//------------------------------//
// Chapter Eleven 
// Story: A Corpse in Equestria 
// by LucidTech 
//------------------------------//

Jack’s trek back to the hospital had been exhausting. It was strange, the trip out to the farm hadn’t been much of an effort at all but the return trip had nuked any reserve of energy he thought he’d had. With questions, answers, and everything in between buzzing through his mind, Jack made the last few trudging steps to the hospital wall and, at last, rested a hand against the heating stone. The trick now was old hat and, with barely a thought, he phased through it.

Well, saying he phased through it is a bit of an exaggeration. Truthfully, it was more of a collapse. As Jack gracelessly faceplanted onto the floor it took all of Berry Punch’s not inconsiderable self-restraint to prevent herself from jumping a foot into the air. This is good as it would’ve caused a lot of questions, questions likely delivered from the nurse who was also currently in the room, and as far as answers went it seemed like those ones might be a little on the complicated side.

As Jack lifted his head from the cool floor to look at his surroundings he found a somewhat odd sight waiting for him. Berry was out of the bed. Not only that, a nurse was currently helping her walk the perimeter of the room. Jack watched, confused. He was unable to ask a question, or rather, knew that any question he did ask wouldn’t get answered until the nurse had left. So, in silence, Jack turned the questions over in his head while he waited until Berry could talk to him privately.

He hadn’t really thought about Berry eventually leaving the hospital. Maybe it was because that’s where he’d met her and some part of his brain had decided that’s where she would always be. Seemingly, that little part of his brain had made the decision with so little aplomb that the rest of his brain hadn’t thought to look into the judgement. It was stupid, obviously, Jack knew that now that he was watching her careful steps around the room. One day she would leave the hospital, go back home. Would she want him in her house? Would she even want him to visit? Would she still want to see him at all? These questions spun in Jack’s head, floating on top of all the older ones that had hit him not too long ago, and Jack found he had no answer for any of them. 

In a brief window of time where the nurse turned her face away from Berry, the latter pony made direct eye contact with Jack, silently acknowledging his presence. This brief moment instantly relieved a quiet dread that Jack hadn’t realized was building within him, but that Berry seemed to have intuited the presence of.  Silently, Jack watched the strange show. Knowing all the while that this was not something that was supposed to be viewed by an outside party, but also knowing it was far too late to leave. He watched and listened as, with the care and patience that was expected of a medical professional, the nurse led a slightly unsteady Berry through a number of walking exercises. She had started rather unsteady, yet in spite of the weeks that Jack knew Berry had been laid up for she seemed to be improving with miraculous ease.

Then again, Jack supposed, horses did learn to walk much faster than humans. Perhaps they also excelled at regaining the ability to walk in adulthood. Or, if not the horses he was familiar with, maybe the magical candy colored ponies that occupied this world at least.

Eventually, with a plethora of supporting words from the nurse, the walk came to an end. She gave a short farewell, helped Berry back into her bed, gave a promise of quick updates, and exited the room. In her absence, a hesitant silence lingered in the air until Jack eventually worked up the courage to break it.

“So what was that about?”

Berry turned to Jack with a cautious, but hopeful, smile. “They say I might be able to go home today.”

“What?!” Jack almost shouted, confusion and shock solidifying into a linguistic harpoon of a word. It was one thing to know that something would happen eventually but it was another to know that it was happening, effectively, now. Seeing the flitting shadow of worry on Berry’s face as she feared the worst from his outburst, Jack quickly recovered his thoughts. “I mean, that’s wonderful! I just had no idea that was even something that was on the horizon, let alone…” Jack let his words begin to bleed away, realizing he was blathering. “Today…” He murmured, completing the thought.

Berry paused a moment to try and get a read on Jack before she continued the conversation. “I wasn’t really expecting it either, but from what they told me it makes sense. Most of the damage from… what happened… was internal. Organ damage mostly, I was told. So, after a few minor tests, and some walking exercises to recover my movement from the time I spent in bed, they said that I’ll be good to go.” Her eyes rested on Jack, at first trying to read something from his face, but as Berry seemed to realize what she was doing she relaxed into a more patient look as she tried not to pry.

“That’s great!” Jack said, tamping down on talking about his more complicated feelings. He’d wanted to have a long chat about his upcoming trip into the forest, about Sam, about friends, about if Berry thought of him as a friend. To have that talk now though, in the face of this exciting news for Berry, it felt wrong. Like he was taking her moment to talk about himself. So, instead, he asked. “Does Colada know?”

“Not yet,” Berry said, the hesitant grin blooming into a comfortable smile. “Assuming my tests come back good, the hospital will get in touch with Cheerilee to sign my release. Colada will probably hear about it then.”

Berry gave an affirmative nod and the two fell into a silence. For Berry, it was a comfortable moment. Her thoughts dwelling on happy moments that she’d been looking forward to since she’d regained consciousness and  now they seemed closer than she could have ever hoped. In this happiness, she didn’t notice that for Jack the silence was of a completely different kind. Not that you could blame her, he was doing his best to hide it from her after all. Hide his apprehension, fear, dread, worry. His thoughts were steeped in the murky darkness of an overgrown forest that called to him. The ominous dread it summoned up causing a pit to twist into Jack’s stomach or, now that he lacked a stomach, perhaps the pit rested within his soul itself. 

