Jake awoke and instantly regretted it.
He let the world know it, too, with a quiet curse and a less quiet groan that clawed at his dry throat.
Fluttering his eyes, he heard a soft sound beside him before cold glass touched his bottom lip. Opening his mouth, he was rewarded with cool water trickling over his tongue.
The water was pulled away too soon, and he grunted as he tried to reach for it. His arm felt heavy and sore like he'd been moving bales of hay for the last week nonstop, and he let it flop back onto the soft textile he found himself immersed in.
"Did ah die again?" he asked and heard a hollow chuckle in response.
"No, Jake, you're as alive as I've ever seen you."
Blinking, he turned his head and saw a splotch of purple in the middle of a blank whiteness. Reaching up and rubbing his eyes, he eventually was able to focus on Twilight, standing beside him in the cleanest room he'd ever been in.
"Ah'd say that's nice, but it don't feel that good, to be honest," he said with a chuckle. "Where are we?"
"You're in the Ponyville hospital," she replied quietly. "We brought you—"
Jake sat upright, his eyes wide before they slammed shut, his hand coming up to cup his face as he groaned. "I ain't dyin' in no cesspool of a hospital," he grunted, ignoring her protests as he swung a leg out from beneath the blankets. A wave of dizziness made his vision swim, and he tried to gulp down a gag deep in his throat before a steel can floated into his sight.
Unloading the water into the bucket, he dry-heaved for a few moments before collapsing back onto the bed, the energy entirely spent.
"Jake," Twilight said, reproachful but still soft, worry deeply coloring her tone. "Jake, the hospital is one of the cleanest places I've ever been in, and you're hurt. Badly. You need to be here right now."
He lay there panting, trying to come up with words for the horrors he'd seen in hospitals, or worse, field tents, but as his eyes took in the stark white ceiling and walls, he remembered that he wasn't at home and forced his pulse to slow.
Pulling his leg back up slowly, he laid his arm across his chest and realized that the meeting was flesh on flesh.
"Ah'm naked," he stated, mainly to have something to say.
"We wanted to be sure that you were uninjured, at least on the outside," Twilight said, and as he glanced over, he saw her face was cherry red. "We, uh, didn't know that you didn't come with a sheath," she murmured, looking away. "It was the first..." she trailed off.
Jake watched her for a long moment before bursting into deep chuckles, his hand coming up to clutch at his throbbing head that pulsed with each unstoppable laugh.
"Sorry for taking that innocence from ya, Twilight," he said through the chuckles, the laughter ramping up along with her blush.
"I mean, I've seen them in books!" she protested, a slight bit too loudly for Jake. "Just never...!"
"In the flesh?" he finished for her before the chuckling took over his breath again.
Growling, she stomped her hoof. "Jake, this isn't the time! You had a seizure out there! A full-blown grand mal seizure!"
Still chuckling, he shook his head. "Sorry Princess, ah dunno what that means," he giggled.
"Convulsions! Fits, epilepsy!" she yelled, her eyes glistening.
He stopped chuckling, slowly coming down until he was just breathing hard, staring up at the ceiling tiles. "Ah," he eventually said, nodding. "Ah've heard'a epilepsy."
"Then you know this is serious! That hole in your brain is giving you convulsions, and if we don't do something about it—"
He let her trail off. Glancing over at her, he saw her fully in tears now.
"Then ah die?"
She sighed, rubbing her eyes with a hoof. "Maybe?" she croaked, swallowing before shaking her head. "I don't know, Jake. We don't have a lot of ponies walk away from accidents like yours."
He snorted softly. "Twilight, ah've already died," he reminded her quietly. "If it happens again... Well, that'd be nature correcting i'sself, wouldn't it?"
She sniffled. "You're talking to the wrong pony about that, Jake. You'd need Applejack or Fluttershy."
He sighed before slowly moving his arms down. Pressing his hands to the mattress, he moved himself up so that he was propped up against the headboard before sighing heavily and cupping his eyes again. "Twilight, it ain't like we've known each other years and years," he said softly. "If ah die, then ah die, and you can move on without having to worry about a murderer in town."
He heard her sharp inhale, imagined her flinch.
"That's not how I think of you," she whipped out.
