//------------------------------// // Chapter 58: Awakening // Story: The Bug In The Basement // by Skijarama //------------------------------// Several days later. Beebee’s eyes snapped wide open at the same time that he gave a loud scream of fear. His eyes darted back and forth, frantic, but the world appeared as nothing more than one big blur to him. His mind racing, his lungs desperate for air, he tried to sit up and focus. He immediately regretted his decision, and his cry of fear turned into one of pain. The entire side of his barrel erupted into white-hot agony, almost causing the air to flee his lungs in droves. Then, to his confusion, he felt several pairs of hands coming to a rest on him, and soothing voices were just audible through the pounding of his heart in his ears. Slowly, ever so slowly, he began to calm down. Reality reasserted itself, and he gave off a quiet sigh of relief. “Nightmares again.” He blinked his eyes and really took in the world around him. The first thing he saw were the faces of the Crusaders hovering over him, worried and concerned to match their auras. But oddly, there was also a lot of pink mixed in, as if they suddenly went from being happy to really afraid. He blinked again and looked past them, trying to piece together where he was. They were in his bedroom by the looks of it. The overhead light was on, bathing them all in a soft glow and making the room feel warm and inviting. The only thing that stood out to Beebee as particularly odd was the First-Aid kit resting next to his pillow. “Beebee? Are you awake?” Apple Bloom asked in a timid voice, the only one of the teenagers to not pull her hand away after he calmed down. Beebee nodded his head, still groggy. “Er… uh, yeah, I’m… I’m ‘wake…” he reached one of his hooves up to rub at his eyes as he spoke. “What happened?” Scootaloo stood tall all of a sudden, her aura lighting up with eager excitement. “I’ll go tell Eventide,” she proclaimed simply, before turning and leaving the room at a brisk pace, leaving the door wide open behind her. Beebee watched her go, confused. He let his head fall back onto his pillow and focused his eyes on his remaining two friends. “What happened to me?” Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle shared an uneasy look. After a few seconds of silence, Sweetie smiled at him and leaned closer to him. “You’ve been unconscious for a few days, Beebee. We’ve all been really worried about you...” “Do you remember what happened?” The farmer asked, finally backing away to give Beebee his space. She contented herself with sitting on the edge of the bed, while Sweetie chose to get down on her knees on the floor and rest her elbows on the blankets. Beebee’s muzzle scrunched up as he thought back, trying to call up the last thing he could remember. “I, uh… I remember getting to the top of the mountain with dad. We played up there for a while to celebrate, then came home. I called you, and we went for a walk through the forest together…” “Still so sweet~” Sweetie cooed under her breath, casting a mischievous wink at Apple Bloom. Apple Bloom pouted. Beebee ignored their antics for the time being. “Um… after that… I… I remember we sat down somewhere for a little while. I remember it started to rain, and…” his frown deepened, and he gazed helplessly at his friends. “Nothing. I don’t remember anything after that.” Apple Bloom looked down, her aura flickering with disappointment. “Ah see… Ah was kinda hopin’ y’all would remember so Ah wouldn’t have to tell ya.” “Tell me what?” She sighed looked into Beebee’s eyes. “...When you went to stand up, it musta been too much for ya. Yer legs gave out. Ya started gaspin’ like ya just ran a marathon while wearin’ a corset. You…” she shuddered, and Beebee’s eyes widened when he saw her aura darken with vestigial dread and horror. “...Ya fell over the ledge we were sittin’ on. Ah thought you’d fly to stop yerself, but… Ya didn’t. Ya landed on a sharp rock juttin’ up from the ground. It put a real big gash in yer side. Shattered yer chitin, too.” “A hole in my side?” Beebee echoed quietly, his eyes trailing down his own body. Carefully, not wanting to cause himself any more pain, he peeled back his blankets with his magic to get a better look at himself. His entire torso was wrapped up in white bandages, and a small red stain was on his side where he had felt the pain earlier. His dark face turned a few shades lighter as the blood drained from it, and gulped before lowering the blankets. “...H-how bad is it?” “Oh, you’re going to be fine,” Sweetie assured him with a smile. “Fluttershy and Apple Bloom fixed you up, and we’ve all been coming by every day to change your bandages and make sure you have company while