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// 29: Almost Sixty Years [Sad] [Romance] 
// Story: The Thirty Minute Dash 
// by Esle Ynopemos 
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((Prompt: Tomorrow is the anniversary.))

“C'mon, AJ, you can't do this!”

Celestia, she still sounds like she did when we started all this. My eyes are still closed—they ain't open a whole lot, these days—and I can swear I see that voice comin' out of the young blue thing I married all those years ago. When I open my eyes, I half expect to see her hovering over my bed, all brimming with more energy than she knows what to do with, and impatience plastered all over her face.

She ain't, of course. Doctors don't want her flyin' no more. Not that they could really stop her, but she's at least figured out that the less time she spends arguin' with them, the more time she can spend naggin' at me, so she behaves herself while we're at the hospital.

And it ain't impatience that's etched itself into her wrinkly old face today while she's lookin' at me. No, that's fear. She's standin' over my bedside, holdin' my hoof—funny, I didn't even feel her grab it—starin' into my eyes with a kind of fear that just breaks my heart to see. Her molting wings twitch in time to the beeps that darn machine next to me keeps makin', and I can see her fightin' hard to keep her lip from tremblin'.

Cripes, am I supposed to say somethin'? I try and clear my throat, not that it clears very much for the effort, and I wet my lips. “Can't do what, sugarcube?” My voice is all scratches and whispers. It didn't age well like Granny's had. With all the hollerin' I used to do, my voice ended up just givin' out.

Rainbow's eyes narrow on me. You could lose a whole bit in the wrinkles around her eyes, but them rosy things still got fire in them. “You know damn well what. You gotta hang on, AJ!”

Hang on, she says. I am hangin' on. I've been hangin' on for the last... shoot, I don't even remember. There comes a point where a pony just don't have anymore hang left in her bones. “I'm tired, Rainbow.”

The fear goes away. Instead, she gets angry now. Heh, she's cute when she's mad. “Tomorrow's our sixtieth anniversary, you dumb blockhead!”

Well that's telling. She ain't tryin' to buy another year no more, or even weeks. She's down to just beggin' for tomorrow from me. All the doctors in Equestria could line up an' each give me their saddest, 'I'm sorry, there's nothing more we can do,' look, and it wouldn't be half the death-sentence my wife just gave me now.

I try and move my hoof. She eventually figures out what I'm doing and helps me run it through her mane. There's still a bit of color to it, but mostly it's just different shades of gray now. “Look, hon,” I tell her. “Them sixty years ain't exactly been easy livin'. Remember that gorgon?” I stop, and shake my head a little bit. Now ain't the time to lapse into reminiscences. “An' we didn't exactly get an early start on them sixty years, neither. If we hadn't been so stubborn, we might be lookin' down the barrel of seventy right now, instead. But what difference is one anniversary really gonna make?”

Rainbow squeezes my hoof, and this time I can feel it. Prickles run up my foreleg and my chest goes numb. “Please,” she says, “Just try.”

I take a deep breath, or as deep a breath as I can manage nowadays. “What time is it, sugar?”

“Eleven thirty.” A cautious smile forms on her face.

I grin. “Well hay, that ain't nothin'. Break out the cake, an' in thirty minutes we can celebrate puttin' up with each other for sixty whole years!”

Her smile fades. “It's eleven thirty in the morning.”

“Oh.” My ears drop. “I... I'm sorry, hon,” I tell her. Maybe I can feel her tears on my hoof, or maybe I'm just imagining it. I pull her towards me, and she rests her head on my chest. Having her there seems to soothe the tickles inside just a little bit. “But fifty nine years with you is a whole lot more than I ever could've hoped for.”