//------------------------------//
// IV. Bridge Over Troubled Water 
// Story: Still, Life 
// by MasterThief 
//------------------------------//

Mac was doing better the next morning, so the doctors let him be wheeled up, flat on his back, to the maternity floor to see his wife. He just nodded.

“Papa!” came two screams of joy from his two children as he was wheeled in. He reached out, and his hoof was taken in turn by a bunch of smaller ones.

Then Mac turned, and saw Buttercup, a bundle of blankets on her lap, smiling at him with a look of pure love, reaching out.

He felt the gurney rolling closer, and their hooves met.

“My stallion,” she said.

“Hello, beautiful,” he replied.

“I got someone here who wants to meet ya,” she motioned with her head, folding back the blankets, revealing a small, sleeping filly with her father’s exact colors.

Of course, Mac would have cried. This time, he just literally didn’t have anything left for tears.





The doctor filled them in on what had happened. They’d been so focused on Buttercup that by the time she’d been stabilized, Mac had almost gone over himself. It was only a quick-thinking nurse that had noticed something was wrong with Mac. Thankfully, they’d stopped the transfusion and were able to give Mac IV fluids. “Still,” the doctor said, “you’ve both been through quite a lot tonight. I’d like to keep you both here until I’m confident you’re stable enough to go home. Your daughter, too.”

Mac nodded, and slowly raised a hoof. “How… much are we going to owe?” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Buttercup looking downcast.

The doctor clasped his hooves. “You don’t worry about that.”

Buttercup spoke up. “What he means to say is that we… we don’t have a lot of money left. We lost almost everything in a flood a few months back.”

The doctor came up to both of them. “We’re not in the habit of turning anypony away who can’t pay. I can arrange someone from billing to come up and speak to you later. You just worry about getting better, all right?”

Mac wanted to say something more, but he was too tired to protest.

A week later, Mac and Buttercup were both cleared to go home. Mac looked at his hospital papers, and strangely, the bill was marked “PAID”. There was no mention of who, exactly, had paid.





Burnt Oak, who’d just left the Army and had gotten back to town, heard about what had happened, and took Mac, Buttercup, and their daughter home in his own cart. But rather than catch up, Mac spent most of the ride home asleep.

The doctor had warned both of them that they’d need to eat plenty, sleep more, and conserve their respective strengths for the next few months.

Buttercup did, spending most of her time on bedrest as the doctor had ordered her, and getting to know her new foal, whom they had named Applebloom.

But Mac knew there was work to be done. There was always work to be done.

Though, try as he might, he couldn’t do very much of it. He hadn’t felt that weak since the plague days, all those years ago.

He hated that sensation, of knowing that his family needed him, yet being powerless and helpless.

The financial part of it hurt the most. With the losses from the flood, Mac saw each day's ledger, saw their funds drying up, and quickly. He swallowed his pride, and began writing to all the family creditors, asking for hardship exceptions and forgiveness and promising that all would be paid back, with interest, everyone from the mortgage-holder on the cider press, to Ponyville Elementary asking for free lunches for Little Mac and AJ.

All came back with short notes saying the debts were considered cancelled, and not to worry about them.





Two months later, Granny came upstairs, with a strange look on her face.

“Somethin’ wrong, Mama?” Mac asked, sitting up in bed.

“Oh… nothin. I just… got…”

“Got what? Mac asked.

“... never you mind, son,” she said. “Ain’t important.”

Which, of course, only made Mac more suspicious.





The following week, Granny had brought them all downstairs for a family dinner, their first together since the events of the flood all those months ago.

Mac was the first to notice the chairs had been rearranged, but he said nothing.

After dinner, he lounged on the couch with the newspaper, listening to the radio. Buttercup tended to Applebloom, while Little Mac and AJ assembled a puzzle on the floor.

Mac heard a knock at the door.

“I’ll git it!” Granny shouted, and rushed forward. Mac went back to his paper. Probably just some lost traveling salespony, he thought.

When he looked up again, he saw him.

Anjou Pear.

How dare he. Mac’s heart filled with contempt.

“What’s he doin’ here?” Mac said loudly, rising unsteadily to his hooves.

The room went quiet. Buttercup gasped as her father stepped into the room.

“H-hello,” he said, quietly.

“Who’s that,” AJ asked in pure innocence.

“Mac, AJ…” Granny said, “this is your grandfather. Your mama’s father.”

Little Mac stood up. “Papa said you hate us.” Mac heard his own voice in his son’s. They’d never talked about it, but everyone in the family knew.

“Mac!” Granny shouted, “you watch yerself–”

“I’m sorry,” Anjou said. “I shouldn’t have come.” He ran outside and slammed the door shut behind him.

Mac looked around the room. Everyone looked at him, except for Buttercup, who sat, quietly, tears forming in her eyes at what she’d just seen.

“Damn it, son,” Granny said, tossing Mac his poncho and hat. “He came back to apologize to ya! Now go out there and talk to him!”

“I got nothin’ ta say to that old fool!” Mac said, stamping his hoof, tossing aside the poncho and hat.

“Who’dya thinks been paying all the debts around here?” Granny said. Mac and Buttercup gasped. “He told me he did it so you’d talk to him. Well get the buck out there and talk!” 

Sullen, Mac did as his mother told.





He’d last seen Anjou storming off in a huff after he’d wed Buttercup. He was expecting to meet that same anger, and prepared to respond in kind.