your dad’s at work.” Beebee relaxed somewhat from the assurance, and a tiny smile appeared on his face. “Really? Thank you, girls.” “Least Ah could do,” Apple Bloom replied softly. “Yer mah friend, right? Friends help each other.” It was at that time that Scootaloo returned, Eventide following close behind her. His eyes locked onto Beebee, and his aura went from shocked to relieved. Glowing like the morning sun, Eventide slid to a stop by the bed and got down onto his knees, with Sweetie scooting to one side to give him some room. He stayed still for a second, his entire body starting to relax, and a smile spreading on his lips. “Beebee…” he breathed, hesitantly reaching out. Beebee returned the smile. “Hey, Dad… I, uh…” his smile faded, and he looked down. “...I’m sorry I got myself hurt. I should have been more careful.” Eventide’s smile disappeared as well. “Beebee, no. Don’t you dare apologize. It wasn’t your fault, you hear me? I’m just…” he sighed and reached out to take one of Beebee’s hooves in his hand. “I’m just glad you’re awake and okay… how do you feel?” Beebee squirmed in place for a second, then winced and sucked in a breath when his broken side protested the movement with another white-hot spear of pain. “Ack! Ow! Ow! Owowow!” “Welp, guess that answers that,” Apple Bloom mumbled with a roll of her eyes. The mirth was short-lived, and she leveled a hard look at the basement bug. “Beebee, hold still. The skin’s mostly healed up, but yer chitin’s still got a big ol’ hole in it. Until that heals, ya gotta try not to move too much. Doctor’s orders.” “Doctor’s orders? But you’re not a doctor,” Scootaloo pointed out with a frown. “Aunt’s orders, then,” Eventide silenced both of them before that debate could go anywhere, his eyes still trained on his son. Beebee, once the pain died down, tilted his head to one side. “Aunt’s orders?” Eventide nodded. “Yeah. Fluttershy came running as soon as she heard you were hurt. She and Apple Bloom worked on you for a long time. Stitching you up, bandaging your wound, disinfecting it. They saved your life.” Beebee’s eyes widened and drifted over to look at his best friend. She blushed slightly from the praise and looked away, her aura flaring up with some embarrassment. Sweetie Belle just looked back and forth between them for a few moments before her eyes settled on Apple Bloom. “So… how long until he’s recovered, do you think?” Apple Bloom focused on her pale friend, eager for the opportunity to step out of the spotlight. “Oh! Uh, Ah dunno fer sure. Fluttershy’s best guess from what Sunset’s told her is that it’ll probably be around another month before he’s all better.” “A MONTH?!” Beebee suddenly shrieked, his eyes flying wide open and his good mood taking a very inconvenient vacation. “But… But…!” Eventide’s expression hardened at his son’s pouting. “Hey, a month in bed is better than being dead.” “Oh hey, that rhymed,” Sweetie Belle absently pointed out under her breath. Beebee’s face contorted into a very displeased grimace. But, no matter how much he disliked the situation, he had to admit defeat. He let off a quiet sigh and set his head back down fully on his pillow. “...I guess you’re right. It still sucks, though,” he grumbled. “Yeah, it does…” Eventide agreed with a small nod of his head. A comfortable silence fell over the room, and despite his condition, Beebee felt himself starting to relax into his bed a little more. He still felt pretty sleepy, probably due to the nightmare interrupting his rest. For a moment, he openly considered closing his eyes and letting himself go back to sleep. From the sounds of it, there wasn’t much else he could do for a while anyway. But then the bitter taste of apprehension and anxiety tickled his tongue, chasing away such notions. With his muzzle scrunching up in revulsion, Beebee looked over to find the source of the negative emotions. To his surprise, it was Eventide. The man, despite the smile on his face, was radiating a thin mist of anxiety. It was subtle, faint, but it was still there. Beebee blinked and shifted just enough to get a better look. “Dad? Is something wrong?” he asked carefully, his voice low. Just like that, Eventide’s smile vanished, and the mist flared up a little. He stared at Beebee in total silence for a moment before slowly turning to face the Crusaders, who all looked more confused than anything. “Hey, Girls? Would you mind going upstairs for a little while? I’d like to talk to my son in private for a few minutes.” “Oh, sure,” Apple Bloom acknowledged quietly with a nod of her head. “We should probably be gettin’ home, anyway. It’s gettin’ late, and Ah still got some back to school shoppin’ to do.” “Ugh, school. So lame…” Scootaloo complained