//------------------------------// // Part 21 // Story: Silent Ponyville: Reunion // by Chapter 17 //------------------------------// Silent Ponyville: Reunion Stay away. Part 21 ------ It was official. They had gone from expectant parents to actual parents. The attendant doctor had encountered no trouble getting the little foal to cry so they knew she could breathe properly, and after drying her off a bit she was swaddled in a warm baby blanket and handed over to her mother. The newborn filly had a yellow coat, the natural middle ground between her mother's cream colored coat and her father's amber fur, a very short pink mane that would no doubt grow into something wondrous if she was anything like her mother, and her father's blue eyes. Fluttershy let out a little confused squeak, finding the sudden onslaught of new sights and sounds a bit unsettling. She was answered by the overjoyed sob of her mother who gently held her close, doing what she could to offer her daughter some comfort on that day that had been so taxing for the both of them. Lance looked upon the scene with the expected pride and joy, but it didn't quite connect. He couldn't let it just yet, as there was still something to sort out. After summoning the willpower to tear his gaze away from his daughter, he turned on the doctor with a rather cross expression. "Thank you for your help...now could you maybe explain the whole 'political stunt' comment?" he asked as politely as he could manage. The middle aged, emerald green unicorn mare sighed and took a seat, clearly having anticipated that this discussion would come. "Alright, you deserve an explanation, but I have to be brief since I have other patients that need to be seen," she began. "The administrator heard the news of your graduation, same as everyone else here and, well, she said it didn't exactly 'pass the smell test'. Being a pegasus herself she had a strong suspicion you weren't nearly as good as you appeared to be, and that you'd been allowed via royal interference to ride on Mr. Mandeus' coat tails." Lance's expression fizzled into a blank stare before reigniting into an outright glare. "That's not true! I've-" "Let me finish," she interrupted, holding up a hoof for silence. "After your wife cold clocked my orderly when she was trying to put me into a headlock-" "Sorry..." Posey said sheepishly. "-your stepping up to take his place in assisting me, especially the calm way you conducted yourself when your own wife had that blood pressure dip during the birth-" "I'm not apologizing for that one." "-has gone a long way in convincing me that the administrator doesn't know what the hoof she's talking about in this case. Also, no need to apologize Mrs. Strongshy, if you're not prepared to get mauled by a laboring mare you shouldn't be working in a maternity ward," she concluded with a reassuring smile directed at the new mother. "Then you'll put in the good word for me? I can get my medical training?" Lance asked hopefully. "I will do what I can to make that happen, no guarantees though. Hopefully I can get you back alongside Mr. Mandeus inside of a week. Now, stop worrying for a bit and go say hi to your daughter." Visibly relieved, Lance held out a hoof towards the doctor. "Thank you again, you have no idea how much this means to me and my family." "You're most welcome Mr. Strongshy, make good on this opportunity. If any of you need any assistance the nurse's station is right down the hall," she said with a smile as she shook the offered hoof then made her departure to let the new family grow more acquainted with one another. Lance took his place next to his wife and daughter, finally feeling he could settle in and start acting like a father instead of a doctor with that bit of business out of the way. "I'm sorry I yelled at you Lance." She didn't dare take her eyes off of Fluttershy as she spoke. The newborn had shifted around a bit in her blanket to snuggle against her mother, her little legs still moving a bit every once in a while as she tried to sleep off recent events. "Why? If anything I should be apologizing to you for yelling back. You were in labor...I didn't really have any excuse." Lance was similarly captivated by their daughter, having a feeling that neither of them would mind if this conversation took place with no eye contact betwixt them in the least. "I think my being in labor was a good excuse for both of us...plus that whole stone walling business that I only now heard about." The edge to her voice at the end of her sentence did not go unnoticed by either of the other ponies in the room, Lance wincing a bit while Fluttershy gave a distressed whimper in response to her mother's tone taking a turn for the worse. "You didn't need me coming home and complaining with the condition you were in. If it had still been a problem after the birth I would've brought it up then," he replied. "Nope," she said with a shake of her head, careful not to disturb their daughter again. "That's not how this works Lance. You're right, I probably wasn't in the best condition to find out about this but it's not about what's convenient for either of us, especially now. I fully intend to lean on you in times where you're probably not in