"Ah had a fit, Twilight, didn't lose mah memory," he sighed. "Ah saw the way you was lookin' at me out there. Ah know that suspicion. You may have forgot it already, but ah remember."
"Jake," she started to say, but he cut her off with a wave of his hand and a few quiet words.
"Cause ah am, Twilight."
She stilled, and he ran a hand down his face.
After a minute of silence, Jake continued. "Ah'm not col' blooded about it, not goin' round and shootin' people for the fun of it," he murmured, looking down into his hands laying upright in his lap. "But that don' stop the fact of the matter, does it? Ah've killed before Twilight, and Ah can see the damnation in your eyes even now.
"Ah remember it well," he said darkly, frowning at his scarred hands. "Wouldn't be the first time a lady looked at me like that, huh?"
There was no sound for a couple minutes, and Jake closed his eyes and slumped back into his pillow, waiting for the scraping of a chair, the opening of a door. For her to leave and him to be alone again.
"I don't think you're a bad human, Jake."
He looked over at her and took in her gaze. She was looking at him softly and full of concern. "I've been known to make snap judgments of ponies. Sometimes I'm right, and a lot of the time, I don't see everything right away.
"But I've seen enough to know something Jake," she said, quickly and almost violently, as she hopped off the chair she was on and pressed her hooves into the bed beside him.
"I know that monsters and bad ponies don't ever call themselves bad, and most of them don't even think of their crimes, much less feel guilty about them. You may have killed before, but..."
She broke, looking away from him before shaking her head and looking directly into his gaze.
"You're not the first creature I've ever met to do so. Hay, you wouldn't even be the first time I called one of them friend. So...
"So if you can admit to this, then I think I can at least hear you out about it," she finished, her hind legs folding as she sat on the floor. "I can withhold judgment until the end."
He looked down at her before slowly lifting one of his hands. She looked at him strangely as he hovered it over her head, hesitating for a long moment before placing his palm between her ears and rubbing back and forth, messing her mane.
Surprised, she looked up at him before laying her ears flat and pressing up into the motion.
He chuckled before gently using his fingertips to scratch the base of one of her ears before flopping his arm back beside him.
Twilight's ears flicked a few times, her mouth starting to speak once before she said, "Thank you?"
He laughed, placing a hand on his chest and coughing once or twice between the fits.
"Yer welcome," he chuckled before pressing down on his breastbone. Raising the sheets, he glanced around. "Uh, what'd you do with the cross?"
"Cross?" she asked, glancing at his neck. "Oh, the necklace? It's with your clothes, over in that box," she said, pointing at a brown paper box in a chair on his other side. "We didn't know how the metal would react with our diagnostic spells, so we took it off. Is that okay?" she asked, eyebrows furrowing as she gently pressed her hoof into his side.
"Yeah, as long as i's still there," he said, glancing towards the box. "It's another religious thing, but Ah mostly don' wanna lose it 'cause Ah got it from my ma."
"You worship the letter 'T'?" she asked, ears perking as her eyes widened.
"No, ma'am," he chuckled. "You remember me tellin' you about that man that died for all'a us? Well, t'kill 'im, they nailed him to a cross and set 'im up on it until he died."
She looked at him for a while, and he spread his arms in facsimile after a moment.
"That's terrifying," she told him, and he chuckled and nodded.
There was a moment, and then her ears laid back as she glanced up at him with a sad smile. "We got off track, but I didn't forget Jake."
"'Course ya didn't," he sighed before closing his eyes and using his hands to lower himself in the bed so that his shoulders and head were on the pillow. "What d'ya want first?"
Twilight bit her lip before asking, "How many?"
"Four."
She slowly nodded, then looked at him.
"First was your typical dumb bar fight," he said after a moment. The words came slowly, with a lot of thought. "I'd just gotten my first piece, my first pistol. He and one of my friends got into a fight, Ah think it was over cards or somethin', and he shot my friend in the leg. Ah didn't know at the time it was a non-killin' shot, so Ah aimed at his head. Even then, Ah was a pretty sure shot.
"Spent some time in prison for that one until they ruled it self-defense an' tossed me out. By that time, mah friend had been sent to a bigger hospital on a train. Ah didn't have any money, as it tended to disappear if ya spent any time behind bars.
