Chapter 26- The Awakening of Rainbow Part 1
"A-are you sure?" Mac stuttered. "Right now?"
"Yes, Mac, right now!" Dash snapped. Mac threw a window open and shouted toward the farmhouse. Fortunately, Applejack had been sipping a bit of apple whiskey on the porch before turning in for the night.
"Applejack, get a cab!"
"What for?" she hollered back.
"Rainbow's havin' the foal!"
Applejack dropped her glass and rushed inside. Mac spun around, looking frantically for the bags he'd already packed for this very event. "Where're the bags? Are you breathin' okay? How are you—"
"Mac," Rainbow said calmly. "The bags are in the bedroom. Now take a breath, and help me to the front yard." Mac inhaled deeply, grabbing the supplies and making sure Rainbow was able to flutter down safely. By the time Mac made it outside, the cab had already pulled up. There was only room for two ponies if Rainbow was laying down in the back. Applejack promised to catch the next cab to the hospital after she spread the word to their friends.
He sat in the back with Rainbow as she braced for the painful contractions coming in greater succession. The cab pulled down the dirt road as Mac took her hoof. "You feelin' okay?"
Rainbow leveled her eyes. "I'm having your foal."
"Our foal," he added. She couldn't help but smile.
A few more minutes passed as the countryside flew past the windows of the cab. She turned to him. His anxious expression as he faced out of the passenger window unsettled her a bit. Rainbow wanted to let him know she was nervous. She wanted to tell him she was scared, but mostly she wanted to hear him say everything was going to be fine.
Quickly she reminded herself that he was probably just as nervous as she was. Dash held her tongue. After all the times he had been strong for her, surely she could muscle through this. After all, they'd be at the hospital soon, and she'd be taken care of by highly trained medical professionals. At eleven o'clock at night.
Dash gulped. Mac looked as though he could cut the commute time simply by wishing hard enough for the hospital to appear. He stole a glance toward her, faking a confident smile. She knew his normal smile, and this one had a thin veneer of uncertainty. Still, she smiled back at him. She could feel every bump the wheels of the carriage hit as they bounced down the ruts in the dirt road into Ponyville proper.
"Why couldn't I have just flown to the hospital?" she complained.
"Doctor said not ta strain yourself," Mac replied.
"I've been hauling this foal around for eleven months!"
"Ah'd rather be safe than sorry, Rainbow."
Dash rolled her eyes and set her head down on her hooves. Through the almost two years she'd been seeing Mac, he hadn't changed much, if at all. Still cautious, still thinking things through, and still planning whenever possible. He was stability to her impulsiveness, the calm to her storm.
To outside observers, most would think the methodical stallion and the brash young pegasus would be a terrible match. Dash had been one of them, at one point, and she had no doubt Mac had been as well.
However, for all the 'boringness'—as Rainbow put it, something about him was very comforting. There was a security she felt with him that she'd only ever felt as a filly, safe at home in her bed, beneath her Wonderbolts blanket. Even though they had their tough times and arguments, they never lasted very long.
Rainbow was usually one to hold grudges. Once, she'd even avoided the farm for a whole week after a particularly heated argument with Applejack over whether wings or mouths were better suited for tool use. That was before she'd gotten to know her older brother.
The roads in the center of town were a bit smoother than the one leading to Sweet Apple Acres. Rainbow silently thanked Celestia as she hissed through her teeth. Another bolt of pain shot through her midsection. Mac followed with a hoof gently on her own. "We're almost there, darlin'." He looked toward the driver of the cab. "Can't them stallions go any faster?" he shouted over the rattle of the wheels. He turned back to Rainbow before the cabbie could answer.
Rainbow took a deep breath as the pain began to fade. If she'd counted correctly, it'd be a while yet before another painful spasm. Thankfully, she glanced out the window in time to see the bold, red letters over the entrance to the emergency room pass overhead.
"Alright, we're here," Mac said, hopping out of the cab, keeping the door propped open. "Ah'm gonna be right back with the nurses." Before Dash could answer, Mac had disappeared into the hospital.