the best condition to be leaned on, and I'm not going to let resentment build and drive you crazy just because you're dumb enough to think you have to be this stone pillar that can't do the same in return when you need me. Got it?" Lance was silent for a moment and then nodded humbly. "Good...now hold your daughter," Posey said with a smile, holding their newborn up for him. He moved a bit closer and then, with more caution than he had ever exercised before, he gently accepted the little bundle of Fluttershy. Noticing the movement, she looked up at him sleepily from her spot warm and safe inside the blanket, and yawned before shifting around and closing her eyes again, snuggling closer to his chest in complete trust of her father. It finally connected and hit him full force as he looked down at the new life in his hooves, soon reducing him to little more than a quivering smile and tear stained cheeks. Posey beamed at him, her own eyes sparkling from his reaction, then leaned forward and kissed his cheek as he greeted their daughter. "Hi Fluttershy...welcome to life." ------ Huh...that was strange...he wasn't in terrible pain upon waking up this time. His vision was very blurry however, and he brought a hoof up to his eyes to discover that once again they were heavy with tears. He'd been crying in his sleep. "For buck's sake," he quietly swore at himself as he wiped the moisture from his eyes. He had to stop this...he knew what she'd turned into, there was no use in getting worked up over what she used to be. As he moved his hoof away from his face he couldn't help but notice the very fresh looking bandages in which it was now wrapped. Looking down at himself he saw the rest of his bandages had been similarly replaced, and none of the wounds hidden by said dressings were giving him the least bit of grief anymore. Even his right rear leg wasn't hurting, and he moved himself a bit to get a look at it, scarcely able to believe he couldn't feel such a grievous injury. Unfortunately, when he moved the leg into view, he was unpleasantly surprised by the sight of a black veined metal brace over the bandaged wound, the strange pattern appearing to have spread onto the bandage itself and then down into his skin. He lay there looking at the contraption in wide eyed horror...yet, he made no attempt to remove it. Despite appearances it didn't seem to be doing anything bad to him, and until it did there really wasn't any reason to go messing with something that looked to be jutting inside of a crippling injury. Lance let what tension he could out of his system with a long exhaled breath, trying to put it out of his mind. It would be much better to find out where he was instead of worrying. The room was clean in the same way that the apartments had initially been clean; spotless, but only managing to elicit dread for it. From his spot laying on the bed, there was a door directly in front of him, a bedside table with a lamp to his left, and behind him was... ... Well, at least now he knew exactly where he was. The plaster in the wall behind him bore a familiar message carved in just above the bed regarding the status of everything in heaven being fine. He was in Recovery Room 2 on the top floor. Suddenly the cleanliness of the room was even more off putting now that the memories of how it looked before came back to him. Had the deaf colt done this? Why? What sense did it make to do something like this after Lance had enraged him by opening the lock box in his- THE KEY! Lance hopped off the bed and started looking around the room urgently. Where was the key? Where was his watch? Where was anything of his? Had the deaf colt taken them all? How was he supposed to get out now? What could he possibly- "Oh," he said aloud as he spotted the saddlebags sitting on the floor in the corner, bringing his panic to a screeching halt. He leisurely cantered over and looked into the front tool holders to see that his watch and surgical light were both stashed within. Better yet, upon opening the bags themselves he found everything where he had left it, key included. Absolutely nothing was missing...which of course begged the question, why had the deaf colt not at least taken back the key over which he had been so protective? Actually...why had he let Lance get the key at all? For that matter, why had he let him open the first lock at the apartments? He was obviously able to intervene in a big way, and yet for some reason all he could do prior to Lance actually doing what he'd been told not to do was leave threatening notes. "Moving on then," he muttered to himself as he put his gear back on. It was an interesting question to ponder but at the same time it wasn't of much consequence; even if he was somehow able to confirm it, it wouldn't change his plans in the least. Once the last strap of the saddlebags was pulled tight he had every intention of walking out, but was stalled as he turned and spied another note resting on the bed. "I think our relationship didn't start right and I'd like to be the bigger stallion and extend an olive branch even though you keep hurting me so badly. Because I'm nice like that. So despite your callous disregard for my feelings, I did all of this for