The Life I Lead

Rarity awoke in a hospital bed, initially unsure of where she was and why she was there.  As she looked around the hospital room, she noticed she was attached to an IV and various other machines meant to monitor her vital signs.  A nurse who was recording the numbers and figures from the machines on a clipboard noticed Rarity's movement, and smiled broadly at the bedridden pony.

"Well hello, sleepyhead.  It's good to see you're finally awake."

Rarity looked back at the nurse, trying to remember what had happened.  "Um, miss, if you don't mind, could you please tell me what happened, and how long I've been here?  I can't recall."

The nurse's smile dimmed somewhat, and she looked back at Rarity in silence for a short while before saying anything.  "Well, we don't really know what happened.  A guardspony on patrol found you and a pegasus in a park somewhere outside the city, both unconscious.  You were merely exhausted, apparently from magical over-exertion.  The pegasus, well..."   Her voice trailed off, and she looked away from Rarity, unwilling to continue the statement.

It was at this point that the events of the night before came flooding back to Rarity, and she clearly saw the pegasus's broken body on the ground.  She went limp, plopping her head back on the pillow as tears of sorrow and failure took her over.  The nurse tried to console her, but Rarity turned away, closing everything out as she wallowed in her misery.

After what seemed like hours to Rarity, she felt her bed being wheeled out of the room and down the hallway.  She buried her face in the pillow, unwilling to deal with the cruel world that had taken an innocent life, despite her desperate attempt at saving him.  The only thing going through her mind was the last few hundred feet of the pony's fall, analyzing what she could have done differently to change the outcome, but it always ended with the same result: the pegasus colliding with the earth with that dreadful noise on impact.  The noise kept playing over and over again, as the pony hit the ground with a thud followed immediately by the cracking of bones.  thuwack.  More tears fell into the pillow as she imagined how much pain the stallion must have been in during his final moments, considering a fall like that isn't guaranteed to kill instantly.  She felt the bed come to a stop, and heard the gentle whirring of various medical machines, along with a slow but steady beeping.  She thought that this was another room for recovered patients, and let one eye peek out from the pillow.  Once the room came into focus, she sat straight up in surprise and relief.  The only other occupant of the room was a pony shaped mass of bandages and casts, with only a few patches of grey fur and his face left uncovered.  Her jaw hung open for several seconds as she stared in shock at the pony beside her.

"He was in emergency surgery for five hours," the nurse from Rarity's original room stepped into view, "he's in a coma at the moment, but it looks like he might pull through."

It took a full 20 seconds for Rarity's mind to recover from the shock of the news.  She turned to face the nurse directly.  "So, he's going to live?"

The nurse nodded.  "It sure looks that way.  Dr. Trotter was able to save him in surgery, thank Celestia."  The nurses face grew serious as she looked into Rarity's eyes.  "You were trying to stop him from falling, weren't you?"

Rarity began to choke up, tears of relief streaming down her face.  She opened her mouth to reply, but no coherent sound came out, so she simply nodded.

"You could have died, Miss.  You almost fell into coma yourself, but luck was on your side and your brain stayed active enough, so you woke up a couple hours after you got here."  She looked over at the figure on the bed with a mournful look on her face.

Rarity simply nodded again, wiping away her tears.  She looked up at the nurse, and asked, "Do you know why he was falling with his wings tied down?"

The nurse simply sighed, and turned to Rarity with the same mournful look.  "He was trying to kill himself" she said sadly, and shifted her gaze toward the stallion.  "It's a common method, for pegasi that is.  We don't have suicides that often, but when we do and they're pegasi, that's usually how it's done."  She let out a melancholy sigh.  "But we almost never have them this young."  She looked back at Rarity.  "You saved his life, young lady, whether he'll appreciate it or not we have yet to see."  She walked slowly out of the room, and a doctor came in.

The doctor was an older-looking unicorn, with the typical white coat and a clipboard hovering just under his face.  His eyes scanned the paper on the clipboard for a short while, then he lowered the clipboard, and looked at Rarity appraisingly.  "Well, it looks like you're mostly recovered, Miss Rarity.  We just have to keep you for another day or two to make sure there are no anomalies caused by your exertion.  I'm sorry I didn't talk to you before, you were a bit... preoccupied."  Rarity simply nodded, and looked at the stallion in the bed next to hers.  The doctor followed her eyes, and shifted uncomfortably.  "We moved you here to try and calm you down, since you weren't listening when we told you he was still alive.  We decided to show you instead, but if you don't feel comfortable in here we can move you back."

Rarity looked at the doctor, her face expressionless.  "No, I'll stay here.  I want to be here when he wakes up."

The doctor nodded in understanding.  "Very well.  But don't expect him to be too overjoyed if he does wake up, failed suicides generally don't enjoy finding out they survived.  He'll be a bit hostile."

Rarity's face hardened.  "Well, I'm not exactly thrilled with him either, so the feeling will be mutual."

~~

A day and a half later, while Rarity was reading a book on the season's up-and-coming designs and styles that the nurse retrieved for her, she heard a groan come from the direction of the stallion.  Her ears perked up automatically to better assess whatever noise may come next, which was mumbling in a foreign language that she didn't understand.  She closed her book rather forcefully, letting out a loud pop.  She looked over towards the formerly-comatose stallion, who was looking around with a baffled look on his face.  Rarity sighed and decided to answer the stallions question before he could ask it.  "You're in a hospital, dear."

