Welcome to the World, Bell Pepper · 6:44pm Aug 8th, 2018

Well, it's been several months since a journal drabble, but here I am with another! Since it's the birthday I assigned Bell Pepper (and the actual day that I came up with her--I remember because I was on a camping trip that year), here's a little thing about when Bell was born.

It was a beautiful August day in Salt Lick City. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, and one stallion was making a mad dash to the hospital.
“Sure, it had to be the same day as the meeting!” Tomato Sandwich complained. “And right in the middle of it, too!”
And it had to be his brother-in-law Bananas popping in and breaking the news. He had just suddenly appeared in that one vacant chair in the meeting room, dressed like Tomato and his co-workers and casually playing a fanfare on his trumpet. It disturbed most of the ponies in the room, while a scarlet-faced Tomato had to drag him out by the ear to give him a piece of his mind. But, all it took for Bananas to defuse that (and send Tomato into this panic) was to say, “Well, when yourbaby’s coming, I have no time to be polite!”
Maybe Tomato could ask his mother-in-law, Honeysuckle, to give Bananas a verbal beatdown when the whole birth thing was over. For now, he was just glad that the others let him go, understanding that he needed to actually be there for his wife, Flora.
He wound through small crowds and jumped over pedestrians, who had to do double-takes to make sure they didn’t just imagine that. At each intersection, he’d be shimmying up lampposts and leaping across the street, which had some witnesses whooping at the most interesting sight they’ve seen all day. And he had to force himself to push on, even when things literally went uphill, his throat stung, and his chest felt ready to explode.
Soon enough, he was wobbling in through the hospital door and slamming his head on the front desk, bearing resemblance to a wet squeaky toy.
The receptionist leaned over her desk and stretched herself above him. “Can I help you?”
Tomato still wheezed. “Wife… baby… where…?”
“I’m going to need a name, sir.”
Tomato took a deep breath, wiped the sweat off his brow, and stood up to full height. “Flora Peace? I’m her husband.”
“Oh! Yes, you have the right place. All right, the maternity ward’s down that right hall, and after you reach the waiting room, the nurse should lead you to her room.”
Tomato whirled around and went the exact way she pointed. “Thank you.”
“I have to say, you’re good at the breathing part,” Honeysuckle said.
Flora had settled into a breathing rhythm, easing the pain of each contraction as much as she could. They still hurt and that part of her body was the most uncomfortable it’s ever been, but by all accounts, laying on her side with a nice, soft pillow made her feel somewhat better. “Well, I have a knack for breathing exercises, Mom.” She ran a hoof over her round belly. “I still wish that this foal would come out already.”
“Oh, me too!” Honeysuckle laughed. “Grandma’s itching to hold her grandbaby! But, really, we want it to wait until Papa Tomato arrives.”
“I swear, every time we call him Papa Tomato, I crave pizza.”
There was a knock at the door, and the nurse opened the door and led a disheveled Tomato into the room. “Excuse me, dear, but your husband has arrived.”
“Okay, now the baby has permission to come out,” Honeysuckle said.
Tomato laughed weakly, and ambled to right next to his mother-in-law. “Hey, girls… glad I made it before the main event.”
Flora scanned her husband top to bottom, noting the curls that popped out of place and the casual openness of his jacket. “You look like you galloped halfway across town.”
“I did.”
“You didn’t think to catch a carriage?”
“I did briefly think ‘subway’ before realizing I’m not in Manehattan.”
“Do you need water?”
“No, no, I’m good. They let me have a cup.” He leaned forward and rubbed Flora’s belly. “Hey, little one, Daddy’s here for your arrival! Try not to make things too rough for your Mom, okay?”
Honeysuckle tapped Tomato’s shoulder. “So, where’s Bananas?”
“Out informing the rest of the family–well, your side. Given how far Ponyville is, it’s only possible to give my brother and sister-in-law after-the-fact news.”
And then, from the corner of the room, a high voice said, “Unleeeeess, both Pinkie and Cheesy Sense already told us that a new member of the family’s about to come to the world!”
Tomato jumped at the sound of that voice, and all three looked to see that the voice belonged to Pinkie Pie, and she was accompanied by her husband Cheese Sandwich, and their twins Pizza Pockets and Fudge Fondue. The seven-year-olds held balloons, which bore the respective messages of “It’s a filly!” and “It’s a colt!”
Tomato relaxed, though still a bit annoyed. “Okay, never mind.”
The family drew closer to the bed, and the parents let the twins climb up on their backs. Cheese grinned at Tomato and said, “What? You’d think I’d miss my baby brother becoming a dad? Psht, as if!”
“So… how long until our new cousin is born?” Pizza asked.
