many times she said the sentence to herself, it didn’t make the pain hurt less. Every time she said the words to herself, it felt like somepony had just swiftly bucked an apple right into her jaw. It stung, and it hurt to no end.
After a good solid fifteen minutes of bellyaching there in that field outside of the hospital, and luckily nopony saw her, Applejack finally managed to pick herself up onto shaky hooves. She needed somepony to talk to, and there was only one pony she trusted.
Fluttershy was too reserved to talk about such a problem with her. Pinkie Pie probably wouldn’t have the maturity. Rarity would be dramatic about it, and she doubted Twilight would have time for it, seeing as how she was ruling Equestria now. There was only one other pony Applejack trusted to speak with about this.
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After spending the better part of an hour searching around Ponyville to find her, Applejack finally found Rainbow Dash flying over the fields outside of town. This surprised Applejack, because it was supposed to be Rainbow’s day off. Of course, she couldn’t judge, seeing as how whenever Applejack had a day off, she ended up working her tail off anyway. Applebuck season didn’t wait for nopony, after all.
“RAINBOW! Ah need tah talk tah y’all!” Applejack shouted at her blue friend, trying to get her attention. Rainbow, shocked somepony shouted after her, abruptly stopped the backflip-corkscrew combination trick she was doing, lucky not to crash, and quickly zoomed towards Applejack.
“AJ, you nearly screwed up my flight pattern! Warn me next time before you do that! What’s up?” Rainbow asked her friend, concerned about the look etched on her face. It looked like Applejack had been crying. Applejack…crying? That didn’t seem right, Applejack cried even less often than she herself did, as much as she hated to admit that.
“Well, before we get to what’s wrong, why are y’all flyin today? Ain’t today yer day off?” Applejack asked her friend, trying to put off the ensuing conversation for as long as she could.
Rainbow gave her a cocky little grin, and flexed her muscles suddenly. “Well, duh it’s my day off! But do you think Spitfire ever takes a day off? If I ever want to be captain of the Wonderbolts, I have to work hard every day like her!” Rainbow said with the grin growing on her face.
Applejack just nodded at her friend, trying to think about how to start this conversation. How could she? Should she just blurt it out?
“Rainbow…ah need to tell y’all somethin…ah just got outta teh hospital not long ago and…teh doc gave me some bad news…yer the only pony ah trust to talk with about this, so please treat it seriously?” Applejack implored of the blue pegasus, who gave her a gentle nod. Rainbow stopped hovering above the ground and landed, giving AJ all of her attention.
“Rainbow…ah’m infertile…as in ah’ll never have foals…” Applejack said in a very low voice, every word of her sentence seeming to hurt her very soul. Saying those words was painful, she still hadn’t fully accepted the reality yet.
Rainbow, for her part, was mostly stunned. Her eyes had opened wide, and she just looked at Applejack for the longest time, a gobsmacked expression etched upon her features. Rainbow finally managed to compose herself, shaking her head side to side a few times to knock herself out of her reverie.
“How…did he tell you how?” Rainbow asked the orange mare, biting her lip as she waited for the answer. Applejack sighed sadly, trying to remember what the doctor had told her. When he told her, she had been in a state of complete shock, after all. It was hard to remember when her mind had shut down so hard.
“He…he said somethin’ about…ovarian cysts, ah think, and they got infected and scarred mah insides…both fallopian tubes, ah think is what he called ‘em.” Applejack said with a sad frown dominating her face, currently. Rainbow, not knowing what to say, or do at the moment, trotted a half step forward and hugged her friend super tightly, letting Applejack’s face rest on her shoulder.
“I…I’m sorry AJ. I know how badly you wanted to have foals to pass the farm down to. This must hurt you really bad.” Rainbow said, trying her best to be kind and compassionate, but this was so far out of her element. She wasn’t used to having to comfort anypony except Scootaloo and occasionally Fluttershy, so she was really trying her best, here.
“Ah did! Ah really did. Ah…ah wanted to be like mah parents, Rainbow. Ah wanted to meet a nice stallion, get married, have foals, and pass teh farm down to them. And now, ah can’t do that. Teh one thing ah wanted most in life and it’s been ripped outta my hooves! Why does life have to be so cruel?!” Applejack shouted suddenly, pushing herself away and out of Rainbow’s hug, slamming her hoof into the dirt so hard from anger it hurt her hoof. Applejack then grabbed her stetson and pulled it down on top of her eyes, concealing them. She was beginning to cry again, and didn’t want her friend to see her being so weak.
Rainbow, however, was having none of it. She grabbed Applejack’s stetson, and pulled it off her head, tossing it to the side a few feet away from where they were standing. Rainbow closed the gap between them, once again, and hugged Applejack again. This time, Applejack fully reciprocated the hug, and even buried her head into Rainbow’s shoulder, her tears soaking into the pegasus’ blue coat of fur. Rainbow didn’t mind, though. She just wanted her friend to let it all out and feel better.
“Applejack…it’s gonna be alright. I…I don’t know how but I know you’ll be okay. I know this really hurts, but you’ll get through this. I’ll help you through it.” Rainbow said to the farm mare, trying her best to calm her friend down. Rainbow’s words were having an impact on Applejack. She was so glad to be with her friend right now. If she were alone, Applejack would be suffering so much worse than she was, currently. And what Rainbow said at the end of that sentence was really sticking with her. Did she really mean that? That she’d help her through it?
Applejack wanted to say something, ANYTHING to Rainbow in reply, but currently she was so choked up from tears, she couldn’t. A painful lump had formed in her throat and speech was difficult.
Rainbow then suddenly inhaled a sharp breath, and spoke once again. “Applejack, I have something to tell you, but you have to Pinkie promise not to say this to anypony. Not even Twilight. Ok?” Rainbow asked the farm mare, who nodded her head into the hug to affirm that she understood.