you. Don't you feel better now? Isn't that room nice? Doesn't it make it easy to just stay there for a while? A long while? Don't you feel grateful, like you want to repay somepony's kindness? It's a good one I bet, that feeling you have, because I did this for you. I hope your head's cleared up now. I hope we're better friends now. I hope you help rebuild the bridges you set ablaze, and that we can learn to trust each other. P.S. The door's locked from the outside." "What?!" Lance dropped the note and stepped over to the door. The handle was useless, just as he had been told it would be. Hoping to find it had merely been stuck he tried forcing it several times but to no avail, and to make things the worse the sound attracted unwanted attention. His watch began buzzing, prompting him to look up and see the face of a barbed nurse looking in at him through the small window in the door. He reflexively flinched away as she banged her hooves against the door trying and get at him, but had about as much luck as he had in getting through. "Okay...okay there has to be a key somewhere in here," he reasoned, but quickly saw that any key he found in that room would be useless. The handle had no keyhole. "No key then...maybe a screwdriver...or another crowbar, or...anything!?" The next ten or so minutes were spent tearing the room to shreds looking for anything what so ever that might have helped him in the least. But there was nothing, absolutely nothing. When that idea didn't pan out he started trying brute force out of desperation. Trying to buck the door down was no use, his strongest kick only managing to scuff the door's already peeling paint. He made an attempt to break the locking mechanism too but that held fast just as well as the door. Lance was trapped. Feeling hopelessness start to weigh down upon him, he took a seat with his back against the wall right next to the very resilient door, gaze cast downward at his cleanly bandaged hooves. The deaf colt had done some fine work on him, now that his regretfully plentiful spare time allowed him to really look at it. It wasn't just the clean look of the wrappings either, he was now able to move around with ridiculous ease compared to the ordeal that every step had been previously. All that searching, lifting, bucking, and pulling he'd just done hadn't made his battered body hurt in the slightest. Were he to hazard a guess, he felt like he had just about all of his mobility back, sans the ability to fly of course. "All dressed up and nowhere to go," he lamented under his breath. Lance didn't know how long he spent there looking at the floor, or how many times his watch started and stopped buzzing as the nurse patrolling outside passed by the door, but eventually a change in pattern caught his attention. Instead of peaking and then fading his watch simply kept buzzing, indicating she had stopped in place for some reason. He looked up towards the door, then started getting to his hooves to see what was happening. For little more than a second he heard the galloping of metal clad hooves rush toward the nurse outside, a hiss preceding a bone cracking impact. Lance ceased all efforts to stand, instead opting to shrink into the nearby corner as he heard a familiar chorus of distorted moaning, cracking, tearing, and splattering, until at last it came to an end with one last sickening snap....then silence. It was her again, right outside. She'd killed the nurse, and if the persistent buzzing of his watch was to be counted on, she wasn't leaving yet. The glass of the window shattered from the force of the blow that dented the metal inward. To be certain, Lance was terrified, but he did not move from his corner. What point was there? If she wanted him caught, and could see him, he would be caught. His imagination ran wild with what torturous treatment he would be subjected to next as her ventilated metal muzzle poked in through the broken window. He heard her take a slow, deep breath, letting it out with a pleased shiver as her senses picked up on his presence within. The muzzle retracted, and another two savage impacts deformed the door even more before a final mighty yank tore it free of its hinges. Lance curled into a protective ball, instinctively covering his head with his fore legs despite knowing it would do no good at all. The sound of the door bouncing off the wall and landing on the floor after being tossed aside echoed down the hall... And then nothing happened. It took a moment for him to recognize that no part of his was being cut up or torn off then dare to look up. She was nowhere to be seen. Even as he poked his head out the door and turned his light on to investigate, he caught no sight of scarred, tan coat or flowing, sanguine tail. The only sign that he hadn't been hearing things was the mangled, broken, headless barbed nurse corpse lying just to the left of the door. The way looked clear, the elevator was practically just around the corner, and it could take him straight down to the basement. Lance took his chances and bolted for it, too afraid to derive any joy from the fact that he could run at a good gallop again. Lance all but broke the down button as he hammered it with his hoof over and over until