//------------------------------// // 309 - Achieving Closure // Story: Lateral Movement // by Alzrius //------------------------------// “Alright everypony, listen up!” Ticket Stub heard Coal Hopper sigh as she, along with him and the rest of the crew, turned to regard their engineer. It had only been a few minutes since Prince Shining Armor and several members of the Royal Guard had escorted the ponies that Princess Cadance had healed – as well as the doctors that had come from Vanhoover with them, those two stowaways, and that pony that she’d actually brought back to life (something Ticket Stub was still having trouble wrapping his head around) – to Canterlot General. The train crew had followed them there, though for the life of him Ticket Stub wasn’t certain why they had. It wasn’t like Shining Armor had said he’d wanted to talk to any of them, after all. And yet, not going after them had just felt wrong somehow…the idea of staying behind and not seeing things through feeling vaguely unsettling in a way he couldn’t define. “I just want to say that that was some really good effort back there!” continued the engineer. “Even though the Princess and the Royal Guard showed up and took care of everything, you all still did a great job!” “This from the guy who froze up as soon as he saw Princess Cadance?” snorted Coal Hopper. Although her voice was soft, it still managed to carry through the waiting area of the hospital, causing several members of the train crew to snicker softly. A few shot amused glances her way, all of which she ignored. “That would have surprised anypony,” murmured Ticket Stub apologetically, something he’d gotten used to doing over the last few days. He hadn’t told anyone about the carnage Coal Hopper had stumbled onto at the edge of Vanhoover, knowing instinctively that something so upsetting shouldn’t be treated like gossip, but her sullen and withdrawn attitude had made it clear to everypony that something had happened to her. As the only one she’d confided in, Ticket Stub had taken it upon himself to support her however he could, which often meant smoothing over the hackles she’d raised. Which, at the moment, quite clearly included their engineer. “A-anyway, you guys should all feel proud of yourselves! You showed a lot of heart tonight! A lot of spirit! A lot of-” “Hustle?” This time Ticket Stub wasn’t able to smooth things over on Coal Hopper’s behalf, too busy trying to stop himself from laughing at the mare’s sarcastic quip. But it was an uphill battle; in one word she’d completely skewered the engineer. He really does sound like a coach trying to give his team a pep talk! After the stress and tension of the last few days, the comparison was so absurd that it seemed hysterical, and Ticket Stub had to bite his own tongue to keep himself under control. Nor was he the only one, as he could see several other ponies choking back laughter. The engineer, however, was not one of them, instead turning red as he tried desperately to maintain his failing poise. “So, um, now that we’re, uh, all here…” He paused for a moment, rallying himself with almost visible effort. “Now that the crisis is over, I just want to say that you should all pat yourselves on the back! You did good, so now you should-” “Go and hit the showers?” asked Coal Hopper sarcastically. That was all it took, and Ticket Stub doubled over, laughing uncontrollably. Like a dam bursting, his reaction destroyed everpony else’s self-control, causing the rest of the train crew to collapse into howls of mirth, several of them laughing so hard that they fell over. The only two that weren’t howling were Coal Hopper – surveying the scene with a smirk of satisfaction – and the scowling engineer, his face darkening in embarrassment. “Everypony quiet down!” he yelled. “Quiet down!” But it was hopeless. Ticket Stub could practically feel the weight of the last few days falling off of him with every laugh that shook his frame, and it was glorious. Tears fell from his eyes as he slid to the floor, his legs no longer able to support him. All around him, ponies were in a similar state, slamming their hooves onto the ground or kicking their legs in the air in hilarity. Finally giving up the ghost, the engineer shot a dark look at Coal Hopper. “You’re on cleaning duty tonight!” he snapped. “We’re heading back to the Crystal Empire first thing tomorrow morning, and I want that train spotless before we go!” When her only reaction was a snort, he turned to the others, still howling. “As for the rest of you!” he yelled. “We’re leaving the station at eight o’clock sharp! Be there and be ready to work!” With that, he turned and stomped out of the waiting area, face still red. After he left, it took almost five minutes for the laughter to die down. Even after several nurses came by to scold them for making a ruckus in a hospital so late at night, the uproar only gradually subsided. But as soon as it did, the entire