Bonnie
“Come right in, Miss Heartstrings.”
The doctor ushered Lyra into the small room, the stale scent of sterilized instruments and bandages still stuck in her nose as she entered. The buzzing fluorescent lights overhead making her already scrambled thoughts even fuzzier.
“Oh my Celestia…” Lyra muttered as she laid eyes on the bed against the wall. “Bon Bon, are you okay?” The sounds of hooves against tile filled the enclosed space as the unicorn closed the distance from the door to the bed in an instant.
Sunlight streamed into the room, bathing the pony in front of her in warm sunlight. She was covered in bandages, which were mostly clustered around her barrel, head and one of her forelegs. Her pink and blue curled mane was held down by them, and one eye covered.
“The carriage did a number on her, I’m afraid.” The doctor spoke from behind her, his voice level and calm. “Several broken ribs, broken front leg in multiple places and a rather nasty head contusion. We’re not quite sure of the extent of the head injury…”
Lyra did her best to suppress the tears welling in her eyes, but she couldn’t contain them. The dam broke and they streamed down her cheeks, staining her mint-green fur. She took Bon Bon’s non-broken hoof in hers and pressed her face against it.
“Please be okay, Bon Bon.” She pleaded with the comatose pony in front of her. “Celestia, I need you to be okay.” The sound of the door closing came from behind her, hopefully the doctor giving them some time alone. “Y-you have no idea...how much I love you. How much I need you…”
“D-do...I know you?” Lyra’s head shot up as the weak voice struggled to escape a parched throat. Bon Bon’s eye opened, stunningly blue and filled with a mixture of confusion and worry. “Do I…?”
“What?” Lyra’s mouth moved a bit more after that word, but nothing followed it. A bit of shock kept her from properly vocalizing what those words did to her. It made her heart grow cold and all of the love and warmth left her body. Finally, she regained control and nodded at the mare in the bed. “Bon Bon, it’s me...Lyra.”
“Lyra?” After the question was asked, the poor battered pony launched into a coughing fit, her good eye wincing in pain as the fit took its toll on her broken ribs.
Lyra wasted no time in picking up a nearby glass of water in her magical grasp and bringing it to Bon Bon’s lips. She gladly took a long drink of it, some spilling out of the sides of her mouth and down her chin and neck.
“Yeah, Lyra.” She finally took the glass away, setting it down on the bedside table with a clink. She once more took the cream-colored hoof into her own hooves, rubbing it softly and slowly. “You remember me right?” A shake of Bon Bon’s head only made the reality match the fear in Lyra’s mind, amplifying it a hundred times over. “C’mon Bon Bon...Lyra. We met in school.” She smiled a bit at the memory, the earth pony with a little too much eyeliner and black lipstick, and her with those damned braces and way too much energy. “I used to call you Bonnie, my sweet Bonnie. Ever since I first met you I’ve been trying to escape this silly little phase we call love.”
“Love?” Bon Bon questioned. “I...I don’t even know you. I can’t…” She closed her eye in thought, taking her hoof from Lyra’s grasp and putting it to her head. “Why does it hurt so much…”
“You were in an accident, Bonnie.” Lyra adopted the old pet name, hoping it would jog something in her head. Just hoping and praying for a kickstart. “A...a carriage hit you while you were on your morning walk. You got beat up pretty good, and you hurt your head…” Lyra sighed and looked to the ground.
The two sat in silence for a few moments, Lyra shedding quiet tears and holding back sobs as the thought of her love forgetting her forever bounced around her head like an angry pinball set on tearing her brain apart.
“Why do you love me?” Bonnie’s voice was small and quiet, but curious.
There was no question more complicated in all of the world, Lyra was sure of it. She had a million reasons to love Bonnie, more than a million even. There was every reason in the world, from her cute yawn to her patience and grace around Lyra’s occasional weirdness.
“Well-” Lyra settled on one in particular. “-I was...in school I lost my mom.” Another memory to bring pain, another needle in her brain. “I was-I wasn’t in a great place after that. It was the lowest I’ve ever been, I was angry all the time, and nopony wanted to be near me.” Lyra looked into Bonnie’s eyes, the passion and pure love welling up in them. “Nopony but you. You told me that you loved me, that you would look after my soul till the day you died, and that if I didn’t love myself you would just hold me instead until I did.” Celestia, Lyra couldn’t stop crying now. There was no way. “You stayed with me through all of that, and through so much more. You-you are my everything, Bonnie. My rock and my peace, my one true love.”
Lyra’s head hit the bed with a light thud, her nose buried in the sheets. Bonnie’s scent echoed through the fabric, like candy and warm sugar. It was so sweet, it smelled like home. It was one of those little things that Lyra dared not ever forget, that she would never let go of because it was so essential to the mare she loved.
A hoof rested on the back of her head, caressing her mane softly. Lyra lifted her head up just enough to see Bonnie smiling down at her, so beautiful and perfect even through the pain and broken bones.
“I think I remember…”