"With my talents, Ah was able to get on with a watchman group that provided manpower for local businesses and the like. Ah spent years doin' that, gettin' in couple'a shoot-outs but just wingin' people."
He sighed and opened his eyes, glancing over at the single side table. "Can Ah get that filled?" he asked, pointing at the empty glass.
She blinked, glancing at it before her horn lit up. A tiny dark hole opened in the air above it, and a stream of clear water flowed into it before it was floated over to him.
He raised an eyebrow before taking the glass. Giving the water a sniff, he took a sip before holding it back out into the air.
"Second one was an accident," he continued, closing his eyes again and laying his arm across his chest. "Just another punk, stealing from one of ours. When I popped out'a the shadows at him, he near shit himself. I was aiming at his knee when he shot me in the shoulder." He paused, looking at the skin and pointing at a puckering scar just over his armpit.
"It was enough to pull up the shot I was aimin' at his knee, and he caught the bullet between his eyes."
Jake opened his eyes, frowning up at the ceiling, lost in thought, until Twilight cleared her throat. He looked at her before relaxing his neck and returning his eyes to the ceiling.
"Last two were at the same time. I'd been running with a crew of cowboys, the real deal, when we were attacked in the night. I don't know how many men came after us, but Ah do know that I took out at least two of them before I got my own," he said, flicking his hand up at his forehead. "Ah dunno how long Ah laid there in the cold mud, but when Ah finally got up, Ah was here.
"An' you know the rest. Walked outta tha' woods, and so on."
Twilight nodded, humming as she digested the tale. Absently, she lifted a hoof and grabbed the glass of water before taking a drink. He watched her press the glass between her hooves and stare into it for a long while before glancing up at him.
"I'm not one to pass judgment, Jake, not officially," she quickly clarified. "I'm not a Judge, and this isn't a trial. But..." She bit her bottom lip before saying, "But I don't think you murdered those creatures.
"Killed them, sure," she said, as he started to protest, "but killing another creature doesn't automatically make it murder, not here at least."
"Maybe not the last three," he gave, but she held up a hoof.
"Jake, you acted in defense of your friend," she said, giving him a small but intense smile. "If I can understand anything, it's acting to defend a friend.
"And yeah, maybe it was extreme," she sighed, leaning back, "but the feelings? The desire? I can understand."
Jake sighed, falling back into the pillow. "Ah'm glad, Twilight, but judgment is for no man or pony," he gave with a smile her way, "but for God. And killin' is killin' in His eyes."
Frowning, Twilight chewed on her tongue for a moment before asking, "Didn't you say that his son died to forgive your 'sins'?"
"Some things are unforgivable," he cut back.
"That sounds like judgment to me, Jake," she quickly snipped back.
He lifted his back from the bed, looking down at her and glaring before letting a breath out and relaxing again.
After a long minute, he said rigidly, "I'm glad you've decided not to hol' it against me, Twilight, but Ah'm done talkin' about it now."
He couldn't see the sorrowful look she gave him, but with a sigh, she gave up and said, "Okay, Jake. We should probably talk about what we're going to do about your head anyway."
"What's there to be done," he said with a flapping of his hand. "Nature takes its intended course, and Ah end up in the dirt."
She sighed. "Maybe, but I've called in an expert first to see if we can actually do something about it. There's an expert on the train here from Canterlot right now, actually, since we weren't sure you would wake up..."
She trailed off, and he glanced over at her face. It was utterly devoid of any sort of emotion or expression, and she was staring into the whiteness of the sheet over his ribs.
The movement of his arm went unnoticed this time, and she flinched slightly when he cupped one of her cheeks, his fingers wrapping around the back of her head as she looked up at him.
"Ah'm still here," he reminded her with a small smile.
"Yeah," she said, smiling at him as he ran his hand gently over her fur before she stood on her back legs and wrapped some of his chest in a soft hug.
Chuckling, he patted her back before frowning and reaching into his mouth, pulling out a couple of red fingertips.
"Oh, uhm, you bit your cheek during the seizure," Twilight told him, sliding back down to the floor. "We were able to heal it, but since it was so deep, it may open again. Much shallower, of course, but still."
He hummed, gently tonguing the cut, sighing at the length of it. "Did it go all the way through?" he asked quietly, not expecting an answer but getting one in the form of her flinch. "Huh."
