The front door to Sweet Apple Acres' farmhouse isn't locked and never has been. It's a testament to both Ponyville culture and Apple family hospitality that the three-story building has only ever had a simple spring latch to keep it closed. When Applejack leans on the bar, the bolt inside retracts, and the door swings wide, sending a gust of warm afternoon wind into the front room.

The parlor room of the farmhouse is a museum, showcasing the history of the family. One of Aunt Rose's cross-stitch patterns hangs on the wall, and some of Uncle Strudel's wooden figurines sit on a shelf that Grandpa Wealthy made. He also carved the rocking chair in which Granny Smith now naps, snug beneath one of the quilts Auntie Applesauce made. Keeping watch over the room are Great-Grandpa Pippin and Great-Grandma Summerfree, smiling like saints down from the portrait that her mother painted and her father framed.

Applejack eases the door closed behind her, her eyes riveted on Great-Grandpa Pippin's. Even for his age, he's an oak of a stallion in the picture, all solid trunk and sturdy branch. A snow-thatch of white mane tops his head, and laugh lines cover his face, but his leaf-green eyes are as bright as they ever were in every story Granny Smith ever told about him. She's told Applejack she has her great-grandmother's smile, but her coat is the spitting image of Pippin's, and it's to him that the young mare's gaze always travels. Every time Applejack comes home, she can't help but look up to him. He's the first Apple in Ponyville's orchard, and the founder of the farm as well. His presence on the wall is a reminder of her own commitment to the farm and to those who should one day follow in her hoofsteps.

With a grimace, Applejack pulls her gaze down from the wall; she doesn't need that kind of thought right now. She treads lightly around the room, past her snoring grandmother and into the kitchen. McIntosh, Apple Bloom, and Sweetie Belle sit at the table, a spread of papers before them. Her brother has his reading glasses perched on his muzzle, placidly studying the fillies and their awkward figures as they try to wheedle their way through long division.

"So... nine goes inta sixty... um...." Bloom pauses, drawling out her numbers around the stub of a pencil. "Nine times six is..." She pauses and looks up at her brother, hoping for a sign.

"It's... fifty-four, isn't it?" Sweetie looks up and to her left, tugging the answer sheet closer with a hoof as she waits for McIntosh to respond.

Bloom presses down and pulls it back, the paper wrinkling in the middle from the stress. "Naw, it's... wait, is it?" She lets go of the page and starts writing out sums on a scratch sheet. "Nine, eightee--"

"Hi, Applejack!" Sweetie Belle's shout interrupts the other filly's counting. "Want to help us study?"

Before Applejack can respond, Bloom spits the pencil onto the table, then drops from her chair and dashes over to her, wrapping one foreleg around her sister's. "Y'all were out all day! I was startin' to think y'all were gonna miss supper!"

Applejack returns the hug and nuzzles at the top of Bloom's head. "Tonight's Granny's cellar casserole; nothin's keepin' me away. I just got a lot on my mind." She looks up at McIntosh, who's been studying her placidly since she walked into the kitchen. Her eyes dart to the staircase, then back. He follows her gaze, then nods in response. "Mind if I borrow Big Mac for a bit, you two?"

"But he's helpin' us with our 'rithmetic!" Bloom stamps one forehoof. "Miss Cheerilee says we got a pop test come Moonday mornin'!"

"An' I'll have him back to you before supper," Applejack soothes. "I jus' need a bit o' time for some big-pony talk."

Bloom's frown deepens. "I am a big pony."

"Here." McIntosh ducks his head and snaps up the pencil with a practiced flick of his lip. He quickly jots down a series of problems on the page, then slides it across the table and drops the pencil on top. "You two work on those. I'll be back 'fore you're done." He then trots up the stairs, pointedly ignoring the groans behind him.

McIntosh's room used to be his father's, back when Jonagold was a colt. The furniture has all been upscaled and the door's hinges have been replaced twice since her brother claimed the space, but her father's yoke still hangs from the same iron hook it did when he first inherited it from Great-Uncle Jonathan. A small bookshelf sits beneath it, its shelves bowed with leather-bound hardbacks. A vase sits on the window, with fresh flowers turned towards the afternoon sun.

The stallion trots to his desk and drops his glasses on a sheaf of paperwork, then takes a seat and turns to face his sister. The wheatstalk shifts from one corner of his muzzle to the center; he's waiting for her to talk.

