Chapter 15: Hold Me
The stallion took a deep breath and followed. His mind was flooded with reasons of why he was being called up and told to follow the nurse. She guided through a hallway to a door. She made a gesture for Big Mac to enter. Taking a deep breath, he entered through the door.
Inside the room, was a bed sitting in the center. Upon it was a blue pegasus’s body, turned away from the door and towards the bare wall. It seemed lifeless, as if frozen in a moment of time.
“Rainbow Dash?” Big Mac quietly broke the stillness of the room.
The body moved slightly at the spoken words. However, there was no verbal response. The only reply the stallion was given was in the slight shuffling of Rainbow Dash’s body beneath the thin hospital blanket.
Trotting up to her, Big Mac placed a hoof lightly on her back, just above her wing. He felt her quiver at his touch. It was during this contact that Big Mac realized something, she was crying.
Rainbow finally opened her mouth, but instead of words coming out, there was a heavy panting and struggle for air. It was as if she was struggling to keep her head above water, but she was slowing drowning. The sound of this echoed in the small room, only to be heard by Rainbow Dash and Big Mac.
A sentence was finally spoken by the blue mare, “I’m sorry….”
Big Mac, who had been gently rubbing his hoof along Rainbow’s back, asked, “Beg pardon?”
“I’m sorry….it’s all my fault….” She repeated, still turned away, hiding her face, “….maybe….maybe this is karma for messing up….”
“Ah don’t follow….” the stallion stated nervously.
Pausing, Rainbow Dash gritted her teeth, causing her entire body to tense up. With every bit of strength in her body, she spoke against the pain she was feeling, “The birth….was….was a miscarriage….” The moment she finished the last word, she began to cry.
This news stunned Big Mac. He lowered his hoof back down to the floor and stared down at the tile floors.
“I thought….I thought I could be strong through this….I tried so hard….but….it’s too much….” the pegasus sobbed into her pillow. She still refused to turn towards Big Mac.
The stallion couldn’t figure out what to say to comfort Rainbow Dash, or what to say in this situation at all. He felt crushed, but he knew that his feelings on this paled in comparison to how Rainbow felt in this situation.
“Rainbow Dash….I’m so sorry….” he spoke softly, his words were calm and soothing.
She continued to shed tears into her pillow, gripping it tightly. If Big Mac’s words reached her, she didn’t let it show.
Hanging his head, Big Mac turned around and started to trot towards the door. He was stopped, however, by a pleading statement.
“Wait. Please don’t go….I don’t want to be alone.”
Turning back to see Rainbow Dash, Big Mac noticed she still had not moved from her position on the bed. He trotted back to her bedside. For a few minutes that seemed to last an eternity each, there was nothing but silence.
Rainbow spoke, destroying the silence, “Do you still love me? Even after all of this?”
“Of course,” Big Mac quietly responded, “my feelings have always been the same.”
Despite being touched by the statement, Rainbow Dash couldn’t help but shed more tears. “Why….Why did this have to happen….everything was great….everything was wonderful….and then this happened. Why did it have to happen, Big Mac?” she shuffled much more beneath the blanket, almost as if she was fighting.
It pained him to speak, but Big Mac replied firmly, “Ah can’t answer that.”
She was quiet for a while, and then continued, “It just….it feels like I’m going to die….please….prove me wrong, Big Mac, prove me wrong,” Rainbow was pleading, begging for some sort of comfort.
Big Mac paused at her statement before speaking, “Ah can’t prove anything….but you can trust me that ah won’t ever leave yer side.”
These words caused Rainbow to finally move her head. She rolled it on the pillow towards the red stallion. Her eyes were closed until she stopped moving, then they opened. The maroon eyes of the pegasus were drenched with tears. Beneath the dampness, the eyes were that of an innocent filly stared right back at Big Mac.
Rainbow spoke in a whisper to the pony, “Could you please….lie next to me….and hold me? I'm terrified and I….I need to be held….”
With a silent nod, Big Mac agreed. The two ponies quietly moved around so they both could lie upon the small hospital bed. The movement ended with Rainbow being in the same position as she previously was, but with her back against Big Mac, whose front limbs wrapped around Rainbow Dash’s body. Despite being on the cramped hospital bed, the two seemed to be completely comfortable lying with each other. With a faint smile upon her face, Rainbow Dash seemed to be delighted in Big Mac’s embrace.
“I’m sorry….” Rainbow mumbled, “about everything I put you through….”
“Don’t be,” Big Mac insisted.
The pegasus lightly shook her head, “No, I need to be….I have just been a complete mess. And the miscarriage….I never wanted any of this….I would give anything to make this all better….even my own life....”
Big Mac tightened his hold on Rainbow as if giving her the impression that he wouldn’t be going anywhere, “What has happened we can’t change, but that doesn’t mean we can’t learn from it all and become better ponies from it. Ah certainly learned a lot from this past year.”
Rainbow sighed, raising a hoof to dry the tears off of her eyes, “You got a point about that….but I still feel like a complete mule for all of this, big red.”
“It’s fine, Rainbow Dash,” the stallion insisted.
“But….throughout this nightmare that I but you through….you didn’t have to stay….acting all honorable and stuff….” the pegasus stated, fighting back a few tears.
“Ah didn’t do it out of honor….ah did it out of love.”
“But why? Why did you stick by me through all of this?”
“A true love will stick beside you, no matter what.”
“Even through something like this?” Rainbow gave a half-hearted laugh, but not out of humor. A couple tears started to form in her eyes.
“It’s the hardest parts of our lives that make us stronger. And ah’ll always be here to help ya through them, Rainbow Dash.”
A smile appeared on the peagsus’s face, along with a few tears of sorrow and happiness, “You’re right, Big Mac. All of this is awful, but….it’s not the end, only a beginning. Maybe….things can still be wonderful after all with the two of us. Just, please....don’t let go of me....ever.”
END