//------------------------------// // Chapter Seven // Story: Moving On // by Manitive //------------------------------// "Good day sir." The left one of them started, offering me a handshake. He had a well trimmed beard, short, black colored hair and blue eyes. His name sounded strangely familiar to me, but I couldn't quite place where I've heard it before. I took his hand and shook it once, trying to hide the fact that mine was shaking violently. "I'm Officer Jackson, and this is my partner Officer Clark." "Good day officers, name's William Wright." I calmly said while shaking the hand of Officer Clark, keeping eye contact with both of them the whole time, a curious expression on my face. I didn't want to give them any reasons to be suspicious of me, so I hid my fears as best as I could, which, frankly, wasn't really good, but they didn't seem to notice. "What can I do for you?" "Can we come in? We've got some questions that we'd like to ask you." Officer Jackson said. 'Oh shit...' "It's not going to take long." "Uh..." I started, taking a moment to go through what would happen when I would turn them down. 'They'd either come back later with a search warrant, suspecting that I'm hiding something -Which I actually do- or they would just enter anyways. Wait, are they actually allowed to enter without my consent?' "Sure, come in." I stepped aside, they gave me thankful smiles and then entered the living room. I gestured for them to take a seat at the couch, and after they did just that, I took one opposite of them, behind the tea table, on the chair. No, the chair wasn't there before. I moved it there so I could actually see their faces when they were talking to me. Maybe that wasn't the best idea. "So, what questions do you want to ask me? Am I in trouble?" I asked, nervously fidgeting with my hands. "No, you're not in trouble-" Officer Clark assured me, making me calm down just slightly. 'At least they have no reason to search my house.' "-though we'd like to ask you some question regarding something strange that happened around three days ago." 'God fucking damnit' I groaned inwardly, already knowing where this was going. My heart threatened to jump out of my chest. Why? There were four aliens, which I was hiding from the government, just above my and the officer's heads. Oh, and they were asking me If I knew anything about how they came here. That's why. "We've got reports from some local residents that there was something that sounded like a big explosion around three days ago. They said that the source of the noise came from near your house, but we haven't found anything that indicates that there was an explosion. No craters, no smoke, no fires. There wasn't even a shockwave." Officer Jackson told me, confirming my fears of what I thought they were there for. "We asked the air force if they did any low level flights with their jets, but they told us that they haven't. The residents also assured us that it definitely wasn't gunfire. The noise was too loud for that." "We've also got a report from a hiker that he saw strange, purple lights falling down from the sky." Officer Clark continued, his tone showing his doubts about that story. "You could think that aliens finally found our world, hehehe." "Do you know anything that might help us? Have you seen or heard anything strange?" Officer Jackson asked me, flashing his partner an annoyed look, who stopped giggling upon seeing that. "Uh..." 'Fuckfuckfuckfuck' I gulped nervously before answering. "Can't say that I have, officers." "O-kay." Officer Clark said, breaking the really uncomfortable silence, narrowing his eyes at me. He knew I was hiding something. Well, anyone that had at least some common sense, or wasn't blind, could've seen that I was hiding something. I was sweating like I had just run a marathon, and that overly-big fake smile didn't help either. I wasn't a great liar. "Well, that's too sad." He said, both officers standing up from the couch simultaneously and walking up to the door, with me shortly behind. I opened the door for them, and they gave me one last suspicious look, before turning around and exiting my house. "Goodbye Mr. Wright. If you know anything, please do call us." "Yeah, will do! Goodbye!" I closed the door with a loud thump after they were out of my sight, and then gave a loud sigh. "That could've gone better..." I mumbled as I slowly slumped down onto the floor. "Much better..." Outside of William's house "Is it just me, or was that guy way too nervous?" Officer Clark asked as he opened the driver's door of the police car and sat himself in it. "He knows something we don't." Officer Jackson said, nodding once. "And he definitely won't tell us." "Then let's keep him in our sights." Back in the house I heard the car finally leaving the property. I knew that I fucked up, and I could tell that that definitely wasn't the last conversation I was going to have with those two officers. The four ponies I so desperately tried to hide from other humans, were in danger. Because I fucked up. "For fucks sake!" I said loudly, hitting the floor with my fists once, both in anger and frustration. I was angry with myself for being a bad liar. I was frustrated because I couldn't even protect the ones that I love. With something as simple as a lie. Yes, I did love those four ponies. They were my only friends at that time, even though they weren't even human. Hell, they were probably the best