The stallions head swung over to get a better look at the source of the voice, which he saw to be a pretty white-coated mare with a purple mane.  As he looked at her, he narrowed his eyes when he realized that this was not where he was supposed to be.  "Why am I still alive?" He growled in a thickly accented voice, making no attempt to hide the anger in his voice.  The beeping of his heart rate began to quicken as he grew more and more riled up.

Rarity looked back at the stallion, her face expressionless as to avoid revealing anything too soon.  "Someone saved your life." she stated matter-of-factly.

Rarity didn't notice any change in the stallions demeanor, but his eyes seemed to flash with pure, white-hot hatred.  "It was you, wasn't it?"

Rarity only nodded, her expression remaining the same.

By this point, the stallion couldn't keep his anger inside, and he exploded.  "Did you not see what was right in front of you?! My wings were tied down for a reason, not for shits and giggles!  You didn't save my life at all, the only thing you accomplished was ruining my death!  I wanted release, and you decided to not only ruin that, but to hospitalize us both!"  When he finished, the stallion glared at Rarity, panting.  Before Rarity could offer a retort, the door to the room burst open, and a nurse and the same doctor as before appeared in the doorway.  The doctor saw that the pegasus was awake, and bolted to the stallion, who glared up at him.  "What do you want?"  The pegasus growled, his voice dripping with venom.

"I'm only here to ask a few questions, if you don't mind."

"Well I do mind, so get out of my sight."  The doctor nodded, unwilling to start a confrontation, and walked out of the room.  The nurse, however, strolled over and checked the IV and machines next to the bed.  The stallion ignored her and shifted his attention back to Rarity, who was sitting upwards in bed, facing the stallion.

Rarity decided to speak before the stallion started yelling again.  "Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem."

The stallions nostrils flared, but his voice was relatively level compared to his previous outburst.  "But a solution nonetheless."

The nurse, who was previously occupied with checking the readings of a machine, stopped and looked down at the stallion, her face a mixture of disgust and anger.  "Look, kid.  That mare almost died trying to save you while you bullheadedly jumped off of a cloud at over 16,000 feet.  Did you even think about the consequences of suicide?!"

The stallion glared daggers at the nurse.  "Consequences?  Let me guess, you're about to lecture me on how devastated my parents would be, and how life is so valuable and is not to be thrown away.  Well let me make some things clear before you go make yourself look like an ass.  One: my parents live in Stalliongrad, which is where I am from.  I ran away because my drunkard of a father beat me daily, and my mother, who was also a victim of my father, died.  I had no friends, only bullies who made fun of my blank flank.  Two: I have been living on my own for the past ten years, never having a proper roof over my head.  I'm a street urchin who has to beg in the dirt all day for enough bits to buy just one meal.  ONE. MEAL.  And you see this?!"  He pointed to the scar running over his right eye with his one good front hoof.  "I got it my first night in this hellhole of a city.  I was twelve.  TWELVE!  Even the other lowlifes avoid me, as if I'm so unclean that I'm not even worthy of their presence.  Don't talk to me about what my life is worth"  He spat.  The nurse, who before had regarded the stallion as simply another attention-seeking teenager, looked shocked.  "You still gonna give me that lecture?" He sneered.  The nurse opened her mouth as if to say something, but no words came out.  She stood there for several seconds before wandering out of the room, still stunned.  He turned towards Rarity, who was also in shock from the story.  "And as for you, 'Ms. Hero,' I don't care if you almost died trying to save me.  I didn't want to be saved.  I wanted to end this pathetic excuse of an existence, but you decided to prolong it instead.  Now I'm probably going to have months of recovery from this, and an obscene medical bill to boot."  Tears began to pour down his face as his anger subsided and was replaced by the all-too-familiar emptiness he knew so well.  He leaned back in the bed and rested his head on the pillow, the tears flowing freely now.   "I just wanted to have peace and be with my mother."  He said in between bouts of crying.  He buried his face into his pillow as he gave up fighting the tears, and sobbed into it until he fell asleep.  His heartbeat slowly calmed down, before going back to a slow but steady rhythm.

~~

The stallion woke up to light streaming in through the window, and sounds of quiet crying coming from the other side of the room.  He rolled his head over to have a look, and saw a shell of the pony that was there the day before.  Her mane, previously curled and neat, was now a mess.  Suddenly he knew where the expression 'birds nest' came from.  Her makeup was destroyed from a night of tears running down her pretty face.  There were bags under her bloodshot eyes.  A pang of guilt stabbed at him, and he knew he went way too far the night before.  He cleared his throat.  "Were you up all night?"

The mare looked at him for a while, wiped her eyes and sniffed.  "Y- yes."

The stallion nodded, and looked towards the wall directly in front of him with a sorrowful expression.  "For what it's worth, I'm sorry about what I said last night.  You didn't deserve it."

The marshmallow mare wiped her eyes again.  "Apology accepted, but I don't really blame you, it sounds like you've been through quite a bit."

The stallion sighed and looked at Rarity, eyes downcast.  "I can't say I'm entirely ungrateful for what you did.  There was always a small part of me that wanted to see things through to the end, that believed that eventually life would get better.  The rest of me just wanted the easiest and fastest solution."

Rarity just looked at the stallion, a thoughtful look on her face.  "Was that a thank you?"

Despite himself, the pegasus chuckled a bit.  "Da."

"My name's Rarity, by the way."

"Moonbeam."