Fluttershy woke up in her own bed, which was much more surprising than it should have been.
The sun streamed onto her face, letting her know that she had indeed slept all night, and through the open window came the spongy, earthy smell of mud and wet grass She rolled out of bed and trotted downstairs to make breakfast.
A note lay on the counter, in neat, unfamiliar writing. It read:
Miss Fluttershy,
I want to thank you again for letting me take shelter in your cottage. It was awful nice of you to make dinner, too. I hope you don't mind, but I left before saying goodbye. I got to get home before my granny starts worrying too much.
-Big Macintosh
Fluttershy smiled as she read the note. Big Mac had been good company, even if neither of them said much. She swept aside the note and began preparing her critters' breakfasts.
As she began distributing breakfast to the animals in the living room, she noticed a well-worn book in the middle of the room. She picked it up, recognizing it as her book of Romantic poetry. That was odd. She usually kept it on the table next to the couch. Then she remembered seeing Big Mac reading something the night before.
She giggled to herself. She wouldn't have pegged Big Mac as the type to read poetry. Unless he only read it because Fluttershy had nothing better for him to do. She set her book back on the table and pushed the thoughts out of her mind. Whatever his reasons were, they were of no importance to Fluttershy at the moment. She had work to do.
Back at Sweet Apple Acres, Big Mac hummed to himself as he bucked. When he had tried to sneak back in the house before dawn, he had been caught by Granny Smith, who was keeping watch from her rocking chair.
"And where do you think you've been all night?" she had demanded in a quiet voice. "We were worried sick about'cha when the rain started."
Big Mac set the envelope with the recipe down on a table before responding. "Ah was still at Miss Fluttershy's house, and she offered to let me stay," he had whispered back.
His granny gave him an inscrutable look. "Well," she said levelly. "Ah sure hope you behaved yerself."
Big Mac had looked at her in shock. Why had everypony thought that he had some special connection to Fluttershy? Really, he didn't even know her that well. She was one of his sister's best friends, he saved her life, and she helped him out last night. And she had helped him out with the Ponytones when he lost his voice. End of story. Just because he liked looking at her and thinking about her didn't mean that he had feelings like that for her, right? Right.
He nodded his head, and Granny sighed. "Well, Ah best be gettin' to bed. It's almost time to start the day. Heh. Don't let Apple Bloom wake me when she leaves for school, all right? Let this old mare have her sleep."
He nodded again. "Eeyup."
He had busied himself around the kitchen, eating a quick breakfast before going outside to catch up on his farmwork. He had been scheduled to finish bucking the west orchard the previous day, but had only gotten halfway through it before stopping for lunch. Then he had never gotten back.
He finished up the west orchard by the time Applejack came out and joined him in their work. "Nice to see you back, big brother," she remarked coolly as she trotted past him. She didn't say much else the rest of the morning.
A break finally came with the ringing of their mealtime bell. The two siblings ran towards the back door. Two sandwiches had been laid out on the picnic table by the kitchen door, and Granny sat eating a third. AJ and Big Mac sat down and picked up their own sandwiches when a knock came at the front door.
AJ sighed. "Ah got it," she offered, walking around the side of the house to the front porch.
On the porch stood Fluttershy, who was speaking sternly to her rabbit. "Be nice," she whispered. "We're here to help, not to annoy them."
Applejack cleared her throat. "Well, howdy, Fluttershy. What brings you here two days in a row?"
Fluttershy whirled around at the sound of Applejack's voice. "Oh, Applejack, hello," she said. "Um, I came to see if anypony needed help after that storm yesterday. Big Mac mentioned that he would have to catch up on his chores from yesterday, and with all that rain I can't imagine anypony could do much farmwork, so you must be a little behind. And I brought Angel, too."
AJ looked at her friend appraisingly. She appreciated the offer, and Celestia knows they could use the help, but Fluttershy was so delicate that anything they gave her might be too much. Besides, if they really needed help, they could have just kept Apple Bloom home from school that day. They'd done it before, and Ms. Cheerilee understood that farmwork came before schoolwork.
Applejack shook her head. "Ah appreciate the offer, sugarcube, but we've got this on our own," she said firmly. She knew if she showed even a little bit of uncertainty, Fluttershy wouldn't take no for an answer. "At the rate we're goin', we'll be all caught up by sundown. Thanks, though."
Fluttershy deflated a little. "Oh, that's fine," she murmured. "I'll go make myself useful somewhere else."
Applejack cringed. "Now, that ain't what Ah meant, Fluttershy. We got this handled by ourselves. It's not that we don't want you here."
Fluttershy looked up at her friend. "No, I know," she said. "You can't really give me anything that I can do without hurting myself. It's fine. I'm going to go see who else needs help around town. I'll leave you to your lunch."
She turned and trudged back down the path. Applejack bit her lip and walked back towards the lunch table. As she sat down and picked up her sandwich, Granny asked, "Well, aren't you gonna tell us who it was?"
AJ looked up, her mouth full. "Oh," she mumbled. "It was Fluttershy."
Big Mac inhaled a bite of sandwich and started coughing, his face turning a deeper red. Both mares stared at him before turning back to each other.
"She came over to offer to help," Applejack continued. "Ah told her we got this."
Big Mac finally cleared his throat. "But we don't got this," he pointed out. "We've been working all morning and we just caught up to the end of last night's work."
AJ nodded. "Ah know that, but Ah don't want her to strain herself. She just got outta the hospital yesterday, Mac. Ah'm not gonna have her do farmwork so soon."
Granny agreed. "Ah'm all for recruitin' every eager set of hooves as comes in here, but only a fool would endanger another pony for their own benefit. AJ's right, we'll get this done. Ah'll send Apple Bloom straight out soon as she gets home."
The Apples cleared off their lunch table and set back to work. Granny brought the plates inside and started to wash them, and Applejack and Big Mac started back towards the orchard. When they were out of earshot of the house, AJ turned to her brother and jabbed him in the chest with her hoof.
"What'd Ah do?" he asked in surprise.
She snorted. "Don't act like you don't know what's going on." Upon seeing the utterly bewildered look on his face, she rolled her eyes. "Fluttershy came by today to see you. Ah'm sure of it. What'd you two do last night that's got her chasin' after you like a lost puppy?"
Big Mac blinked in surprise. "Nothin'," he protested. "Ah read, she watched the rain, we had dinner, and then we went to sleep." His sister raised her eyebrow at his last statement. "Separately," he informed her.
AJ smirked. "Well," she said. "Looks like Fluttershy's got a crush on you."
Big Mac laughed mirthlessly. "Are ya sure she didn't just want to help? She is the element of Kindness, after all. And you're one of her best friends."
Applejack nudged him playfully and chuckled. "Nope," she teased. "It's definitely what Ah said. Ah'm sure it was just for you. After all, the whole town knows that my brother's the handsomest stallion in Ponyville, right?" She raised her voice an octave, doing a pretty decent impression of Fluttershy. "Oh, Big Mac," AJ said. "I just stopped by to tell you that I love you."
They laughed together, long and gasping. "Come on, enough foolin' around," Big Mac said. "We got work to do."
They went their separate ways, each pony taking one half of the of the northwest orchard. Big Mac started bucking and let his thoughts wander. He had always thought about how nice it would be to have another pony bucking alongside him, just so he wasn't so lonely. Oftentimes a faceless mare made her appearance. In his imagination, they would take breaks from bucking just to sit together among the trees and talk or do nothing at all. As he worked his way through the northwest orchard, the pony in his mind made her return, and he noticed that she had beautiful, yellow feathers.