friends I've ever had. You see, as you already know, my childhood was really hard. You know that I got punched and verbally abused by my 'father' daily. But I also never had any real friends. Sure, a few called me their 'friends', but that was mostly out of pity. I never could've depended on them when things got hard for me. Oh yeah, and I got bullied, too. Some people thought it would be funny to bully the kid that lost his mother and had a father that didn't love him. And now, guess who never stood up for me when I was being bullied. Yeah, right, those so-called 'friends'. Tears threatened to well up in my eyes as I thought about all those times I got bullied. How those 'friends' just stood by and watched as I got pushed, or worse, punched. I unclenched my fists and lifted my open palms in front of my face, looking at them like they would give me the answer to why fate had been so cruel to me. But the answer -surprise, surprise- never came. "My whole life's a mess..." I buried my face in my hands, a few tears slowly running down my cheeks. I was so lost in self-pity, that I didn't even notice that I wasn't alone anymore, until I felt something hard touching my thighs, followed by something big and soft climbing up into my lap. I lifted my hands away from my face and looked down my body, where I saw that Rainbow now joined me, lying curled up in my lap, her head resting upon my chest. She looked up at me with those big, beautiful magenta eyes of hers. All those bad thoughts. They just slipped away the instant I looked into her eyes. "Rainbow, why are you here?" I asked her, faking an annoyed tone, wiping away the tears. In reality, I was really glad she came right then, or else I probably would've broken down into a sobbing mess. Again. "Didn't I tell you and the others to stay up in the bedroom?" "Well, I couldn't just let my new...f-friend...be alone with some strange other humans, so I watched over this whole conversation." I didn't even notice how she stuttered at the word 'friend', since I had other things to worry about. 'How did she do that without me, or the officers, noticing?' "So you saw...?" I asked, the guilt from before slowly creeping back into my mind. "Yes." She said, her tone firm but gentle at the same time. "But you have no reason to feel guilty. From what I saw, you tried your best. And you know...I, and the others too, really appreciate it..." "You did so incredibly much to help us since we arrived here... You patched me and the little Squirt up, fed and gave us a place to live without thinking twice. You even adopted Scoots as your daughter!" I opened my mouth to form a retort, but upon seeing that, Rainbow quickly interrupted me. "So don't you dare feel guilty, or angry with yourself for not being able to lie good!" She said, nuzzling my chest with her muzzle, cutting me off effectively. "You're the only one we can count on, besides ourselves, in this world... and I'm glad it's you." She whispered the last part, but I was still able to hear it. I was curious about what she meant by that, but I just pushed the urge to ask her what she meant by that away, and concentrated on the moment. I concentrated, to form a good response to what she just told me. "You know... You girls do mean the world to me." I said, breaking the comfortable silence. She stopped her nuzzling, and looked up to me again with her beautiful, big, magenta eyes. "Did I tell you what I was about to do before you and the others arrived?" "No, you didn't..." "I was about to end my life." Her eyes widened, and a small gasp escaped her lips. "I was about to end my life, because I couldn't move on from my old life. I wasn't able to let go of my past. But you and the other three...saved me. In more ways than one." "Wha...Ho...what?" 'Heh, I think I broke her.' "First off, your arrival actually made me drop the thing I was going to end my life with,-" I started explaining, taking a short break to chuckle once. "-and second of all, you made my life actually be worth living. I've only known you and the other girls for three days, or something like that, and you're already the best friends I've ever had." "And then...then there's the fact, that you 'cured' me from my depressions about that whole...you know..." I gulped as some bad memories resurfaced, but I was beyond sobbing about what happened a year ago, at that moment, so I was able to push them aside. I definitely wasn't beyond losing them. But I wasn't openly crying every time someone mentioned them, at least. I was pulled back to earth by the sound of hooves approaching me and Rainbow. Looking up into the direction the foot-...ergh, hoofsteps, were coming from, I saw that the other three girls finally (maybe?) decided join mine and Rainbow's cheesy conversation. I also saw that they looked at me with sympathetic faces. 