under her breath before giving Beebee a cocky grin and thumbs up. “We’ll see ya around, Beebs. Get better soon, yeah?” “Don’t call him Beebs, it sounds weird,” Sweetie Belle chastised while rising to her feet and heading for the door. “Not any weirder than you calling me Scoots.” Sweetie paused. “...Shut up.” Apple Bloom rolled her eyes and gave the pale teenager a light-hearted slap on the back. “Oh, ignore her. Ah’ll whomp her in Smash tomorrow.” “Bring it, cowgirl!” Ignoring Scootaloo’s challenging look, Apple Bloom turned to face Beebee one more time. “We’ll be seein’ ya, little guy. Get well soon, okay?” Beebee waved back at them as the Crusaders disappeared from the room. ”I will. Bye guys!” he called out before they disappeared entirely from view, leaving him and his father alone. Eventide watched them go as well, a small flicker of amusement sliding into his aura from their antics. “Heh… those girls. They’ve been coming by every day to sit around your bed and think happy thoughts about you do you don’t go hungry. It’s kind of a funny picture, really.” Beebee’s eyes turned back to look at his father, and the two made eye contact. Eventide was quiet for a second, his brow furrowing. After a moment, he nodded to himself and started talking. “Some things happened while you were out, and someone learned about you.” Beebee’s heart began to beat just a little faster, his chest twisting with apprehension. “Who?” Eventide gave him a reassuring smile while reaching out to pat him on the head. “Don’t worry, we can trust her. She’s Fluttershy’s friend. Do you remember Sunset?” Beebee’s muzzle scrunched up, the faintest tickling of a memory from long ago crawling into his mind. “Er… Sunset Shimmie?” In response to that, Eventide lifted a fist to his lips in a desperate, vain attempt to stop himself from laughing. After a few seconds of chuckling into his knuckles, he pulled himself together. He leaned back and took a deep breath to quell any more laughs and continued. “Sunset Shimmer. Not Shimmie.” Beebee blushed. “Oh. Oops.” The man shook his head in exasperation. “Heh. You’ve never really gotten that name right, have you? Well, anyways, she saw you. She knows you exist... And she knows what you are.” The blush evaporated from Beebee’s face the moment he heard those words. He froze, his heart leaping up into his throat. All other thoughts were being shoved aside in favor of focusing on that one statement. He blinked several times before he found his voice and spoke, his words quiet and unbelieving. “She knows what I am?” Eventide nodded. “Yep. According to her, you’re something called a ‘Changeling.’ You’re from another world called Equestria, and Sunset knows this because, apparently, that’s where she’s from, too. She came here through some kind of weird portal or something. That’s also where all of the magic that pops up around town comes from. You remember all the times the school exploded?” Beebee nodded. “That’s Equestrian Magic.” Beebee slowly tilted his head to one side, trying to digest this information. For as long as he had been alive, he had no clue what he really was. No clue where he came from, or what he was called, or if there was anything else like him in the whole world. All he knew was what he figured out through trial and error, and the nickname that had given rise to his true name. He was the basement bug. He was Beebee. And Beebee was a Changeling. A creature from another world called Equestria. “So… I’m an alien?” he eventually asked, his head tilting the other way. Eventide sat upright, his brow furrowed. He lifted a finger and opened his mouth as if to utter some sort of rebuttal, froze for a second, then lowered the finger and closed his mouth. “...You know what? I never really thought of it like that, but yeah, I guess you’re an alien,” he acknowledged, starting to laugh again. Beebee grinned happily as his father’s aura lit up with the golden glow of amusement and entertainment. Not wanting to waste the opportunity, he opened his mouth and began to drink in the emotion, enjoying the biting taste as it swam down his throat. If he had to compare the flavor of amusement to something, it would have to be the strongly flavored candies that pop and snap in his mouth. Sweet and sour and very exciting. There was still that small bit of anxiety in the aura, though, and the subtle taste it imparted on the meal was enough to draw Beebee’s attention again. He swallowed down the last of his meal and affixed Eventide with questioning eyes. “So… why aren’t you more happy about this? This is good news, isn’t it?” Eventide paused, his smile faltering. He looked away for a moment, trying to gather his thoughts. “Well, yeah, it is good news. But there’s more