My first born was a unicorn colt. He looks just like his dad except for his mane, which is a lighter green than mine. I named him Cherry Bomb. He took more after the cherry part than the bomb part. He has a small cherry farm in the corner of Isotope City's farming district. I couldn't tell if my peach farming ancestors were happy that one of their descendents was a farmer again, or turning in their graves because he was a cherry farmer. Sorry, Mum. Cal and I had a second child shortly after Winchester retired - another unicorn. She has my coat and her dad's mane. Cal named Peace Maker, which is only fair. Nevada loves 'em too – Peace is getting a little big to be riding around his back, especially at his age, but there is no stopping them.. They're nine and three, and they're the pride and joy of my life. We're going to get off this topic of my kids, or else we're going to be here all day.
Are you surprised yet? I know I was. Me? A proud parent? Who'd have thought. Things were going well, though. Safe job, safe home. I was beating my brother in the kids race, too. In fact I was strongly considering giving Good Friday another cousin to play with. Might be tricky, since our house only had three rooms. Peace Maker slept between the two of us and Cherry Bomb...
So, around the night that I was gonna spring this on Cal, Cherry wasn't sleeping well. He'd been having problems sleeping for nearly half a year now. I was going to have to take him to the base to have him checked on. I'm sure we could do that sometime next week. I'd have to take him before any signs of pregnancy started showing. The doctors there were a pain in my ass about my last one.
We lived in the dugout that I had collapsed when I had first visited. You wouldn't recognise the place if you saw it back then. Opening the town up was really working wonders for doing up the place, and Cal and Sam had gotten together a proper power solution. Air conditioning! We had sweet, sweet air conditioning! Sort of, we had fans. Better than nothing.
"Cal, I'm home!" He was sitting at the table hunched over working on something. He was completely dead to the world. Whatever it was that he was working on had his complete and absolute attention. I smiled and quietly snuck up on behind him on my tippy hooves until I was right behind him. "Caliber. Hello." I spooned him.
"A-at-atom!" He tried to jump but couldn't with my weight holding him down. (Not a word.) "Wh-wh-what are you do–do-doing home?" I giggled as he tried to calm down, before softly nuzzling him and giving him a soft kiss on the cheek. He nuzzled me back. "Atom yo-you're... you're in heat." He gulped.
"Yeah. I am." I wiggled my eyebrows, continued spooning him, and kissed him again.
"Atom you're suppose to take... y'know. You know what happened last time." He somehow managed to turn around and was now holding me up. I just leaned into him and nodded. Of course I knew. I could never forget. Giving birth to Peace Maker was the hardest thing I'd ever done, and she came out of it worse than I did. Poor thing spent the first few months of her life in an incubator.
"I want another." I said softly. I held onto Cal like a filly would hold onto a comforting stuffed animal.
"Atom." He said softly wrapping his hooves around me.
"Please, Cal. I want a big family. I love the three of you so much, but I want another one." I kissed the side of his head and swayed as I held him. "I can make it through one more." Oh boy. I should probably explain. Dad confirmed it after Cherry was born. The mares in the family have iron problems. He was never able to be sure, but he thinks that it might have cost Mum her life. I was having to take vitamin pills for my last pregnancy, and I'm still having the odd senior moment, but they didn't need to know that. It would just worry them more. Besides, I'd never be able to get another foal if they knew.
"Atom." His voice was soft. "Please."
"Cal, I love you. Please. One more foal. Please."
"I-I-I guess." He swallowed hard. "Th-there's a place up north. Called Tenpony Tower. If you p-promise me to go there for the pregnancy then okay. They have the best doctors in the wasteland up there." He held me close to him. His voice was soft. He broke the hug, and looked at me. He was crying. "Just be safe okay? We need you Atom, our foals and me."
"Sweetie, I know what Tenpony Tower is. Look, I'm fine. It's fine. You do remember who you're talking to, right?" I kissed him and wiped his cheeks. "I'm fine, I'm fucking invincible."
"Yeah, you're fucking amazing." He leaned in and kissed me. It lasted a good ten seconds before he pulled away I smiled.
"Well... let's hurry up. We've got about an hour or two before Cherry and Peace come home." I smiled and let go of him. The two of us made our way to our bedroom.
***
Not one of my best performances, I have to say. We had to stop because Cal started crying again, and that's generally not what you want to happen, so I gave up and took a rain cheque. I think he slept easier as a pretty direct result. Peace Maker was asleep between me and Cal, and Nevada was asleep at the foot of the bed. It was around midnight when a loud noise from the main room of the house woke me up. It sounded like somebody was moving the furniture around.