Eventually, though, even dread comes to an end. Even worry must take a reprieve. The queue for that eventuality, in this case, was the return of the nurse who was accompanied by the pony Jack had briefly internally referred to as ‘Probably-Cheerilee’ and now was one hundred percent certainly absolutely Cheerilee.

Probably.

“Well” said the nurse, smiling with a genuine kindness that could not be faked, “I was going to tell you that Cheerilee was on her way over to sign your release papers. However, since she tailed the pony who told her about the good news all the way back to the hospital, now I am instead telling you that Cheerilee has already signed your release papers. So, whenever you are ready, feel free to head out. However we do ask that you avoid spending another night, for the sake of keeping the paperwork uncomplicated. Other than that, I’ll leave you two to it.” The nurse gave one more happy smile to both mares, and then exited the room, closing the door behind her.

WIth her exit, the temperature of the room seemed to plummet. 

Now-guaranteed-to-be-Cheerilee turned to fully look at Berry. Berry held the gaze. The silence stretched on. Then, Berry seemed to lose whatever silent battle was being fought and turned her gaze to the wall. 

“I told you-” Cheerilee started.

“I know.” Berry interrupted, as if the completion of the sentence would wound her.

“I don’t know what I need to do to prove to you that I’ll be there, you just have to ask.” Cheerilee said, her words heavy. Full of confused anger that didn’t have a target, not really. Anger at the situation, maybe. 

“I’m sorry. I know I always say I’m sorry but I’ve meant it everytime. I don’t know why I can’t bring it up with you when things get bad. Some part of my dumb brain stops me. It’s not a problem with you. I swear it isn’t.”

Currently two for two on ‘moments I shouldn’t be a part of but I am anyway’, Jack waited as still as he could manage in the corner of the room.

Cheerilee let the silence hang for a moment, then took a deep breath. “Colada’s excited to see you, do you want to go see her? She’s just out in the lobby.”

“I’d like that a lot.” Berry moved to pull herself out of the bed, and Cheerilee was quick to assist. “And thank you for watching her. She loves hanging out with you, you know?”

“Maybe, but she loves hanging out with me even more when her sister isn’t in the hospital.”

And then, in a blur, everything was moving. Colada was met, happy greetings were exchanged, and Jack felt himself tailing behind the ponies who were in the middle of a cascade of joy and excitement. It wasn’t until he felt the fatigue of the walk start to settle in again that Jack realized he was walking. Shaking himself, as if from a dream, he managed to reassert his attention on the world around him. Berry was going home. Colada was going home. Cheerilee was going home-ish. Though from what Jack could tell of Cheerilee, even her own home had only ever been ‘home-ish’ with Berry in this hospital.

Berry and Colada and Cheerilee were all involved on a hectic session of catch-up. Berry had missed a lot, even with Colada’s earlier visit to try and fill in some gaps, and she was eager to hear about everything that had happened in the lives of her friends and family since her hospitalization. Because of this eager discussion, Jack was the first one to notice that they were being approached.

Well, as they were walking home in the middle of the day, they’d been approached a handful of times before truth be told. Ponies who noticed Berry out of the hospital and wanting to give well-wishes. This approach, though, was different.

Firstly, because it was being led by Princess Twilight Sparkle, who seemed to have another pony with her that Jack didn’t recognize. Secondly, this was not a ‘oh hey is that Berry let’s go say hi’ approach. This was a ‘we need to talk to Berry have you seen her’ approach. It reminded Jack of a time him and Sam had had to lose a police detail in a crowd. This approach was more like being hunted. Unable to really do much given the circumstances, Jack had little choice but to wait for the approach to turn into a conversation. Which, with the presence of a princess to get the crowd to part in front of her, wasn’t that long after.

“Hello Berry Punch!” Greeted Princess Twilight Sparkle, all smiles. Her voice stirred up the old hatred Jack had forgotten he’d held toward her, though it had grown rusty from disuse. “I’m so happy to see you out of the hospital!” 

“Uh, thanks?” Berry offered, suddenly under a spotlight and unsure as to why.

“Hello Colada!” Said the princess with the same cheery tone. “Happy to see you’re doing well.”

“Uh, thanks?” said Colada, echoing her sister.

“Me and my friend here,” Twilight nodded to the other pony who had stayed by her side through the crowd, a pegasus with a light blue coat and baby blue mane. “We were just wondering if we could get your story from the glass shop one more time. She’s from Canterlot and she’s helping me figure out what happened.” 

Colada glanced briefly to Twilight’s associate and then looked to Berry. Berry seemed to be sizing up the two ponies, seeming to see something more than the familiar face and a stranger as she did so. In light of this sudden careful gaze from Berry, Jack turned another look to Twilight’s ‘friend’ and his previous assessment that he didn’t recognize her suddenly began to fall apart. Something tickled the back of his memory, telling him that some part of him did know her.

“Go ahead Colada,” Berry said, her voice holding onto a careful neutral tone. “Tell the princess everything you remember.”