“Alright…here goes…Applejack, I’m infertile too…” As soon as those words left Rainbow’s lips, Applejack’s eyes suddenly bolted open as wide as dinner plates from shock, the tears abruptly stopping as she stepped away from the hug, so she could analyze Rainbow’s face.
Applejack used her element of honesty skills to tell if Rainbow was lying…and sure enough, she wasn’t. Rainbow’s body language, the tone of her voice, everything…they all said she was telling the truth. Applejack was in complete shock.
“Y…y’all ain’t pullin mah leg?” Applejack asked the blue mare, for a second believing this to be some sort of cruel prank on the pegasus’ part. However, Rainbow’s expression showed no such mischief.
“No…no, I’m not Applejack. I…I was born this way. I only found it out a few years ago, though. Nopony else knows this, you’re the first pony I’ve ever told about it. Not even my parents know.” Rainbow said to the farm mare. Luckily, Rainbow had been allotted a few years to deal with the pain herself, and she was long past the point of tears. Sure, the pain that she herself could never have foals was there, but she had long gotten past the need for crying.
Applejack, for her credit, had stopped crying, and didn’t feel like she needed to cry anymore. Applejack wiped the tears remaining out of her eyes with her hoof, before looking into her friend’s eyes, giving her friend the first thing resembling a smile she’d given her all day.
“Y’know, sugarcube…ah’m still very sad about this, and ah’m really sad for y’all that y’all are in the same apple cart as me…but…somehow, knowin yer the same as me makes me feel better. Like…ah’m not alone in mah pain. Ah feel…a lot better.” Applejack admitted to the pegasus, who gave her a smile in return.
“I’m glad, AJ. To be honest…I feel the same way. For the longest time, I thought I was the only mare in Ponyville who was like this. I was sad about it, and I was ashamed. That’s why I’ve never gone on a date with anypony. But…knowing that now I’m not the only mare with this problem…it makes me feel better too. Like, we can help each other through it.” Rainbow said with a big smile to her friend.
Applejack, feeling a lot better about the situation, suddenly fell down onto her belly once again, closing her eyes and relaxing on the grass. Rainbow soon followed her lead and laid on the grass herself, their bodies so close they were exchanging body heat.
There was nothing but silence between them for a long while. The sounds of crickets and other creatures filled their ears. Finally though, Applejack spoke up once again.
“Rainbow?” Applejack asked the mare, who replied with a quick “Yeah?”. Applejack rubbed the blades of grass with her hoof gingerly for a few moments, before replying.
“Ah…ah think ah’m gonna move outta teh farm. Big Mac was gonna move in with Sugar Belle, cuz he knew ah wanted to run teh farm and have foals. But, if ah can’t have foals…he and Sugar Belle should have teh farm, so they can have all the space they need for raisin their own foals…” Applejack said in a sad way. She knew she would always work on the farm, but she felt that moving away from it would be the best thing for her and the rest of her family.
Rainbow thought about this deeply for a few seconds, before finally responding. “Well, here’s an idea. You can move in with me! I’ve been wanting to sell the Cloud Condo for a while now. The price of cloud homes is through the roof and there’s never been a better time to sell. You and I could get a house together. With my Wonderbolt money I can easily afford it!” Rainbow said with a smile. Applejack brought a hoof to her chin, and seemed to consider this.
“Y’all are sure yeh wouldn’t mind living wit me? Ah’m not gonna let y’all be lazy. Y’all will have to do chores and housework too!” Applejack said sternly, making sure Rainbow knew she was serious. Rainbow simply rolled her eyes before responding.
“Yeah, I know. And no, I wouldn’t mind living with you. I think we can be good for each other, and support each other, and make each other happy. Especially with this…problem we both have. We can always be there for each other! We can always be together!” Rainbow said in an excited way. Applejack smiled back at the mare, and turned her body towards Rainbow’s, suddenly giving the mare a super tight hug.
Applejack had to admit, Rainbow’s words made her curious. “Rainbow, y’all are talkin as if y’all have a crush on me, or somethin!” Applejack said with a chuckle, not taking this very seriously. Rainbow stayed quiet for a long while, before replying.
“Well…maybe I do. Is…that a bad thing?” Rainbow asked as she bit her lip nervously. Applejack was flabbergasted for a few moments. She had always suspected Rainbow to lean more towards the familiar side of the fence, as it were, liking mares more than stallions. But Applejack would have never guessed the pegasus had a crush on her. Applejack had never considered her a mare-lover herself, but…now that she couldn’t have foals, maybe expanding her horizons, as it were, wouldn’t be all that outrageous? Applejack had admired her friend for quite a few years, now, anyway.
“Y’know Rainbow…if y’all had admitted this to me even just yesterday…ah’d have told yeh no, and probably been outraged. But, after gettin this news today and findin out y’all have the same problem…ah feel closer to you, somehow. And…ah think ah’d be ok starting a relationship with y’all, if’n we get that far, anyway.” Applejack said with a smile. She could tell that her words seemed to excite Rainbow, because the mare tightened their hug so tightly, it almost hurt Applejack.
“That makes me so happy. We can take it slow, if you want. I’ll sell the cloud condo, we can get a house together, give you some time and space to deal with the pain you’re going through, and when you’re ready, we can try. We’ll be together the entire way!” Rainbow said with an exuberant smile, while Applejack nodded and chuckled, laying her head down on Rainbow’s shoulder.
Applejack began to look at her friend in a new light, in that moment. No longer as her brash, cocky friend. But now looking at her as a sweet mare, and a potential lover. Applejack had to admit, being with somepony she was friends with who she shared so much in common with…the idea made her happy, made her smile beam in the moment.
“Together forever, sugarcube…”