"We're, uhm, more experienced with healing cuts on the outside, so it shouldn't reopen anywhere but the inside. And only a little, so let us know if it gets bad," she told him.
"Yes, ma'am," he murmured, running his tongue over the cut a last time before shaking his head. "Hey, so, speaking of all that," he said with a wave of his hand at his forehead, "how'd ya get me here? We were pretty far outta town."
"Oh, I cast a Featherlite spell, then Rainbow and I carried you here," she said, perking up a little. "You're not really supposed to move creatures in a situation like yours, but, uh, I kinda panicked, and Rainbow didn't argue when she saw you go, uh, still."
Jake blinked. "You an' her, what, put me on ya backs? I didn't think that skinny thing coul' lift me."
"I'll do you a favor and not tell Dash you said that," she chuckled before shaking her head. "No, I grabbed a tree, and we made a stretcher. Then we flew you here."
Jake jerked, looking down at her with wide eyes. "You flew me?"
"Well, we wanted to get you here as fast as possible," she said, nodding.
"Huh," he murmured, turning his head to look out one of the two windows, watching the sky until a pony flew across his vision. "Well, thank'ya," he said, looking down at her.
"Every time, Jake," she replied with a smile.
He returned the smile before clearing his throat. "So, uh, how long until this brain guy shows up?"
Twilight started to pause before looking over her shoulder at the door suspiciously before returning her gaze to Jake. "Well, usually whenever that question gets dropped, it's either immediately or—"
She cut herself off, whipping her head over her shoulder.
The door remained closed.
"Or, whenever it's funniest," she finished, narrowing her eyes at the door before turning back to him.
He looked at her, then at the door, then back to her. "Twilight, Ah'm sorry, but that's just too damned weird."
She sighed and shrugged. "Sorry, Jake, that's just sort of how it works here in Equestria."
They both paused, watching the door.
***** ***** ***** ***** *****
As it so happened, the doctor showed up a few hours later, interrupting Jake teaching Twilight one of his card games.
"Ah, sorry," she said, smiling at them as she pranced into the room, holding a briefcase in her field as she nodded at Twilight. "I would've been here hours ago, but there was an incident on the tracks that we had to wait on. I'm Doctor Tender Care, a surgeon specializing in neuroscience! Now, who am Iiiiiiiii—"
She trailed off, looking up at Jake on the bed, his sheet pooled around his waist. His torso was heavily scarred, long thin lines tracing over his body in crosses and short puckers.
"Hello, ma'am," he said, nodding to her.
The action broke her out of her stasis, and she shook her head roughly before smiling up at him. "Ah, sorry, uhm, 'sir'? Just startled, won't happen again. And," she said, looking over at Twilight and once again falling into an open-mouthed stare.
Twilight cleared her throat, and the unicorn shook her head again and gave a small, tight smile. "Err, sorry, Princess, just wasn't..."
Twilight smiled and waved her hoof as the doctor trailed off again. "I'm not worried about it, Doctor. This is Jake, and he'll be your patient today."
Jake waved his hand, and Tender Care nodded.
"Right, right, unmapped neurological specimen," Tender scoffed, lightly rapping her hoof off her forehead, "I knew that. So, Jake, what exactly has been going on?"
"Well, ma'am, I've been having, seizures?" he asked, looking at Twilight, who nodded. "Well, one at least. Prolly comes from the hole in muh brain."
Tender stared at him before looking at Twilight.
"Jake arrived here under some strange circumstances and arrived with a channel in his brain with entry and exit wounds, like a crossbow bolt," Twilight explained, using her magic to highlight a circle on his forehead. "I was able to patch up the skull and skin, but I didn't have the knowledge to heal his brain itself."
Tender Care slowly started nodding before lifting her briefcase and sitting it on the bed.
"I think I understand," she murmured, opening the case and beginning to pull out large sheets of metal and equipment that were wired to them. "Well, the first thing we should do is scan the brain to see how it compares to a pony's brain. If there's enough overlap, then I'll feel confident enough to either start treatment or at least be able to refer you to somecreature that can do more specialized treatments."
Jake looked at the floating panels and wires hovering near the ceiling, swallowing dryly before nodding.
