//------------------------------// // Part 2 // Story: It's My Fault... // by Spirit Shift //------------------------------// Part 2 Stable led her over to a empty waiting room, just a few doors down from where the filly lie. Stable made sure that it was soundproof as well. Trotting over, he poured himself a cup of coffee from the machine in the corner. "Want some?" he asked the mare behind him. "No thanks, that stuffs too bitter for me, I drink chocolate milk with muffins in the morning!" she exclaimed with a smile. Chuckling a little, Stable motioned for her to sit in one of the chairs near the center of the room as he sat in the chair directly in front of her. Settling his nerves he began. "If you say so. To start, please tell me how you found her." Ditzy told him the tale from last night, including what had been said and done. Stable watched with a carefully crafted Doctor style poker face, quietly sipping his coffee. "I see, it does make sense, so I can see how that happened." "I don't who is that filly is, but why did her mother beat her up," Ditzy said in both anger and concern. Stable looked her in the eye, as much as he could anyway and answered. "Her mother didn't beat her, not in the way that you think." "What other way could you beat a foal in that way!" Ditzy almost screamed. ".......lets start from the beginning then" she said, no longer willing to meet her eyes, he knew what he had to do and he hated it, it was one of the burdens of being a doctor. He know if he did't do it now he would hate himself more later. "Ditzy, just know that i'm sorry." "Wh...what do you-" "That foal you found didn't tell you that her mother beat her" Ditzy seemed taken aback by this before regaining her position. "What do you mean! When I asked her she said it was her mother." Stable didn't flinch. "No, from what you've told me, she only said one word, and that was mommy. She said that because she saw you, Ditzy Doo. Ditzy pulled back in offence "I didn't hit her!!" Stable sighed "I know you didn't Ditzy, let me explain....i guess im embarrassed right now. A Doctor like I shouldn't have let this happen but you need to know." Stable took a calm breath before continuing. "It's my fault, I should have monitored the procedure more closely. "What? I don't understand" she muttered softly, beginning to get worried. She had never seen her Doctor so flustered and nervous, he was usually so nice and calm. Stable finally gathered his resolve and looked Ditzy right in her good eye. "6 years ago there was a mix up between your foal, and another mares. That foal, in the other room, is your real daughter, the real Dinky Doo." This news hit Ditzy like a ton of bricks covered in gold and lead. Her head fell and here pupils shrank as she processed this information. She began to deny it but her mind raced back to what Lyra said earlier about them looking alike. She was also a pegasus just like Ditzy. The coat, the mane, the colors, they all looked like her own. She remembered seeing the fillies eyes when she was awake......they looked just like his. A part of her realized that it made so much sense. She promptly told that part of herself she stuff it, and went into complete denial. She grit her teeth and stared back at Stable with a completely aligned gaze. "NO! I know my own daughter, i've raised her from the time she came out of me. She is a unicorn filly with a blond mane!" Even though he had expected this, it still shocked him to see the normally bubbly gray mare angry, even more so when he noticed that her eyes had aligned. He managed to keep his composure using his experience as a Doctor that frequently delivers bad news to family's. "I'm sorry but it's true. That foal and the one you have been raising were switched accidentally by the nurses at some point." Stable looks toward the direction of where the foal, the real Dinky, lie. "The reason she was so injured was because she came from a broken home, so you were half right when you thought that her mother beat her. The thing is, that neither her father or her mother ever actually laid a hoof on her. What they did was more passive aggressive in nature....but only barely." Ditzy seemed to calm down and looked on, interested. "How can they hurt a foal passively, did they yell at her. Stable continued "More or less, you see.......As a pair of unicorn pure blood nobles they already resented having to give birth in a low class town like Ponyville. But when they saw that it wasn't a unicorn they got angry, they screamed at the nurses and stormed out, taking the filly with them as soon as they got the chance. They hated having a pegasus daughter and they showed it to her in spades, but they knew the law, they knew that they couldn't physically abuse her, or even mentally." Stable began to get angrier as he went on. "So do you know what they did? They put her in harms way on purpose, even hiring others to torment and bully her mercilessly, never doing it directly. They spent money to that they could take out their rage on the foal from the time she could barely walk." He spat out. Ditzy gasped and covered her mouth with her hooves, tears