the doors finally opened, then flung himself inside and gave the button for the basement a similar round of abuse until they closed. He stood tensely in the center of the elevator car as it descended, expecting some other anomaly to block his progress, but nothing of the sort occurred. When the doors opened again he took it a bit more slowly, moving further into the basement at a brisk trot that soon placed him back in front of the formidable door that looked to have been borrowed from a prison. With a combination of curiosity and dread, he retrieved the deaf colt's precious key from his saddlebag and used it, wondering what fresh hell awaited him as he pulled the door open, the long unused hinges screeching as they were forced to move. At long last he directed his light through the door and looked inside...standing there for a moment, blinking at the pair of violet eyes looking back at him from the other end of the room. It was Posey, brandishing an old broken chair leg covered with patches of moss that she had evidently torn from the single bit of furniture in the room. Upon seeing that it was her husband that had opened the door and not some monstrosity she let out a gleeful gasp and dropped the weapon, zipping over to him with a flap of her wings. "Lance, you're okay!" she exclaimed as she hugged him tightly. "What...how did you get in there?" he asked, returning the embrace. "There was a trap door, and I had nowhere else left to check out so I opened it and looked inside. I saw something twinkling on the floor below so I thought I'd fly down, see what it was, then fly back up, but as soon as I landed somepony closed the trap door and I couldn't get it open again," she explained. "So you've just been sitting here in the dark the whole time?" "Pretty much...it wasn't so bad. I mean, I was worried about possibly being trapped forever, and I was really worried you were going to get badly hurt with nopony to help you, but you found me again, and you actually look a lot better than last time I saw you, so I guess everything worked out." She released him, taking a step back and looking his new, clean bandages over with a smile. Then she spotted the black veined brace on his back leg. "Um...that's...?" she asked, pointing to it with her hoof and a cringe on her face. "I don't know what it is either, but I can actually move faster than a trot without any pain, so I'm leaving it there for now," he replied while moving his right rear leg a bit in way of demonstration. "That's good then I suppose, I'm keeping an eye on it though, that just doesn't look right," she relented. "You and me both," he nodded as he turned, walking down the basement corridor with her at his side. "Let's get going, we've got to..." Lance paused, furrowing his brow. "I actually don't know what to do next, I used up my last key opening that door for you, and getting that key was a real pain in the flank." "Oh, right, one second." Posey opened her saddlebag and spent a moment looking for something before she emerged with another key in her mouth. Once he'd taken it she was free to talk again. "That twinkle wasn't just a trap, that key was in the room back there." He nodded in approval and looked down at it. It was unspectacular, just a generic key, with the only identifying mark being the number nine etched onto the key handle. The only room with that number he knew of in the hospital was Patient Room 9 on the middle floor...but he distinctly remembered it being barricaded. A key wasn't going to get him past that. Then it hit him. When he tried remembering a bit further back he realized that the key in his hoof wasn't for any of the doors in the hospital at all. "This is for one of the locks on 303," he concluded. "Huh?" "Yeah. The three locks holding all the chains in place were labeled 1, 9, and 3. I opened lock 1, here's the key for lock 9," he said, holding the key up while a smile dared pull at the corners of his mouth. "That means we're almost out of here." "Good, so you know where 303 is?" she asked with a smile of her own. Lance opened his mouth to speak, stopped, and shut it as his enthusiasm took a nose dive. "No...actually...I've been all over the hospital and I haven't once seen the real version with all the locks and chains. You haven't seen it on your side?" Posey shook her head. He let out a grumbling sigh and sat down. "We're at square one again then...but now at least you're free so you can-" "Yeah, I think it's better we're together now too," she cut him off while taking a seat next to him. When he tried to complete his sentence he was met with a look from her that somehow managed to be both affectionate and stern at once, as though she were daring him to complete the self destructive thought he had been stating aloud. Lance wisely opted to change the topic. "I just don't get it though...if I-" "We." "...we were meant to just get trapped down here, what was the point of all these things I've been doing for Celestia knows how long now? Why didn't we just get sealed in a room like you did? Sure as hay would've saved us a lot of time." He let his frustration seep into his voice freely now. Somehow merely having her there at all was making it possible for him to vent. "Maybe