Flora’s shrug was interrupted by another contraction, and she pursed her lips and gritted her teeth in pain. Settling back into breathing rhythm again, she looked at Tomato to answer their question.
Tomato just said, “Soon.”
“Well, I’ll have a cake ready for everyone when it happens,” Pinkie said. “Well, maybe not the baby, since it won’t have teeth, but hey, I’ll whip one up for when he or she grows teeth!”
“What if it’s twins like us?” Fudge asked, pointing between her and her brother.
Every adult in the room grimaced, even Cheese and Pinkie. Rubbing the back of her head, Honeysuckle answered, “Well… it’s probably just one pony. Twins tend to come out a little early, and this one… more on time, really.”
“How come they come out early?”
“Uh, not enough room.”
Pinkie uncomfortably grinned at Flora in a silent scream of “Trust me, you do NOT want twins,” and then glanced at Cheese, who nodded at the message. Regardless, Pinkie said to the twins, “Yeah, it would be nice if she could have both a filly and a colt, but guess they have to settle for one and hope that the next one is the other gender.”
Pizza leaned over and gently tapped his mother’s belly. “Or that our new sibling is.”
Pinkie looked down to where her son poked. “Oh, that’s right! We even have a little playmate for their bundle of joy!”
Cheese’s face softened. “But, filly or colt, they’ll still have lots of love for their little baby, even if it is a lot of work! Flora’s got a lot of younger siblings and Tomato babysat you when you were babies, so I think they’ll be good parents.”
Honeysuckle stroked Flora’s hair as the new mother did her breath exercises. “It feels just like yesterday that I had Flora. And now, I’m here to see my firstborn have her firstborn.”
Flora smiled warmed at her mother for a moment, before another wave of pain hit her and she performed a long growl. “Aw, yikes, coming closer!”
Tomato bent down and took her hoof. “So, uh… what do I do?”
“Just sit there and be her cheerleader,” Honeysuckle said. “Sometimes a mare just needs to know that she is loved and supported when going through a lot of pain.”
Flora bore a pained grin. “Mm-hm.”
“Y’know, this kind of reminds me of something me and Fudge talked about,” Pizza Pockets said, turning to his nodding sister. “When we told our classmates that Mom was gonna have a baby, all the fillies were wondering what it was like to be a mom, and they all kept asking where babies come from–which I thought was stupid, because they obviously come from a mom’s belly, and that the mom just… poops them out or something.”
Flora stifled laughter, and buried her face in her pillow. Pinkie, Cheese, and Honeysuckle were giggling themselves, while Tomato just looked at him like he grew a second head.
Pizza continued, “But then Fudge asked me why a mom’s body just randomly decides to make a baby. And how do I look like my Dad when it’s my Mom who had us?”
“Yeah, it confuses us,” Fudge said.
All laughter stopped, and each adult in the room looked at each other nervously. Pinkie and Cheese looked more uncomfortable than Flora did, and they looked at each other with a sense of panic. Tomato could see the gears turning in their heads, pondering on when the right time was to tell them how fathers contributed to making babies.
The silence was broken by Flora letting out another long, pained growl, and everyone except Tomato backed away. It was then that the unicorn doctor trotted in.
“Hello, I’m Dr. Delivery,” she said.
“Oh, convenient name,” Tomato muttered.
Dr. Delivery ignored that and continued, “And I’m here to determine how far along you are in the foaling process, and well, deliver the foal. I heard that growl from outside, so it sounds like you’re getting close.”
“Oh, really?” Flora said with a forced grin.
Dr. Delivery nodded. “Yes, and it’s around this time that everyone in this room, save the father, should leave. We want as few ponies as possible during foaling.”
Honeysuckle nuzzled her daughter’s head. “All right, Flora, you’re a strong mare, you can do this.”
“Okay,” Flora mumbled.
Then, Tomato piped up, “Oh, Honeysuckle, can you kill Bananas for me? He interrupted my meeting without even bothering to knock.”
Honeysuckle had turned and headed for the door. “I’ll see what I can do.”
As the others followed her out, Cheese paused to say to Tomato, “Trust me, all the preparation in the world will do nothing to stop the moment you look at your foal for the first time, and think, ‘Is this really mine? Did we make this?’ It’ll hit you like a ton of bricks that you and Flora created a new life.”
“Uh… okay.” Tomato said.
With that, Cheese was shooed out of the room by the nurse coming in.