"Alright, so, first I'm going to use some of these panels to get a more complete picture of what's going on up there," she said, hovering most of the panels down and gesturing with a hoof. "I'll cast a simple spell to make the gray matter light up; then, I'll take a series of shots that will give us a better idea of what we're working with."
He slowly nodded again, watching as five of the panels came to float around his head.
"I'll need you to hold still for thirty seconds, alright, Jake?"
Instead of nodding, he raised his hand and extended the thumb upwards.
"That means yes," he heard Twilight say before he felt something that was almost like a gentle weight settle onto his head. There was a humming from every direction for a long few moments before everything went silent, and the panels disappeared.
The five floated back over to the briefcase, and the last four came down to glide just over his knees.
"Alright, now this is the really cool part," Tender said before casting at the panels.
As he watched, thin lines in green seemed to blossom from the panels, growing and branching out until, thirty seconds later, he was staring at a fairly standard picture of a brain. It seemed to have depth, though, and as he moved his head, he could see the furrows and channels that made up, presumably, his brain.
"Right? Three-dee modeling," Tender said, hopping onto her hind legs to get a better look at the floating green brain. Twilight quickly copied her on his other side.
"Here," she quickly said, pointing at a rough patch on his brain. Reaching out and moving the tip of her hoof, Twilight spun the image until the wound was lined up in front of Tender. "That's the entry hole."
"Oh goodness," Tender Care murmured, leaning forward to inspect it. The hole was sent away from her with a flick of her own hoof. Pressing down on the board, she scraped her hoof across the surface. Part of his brain disappeared, and Jake felt a wave of vertigo wash over him.
Shaking his head, he realized he didn't actually feel any differently and scowled down at the ragged channel that dug straight through his head.
"Yeah, that looks like a bolt hole," Tender murmured, looking closer at it. "It's cleaner, though, as if it was going much faster, and the head seems to have been rounded instead of bladed."
Twilight watched the doctor consider the picture for a minute until she finally asked, "So, can you heal it?"
Instead of a yes or no, Tender Care just hummed. After a long minute, she said, "In theory."
Jake frowned. "Wassat mean?"
"Well, yes, I probably could," Tender Care said, frowning, "but the thing is, I sort of have to see what I'm healing. Which means surgery. The cut-your-skull-and-brain-open kind. I'd have to cut into the matter and heal it from the inside out. It's an older procedure but still practiced."
"Wait," Jake said, holding up his hand and shaking his head. "You'd be cuttin' my brain?"
"Yup," Tender said, reaching out and restoring the brain. Grabbing a sort of stick, she rotated the image until she was closest to the channel before running the rod through the image. A red line appeared, then split in two as the brain was sort of pulled up, revealing the track. "See, the brain's soft enough that we just cut into it, carefully and precisely, of course, then heal the entire wound at once.
"The real sticking point is, well, the normal thing when you heal an old wound," she said, nodding at Jake's torso. "The older the wound, the more likely it scars, and the heavier it does so. The new cut is completely healed, being so fresh, but this?"
She tapped the channel with a hoof. "Maybe it heals perfectly. Maybe it leaves a tiny, thin long scar. Maybe, if it's old enough, it leaves something thick and ropy," she said, leaning over and tapping one of Jake's thicker scars. "And in the worst cases, the scar is just as bad as the hole. Rarely, worse."
Twilight chewed on her lip, looking up at Jake. He was pale and shaking slightly, looking down at the brain before him. "Jake?"
He winced before looking down at her.
"Jake, I can see you're scared, and I don't blame you," she said before glancing at the image. "But if we don't at least try this, you'll probably keep having seizures."
"After this first one, the chances are over ninety-five percent for another," Tender Care chimed in.
"And after?" he asked her.
Tender sighed, gazing deeply into the picture. "I won't lie," she said softly, "the chances are higher than zero. But, if there are any additional seizures, they will definitely be less intense, less life-threatening, and will respond better to medications we can put you on.
"I know it's scary," Tender Care said, looking up and meeting Jake's eyes. She smiled softly. "I think it's worth the risk."
He took a deep breath, looking at the picture before waving a hand through it, sending it away.
"Curse me for a damned fool. Ah'm about to let a tiny horse operate on my head," he growled before nodding. "Let's get it done then."