Applejack was soon halted by a nurse pony as the doctor pushed Rainbow Dash away from her inside an examination room. "You'll need to wait outside." The nurse said before following the doctor, shutting the door behind her.
Applejack walked down the tiled hallway into the waiting room, pacing back and forth near the rows of seats aligned against the walls.
With each minute passing she grew more frantic. "She'll be fine." she thought to herself, taking a seat on one of the dozens of chairs in the waiting room.The minutes crept by slowly with no ponies leaving or entering the examination room. The empty waiting room stayed silent, she was the only pony present. The droning quiet bothered her, it provided her with no distractions, allowing her mind to wander to hundreds possibilities of what was happening behind that closed door.
She stared at the clock plastered onto the wall, watching as the small arrow slowly rotated around the circle twice. Applejack tapped her hooves nervously on the floor as the time snailed past, until finally the nurse pony exited the room that Rainbow Dash was being held in. Applejack stood up, trotting over quickly to the Nurse, "How is she?"
The nurse sighed, "You might want to sit back down."
Applejack shook her head and braced herself for the news.
"The lower half of her Metatarsal and below is shattered. The bone had also been dislocated, so it had to be set back in place. She won't walk again for at least a year."
The orange mare's eyes puffed up as she listened, imagining how Rainbow Dash would take the news, she was hardly able to keep her sanity from an entire day of being pent up, let alone a whole year.
The nurse spoke again, "There is also a large chunk of wood that is lodged deep into the muscle tissue which directly controls the motor function of her left wing. Normally this wouldn't present itself as much of a problem. However, it is also pressing down on a cluster of nerves, which is causing her such severe pain that we were required to sedate her."
Applejack blinked, not quite understanding what the nurse was getting at.
"We have to remove it surgically."
Applejack was still confused, "Well why aren't yah?"
"As it is, Rainbow Dash has no family on record, and you are the only pony she has listed as an emergency contact, before we can operate, we need you to sign a consent form."
"Well if that's the only issue, ah'll be happy to sign the form." Applejack looked at the clipboard the nurse had poking out of her saddlebag.
"Before you can sign the document, I am required to inform you of the dangers of this procedure."
Applejack waved a hoof indicating for the pony to continue.
"Due to how deeply imbedded the object is, and given it's location, there is a high probability that the surgery will cause irreparable muscle and nerve tissue damage, which will as a result prevent full use of her wing ever again."
Applejack stared in horror at the nurse with the information she had just been given. Although she knew she had no choice but to approve of the surgery. Regardless of the surgery, Rainbow Dash would be in constant pain and still would not be able to fly anyway. The problem though, if she did sign the form, she already blamed herself, but there was no doubt in her mind that Rainbow would also blame her as well if she were to never fly again.
"This is my fault…" she thought, "C-can ah talk to her?" she said, holding back most of the stream of tears that rolled their way down her cheeks.
The nurse's voice sounded cold as she spoke, hiding away all hints of emotion, "Unfortunately, no, as I said before, we had to sedate her because of the pain that is being caused by the pressure on the nerve cluster. We need you to sign the consent form because she is not mentally capable of signing it herself, at this time."
Applejack returned to her seat, dropping her head in her hooves, "Is there anything else you can do?" she asked doubtfully.
The nurse shook her head, removed the clipboard from her bag, as well as a quill and handed them over. Applejack thought hard about everything that just this one signature would cause. The thoughts frightened her, but what terrified her the most, was the idea that Rainbow Dash may never forgive her.
Applejack had no choice she took a deep breath and scribbled her signature onto the paper with her uncontrollably shaking hooves. After everything that she and her friend had been through, after all she had said to her, this is what it brought them to. A simple signature that would condemn her beloved Rainbow Dash to a life where she would be severed from her every hope and dream.
The moment she finished jotting down her name the nurse took the document and rushed back into the other room. Applejack returned her face back into her hooves, releasing her grasp on the rest of the tears she had been holding back. Her loyal friend had just saved her life, and she felt she had just signed a paper that would destroy her friend in return.