forming in her eyes. "Yes, eventually the law caught up with them, an off duty cop saw them send her into the dangerous animal exhibit on purpose, repeatedly, so he shadowed them for a while in suspicion. Saw them pay off some kid and order them to beat her up. Apparently they were getting worse as she grew older, I guess they thought she could take more, or they got angryer as she learned to fly.....I don't know really." He chuckled darkly as his eyes remain downcast, no longer meeting her gaze. "When the police caught them they were just about to do something horrible to her." Ditzy let in a soft gasp "Did they beat her?" she whispered. Another dark chuckle "Nothing so tame, tell me Ditzy, how would you feel if someone tried to take your eyes out and give you a new pair.....to correct you?" "What!? wait.....no....they didn't" Ditzy exclaimed as she put the pieces together. "That's right, they somehow got it into their heads to 'fix' their child by drugging her and attempting to cut her wings off....and glue on a unicorn horn. LITERALLY! GLUE! They found all of their supplies, including sub-par medical equipment. Those ponies were deranged!" Stable shouted. Ditzy gave no response, only imagining what it would be like if someone hated her race that much....to that extent, her face became one of complete and utter disgust. "That's.......horrible" she finally whispered. Yes but luckily we got her in time, the cop who began the investigation got an award, and she was safe. Naturally we had to take a blood test, we...uh.... discovered that they weren't even related to her. Due to police we were forced to search Ponyville's records of birth. After some digging we came to you, I denied it of course, i'm the one who delivered your child. I told them that you only had one pregnancy. Eventually i was forced by the higher ups to examine Dinky.....you know what I found. Ditzy's tears had already began to leak from her face. "No.....don't say it...please" she chocked out behind her barely held back sobs. Stable couldn't stop now, he hated this,but he couldn't stop. He hated this more than diagnosing a patient with a terminal illness, it just didn't compare to telling a mother that she has cherished, loved and cared for the wrong child her whole life. To know that she'll never get that childhood back, that everything she thought she knew about her family was a huge lie. He looked toward the ceiling, his own tears threatening to break through. "We discovered the switch, they got what they wanted, a proper unicorn daughter. I guess you could say that you saved her from the abusive life that she would have had." Meanwhile Ditzy had already began to cry openly, sobbing and wailing openly. Even so, she lifted her head and screamed, her eyes swollen and red. "SAVED HER!! IT'S MY FAULT I DOOMED HER!!!!" She hollered before crying harder than before. "If....if i didn't take the wrong foal....they might've been nicer to her.....given her all the things shes ever wanted!!!! She would've had a proper unicorn life! Learned magic, wouldn't have been made fun of for having a retarded mom!! They would have loved her!! she cried out. "They were deranged!!!! Who knows what they would've done to her!" Stable screamed in retaliation, temporarily losing his cool. Tears running down his face as well. "Well now we'll never know will we!? It's too late and it's my fault that's shes scarred like that." Ditzy began to stomp on the ground. "She was bruised, and beaten and scared and it's all my fault that she almost became handicapped,....my fault that she's homeless now." he said in a voice that lowered to a whisper by the end of her rant. "WOULD YOU RATHER THAT DINKY WENT THROUGH ALL THAT!" Stable screamed "At least it wouldn't have been nearly as bad!" "You don't know that! It could have been even worse!!" For a time nopony spoke, the only sounds to come from the two occupants were Ditzy's quiet sobs and Stables silent tears hitting the ground. "You could take her in yourself." Stable began "You are her biological mother so there's barely any paperwork to be done, might even be able to sue the estate for foalnapping and endangerment." The broken doctor suggested with a pitiful smile. "I could be tried for the same thing you know......foalnapping" she replied venomously. This one hit Stable in the gut, mainly because he was the doctor in charge...he should have handled everything personally which child was cleaned first, what race each were, eye color, mane shade.....anything. "What would I even call her...." There it was....part two of this horrible explanation the Stable had been dreading, for this would break the last of what she thought she knew about her daughter. "Her legal name its Dinky Doo as signed by you on her birth certificate." He chocked out. "According to current Equestrian law, you're unable to change her name until she reaches 16 to give consent or do it herself. Their can't be two ponies in the same family with the exact same name, just like their can't be two of the exact same cutie marks or hoof prints.....i'm sorry..i'm so sor-" "I KNOW THAT!!!" she screamed, tears running