we're not trapped and we just don't know it?" she suggested as she nuzzled against him supportively. "How do you mean?" he asked, cocking an eyebrow as he none the less reciprocated the affectionate gesture. "Remember the elevator, when you scared the daylights out of me because you were seeing door 303, and I couldn't?" "Yeah." "What if that's not the only place that happened? What if you were staring the actual door in the face earlier and didn't even know it?" That was...actually a good point. He let his gaze drift back towards the floor, brow furrowed in thought as he delved back into his recent memories. Posey hadn't been with him for all that time, so he had no way of really confirming if anything he'd seen had been an hallucination or not. But on the other hoof, there had been one room where something he'd heard had been confirmed as not being real. He subconsciously swallowed a bit nervously as he recounted the sound of Posey's desperate screams from the outside of Operating Room 2, even though he knew now that they had not been real. Now that he thought of it, that room was starting to sound very suspect. If there really had been nothing in it, why had it been locked in the first place, and why had the deaf colt been compelled to suddenly step in and make him never want to return? There was something else to it too, something he didn't want to spend too long pondering. Considering where it had been hidden, he never would have even come close to finding the key to OR2 on his own if not for a certain somepony's 'assistance'. That certain somepony also hated the deaf colt enough to actually stop torturing Lance just to take a shot at him. Though she'd obviously enjoyed the little incident at the bath tub, what if there was something more to it? The deaf colt was the only one Lance knew of that the sovereign couldn't just tear apart on a whim. What if guiding him to something very important to the deaf colt was just her way of getting at him indirectly? Lance knew she was more intelligent than the other monsters he'd encountered, but could she really be that intelligent or was he giving her too much credit? Still...it seemed it was worth it to go up and give OR2 another look. "I have an idea, come on," he said, a bit of confidence seeping back into his voice whilst he got back to his hooves. There was just one rather important detail he had to sort out before they got there though. "Good, where are we headed then?" Posey asked as she fell into step at his side. "Operating Room 2 on the top floor...but, Posey, listen," he started as they exited the corridor and trotted over to the elevator. He opened the doors and the two of them stepped inside before he pressed the button for the top floor while weighing his words carefully. "I wasn't lying when I said I've been alone...but I did try. I...really, really tried." The elevator started lifting them upward, and Posey found that a slight tilt of the head was the only sufficient expression of her confusion at the sudden topic shift. "Um...what?" "I tried to move on with a mare I'd grown very close to after you died, but I guess it just went too far, too fast, and now it will never work out," he explained further, unable to meet her gaze. "...why are you telling me this right now?" she asked, her confusion refining into a general sense of foreboding. "Because..." he let out a long unsteady breath, momentarily unable to talk from his own discomfort. "Because the deaf colt used that against me in that room. I saw...intimate things that didn't really happen, and just left. When you mentioned how I'd been seeing things that weren't there, it made me think back to that, and now I'm wondering if he wasn't just scaring me off because door 303 was actually in that room." There, it was out finally. Telling her had been like getting is wings plucked off all over again, but it needed to happen. He had to destroy the power that he was letting that room exert over him, and this was the only way. Lance dared to look toward his wife again, not sure what to expect. Posey was clearly not pleased at what she had heard, but even though her displeasure was plain on her face, it seemed she was carefully considering what to say instead of reacting to some emotional blow. She was silent until the elevator came to a halt, the tension in Lance's gut ratcheting a bit tighter every second before she mercifully chose to speak. "Is that all?" "...yes?" Once again, Lance wasn't sure what response he had been expecting, but he knew that hadn't been it. "Then I don't care." He stood, giving a wordless blink at how her words didn't match her expression in the slightest. "Okay, I do care," she started as she stepped past him, pushed the button to open the doors, and strode out. "But what kind of wife, or pony in general for that matter, would I be if I held that against you in any way what so ever? The phrase was 'til death do us part' right? Well, death happened, we parted, and I'd be pettier than my mother ever was if I held a grudge against my husband for continuing to like mares after I'd died. Now which way is it?" she asked as she stopped at the door leading inward. "Go left, and just follow the hallway, it'll be on your left