'Well, that at least saves me the trouble of telling them later.' "Lemme guess, you heard that?" I asked, and their answer to that were just nods. Twilight and Applejack took spots to my right and left side, and Scootaloo jumped up onto my thighs, effectively restraining me from moving my legs. "What is it with you ponies and eavesdropping? Or getting all cuddly and stuff?" "Uh, not that I'm complaining about that second part..." I quickly added, even though it was kinda weird... Eh, what am I saying? It felt right. So goddamn right. "So, who was that?" Twilight asked after a short while of silence, looking at me with a curious expression. "And what did they want to know?" I took a deep breath before answering, "The police, and to answer your second question; they wanted to know something about what happened three days ago. You know, the day you guys arrived? Apparently some others heard your arrival." "So...they know about us?" Applejack asked, a hint of worry evident in her tone. "No, they don't." I assured her, to which she gave a relieved sigh. "Though...Let's say I'm a bad liar, and maybe the two officers became a bit suspicious of me. They're probably going to come back with a search warrant, or something like that, just because I can't tell a good lie." "Ya know, Ah'm not a good liar either. Element of Honesty' an' all that." Applejack told me, flashing me a small smirk. "Will, we've just been through that. Don't you feel guilty just because you're not a good liar." Rainbow said, embracing my chest with her front hooves as best as she could. "Being a good liar is nothing to be proud of anyways." "Agreed." Twilight chimed in, nodding her head once. Well, sitting there on the ground, with those four adorable ponies around and on me, was really neat, but my stomach decided that it was about time to get something to eat. It made its needs known with a loud grumbling sound. I blushed and chuckled out of embarrassment. "Well, looks like somepony's hungry." Twilight said, snickering upon seeing my red-tinted cheeks. But her fun was short-lived, as her own stomach grumbled violently, to which she too started blushing. "Hehe, well..." "Yeah, I'm gonna go and prepare lunch." I said, glancing at the wall clock which showed that it was already 1 p.m. Before I even had to ask them, Rainbow and Scootaloo climbed off of me, giving me back the ability to move my body. "You can go and watch TV in the meantime, if you want to." "Yesyesyesyes." Scootaloo, and to my surprise, Twilight, cheered in a childish manner, bouncing around me. I gave Twilight an amused look, to which she stopped mid-air, blushed and chuckled nervously. 'I seriously have to ask them how they're bypassing the laws of physics.' "Uhh, I mean...Yay?" After we had lunch, which consisted mostly out of vegetables, since they were not really comfortable with me eating meat while they were in the same room, we decided to do a little movie day, with popcorn, potato chips and soda. Well, that 'little' movie day lasted late into the night. They really wanted to watch the rest of the Star Wars movies, after I told them that there were more. Apparently they were really into that whole science fiction thing, especially Rainbow and Twilight, the latter couldn't even stop talking about how awesome and advanced the technology that was shown in the movies was. But everything good had to come to an end, as did our movie day. It was getting late, after all. "Soo *yawn*, Imma go to bed, I'm tired." I said as the credits of the last movie started rolling. I stood up from the couch, stretched my body once to which a few joints popped. I sighed in relief and turned around, only to see that everyone, aside from Twilight, was asleep. All of them were curled up like cats, their chests slowly moving up and down in sync with their breaths. I had no clue when they fell asleep, but I couldn't care less at that moment. I just wanted to go to bed, to finally drift off into sleep myself. "Yeah, me too *yawn*" Twilight said, nodding her head tiredly in confirmation. "Can you take Rainbow and Scootaloo with you? *yawn* I'll take Applejack with me." "How you gonna do that?" Twilight didn't say anything. She just rolled off the couch, hitting the floor with a soft thump as her hooves impacted on it. After a moment of silence, her horn was coated in a lavender aura, making me realize how she was going to accomplish lifting up Applejack. I watched in tired awe as Applejack was slowly lifted up into the air with seemingly no effort on Twilight's part. Twilight floated her behind her, and then turned around to face me again. "Good night *yawn* William." She said, flashing me a very tired smile, which I returned in kind. "Good night and sweet dreams, Twilight." After Twilight left, I sat myself down on the couch again, taking a moment to think about how lucky I've been the past few days. 'Not only did I make new friends, I also found something that makes my life be worth living.' I thought, looking down to my side at Rainbow and Scootaloo, a genuinely happy smile on my face. I moved a hand up to Scootaloo's face to brush a strand of hair out of it, and then moved that hand to pet her mane. 'I have a new daughter...' I moved my hands away and stood up again. 'Enough of all that cheesy stuff, I'm tired.' I scooped Rainbow and Scootaloo up in my arms, being careful to not disturb their sleep and wake them up. After I somewhat awkwardly had them secured in my arms, I made my way up upstairs, through the hallway and finally stood in front of the bedroom's door. I pushed the door open, entered the room and gently laid the two ponies in my arms onto the mattress, smiling at seeing them both mumbling incoherently in their sleep. 'They really have a lot in common...' I quickly unclothed myself, already longing for the comfort of my bed, and carefully joined the two other occupants, draping a blanket over my body, shielding myself from the cold air. I replayed the day's events one last time before my eyelids grew tired and sleep finally overtook my mind.