Applejack nudges the door closed behind her, then leans back against it, bracing herself for the torrent to follow. "So, I wanted to let you know my date went well... well enough we're lookin' t' do it again, I think." She swallows. "I just... wanted to make sure you didn't have any problems if I said--" She stops, hard, Pippin's eyes leering down at her inside her mind. First in Ponyville's orchard. And I'm the last.

She grits her teeth and forces out the words. "If I said... I wasn't gonna be the one to carry on the family line." Reflexively, she pulls back towards the door, but Big Mac remains fixed in place, watching her placidly, his eyes half-lidded like he's not even listening. The silence stretches out uncomfortably between them, sliding past awkward into painful, until Applejack stammers into the gap again. "I like mares, Mac. I'm not gonna have foals."

Big Mac slides the wheatstalk over to the side of his muzzle. "I know."

The simple acknowledgement knocks the wind out of Applejack's sails harder than any bellow could have. "You... you knew?"

One corner of McIntosh's muzzle rises in a half-grin. "You an' Dash weren't exactly a secret. Maybe for you. Not for her."

Applejack doesn't know what to do with this information; indifference wasn't one of the outcomes she'd spent the afternoon since Pinkie's impromptu visit preparing to face. Anger, denial, and sorrow, but not simple acceptance. "But... but this means it's gonna fall to you to carry on the family line!"

"Or Bloom," Big Mac counters with a shrug. "There's time yet."

The quietude eats at Applejack; this isn't how she expected the confrontation to go at all. She starts to pace in front of McIntosh's door. "Granny's gonna be furious. She's been after great-grandfoals for years." McIntosh raises one eyebrow, but the farm-mare doesn't notice. "The farm's been in this family since it was founded. It's not just a tradition; it's a legacy! This here's Apple property, and it should go to an Apple! It ain't right if nopony carries on the line!"

"Sounds like it ain't Granny who's worried about havin' foals," Big Mac opines around his wheatstalk. "So adopt."

The sound of that makes Applejack rear back, the whites of her eyes starting to show. "What?"

Big Mac shrugs. "There's foals lookin' for homes. Take one o' them in, if you an' yourn decide you want a family."

"But that's not--" The next word sticks in Applejack's throat when she sees the scowl spreading across McIntosh's face. "I mean...." She trails off again, her gaze past the flowers on Mac's windowsill, out towards the clouds past the edge of the farm. "I suppose Scootaloo's kinda turnin' into Dash's sister, so maybe." She looks back to her brother's relaxing face. "You think Granny'd be okay if that's how I did it?"

McIntosh shrugs again. "I think Granny'll be happy if you're happy, sis."

The mare drops her head, the weight on her mind visibly settling out of her shoulders. "Thanks, Mac. I gotta think about it s'more, but at least it's somethin' t' think about." She turns around to head back downstairs, then stops and looks over her shoulder. "You really don't mind, do you?"

At that, McIntosh glances towards the window, then back his sister. "Eenope."

Downstairs, Bloom and Sweetie Belle have descended into squabbling over whether long division is worse than history for pop tests, and the papers have scattered to the floor. While McIntosh helps gather the pages into a pile, Applejack starts washing piles of carrots, potatoes, onions and turnips fetched from the cellar. Granny Smith comes in from her afternoon nap, and soon afterwards she has a pot of gravy simmering on the stove. While Applejack peels, McIntosh carves, and Granny layers vegetables and gravy with slices of fresh cheese, and then the casserole goes into the oven.

While the farmhouse fills with the smell of roasted vegetables, McIntosh washes pots and knives, while Bloom and Sweetie Belle argue over what a cutie mark in table-setting would look like. In the parlor, Applejack sits with a deck of cards, dealing out solitaire to kill the time and help keep her thoughts from churning; she can feel Great-Grandpa Pippin looking over her shoulder as she puts six on seven, bailiff on minister. His presence permeates the room, first of the Ponyville orchard.

Adopt. The word lingers in Applejack's mind, unsubtle like a hammer on glass. It's the kind of word foals used to hurt each other, to say their real parents didn't love them enough. She moves two onto three, eight onto bailiff. She remembers Uncle Orange telling her about how they grow seedless fruit in those fancy greenhouses in Manehatten. You take a branch from one tree, and you cut away the bark on another. Then you tie the branch in place, and you tend it very carefully, and in a few seasons, it's like the branch was always part of that tree. She glances over her shoulder at Pippin and Summerfree, smiling down on Sweet Apple Acres, on the fruits of their labor. An orange growing from an apple tree was still an orange, wasn't it?

