Macintosh spent his time downstairs restlessly, hardly staying still for two seconds before shifting around again. It was hard to distract himself with anything whilst Applejack was crying out in pain from her ordeal upstairs. It was perfectly natural, he kept reminding himself, for it to be painful, it didn’t mean that anything was “wrong”. It still stuck in his craw that he could do nothing to help, but if all he was going to do upstairs was get in the way then he supposed, grudgingly, that he was best off downstairs. He looked over to his adoptive grandmother, noting with a mixture of amusement and disbelief that she had managed to doze off in her rocking chair.
One advantage o’gettin’ old, Ah guess…
Applejack cried out one last time, then everything went quiet. A deathly hush fell over the house, and for Macintosh the seconds ticked by slowly as he waited. All his pent up fears bubbled to the surface in those endless seconds: What if somethin' went wrong? Is AJ ok? Is the foal alright? Why's nopony doin' anything?! But then quiet hoofsteps came down the stairs, and Redstreak entered the room, teary-eyed but smiling broadly.
“Well, son? Aintcha gonna go meet yer daughter?”
Daughter.
Ah've got a daughter.
Oh my Celestia Ah'm a daddy an' Ah've got a daughter.
He rose shakily to his hooves, a huge young stallion turned to living jelly, and slowly walked past his father and to the stairs.
He needed to stop and catch his breath before he even started the ascent. His world spun around him, his heart beat so loudly in his chest that he thought it would tear itself free, his guts seemed to writhe around like snakes, and his lungs apparently refused to operate on their own.
Is this what dyin' feels like? he wondered, gulping down air so quickly that he swallowed some and burped it straight back up again. Mac shook his head from side to side, trying to clear whatever fug had descended upon him.
Mah body's rebellin' against me, Ah ain't got the strength left to do anythin' but stand here... what gives?
Redstreak and Granny Smith stepped out behind him, and his father's voice somehow filtered in through the haze:
"What's waitin' for ya up there ain't too big right now, Mac. But at the same time it's absolutely enormous an' yer life will never be the same again because of it, because of her. Things ain't gonna be easy for y'all, they never are, an' you two will have it even more difficult than most, but Ah promise you one thing: it'll all be worth it, just to see her laugh an' smile an' run about an' play with her friends an' grow up into a beautiful filly right before your eyes, an' you'll be able to say: "Ah did that. She's mine. There're others like her, but she's mine an' Ah wouldn't have her any other way." All you gotta do is take that first step, Mac, an' it can all be yours."
One step.
One step, an' mah whole life is gonna change.
Ah've come this far, only to stop an' hesitate now?
Ah didn't ask for this, nopony did.
But now that it's here Ah'm gonna see it right.
See her right, an' Applejack too!
One way or another Ah'll make sure that both mah fillies are happy, no matter what Ah have to do to make ‘em happy!
He raised a forehoof, set it down firmly on the bottom stair, and began to climb.
Frankly, the foal was an utter mess when Mac first saw her. The bright red tufts of hair which made up her little mane and tail were matted and plastered to her puny body; her yellow coat was still all sticky from the birth; and, if he was honest, then she smelled rather odd. And her mother was little better. Yet, as he held his sleeping daughter in his forelegs, sitting beside an exhausted but smiling Applejack, who lay conked out on her bed, Macintosh couldn’t hold back the tears of pure, unadulterated joy which came streaming down his face. Somehow, all his troubles melted away, and it just seemed as though everything was going to be alright. As long as they were all together, everything would work out for the best, eventually.
“We’ll call her “Apple Bloom”,” Mac announced, “’cos she’s our new beginnin’, an’ there’s no doubt in mah mind that she’s gonna grow up to be somethin’ absolutely wonderful!” Applejack was quiet for a moment as she sleepily mulled this over, before answering with a single, heartfelt:
“Eeyup.”
Around a week passed in near-blissful happiness as the young foal was celebrated by the whole town; from small messages of well-wishing to young Miss Pie’s own elaborate soiree, more-or-less everypony joined together in happiness at Apple Bloom’s birth. This was noted with no undue relief and delight by the Apple family, some of whom even began to wonder if their precautions in hiding Apple Bloom’s true heritage were in reality justified.
It was around then that everything suddenly went wrong.
Redstreak went to work in the barn one morning; he had been repairing some of the beams in the loft’s floor as they had been hit with woodworm, and was hoping to have them finished by the end of that day. Pink Pearl also went to work in the barn that morning; she had been forced to keep from the harder work as part of her pretend pregnancy, and after all those months of “slacking off” wasn’t quite back up to scratch, so she had decided to do some maintenance on a few farm tools.
The others were still in the kitchen finishing off breakfast, baby Apple Bloom currently snoozing in her cot after a mostly-sleepless night (for both her and her unfortunate parents). Macintosh finished up and went outside to breath in some of the cool morning air, Applejack and Granny Smith joining him before he headed for the fields. Applejack nuzzled him and snuggled in at his side, confident that nopony from town would be up and about the farm for several hours yet. He returned the nuzzle, and the three stood and enjoyed the early morning tranquillity.
The peaceful silence was broken by a sudden cry, and they all looked to the barn as two crashes swiftly followed, and then they stood dumbly in the silence left behind. Somehow they knew, they all just knew, that something terrible had happened. It was in the air, that feeling of dread, the kind of dread that makes you feel sick even on the brightest, happiest of summer days.
"...Daddy?"
"...Mama?"
"R-Redstreak? Pink Pearl?" All three called; none received a reply. From inside the farmhouse, they could hear little Apple Bloom start to cry.
"Go inside, y'all." Mac's mouth was dry as he spoke the command, and he shook with nausea as he began to trot to the barn.
"B-but-" Applejack began, meaning to follow him.
"Now, dammit!" For the life of them, neither Applejack nor Granny Smith could remember the last time he had shouted like that, and both mares swiftly went back inside the house.
From there, with Apple Bloom now held in her great grandmother's hooves, the two saw him pull open the barn door and look inside. Macintosh stood still for seconds, jaw clenched against the bile rising in his throat, before forcing himself inside to confirm what he could already see. He emerged a minute later, a trembling wreck, and sat down heavily after closing the door behind him.
He burst into tears a second before he doubled over to empty his stomach, unable to properly comprehend what he had just seen but just as unable to deny the horrific images floating in front of his eyes. His father, a crumpled heap on the floor, lying beneath the new hole in the rotted wood above... His mother, her head beneath the heavy beam her husband had dropped as he fell...
Inside the farmhouse, Applejack and Granny Smith watched his display with tears of their own, and the two hugged each other and Apple Bloom close as they sank to the floor. The poor little filly couldn't possibly understand what was upsetting her family members, but their upset only increased her own, and she bawled all the louder despite the normally comforting hug.
Time passed slowly.
When asked later, nopony would be able to say just how long it was before Apple Bloom finally quieted, and whether she did so by herself or if her mother managed to gather her wits together after a while, and sooth her baby’s anxiety. Nor could anypony tell when precisely Macintosh stood at last, and began the slow walk into Ponyville to get “help”. Whatever the case, and whatever “help” arrived, it was too late to truly do its job.
And no Apple there present had ever felt more helpless in their entire lives.