train crew started to head for the doors, breaking off into groups as they chatted with each other about what they were going to do now. It didn’t take long before Ticket Stub and Coal Hopper were the only ones left, the former still chuckling as he rubbed his eyes. “Well, that was something,” he murmured. “I guess,” shrugged Coal Hopper. Normally her recalcitrance would have made Ticket Stub feel uncertain about what, if anything, he should say, but the lingering remnants of his mirth were enough to keep his insecurities at bay. Instead, he found himself looking after where the rest of the crew had wandered out into the night. “It’s funny,” he mused. “When Princess Cadance and Shining Armor and everypony just left the train station, I felt…I don’t know. Lost. Like I couldn’t stop being involved in everything that was happening, even though it was all nerve-wracking and awful, you know? But now…” He shook his head, letting out a slow breath. “Now it’s like I can let it all go and get back to my normal life.” He turned to look at her. “Does that make sense?” “Closure,” she answered simply, keeping her eyes trained on the front doors of the hospital where everypony else had gone. “You couldn’t let it go because you needed closure.” Ticket Stub blinked. What she’d said was interesting, but not nearly so much as the fact that she’d just said an entire sentence without being biting or sarcastic! “What do you mean?” Coal Hopper shrugged, still not making eye contact with him. “It’s something my dad told me, after my mom passed away. I was just a little filly at the time, and I was so upset that I ran away instead of going to her funeral. Afterward I couldn’t…” She sighed, giving him a sidelong glance, looking as though finishing the story was a drag. Ticket Stub was about to say that she didn’t have to go on if she didn’t want to, when she started talking again, returning her gaze to the glass doors. “I was pretty bad off for a while, until my dad sat me down and told me that until I dealt with the fact that she was gone I wasn’t going to feel any better. Of course, I didn’t want to hear it, so he grabbed me and took me to her grave, kicking and screaming, and made me tell her goodbye. I cried my eyes out at the time, but he was right: after that I started feeling better.” She shrugged, as though she hadn’t just told him something incredibly personal. “When something awful happens, some big, terrible thing that’s more than you know how to deal with, you need something to let you know that it’s finally over. Then you can move on.” “And that’s what just happened?” Ticket Stub waved a hoof at the waiting area. “Our engineer tries to make a speech and you make us laugh and suddenly we know it’s all over?” Coal Hopper shrugged again, turning and slinking over to one of the chairs in the waiting area. “You’re the one who said you could go back to your normal life now.” Ticket Stub was pretty sure he’d just been dismissed, but he didn’t move. “What about you?” “What about me?” The acerbity he’d come to expect from her was back then, suffusing her words as well as the look she gave him. But for some reason, even though the levity he’d felt before had completely evaporated by now, he still didn’t feel put off. “How do you feel?” She snorted, turning away from him in favor of looking at an empty hallway. It became clear after a few seconds that she wasn’t going to answer him, but Ticket Stub didn’t take his eyes off of her. Eventually she turned back toward him, her jaw clenching. “You really don’t know how to take a hint, do you?” “You said that we all have closure now,” replied Ticket Stub, moving to sit in the chair across from her. “But you don’t look like you do. Why?” She just glared at him in stony silence, and part of Ticket Stub was flabbergasted that he didn’t feel the slightest bit intimidated by her the way he had so recently. The rest of him was focused completely on her. “This is because of what you told me before, isn’t it?” He didn’t have to specify what he was talking about, Coal Hopper immediately rolling her eyes. “Gee, whatever gave you that idea?” she snorted, her voice thick with sarcasm. “You’re a real detective, you know that? A regular Shadow Spade.” “Coal-” She held out a hoof, and he stopped talking immediately. “Look,” she growled. “I’m going to wait here until Prince Shining Armor comes back, and then I’m going to tell him what I saw, okay? That’s what I need to do to put all this behind me. After that, I’m going to grab a bite to eat and head back to the train. I’ll catch a few hours’ sleep, and then start cleaning it up so our engineer-turned-hoofball-coach doesn’t blow his stack. Satisfied?” Ticket Stub paused for a second, then nodded, leaning back in his chair. “Okay.” Coal Hopper frowned. “Yeah, no. You see, when I said all that, I meant that I’d do it by myself. As in: without you here. Get me?” Ticket Stub nodded, making no move to get