"Ugh... what's that?" I asked groggily.
"Is somebody really trying to rob us?" Cal sat up. Nevada jumped down and walked out the room. Cal and I got out of bed. I grabbed my gun.
"I'm not sure that there's anypony stupid enough in the world to try and rob my house." I rubbed my eyes. "It's probably someone going door to door, they've been getting pretty bold lately. I was grabbing my jacket when Nevada came back into the room wagging his tail. "Well boy? Who was it?" He wagged his tail and walked over to me to be petted. Once he thought that he had been thoroughly rewarded for getting out of bed he hopped back up. After doing three circles he went back to sleep in the same spot. "Cal, go back to bed, I'll take care of this." I tossed my jacket back down to the floor and put my gun down. I wasn't going to need them. I stumbled out of the bedroom into the main room of the house. Just like I thought - Cherry Bomb was sitting like he'd been caught stealing cookies, with the couch half way blocking the door. I sighed, and offered him a weary smile. "Hey, Cherry, sweetie. It's a bit late for moving the couch, isn't it?"
"I'm sorry mom," he said looking down. "I didn't mean to wake you and dad."
"Yeah. I didn't think that you wanted to wake us up." I walked over and sat down on the couch, and patted the spot next to me. "So Cherry what's up, why are you barricading us in?" I rubbed my eyes, trying to wake up enough for this. He just swallowed and mumbled something. "I'm sorry Cherry, I'm not awake right now, could you please speak up a bit?" When he didn't, I put my wing around him and pulled him close. Thank fuck for motherly instincts, 'cause I have no fucking idea what I'm doing. "Does this have something to do with you not sleeping?"
"Yeah." He nodded. His voice trembled..
"What's wrong sweetie? Whatever or whoever you're afraid of, just tell me. I'm the top pony in town, if somebody is messing with you this bad, tell me and I swear Cherry, I'm going to put a damn stop to it." With a quick pull of a trigger. No one is going to fuck with my kids and get away with it. He mumbled something again, shaking a bit. Whoever the fuck was responsible was going to get turned to fucking dust. "It's okay Cherry, you can tell me, I'll take care of this, as the sheriff and your mom." I tilted his head so he was looking me in the eyes. He looked like he was just seconds from tears.
"I-I don't want you to go." Okay, what? I'm sleepy but I'm not sure that even awake I'd be following this.
"I'm going somewhere?" I tilted my head. "Cherry, sweetheart I'm not sure I'm following you."
"I-I-I'm nine. And that's when mommies and daddies go away." He started crying. "I don't want you to leave."
I squinted. "Who told you that?" I asked pulling him into a hug.
"Your dad left you when you were nine, daddy's mommy left him when he was little, and I-" He didn't finish his sentence before breaking down. Fuck. How was I supposed to deal with this? If he was being bullied, I could fucking dust the fuckers that did it. Excessive, maybe, but very pragmatic. If he fell down I could give him a healing potion and a bandage. This was... trickier.
"Cherry, I..." I said holding him close. "My dad was a shitbag, hell he... still kind of is. And Cal's mom ain't much better. But I want you... I need you to understand this." I nuzzled the top of his head softly. "Your dad and I are never going to abandon you or your sister. If you were being hurt I'd protect you, if you were hurt I'd help you, I don't know what to do for you right now except promise you I'm never leaving you, I'm never abandoning you, and I will never hurt you that way. Okay?" I quit nuzzling him and lifted his chin a bit. He swallowed and kept crying, but he nodded. I had a bit of a sniffle going myself. I gave him a gentle smile and let him work it all out of his system.
"I love you mom." He wrapped his hooves around me.
"I love you too, Cherry. Now, it's..." I chuckled and coughed. "It's midnight? Let's put the couch back and go to bed, okay?" He nodded. I got off the couch an put him on my back before pushing the couch back into place. Then I walked back to my room. Cal was still awake, and Cherry had already fallen asleep on my back.
"Is he okay?" Cal asked in a whisper.
"He's... fine now." I whispered back putting him on the bed next to his sister, between Cal and me.
"You're an amazing mother."
"I'm glad you think so." I smiled back. "Not too shabby a job yourself." I reached around our children and hugged them, and he did the same. In a few minutes we fell asleep, all cosy and warm, with our kids nice and safe between us. Home sweet home.