Everything is Just Time After Time

by TheDriderPony

Rating: everyone
Tags: Rarity, Applejack, Slice of Life, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Romance
Length: 1444

Years later, Rarity and Applejack discuss how one moment could have changed everything.

Fate is a funny thing.
It sneaks up on you when you least expect it and pulls your life in new directions.
But with so much on the line --whole destinies hanging on a single moment-- one can only wonder... what if things had happened differently?

This story was written as a collaboration between myself and ROBCakeran53.
Each of us was provided a different story prompt and we were forbidden to tell each other what it was. With that restriction, we had 90 minutes to write something (two cursors, one document) that satisfied both prompts.
This was the result. Enjoy.

Published 2019-10-30 21:50:01 UTC
Last updated 2019-10-30 21:50:01 UTC

Chapter 1

“Darling, I’m telling you, everything is just fine.” Rarity waved off the previous worries.

Applejack looked on, way beyond concerned, and to the point of contempt if she were still allowed to carry the family twelve gauge about town.

“Really, Applejack, don’t look so eager to rip my head off.”

Raising a brow, Applejack looked on like she wasn’t, in fact, about to rip her head off, but more like sever it, and maybe watch the blood flow.

Or something, whatever.

“Rares, it ain’t that. It’s just… why in Equestria, would anypony in their right mind, wanna go back to relive the most traumatic time in their life?”

“Oh aha ha ha, darling, please, surely you of anypony would have an answer to that.”

“No, I don’t.”

Rarity continued to laugh, enthusiasm and joy losing itself to self pity and despair the more she stared at her cowpony hat wearing friend.

“Surely you jest.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Applejack, it’s been years, you must have been able to come to terms with it, and move on. What harm is there in the want to go back and… change it? Purely hypothetically, of course.”

Setting down her cup of tea, Applejack briefly removed her hat to scratch at the sweat along her brow, then replaced the head gear with a contented sigh. She leaned into the back of her chair, and with another huff, said, “Because the past is the past. And if we change that… then maybe we’d…”

Rarity watched in slight amusement as Applejack played with her hooves; from tea cup to fetlocks, she couldn’t focus on anything but herself.

Letting out a lady-like huff, loud enough to draw in her marefriend’s attention, Rarity continued. “If you’re worried if we’d ever get… personal, without either of our losses in life, then I’m afraid I have a harsh truth to tell you.”

Applejack froze still, however not diverting her gaze from the white mare.

Rarity continued, “One way or another, destiny would bring us together. You would become Applejack, and I would become Rarity.”

Using her magic, Rarity took another sip of her tea.

“That may be, Rares, but what if... we didn’t… come together?”

Rarity paused, eyes opening slowly go focus beyond her teacup, and to her marefriend. Gently, she set the cup down, dabbing her lips with a napkin, then lastly placing her forehooves onto the table’s top, overlapping one another, and giving off a pleasant smile. “Whatever do you mean, darling?”

“Well, you know, that night at Twilight’s.”

For the first time, Rarity looked on in some manner of confusion. Applejack rolled her eyes, taking her teacup in her hooves. “Ya know, Twilight’s first sleepover.”

Rarity’s expression suddenly brightened up, eyes open wide, with her smile growing with every second as her mind filled in the gaps.

“Oh yes, of course! Oh how I remember that terrible night. So much went wrong that, well…”

“It’s laughable now?”

Rarity nodded, a smile on her face. “Yes, it was quite the ordeal, wasn’t it?”

Applejack let out a huff. “Ordeal, huh? Way I remember it, it was an outright disaster!”

“Details, details,” Rarity rolled her hoof, but with a mischievous grin upon her face.

“Well, Miss Details, what if it weren’t to have happened that way?”

Pausing, Rarity focused on her marefriend a few moments. Applejack’s face looked pure, resolute, in the idea that she was, in fact, winning this debate, and expected a typical answer from the fashionista.

Rarity, however, knew better than to allow such idle thoughts from clouding her mind, and instead would stoop down to Applejack’s level and play unfair.