Soon enough, Flora’s father and seven siblings had arrived, and the large family settled into the waiting room. Most of the adults were engaged in conversation, ranging from topics of parties from Cheese and Bananas, to strange stories from Honeysuckle’s inn (which she jokingly referred to as ‘inn-cidents’), to Equestria-wide adventures and fights with rogue teenage dragons fought long ago from March, the continued development of animation from Ash Tree, to hilarious mechanical incidents from Olive, and Alfalfa just listened to it all. Only Pinkie wandered off to congratulate another family also waiting for a baby. Among the kids, Flora’s teenage siblings were keeping the twins from getting bored. Amber was weaving a tale about an adventurous princess to her other sister Willow and little Fudge, while Flora’s youngest brother, Kernel, occupied Pizza with a trading card game.
Meanwhile, in the delivery room, Tomato felt the crushing pain of Flora’s hoof constricting his own, as if she was trying to pass on some of her agony to him during the foaling.
“Try not to break my leg!” he shouted, barely concealing a scream. “I do want to hold the baby!”
“USE YOUR TAIL TO HOLD IT!” Flora snapped.
“Hey, don’t give me that attitude!”
“You’re the one who got me pregnant in the first place!”
The nearby nurse, barely aware of the argument and focused on scribbling reports on a clipboard, then dared to ask, “On a scale of one to ten, how much pain are you in?”
Husband and wife shut up just long enough to turn to the nurse and glare at her like she was some sort of idiot. Flora then yelled to the ceiling in pain, and Tomato, not taking his eyes off the nurse, pointed to his wife and snapped, “Does that answer your question?!”
Dr. Delivery, stationed at the other end of the bed, peeked up at them and said, “Don’t worry, you’re doing great! You just need a few good pushes and that baby’s out!”
“Gee, how painful would it be if I was doing badly?!” Flora growled, crushing her husband’s foreleg yet again.
Dr. Delivery ignored that. “All right, ready?”
Tomato could not imagine how painful it was, nor how any mare could even do it. It was probably more painful than the screams drilling at his eardrums, and the crushing grip that threatening to break his foreleg. If he didn’t know any better and wasn’t in the room, he’d have guessed that Flora was dying in a horrific manner, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. He didn’t feel like a very good cheerleader when he was doing nothing but watch Flora nearly scream her own ghost out. He could barely hear the doctor’s progress reports, just his ears ringing and his heart pounding as he witnessed what he could only describe as torture.
And just like that, Flora’s screams stopped, and a baby’s screams began.
Wow, that baby had strong lungs.
“Music to my ears…” Flora croaked.
Tomato just wanted his ears to stop ringing.
Dr. Delivery laughed as she swaddled the foal in a towel and rubbed it down. “Well, that strong cry’s a good sign! And I have to say, she looks a lot like her father!”
She. Her. It was official, Tomato and Flora had a daughter.
After a few minutes more of a cleanup and a checkup, the baby was wrapped in a blanket, and levitated toward her mother. Dr. Delivery smiled warmly at the new parents. “Congratulations, you have a healthy little filly.”
She and the nurse walked out for business elsewhere, leaving the parents to have a moment with their baby.
Flora, now sitting upright and having had everything in that womb purged, cradled the newborn in her forelegs and brushed the little one’s cheeks. The doctor wasn’t kidding when she said the filly had a strong resemblance to her father; though her coat was a cherry red instead of Tomato’s vermilion, she also had the exact dark brown curls he did naturally. The filly opened her tired lids, revealing eyes of gray that took in her mother and father.
“Hey, sweetie,” Flora cooed. “Welcome to the world, we’re happy to have you here. You can call me ‘Mom’, and you can call this handsome stallion ‘Dad’.”
Tomato just stared at the filly, feeling just breathless at the sight of this new pony. This tiny little foal, taking her first breaths and seeing pony faces for the first time, was actually half… him. Half Tomato Sandwich. The fruit of his and Flora’s love, something that they made together.
Flora smiled at him. “Hey, you want to hold her?”
His foreleg was just bruised, so he nodded, propped himself up by his tail, and took the baby from her. She was like a tiny doll, except she moved. He just watched her eyelashes flutter, her tongue poke in and out of her mouth, and her hoofs reaching for any ground to walk on. He watched her nose wrinkle the way that Flora’s did, telling him that there was at least some of her mother there. He heard her little pathetic attempts at whinnies, calling out to him.
“I, uh…” he stammered. What could he say to a baby? “Hi… I’m Dad.”
Being called “Dad” was something he was going to have to get used to, because this little girl was going to call him that once she started to speak. What other words would she say? What kinds of things would she be interested in? What would be her cutie mark? He was holding a being with infinite potential, one that he could honestly and happily say was his daughter.
“She’s as beautiful as her mother,” he finally said.
“I don’t know, she looks more like you,” Flora replied.
“Well, I don’t have gray eyes. I think gray’s closer to your blue than my green.”
“I think that’s from my Grandma Autumn.” Flora sighed. “But, no matter how she looks, it’s clear to me that you love her already. You want to keep her?”