Granny Smith rocks in Grandpa Wealthy's rocker and takes up her knitting, waiting for supper. Applejack watches her add rows of deep blue knits and lighter purls to a scarf whose other end already brushes the floor. "I hate t' break this to ya, Granny, but Winter Wrap-up was a couple months ago."

"Gonna be a short summer this year, I reckon," she talks as she works, the needles between her hooves clacking as she talks. "'Sides, it's always the right time for a family-welcoming gift."

That perks up Applejack's ears. "New family member?"

"Eeyup!" Granny holds up the scarf between her hooves, eying her stitching, then grumbles and starts tugging out knots. The scarf is shorter than when she started by the time she's satisfied. "Cousin Honeycrisp, up in Whinnyapolis."

"Well, that's mighty thoughtful, Granny!" Applejack picks up a deck of cards off of an end table and starts riffling them in front of her as she talks. "Red finally buck up and find himself a mare?"

Granny sputters for a moment, then lets out a tight cackle. "Well, no, not exactly."

Applejack raises an eyebrow. "Is...." She can feel her face flush again and her ears press against the top of her head. She wants to ask. She doesn't want to ask. She wants it to be okay. She wants to be okay, but she can't shake the feeling of Pippin's eyes on her. "Is Red into stallions, then?" Honeycrisp isn't exactly a stallion's name, but then, Applejack isn't exactly a mare's name, either. "He always did seem kinda light on his hooves,"

Granny's cackle subsides only slightly. "You can ask yerself at the family reunion," she manages around her laugh.

Before Applejack can figure out a response to that, the timer in the kitchen chimes, followed instantly by Apple Bloom's enthusiastic shout of "Supper's on!" The Apple family kitchen table is set for five, and Applejack escorts her grandmare to her seat. McIntosh serves out heaping plates of caramelized onion and roasted carrot topped with melted cheese and bubbling gravy. Bloom's got the fork in her hoof as soon as the food is before her, but a ringing tone from Granny Smith's glass reminds her to fold her hooves and bow her head.

"Pippin and Summerfree," Granny intones at the head of the table, "please keep watch over all your kin. Help us keep our tables laden and our troubles light. Help us be kind to one another, and show us the path of righteousness, until the day when we all return to the earth."

"Until the day," echoes around the table, followed by the frantic clatter of silverware. The first few minutes of dinner are always quiet, as everypony digs into the meal, but then McIntosh rises and asks if anypony wants cider, followed quickly by four hearty assents and the clunk of heavier mugs hitting the table. Applejack lifts her mug and offers a toast to the coming harvest, followed by a round of cheers, and the conversation flows with the apple brew.

After dinner, Applejack helps McIntosh tidy the kitchen, while the fillies head to their clubhouse to meet with Scootaloo. Granny Smith returns to the parlor, to nap or knit or some combination of both. The last dish dried, McIntosh nods to Applejack. "You need anything else 'fore tomorrow?"

Applejack shrugs. It's an occasional ritual of her brother's, out Canterday evening, back Sunday afternoon. She's okay with it; it keeps him happy. She wonders what he does on his off-nights, and with whom, but she tells herself again that he'll share when he's ready, just like she did. "Nothin' comes t' mind. You'll be back by sundown?"

"Eeyup." McIntosh leans down and presses his neck to his sister's in a hug, then lightly trots upstairs and ducks into his room, leaving Applejack to finish tidying the kitchen. Celestia's set the sun, and Luna's got the moon up over the Whitetails. She heads to the back porch and sits on the two-pony swing hanging from the eave. She reaches one forehoof out and tries to imagine Fluttershy sitting beside her, the almost-ticklish softness of the pegasus' feathers pressed to her side. It's not hard to envision the mare's neck pressed to hers, the comfortable weight of her, sharing the evening looking out at the sky.

Applejack fetches another cider from the kitchen, this one from the special reserves at the back of the pantry. She twists off the cap, then trots back outside. Ponyville's weather team has cleared away the clouds, and despite the approach of summer a chill quickly settles over the farm as the sky shades from blue to black. The hard cider is cold, but it sends a warmth out from the pit of her stomach.

Back inside, Granny Smith snores lightly along with the creak of the rocking chair, the light from her reading lamp casting long shadows across the parlor floor. Upstairs, McIntosh's door is closed, as is Apple Bloom's, and silence echoes behind each. Canterday evenings at the farmhouse have felt empty for a while now, but the thought of Fluttershy following her up the stairs makes the night feel a little less alone.