“Well, darling, the way I see it, you were the insistent one in thinking that you were right.”

“Right?”

“Yes, correct in all manners of the form. Knew what she was saying, and that I didn’t.”

Applejack allowed a chuckle to escape. “Well, I was right about the-”

A hoof pressed against her lips. “Hush, darling, you know what I mean.”

Applejack raised a brow, but at her marefriend’s insistent glare, slowly relented, and nodded. “Yeah, you know what I mean. Meant, whatever.”

“Of course.” Rarity polished a hoof to her breast. “And tell me, darling, at the time, where did that get us?”

Once again, Applejack chuckled. “Well, we fought. Again, and again, until we were finally at each other’s throats, and then that dang blasted tree came crashing in.

“I remember, that was the first time we really worked together. I mean really.” She cut off the rebuttal with a look. “Sure, there was Nightmare Moon, but that was with the whole gang. Before that, we’d never really cooperated on anything. We’d had our spats and occasionally helped out like neighbors do, but never properly cooperated, one on one.”

Rarity took another sip of her tea as she considered that. “Yes. Yes, I suppose you’re right about that.”

“And then that durn tree came in the window.” A half-smile crossed Applejack’s face. “And the storm with it.”

“Goodness, that storm. So wet.”

“And cold.”

“Not to mention the dreadful wind!”

Applejack nodded and tipped her hat back. “And even then we couldn’t look past ourselves to work together. At least, at first. But then we finally put on our big filly hats and stepped up to the task.” She smiled softly in fond remembrance. “Me with my lasso and you with yer magic. We had that tree wrangled in no time. A perfect pair we were.”

“Pun intended?”

“Don’t you start. I’m serious.”

Applejack swirled her tea in her glass, watching the string spin for a moment like it was caught in the winds of that storm from so many years ago. She continued. “I’d never clicked with a pony like that before. Not my family, workin’ together on the farm. Not the other girls, all those times we saved the world. But when it was just the two of us, back to back, workin’ together with only each other for support… it just… something about it felt right.”

Rarity felt her heart leap to her throat for a moment. It had been a while since her marefriend had said something like that, being usually one for gestures rather than compliments “That’s... quite flattering. But why bring it up now?”

“Imagine if that tree had never come through that window. If I’d been able to take care of it ‘afore we went inside and bunkered down.”

Rarity considered this. “Then, I suppose, we never would have had that moment.”

“That first day of real cooperation.” Applejack nodded. “The first time I started to wonder if there might be something more to you. To us. That moment… gone. What do you think might have happened then?”

To Applejack’s shock and amazement, Rarity, who was an over thinker at times, and overly dramatic at others, simply shrugged and took another dainty sip of her tea.

“I dunno,” she said, in mock resignation to her marefriend.

Applejack blinked. She blinked again. Then she studied her tea cup carefully, giving it a generous whiff with her nose, and finally pushing it away when she detected nothing out of the ordinary.

“Who are you, and what did you do with my Rares?”

Holding back a choking laugh, Rarity placed her tea cup down and followed suit, pushing it away from herself, the contents nearly gone.

“So what if that one day never happened? If all it took was one such little thing, then surely there would be more. If fate surely calls two ponies together, then one way or another, destiny would tie us together. If it didn’t happen that one day, then another, or even days, weeks, months, possibly years, it could take, but we’d still find each other. That connect, that brings us together making us whole.”

Applejack studied the distant tea cups. At one point, they were far apart, shared by two ponies who thought they knew what was going on, what they wanted. Then they were pushed away, and in that action, thrust upon each other, the small saucers now touching as they shared a connection.

“Dear, would you like more tea?”

Looking from the two touching empty cups, Applejack watched Rarity’s face smile. Maybe she had been too hasty in her worrying about things that could or could not have been. “I think I might.”

Smiling, Rarity brought over the tea kettle in her magic, pouring into both of their cups. “Somehow,” her eyes flashed towards Applejack with a glint, “I thought you might.”

Perhaps, fate did find a way.

Author's Note

My prompt: "Back to back"
ROBCakeran53's prompt: "A Stitch in Time"