anew. "What do I call the other one.....the one at my house, sleeping. If that foals name is Dinky then what do I call my daughter now!! What...........what...was...that foals name?" Stable knew what she meant, he was just stalling......trying to out it off for just a little longer....for this was the worst and final part of this. "Nopony knows" he responded as he shut his eyes as his tears broke through their dam, flowing freely. Ditzy looked visually shocked, then potently angry. She lunged forward and grabbed Stable by his collar and forcing him to look her in her now aligned eyes. Her swollen red, aligned eyes. Stable couldn't blame her....not in the least. "How can she NOT have a name! How can nopony know her name!!" She screamed in his face. "When the police showed up to their place, they set the whole thing up in flames.......burned everything, every document, every file.....gone in the blaze." he reluctantly admitted. Ditzy didn't give in, her eyes going wide and frantic. She pulled him in closer "School records City Hall copies, government files, royal archives! Blood type, age ANYTHING!!??" She screamed in his face her tears dropping onto it as well Stable just looked at her sympathetically, his tears mixing with hers. He had to finish this or he wouldn't be able to sleep at night...... ........no he wouldn't be able to sleep anyway, not after this. He stook his head slowly. "All gone....nopony knows how they did it, maybe they had been planning this from the start, or maybe they had friends in high places. All I know was that they were to to completely rewrite her identity, systematically erasing every piece of evidence that she existed, physically, medically, and academically. She had no friends and she was home schooled so no school has her record. Nopony besides her parents knows what they named her. This all transfers over to the filly at your house of course......" Ditzy, shocked beyond belief, couldn't believe what she was hearing. She slowly released the doctor, one lone thought rang out in her mind, against all of her will, the thought escaped her mouth. "What about the filly....." "Like i said.....complete rewrite......they wiped her memory, most likely while she was unconscious. When she came her she couldn't remember a thing. Plus....I doubt that they ever referred to her by name anyhow. I'm sorry....i'm so sorry..." he cried as he finally broke down in sob himself....finally revealing everything, he'd done his job....and he couldn't feel worse. What made Doctor Stable a renowned medical expert, wasn't his skills or his fancy degrees and certification. It was his sense of sympathy and empathy. It made him likable as a Doctor....more trust worthy to be around. He was an emotional colt who would freely cry alongside his patients. However, he had never cried so hard for himself before. He blamed himself for this, he knew that Ditzy would never blame him, even now, he knew that even if she didn't forgive him, she wouldn't blame him. She was too nice. He blamed himself for possibly singlehoofedly ruining Ponyville's brightest family. He turned the bubbly cross-eyed mailmare turned into a regretful wreck and the towns favored foal rendered image less and nonexistent, a blank space in the world. And it was all his fault. Ditzy however, could feel her hear heart crack and shatter, not because of the story.....no that wasn't it......not because she mixed her foal up.....but that was part of it. The real reason that her heart began to die inside was due to the implications of what this news meant. Every birthday, every holiday spent together, every minute of every day for the past 6 years had been spent with some stranger who wasn't really her daughter, she was just a pony with no name, no history, no relation to her.....No it finally dawned on her that all of that went to her real daughter......her real Dinky. The sad filly that lie in a bed in the other room was her real daughter and she needed to accept that. She reasoned that she would take care of both of them but she'd only give her attention to one....to make up for lost years....for forgiveness. Even as she thought this one question kept reappearing in her mind. "How do I tell her? How do I even begin? What do I tell Di-that filly in my house" She asked softly, not having any more strength to yell anymore. Stable gave no answer as he still sat facing the ground in shame. Both ponies sat their for an undetermined amount of time before Ditzy got up and headed for the door, having run out of tears to shed. Before she left however she still had a few more things to say. "How did she find me Stable.....last night, if she has no memory, how did she find me. "She must have woken up and heard us talking, probably snuck out and looked for your house, im surprised she actually found you out of every house in town. She's pretty tough....just like her mother." Stable said with a small unnoticeable smile. Ditzy gave visible response only muttering a short "Thank you Doctor" before trotting out and closing the door behind her. Leaving the once proud Doctor Stable Heart behind in a pool of his own tears.