//------------------------------// // Chapter 6: Recovery Room // Story: The Night Of A Broken Heart // by WanderingPony //------------------------------// ..."Ram....uh?" The crackle of static off a down-filled comforter sparked against Twilight's wet nostrils as the dream-world moved from "now" to "memory" inside her skull. The smell of old books and dozens more familiar to her sifted in behind the ozone, and the only unpleasant reminder of the past was a nagging ache in her wings and horn. But where....? Grit-filled eyes opened to an scene even further in the past than she'd expected. Old shelves, dusty but still faithfully carrying old schoolbooks and reference collections dating back to Magic Kindergarten, wisps of yellowed paper poking out from every angle where she'd carefully marked note after note. The brackets where her telescope used to be before they'd moved it to Ponyville. Spike's old hatchling bed. Her third-best quill and ink set. The old study table, painted with a rainbow of wax drippings from the endless night-long study sessions. She sighed and burrowed back into the warm covers a bit. Canterlot...we made it home. Everything is going to be fine. A pink comet slowed from a blur to a Pinkie as it *sproinged* to the top of a bungee cord. Peering through the tower window, she waved all four hooves in the air. "Hey! HEY! She's AWAAAAAKE! HIYA TWILIGHT!" Gravity yanked her back down, a string of elastic spooling out like some demented spider's web. The next visitor wasn't far behind, as a blue streak shot to the top of the stairs and wobbled there. Still sporting a shiner the size and color of a fried egg, Rainbow Dash fluttered forward, nearly landed on Twilight, and half-slid into a prone pony position at the foot of the bed instead. Opening her mouth, she greeted her best friend... *URP* The smell of silage filled the air as she emptied the contents of her stomach into a handy wastebasket. The breeze fanning the stench away from Twilight's watering nose marked Fluttershy's arrival, who managed to look embarrassed and comforting at the same time. "Poor Rainbow Dash...sorry...she's not supposed to be flying much for the week...sorry..." "Hey! I can *urp* apologize for myself! Doc Sorehead thinks anything more than baby flaps is *hic* fast...." "I think we're using the stairs to go down, Dashie. It's SO good to see you're feeling better, Twilight...come downstairs when you're up to it. Applejack and Rarity aren't handling stairs too well right now, either, but they'd be very happy to see you." Herding an unsteady pegasus back down the spiral, she toted the unpleasant mess out of sight and out of smell. --- In much humbler surroundings far away, another patient awoke to a much more pleasant smell. Soup. Onions and garlic and broth and noodles and a sprinkle of half a dozen herbs and a spice or two. "Wait. What is soup?" Confusion. How do you not know what soup is and know what soup is? And why am I talking to myself about not knowing what soup is? Memories. Thin hay broth, hungry, abandoned, found, warm, happy, travel, lost, weak, dimming, dying With a little gasp, the unicorn colt opened his eyes. A sympathetic pair of blue ones were already looking back at them, a pink shock of hair poking out from beneath a nurse's cap. On a table next to the bed, a container of soup steamed as it cooled in the hospital room. "And Doctor Stable thought we needed smelling salts for you, little fella. What's your name?" Blank. Blank. ... A broken bit of blackened crystal sat by the bowl of soup. The colt's eyes were drawn to it, looking for a half-remembered spark of light, a thought, a... It is a chip. "I'm....ah....uh...Chip?" That sounds kinda right... The nurse smiled. "Good to meet you, Chip. Now, do you remember who your mommy and daddy are? What's their names?" Empty. More than empty. Gone. Crystal, brothers, sisters, gone, gone gone... "No, no, NO! Crystals, gone, gone!" Redheart's eyes went wide at the outburst, only to come to a conclusion a second later. She held the little colt against one shoulder as he thrashed through a sea of disjointed memories that simply made no sense, lights and stones and two voices crying GONE as one in his head, soaking the mare in warm, salty tears that seemed to flow without stopping. Doctor Stable came in on his rounds to find Redheart still holding the exhausted Chip, still sniffling now and again as he slept on the damp patch of fur he'd burrowed his nose into. "The boy...he's from the Empire, Doctor. I...I don't know how he got in that tree, but he wouldn't be the first one to end up the Everfree from...somewhere else." The little yellow pegasus checked out with barely a scratch. A miracle, considering she'd fallen all the way from Cloudsdale without knowing how to fly...but when she'd wandered into town from the forest and shivering from the cold, they'd brought her to the hospital to make sure everything was OK. A candystriper named Redheart brought in some soup... "He's got that chunk of crystal, and it looks like it's been through a war. The papers said that Sombra has invaded the Empire...do you think...he said his parents were "gone"..." Doctor Stable nodded. "He's clearly been traumatized, he's scared, and he thinks he's alone." At the word alone, Chip whimpered in his sleep and clutched at Redheart's mane. "That's not happening. Sweetheart and the rest are covering your rooms, effective immediately. You're the best we have with children, and this one needs a tender hoof..." ...getting her out from under the blankets wasn't easy until the rabbit kit Fluttershy had snuck in tried to jump headlong into the soup bowl to guzzle the contents. The doctors found Redheart and Fluttershy with a bottle of broth, and the hungry little fellow named they named "Angel" sucking it down like there was no tomorrow. Dabbing at her wet and slightly snotty fur with a towel, the nurse settled down with Chip on his bed for the night. It wouldn't be the first night with a lonely child. Later that night, Redheart watched as the pegasus filly- no, a young mare now with that cutie mark -lay curled up with her Angel Bunny. Dragging herself home after a long shift, she noticed a red-crossed cutie mark of her own had appeared sometime in the night when she peeled off her scrubs...