What he found, instead, was an old, broken stallion, sitting on the bottom step, head in hooves.

Why now? Why us?

“Sir.” Mac began, without commitment, choosing his words carefully.

“...no. No, your boy’s right. I deserve that. I did hate you. I… I don’t…”

“That boy is your grandson, Mister Pear.” Mac said. “His name is Macintosh. Junior. The daughter is Applejack. The little’un is Applebloom.”

“I know. I know.” Anjou shook his head. “Your mother told me. Sent me letters. After the flood.”

“Just one question, old stallion,” Mac asked. “Why now?”

“When… when I left I was just so angry… but as the years went by, I thought I’d broken everythin’ for you and could never fix it. So… so I just didn’t try. But your Mama wrote to me about the flood, about what you did for my Pear Butter… and… I had to come back. I had to help you. I knew that dam was trouble from the moment I saw the plans. But nobody listened.”

Mac stopped. “What about the dam?”

“I kept all the records. Wanted to be an engineer when I was a foal, but family needed me on the farm. I tried to teach myself. I knew the way they built it wouldn’t work. It was gonna fail, and sooner rather than later. But no one listened. Said I was crazy. Said I was a good-fer-nothin’-know-nothin. This town never liked me. Or any of us Pears. And then the flu came, and….”

Mac heard the sadness in the old stallion’s voice, and something told him to continue.

“Buttercup said you took it hard. Took to drinkin’ and all.”

Anjou paused. “I had no one left. I’d failed my family. I blamed you, I blamed the town, I blamed everyone I could. But most of all I blamed myself.”

Mac walked, slowly, down the steps, and sat next to the old man.

Buttercup’s father. My family, too.

They sat there in silence for a very long time.

“I made everything worse,” Anjou said. “I didn’t tell you you were livin next to a death trap, and… well, you probably want nothin’ more to do with me. And that’s fine. Just tell me what debts you got, I’ll pay them, and be on my way.”

There were a hundred stinging things Mac wanted to say in response. But he chose none of them.

He put a hoof around his father in law. “She still misses you, y’know. She don’t talk about it much, but she does.”

“She’ll never forgive me. And I don’t have the right to ask after what I did.” Anjou said.

“We’ve all had to do some growin’ up way too early,” Mac said. “I know what it’s like to start from nothin, build somethin, work like a dog to provide for your family, then watch it all go away. But…”

Mac sighed. That night, when he was about to go out to the dam, he’d learned a terrible wisdom.

“A stallion’s gotta provide for his family. And that means bein’ there for ‘em. Takin' what's wrong and doin' yer best to make it right again.  And if I know your daughter, she’ll forgive you. Can’t say how, or when. But she will.”

Mac stood up, and helped his father-in-law up. “There ya go, old stallion. You can do this.”

“In my worse days, I’d be needin’ lots of whiskey before somethin’ like this,” Anjou said.

“None of that here, I’m afraid.” Mac smiled.

“No… I s’pose you’re right.” Anjou said, taking a weary breath.

Inside, Anjou slowly walked over to his daughter, as the rest of the family watched.

He stopped in front of her, and began to shake.

She embraced him, and they both fell to the couch.

Mac could not hear what they said, but he didn’t have to.

He turned to Granny, who was rocking Applebloom over her shoulder. “You should have said something, Mama.”

“I know. But… I also knew Anjou’s a good stallion at heart. He… he just lost his way for a bit.”

“Kids…” Mac heard Buttercup calling. “This is your Grandpear Anjou. Come say hello.”

Mac stood in the doorway, for a very long time, taking it in. He didn’t know if any of this would stick. He didn’t know if something this broken could be repaired.

But he hoped it would.





Grandpear–no more Anjou–stayed with them for a while. He and Buttercup and Granny spent hours talking, about everything and nothing. There was laughter, there were tears, and slowly, as green shoots rising from a stump of something dead, something happened.

They were becoming a family once again.

One day, Grandpear came to Mac, who was dozing on the couch. “Mac… I’ve got something to show you.”

Grandpear opened a massive tube full of dusty papers, unrolling them on the kitchen table. “The plans for the dam. I saved a copy. And this…” he tapped a hoof. “This is what I saw. This is how I knew.”

Mac squinted–his eyes were still not what they were– and saw calculations, angry red notes, diagrams, all drawn on top of the plans.

Base Inadequate. Too shallow. MUST BE DUG 40% DEEPER TO COMPENSATE FOR WATER LOAD.

“Short version, they didn’t dig the foundation deep enough. The pressure at the bottom was going to rupture the dam from the bottom up. And I’m guessing that’s what happened.”

Mac had a sudden realization. “Even… even with the emergency spillway opened to full?”

Grandpear shook his head. “I don’t think it would have made a difference. Sluice gates would have deformed into these grooves. You coulda had ten minotaurs turning that valve with you, it wouldn’t have made a difference.”

Mac’s heart sunk. My little girl had been right, he said, deciding to keep that forever to himself.

“Anyway, I’ve been out there, took a whole bunch of pictures. I’m gonna head into town tomorrow, see if I can find some engineers to double-check my numbers. And then maybe a lawyer.”

“I… suppose I ain’t doin’ much tomorrow,” Mac said, realizing what Grandpear was proposing. “You need me there, I’ll come with.”

For the first time ever, they shook hooves. Not as rivals, not as distant memories, but as family.