side," Lance said as he nudged his way past her, wary of the possibility that the nurse might have regrown her head and started walking around again. This was aside from the other, much bigger problem that was still on the same floor for all he knew. "Also, technically, I swore to love and cherish as long as I shall live, and I'm still alive." "Lance, please don't split airs over semantics right now, just don't. Let's get this over with-why are we stopping?" she asked after almost bumping into him after he had stopped at the intersection and looked down the hall to his right. To his relief the barbed nurse was still in the same place and just as dead. Either losing the head entirely actually did kill them, or the sovereign had carried the head a ludicrous distance away to ensure the nurse would stay down longer. "Just checking something, come on," he said as he resumed his trot toward the operating rooms. In less than a minute they were in front of Operating Room 2, waiting a moment as Lance steeled himself and then opened the door. His hunch had been correct. The hole in the wall, the writing above it, the section of missing wall, and the sounds from the next room over were all gone, leaving a plain white room with one fairly dominant feature. Door 303, the actual door 303 with chains and all, was on the opposite wall occupying the section that had previously been missing and crossed over with rebar. Lance turned back to look at Posey and gave her a tired smile. "Good call honey." "Good call yourself, you're the one that knew what was up here," she replied, returning the expression. He stepped into the room a bit reluctantly, half worried that everything would revert the second he set hoof inside. "If this is anything like it was the first time, you might want to fly out of here before-" "No, and the next time you ask me to leave I'm going to hog tie you and drag you through this myself," she cut him off as she stepped past him with all due determination. "Understand?" "...yes dear," he sighed. Over the years he'd learned that there were times when one could argue with Posey, and there were times when it would only prove a waste of energy. "Good. I've spent who knows how many hours in the dark worried sick about you, I'm not going to let you out of sight, let alone abandon you now that I have you back." She strode over to the door and turned to face him as she spoke and he caught up. All he had to do now was get the key and undo the lock...and then whatever would happen would happen. The memories of the apartment nightmare were still vivid in his mind though, and that stayed his hooves as he wrestled with the fear gripping at his chest. Posey said nothing, standing and waiting patiently, certainly in no hurry herself after the story she'd been told when he'd first woken up. Yet but just being there at all she did everything for him. He gave her one last look and the thought of her being there with him, of the possibility of their escaping, of bringing his wife back to the world that was so much worse for her absence, enabled him to finally fish the key out of his saddlebags. A note held in place beneath the chains was there to greet him when he brought his head back up with the key in hoof. "Amazing...simply amazing...after everything I've done for you, here you are. Don't think I've been off doing something else, I've been watching your every move. But I foolishly figured you couldn't possibly do something as terrible as what you're about to do to me after I spent so long fixing you. So I said nothing. I trusted you. But it's becoming increasingly apparent that you're only capable of thinking about your own self interest. Yelling doesn't work. Hurting doesn't work. Healing doesn't work. I guess nothing can fix you, can it?" "Was that here when we came in?" Posey asked, noticing he was looking at the note fairly intently. "Why's it blank?" "What? You can't see the writing?" he asked. It probably sounded far too casual a reaction considering she was implying he was hallucinating again, but he just couldn't bother with sounding incredulous after everything he'd been through. "No, what does it say?" "Nothing important." Lance reached up, tugged the note free, and let it fall to the ground like the irrelevant scrap it was. He then took hold of the padlock with the number 9 etched onto the front with one hoof and inserted the key with the other. The lock popped open, and with a final few tugs the chains that had gone slack were pulled free and left in a pile on the floor. ... ... ... Lance's surgical light began to flicker and fade. He didn't bother checking to see if it was malfunctioning this time. The siren blaring in the distance followed, sounding a bit closer this time even though they were underground. Husband and wife looked at one another, each knowing yet at the same time not knowing what was about to happen. Posey closed the distance between them and hugged him tightly, as though it was the only thing keeping them from losing each other again. They said nothing as the world faded to black around them, the only exchange of words occurring when Lance caught a glimpse of the discarded note on the ground as he held his beloved close. "You monster."