Applejack's bed is big enough for herself and a few blankets, but the thought of Fluttershy takes up hardly any room at all. She tosses her hat onto one bedpost, then crawls into bed, dragging her winter comforter over her,. As her head hits the pillow, the idea of the pegasus snuggles into her barrel. The farmpony smiles and lifts one hoof, then drapes it over the heavy blanket and the image of Fluttershy nestled under her foreleg.

The farmpony closes her eyes and breathes slowly in and out, letting the thoughts of the day subside. As she tries to relax into sleep, though, a familiar itch begins to tickle her. Applejack grimaces and rolls onto her other side, the dream of Fluttershy wrapping her forelegs around the other mare. The blanket weighs her down, its normally well-worn smoothness tugging this way and that at her pelt. She squirms, trying to find some position that helps ease the need, but the thought of the other mare keeps teasing, the edge of her hoof gliding along the inside of Applejack's thigh.

With a groan, Applejack rolls up onto her knees, her forehead against her pillow. Thoughts of Dash used to inspire the same feelings, the same uncomfortable ache that demanded satisfaction. Whenever the other mare had pressed herself to Applejack's side, whispered in her ear, or struck a pose with with a come-here smile in her eyes, that awkward and incessant itch would start insistently twitching between her legs. She would do her best to put it out of her mind, to push it away and focus on the romance and the emotion of the moment. The more she denied it, though, the more urgent it became, until she would angrily shove Dash away, lest she be forced to give in to her needs.

Here, in her bedroom, alone with the idea of Fluttershy, one forehoof slips between hindlegs, gliding along her slick thigh to the cleft between them. Below her, the thought of Fluttershy throws back her head, muzzle agape as Applejack grinds down against her. The image of the other mare trembles beneath her as she grits her teeth, and her body responds to the fantasy, her ears flattening against her head as she slowly rolls the edge of her hoof along her lips.

Applejack rolls her hips, grinding into her hoof with steady thrusts. The dream of Fluttershy gasps, the pegasus' wings spread, pushing back into every one of Applejack's bucks. The farmpony's breath catches in her throat, raggedly panting as she rubs herself, hoof slick with anticipation as the thought of Fluttershy begs for more and she struggles to give it.

With a groan, Applejack deliberately slows her thrusts, her foreleg steady beneath her as she pounds her hips into it. The edge of her slick hoof slides between her lips, flicking over the nubbin of hot flesh and sending ripples of heat up her spine. The image of Fluttershy lies on her back, her wings spread wide against the one-pony bed, her back arched in ecstasy as they grind themselves together. The pegasus' high-pitched keen echoes her own gasps of passion, their bodies moving as one, dragging Applejack ever closer to the moment.

"Fl-- Flu--" Applejack tries to gasp the name, to bring herself fully into the fantasy, but her stomach clenches as the first syllable leaves her lips. Too late, too late, she tries to push aside the thought of Fluttershy exposed beneath her, to pull back to the dream of the other mare cuddling innocently against her, but her urge will not be denied. Her hips shiver and twitch, grinding against her hoof even as her body rebels. The first spasm hits her like a buck in the gut, her whole body locking up as the aftershocks rattle her bones.

A second, then a third, and Applejack throws aside the comforter and snatches a towel from the floor. She furiously scrubs at her loins, sopping up her excesses before wiping her hooves on it and tossing it back to the ground. Her breathing is still ragged, her eyes watery and red. She feels awkward and flushed, quietly wishing she could get it out of her system once and for all. She hasn't, and she won't, but that doesn't stop the dream.

The urge satiated for tonight, spent in body and mind, Applejack rolls back onto her side. She pulls the covers back up over her and huddles up beneath them, trying to get her breathing back under control. She closes her eyes, waiting for sleep, silently hoping the dream of Fluttershy will forgive her, will come back and hold her, will tell her that it won't always hurt like the dream of Dash never could.

Author's Note

Stars, but it has been forever. My apologies to all, but things are finally starting to settle. For those who didn't see my comment before, the last six months have been a pressure cooker for me:
* I had -- and in some ways am still having on a small scale -- a scare regarding my ongoing employment.
* I bought a house.
* I got caught up in a very complicated social situation requiring a lot of emotional investment among several members of my extended social circle.
* I staffed three conventions.

Most of these are in some fashion resolving, but there's still some ongoing stress, and I was already out of practice. Writing is a muscle, and the less you use it, the harder it gets to get back in the habit of using it. This chapter took me over a month from inception to execution, but the words are flowing easier and maybe the next bit won't be nearly so long in coming!