Hours seemed to pass while she waited in the back of the cab. In the time it took Mac to get the nurses, another painful contraction wracked her midsection. "Mac, if I have my foal in the back of a cab I'm going to kill you!" she shouted, though Mac was still nowhere to be found.
Rainbow shut her eyes and gritted her teeth, determined to make it through this painful event one episode at a time. Once she opened her eyes again, she noticed Mac behind a team of three nurses that all looked suspiciously alike pushing a gurney out to the cab. Mac gave her his hoof and helped her out of the cab. The nurses set her onto the gurney and pushed it into the hospital, Mac careful to never leave her side.
As they flew down the hallway, Dash spoke her piece. "Mac, I'm scared," she whispered. Over the noise of the squeaky wheels and nurses shouting for someone to call the doctor. Mac turned to her, this time with the smile she loved. The one she knew.
"Ah know darlin', but you'll be okay," he assured her. "Before ya know it, Zap'll be here."
He took her hoof in his own briefly before the nurses pushing the gurney turned into the delivery room. Mac was stopped outside the door as the head nurse insisted he wear sterile scrubs and a cap over his mane. Dash looked up at the white lights of the ceiling. As the pain faded, she felt a hoof on her own. In no time at all, Mac was beside Rainbow once more. The doctor burst through the door—looking no worse for wear considering the late hour—and started ordering the nurses to start various intravenous drugs and fluids. Before long, Rainbow's tension and worry melted into placated happiness that could only come from a epidural induced euphoria.
"How're you feelin' now, sugarcube?" Mac asked, stroking her mane reassuringly.
"I feel... amazing," she mumbled, stretching the syllables of her words. She giggled at herself before smiling at Mac. "Is that what my voice sounds like?" she asked, "All scratchy like that?"
Mac couldn't help but laugh. "You remember your breathin' techniques and such?"
Rainbow showed him with a few short breaths in the staccato pattern. "Eeyup," she drawled, imitating Mac's beloved phrase.
The doctor set Dash on her side as he examined her hindquarters. "Hm... it'll be a few more hours yet before the hard part comes. I'll be back to check on you," he said, turning toward the door. "In the meantime, you've got quite the crowd gathered in the waiting room."
Dash groaned in annoyance. "Ugh, if it's those damn cameraponies, so help me—"
"Ah think he means your friends, Rainbow." It took her a moment to process his words.
"Oh!" Dash blushed at her confusion. "Sorry, these meds are pretty strong."
The minutes seemed to drag on as Mac entertained his wife's silly questions and awkward comments. With all the reading he'd done on the subject of foaling, he expected the process to be... well, faster. Only the occasional strong contraction caused Rainbow any actual discomfort, and even then it was only mild. Before he knew it, three hours had gone by, and the doctor returned.
"Okay Rainbow, let's see what we've got going on downstairs..." He lifted the blue sheet covering Rainbow's hindquarters and only needed a quick glance. "Rainbow, are you ready to start pushing?"
Dash looked at the doctor from over her swollen belly. "I guess..."
"Good, when the next contraction comes, we'll need you to push as hard as you can, okay?" The nurses from before filed into the room, their presence filling Dash with an unexpected sense of dread. Everything was suddenly serious, and the tone in the room shifted from irreverence to tension.
"Mac, I'm..." Rainbow began, drawing his attention. Without a word, he leaned in, knowing she wouldn't want the staff to hear the rest of her thought. "Scared."
He nuzzled her mane and tried to comfort her, but they were both charting unknown territory and she knew it. "Everything's gonna be alright Rainbow, I promise."
"You promise?"
"Ah promise."
By the end of that hour, the sun would soon peek over the horizon. The epidural's effects had more or less worn off, and a peircing cry of pain echoed through the room with every contraction. "Mac... I can't... I can't do it!" she panted, tears already staining her cheeks as she gripped Mac's hoof.