“Of course!” Tomato leaned down to Flora’s face. “I mean, she’s the perfect addition to our family. I can’t wait to come home to two lovely ladies.”
Flora giggled. “Good. I was planning on keeping her anyway.”
After drawing close for a kiss, a nurse walked in, and cleared her throat to grab their attention. “Excuse me, but do you have a name for your daughter?”
Both parents opened their mouths to speak, but stopped short when they looked at their daughter’s red coat, and realized that the girls’ names they had come up with didn’t quite match up with her.
“Uh-oh,” Flora said. “I don’t think she’s a Marigold or a Nature Walk.”
“Nor is she a Cucumber Melon,” Tomato said. “Drat, we should have accounted for a red girl–I kept imagining a daughter looking like you! If she was a boy, Ketchup would be a good name.”
“Well, maybe we can think of a red fruit or vegetable,” Flora suggested. “Like, uh, apple?”
Tomato shook his head. “The Apple Family kind of has a monopoly on those names. Maybe Cherry Tomato?”
“Feels too much like a ‘Jr.’ name, and you know how I feel about those.”
“Right. Um…” He looked at the nurse, and gulped when his mind drew a blank for any other red produce. He knew there were lots, but he just couldn’t think of anything.
Luckily, Flora then suggested, “Uh, how about Chili Pepper?”
Tomato shrugged. “Eh? That sounds more masculine to me, honestly.” He looked down at the baby, who was sucking her hoof. “A more girl-sounding pepper name would probably be Bell Pepper or something.”
Flora paused for a moment to process the alternative, remember what the actual fruit looked like, and look at their daughter. She smiled. “Actually… I think Bell Pepper has a nice ring to it.”
Tomato blinked, and took a moment to get it. “Now that you say it… yeah, that’s a pretty good name.”
Flora looked at the nurse. “Her name’s Bell Pepper.”
The nurse nodded, wrote that down, and left the room.
Then, Flora turned to Tomato, who was tickling Bell’s chin. “Hey, why don’t you go out and break the news. I’m sure everyone’s dying to meet her.”
Pinkie Pie looked at the other family, whose lucky new father had come out announcing a son. She looked at the balloons her twins held, and was tempted to grab the “It’s a colt!” one and give it to them. But, as it was, she didn’t know what Tomato and Flora were having, so she couldn’t just give away a balloon at a whim.
However, the conversations between her husband, kids, and Flora’s family were halted when Tomato poked his head through the door. “Hello, everypony.”
That caught everypony’s attention, with Cheese exclaiming, “Hey, Tommy! How’d it go?”
March and Honeysuckle stood up, with the latter saying, “Is our daughter all right?”
“Don’t worry,” Tomato said. “Flora’s doing fine, and so is the baby.” He pulled the rest of his body out of the door, his tail cradling a little newborn filly. “Guys, meet our daughter, Bell Pepper.”
All the girls gasped, Honeysuckle most of all, while the boys just let out mild whoops in congratulations. The family had to do their best not to swarm the baby, instead letting Grandma and Grandpa come forward first to meet their granddaughter.
“Oh, my!” Honeysuckle said, with a hoof to her mouth. “She’s so precious!”
“Well, I’ll be,” March said. “You know, even with her papa’s colors, she clearly has her mama’s face. Look, Honey, isn’t that the exact face Flora had when she was born?”
“Oh, yes! Haha, she’s going to grow up into a beauty, I can feel it!”
Cheese had popped up beside Tomato, on the opposite side of where the new father held Bell, and flung a front leg over his shoulders. “I’m happy it went well for you guys. It is a little disappointing that she came out red instead of green and you couldn’t use Grandma’s name. But, hey, you found a good name, bro.”
Tomato gave him a funny look. “Uh, thanks?”
Cheese chuckled. “But in all honesty… I think Bell will be happy with you two as her parents. I can’t wait to see how she grows up with you two raising her.”
Tomato smiled. “Well… I’m a little nervous, but thanks.”
Pinkie, surprisingly, was the one who held back the furthest, just watching the scene with a warm smile. She nudged Fudge forward with her pink “It’s a filly!” balloon, while she took Pizza’s balloon and urged him forward to meet his cousin anyway. With the balloon in hoof, she zipped to the other family, congratulated them and gave them the balloon, and then zipped back to rejoin her group to meet her little niece.
And of course, she announced, “Now, who’s ready for some chocolate cake to celebrate our new family member?”

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FanOfMostEverything

FanOfMostEverything #1 · Aug 8th, 2018 · · ·

Wonderful throughout, from the party pony alert system to Pinkie making sure no balloon went to waste. Though it's a good thing Tomato got the right hospital on the first try. Imagine if he went the wrong way!