to it than that.” Beebee’s eyes widened when he saw the apprehension growing just a little bit denser. He lifted his head. “What do you mean?” Eventide took a deep breath, then sat upright. For a long moment, he was perfectly still, as if trying to psyche himself up. “Sunset Shimmer. She found your birth parents.” Silence. Has he heard that right? Beebee tilted his head, his eyes wide and his wings wavering against the bed on his back. “W-What...?” he breathed, not able to truly grasp the words that had just been said to him. “Your mom and dad. The changelings who gave birth to you,” Eventide continued, lowering his head a little. “Sunset asked a few people in Equestria once she found out about you. I got a call from her this morning, and she said that your parents were found. And they want to meet you.” Mom and dad. Beebee had a mother. Of course, thinking about it, it was obvious that he had one. He knew enough about the birds and the bees to know his egg didn’t just pop into existence out of nowhere. But he hadn’t given much thought to the absent figure in his life for a long time. He had long ago made peace with the idea that he would never get to meet her, or his birth father, that Eventide and Buddha would always be the only family he’d have. But now he knew she was out there. And she knew about him. And now she wanted to meet him? Along with his dad? Other dad, Beebee reminded himself. He had two dads, now… This was going to get confusing, he could tell. “They wanna see me…?” he whispered, more to himself so he could hear the words again, to make sure they were what he had really heard. “Yeah… the plan is to head over to Equestria and meet up with them once you’re all better. I dunno how we’ll do it, though. I think we can just go through the portal that Sunset used. I dunno. She’ll explain it all when we get to that point,” Eventide explained before shifting around and smiling at his son. “But from what I’ve been told, they were really excited to learn about you, and they really, really want to meet you.” Beebee didn’t reply, not immediately. Then, after several seconds of contemplative silence, his face lit up with a bright smile, and his wings buzzed on his back. “Wow… I have a mom…” he whispered before looking up at Eventide. “I wanna meet them, too! I have so many questions! Do you know what they’re like? Do I look a lot like them?! What are their names?!” Eventide’s anxiety slowly began to fade from his aura, Beebee’s energy and happiness no doubt being contagious. With a smile, the man stood from the bed and crouched down by the bedside to be closer to his son. “I have absolutely no idea. I didn’t think to ask when on the phone. But hey! We’ll find out together when we see them, eh?” Beebee beamed, then pouted when his injured side throbbed to remind him of his less than stellar physical condition. “Ack! But… I’m still hurt. And Apple Bloom said I’m gonna be in bed for a month.” Eventide’s smile grew. He reached out and stroked Beebee’s neck with the tips of his fingers, right at the base of his fin. “Cheater…” While Beebee succumbed to the off switch, Eventide gave his answer. “Well, that just means you’ll have something to look forward to, and plenty of time to think about all the questions you want to ask them.” Beebee managed to regain enough of his faculties to sluggishly nod at the suggestion. “I guess… mmmh…” any other words devolved into a pleased chitter, and he craned his neck to lean into the fingers. And then Eventide pulled his hand away, drawing a long and disappointed whine from the abandoned basement bug. He smirked and rose to his feet. “So, you gonna be okay on your own for a little while? I have a call or two to make. Fluttershy will want to know you’ve woken up, you know.” Beebee wanted to protest being left alone, but when his eyes settled on the Baby Monitor settled on his bedside table, the words died in his throat. As much as he knew he wasn’t a baby anymore, the old plastic device meant he was only a shout away from bringing Eventide down if he needed him. So, with that comfort in mind, he gave a nod. “I’ll be okay. Tell Aunt Fluttershy I said hi!” Eventide nodded and turned for the door. “Sure thing. Holler if you need anything, kay?” “Kay!” With that, Eventide left the room, though he left the door open. Beebee watched him go, then let his head come back down to rest on his pillow. He adjusted himself a little bit, his mind wandering back to the idea of getting to meet his birth parents. His smile turned dreamy at the idea, his eyes slowly starting to drift closed. “...I’m gonna have a mama,” he whispered to himself, the last words he uttered before sleep retook him. A little nap would probably do him some good, after all.