"Yes you can, Rainbow, you've been doin' great so far!" Mac assured her.
"You're not the one trying to pass a watermelon!" she screamed, gritting her teeth as another contraction wracked her body with pain.
"We're almost there Rainbow, keep pushing!" The doctor cried as the nurses tried to cool Dash down with wet cloths and ice packs. "It won't be long now!"
Dash could have flown in one hundred endurance races and still, nothing would have prepared her for this. The monitors and machines she'd been hooked to began increasing as her heart rate climbed. She tried to push with all her might, but as she did, a numbness began creeping into her limbs, working its way to her very core. "M-mac..." she whispered before the monitors began wailing. Every head in the delivery room turned to Rainbow's crashing heart rate. The sounds of the delivery room were fading, undifferentiated, almost as if she were listening underwater. Before she knew it, her color vision had faded, and then the world around her went dark.
"Get me the crash cart and a scalpel!" a muffled voice shouted as she slipped into unconsciousness.
"Rainbow!"
Dash's eyes shot open as she sprung forward in bed, bolting upright and startling the red stallion asleep in the chair at her bedside. Rainbow gasped for breath as though she'd just come up for air after a long dive underwater. She could feel the cold sweat breaking over her forehead as her eyes darted from one side of the room to the other.
"Whoa, take it easy, Rainbow," Mac said, putting his hoof on her chest gently as he nudged her to lean back against her bed.
"Mac?" She glanced over at him, and then ripped the blankets covering her midsection away. The bulky stomach she'd gotten used to was gone, replaced by the firm abdomen of a world-class flying champion. A bolt of panic shot through her heart as she remembered being in the delivery room. "Mac, where's Zap? Is he okay?" she asked quickly.
Mac's brow furrowed in confusion as he sat back in the chair beside Rainbow's bed. "Well, that depends. Who is Zap?" Rainbow fought the urge to slap him. If this was supposed to be a joke, it was not funny.
"Who is Zap?" Rainbow repeated angrily. "He's our foal, Mac! The one you brought me to Ponyville Hospital to deliver!" she shouted. Mac's eyes widened at her straightforward accusation.
"Oh, well, uh, the doctors said ya might have some trouble after ya wake up, but they told me Ah should try and explain it to ya if Ah was the only one here when ya did."
Rainbow was speechless. What on earth is he talking about?
As she began to take in the hospital room, she noticed it wasn't like the rooms in Ponyville Hospital. In fact, she was certain she'd never been in a room like this before. "Mac... explain what?"
Mac scooted his chair closer to her bedside. He showed her the small bandage on her left foreleg. "Ya got bit by a really poisonous snake while you were in that tree after our little spat. You've been out cold for... the better part of two days."
Rainbow could hardly process his words. Her mouth hung open like a fish flailing around on land.
"But, the good news is, Ah talked to the sheriff, and they found the rustlers that stole our cattle! Got the money back and everything!" Mac smiled, as though that news was supposed to snap her out of the world shattering revelation he'd just dropped in her lap.
"The sheriff... what was his name?" Rainbow mumbled, still in complete disbelief.
"Uh... Ah think it was... Copper Badge, but I wouldn't swear to it... Ah've been eatin' nothin' but hospital food for a day waitin' on you to wake up." Mac raised himself from the chair. "Ah'm gonna go let the nurses know you're awake, then we can head back ta Ponyville."
Once Mac had left the room, Dash flopped back down against her pillows. How? This can't be happening!
Everything had felt so real. She had distinct memories of the day she made the Wonderbolts, the night she spurned Mac's offer of marriage, the day they actually got married. All of that had to be real. She could still see the guests at the wedding, the doctor telling her to push! It all had to have happened, and she recalled the events in vivid detail.
Rainbow raised her left foreleg, looking at the bandages around it. Taking the edge in her teeth, she ripped them from her wound, the stinging sensation just as real as anything she'd felt in her memories. Beneath the bandages were two small, discolored pinholes.
Dash put both hooves over her eyes, and cried.