up. “Completely.” Coal Hopper leaned forward dangerously. “Do you want me to beat you up? Because if you do, I can oblige-” “Why don’t you just go to the castle?” “…what?” “Why don’t you just go to the castle?” repeated Ticket Stub. “Princess Cadance is there. You could tell her what happened.” “What kind of stupid question is that? I’m not going there for the same reason that none of us followed her there when she left with those other ponies: because we’re not allowed there.” “You would be if you told the guards that you had information about what happened,” pointed out Ticket Stub. “Which you do.” “Look, we’re already here!” Coal Hopper sat back on her haunches, throwing out her forelegs to indicate the waiting area. “It’s easier just to wait for the prince to come back-” “What if he doesn’t come back?” interrupted Ticket Stub. Inwardly, he marveled at the fact that he’d voluntarily interrupted her. He had no doubt that she could beat him up if she wanted! “This is a big hospital, it has more than one entrance. He’s probably going to want to rush back to his wife since she’s accompanying a bunch of ponies who said they killed the pony she, you know…resuscitated.” “That’s really how you’re going to refer to it?” snorted Coal Hopper. “So he might take a different way out,” concluded Ticket Stub, pretending he hadn’t heard that last part. Coal Hopper glared at him for a long moment. “What’s your point?” she spat. Ticket Stub took a moment to put his thoughts in order before speaking. Despite whatever weird confidence had gripped him, he felt his stomach clench slightly, knowing that if he messed this up she’d mess him up. “I’ve never seen you be the sort of pony who waits around for someone else,” he began. “When those ponies stopped us up at Windigo Way, you got in their faces about it. When you thought that Princess Cadance was going to hold us up from getting those injured ponies to the hospital, you told her so. So the way you’re just sitting here waiting for Prince Shining Armor right now…” Narrowing her eyes, Coal Hopper scoffed. “What? You think I’m lying, is that it? That I’m not really going to tell him what I saw in Vanhoover?” She leaned back in her chair then, giving him a condescending smirk. “Let me tell you something: if that was the case, I wouldn’t have bothered lying about it to begin with. I would have just walked right out of here with everypony else. So chew on that.” “Coal Hopper…” “Or, you know what? Since you don’t think I’m being honest, maybe I’ll just leave right now and let you tell them for me. Since you can’t seem to keep your nose out of my business-” “Listen to me-” “For that matter, I could write down what I saw and mail it to them instead of saying it face-to-face!” Ticket Stub bit his lip, wondering if she even heard herself. If you were serious about either of those options, you’d already be doing them, he knew. The fact that she’d not only told him that she needed to tell either the prince or princess what she’d seen in order to move on had been one thing, but for her to then tell him that story from her childhood, when she was acting so much more passive than she usually did…it couldn’t be a coincidence. It just couldn’t. I hope I’m right about this… "Coal Hopper!" “What?” she snapped, looking ready to bite his head off. Licking his lips, Ticket Stub plunged ahead. “You said…before, you said your dad had to drag you kicking and screaming in front of your mom’s grave and make you do what you needed to do…” He trailed off, letting the point stand on its own. Coal Hopper’s eyes widened, and she practically leaped to her hooves. Ticket Stub didn’t get up, trying his best not to faint; the look on her face was one of controlled…fury? Shock? Fear? He couldn’t tell, and he wasn’t sure she could either, one foreleg raised like she was either about to take a swing at him or start running. After several tense seconds, she slowly lowered her hoof back to the ground, letting out a slow breath. “Alright…here’s what’s going to happen,” she said in a strangled voice. “You are going to accompany me to the castle and watch me tell Princess Cadance to her face what I saw, and then you’re going to get down on all fours and admit you were wrong about me trying to avoid telling them about it, got it?” Gulping, Ticket Stub nodded, certain that he’d regret it if he did anything else besides agree wholeheartedly. “And then you’re going to apologize for being such a colossal jerk about all this.” She turned and started walking as she spoke, forcing Ticket Stub to get up and stumble after her. “R-right!” he called, his previous confidence being replaced by jittery relief. “And then you’re going to buy me dinner. And if I even think you’re thinking that you’re going to get lucky afterward, I’m going to clobber you and dump you off this mountain.” “Okay.” Hearing her usual surliness returning to her voice, Ticket Stub smiled as he followed Coal Hopper toward the castle.