Till Death Do Us Part

by Brian Jacko

I'll Always Love You No Matter What

The next day Applejack found herself back to bucking Pear and Apple trees on the farm, even though she only had a couple of hours of sleep last night. Her body protested with pain and fatigue and her tree bucking skills had diminished. Applejack was very dizzy and she could hear voices in her head because her brain was so disoriented, not just from the abuse, but mainly because of the lack of sleep. Applejack stumbled around a bit and shot her back legs out as she attempted to buck the tree behind her. She was so disoriented and tired that she actually missed the entire tree. She fell to the ground and she fell asleep.

Applejack awoke when she felt the nuzzling of somepony. She shook her head several times. "Sun Rise is that you?" she asked. She turned around and was shocked to see Fluttershy and the rest of her friends standing behind her.

All of her friends gasped in horror when they saw Applejacks face. She still had the bandage on her head from last night and she also had a very dark black eye from being hit earlier today.

Pinkie Pie was the first to move. She raced over and wrapped her front legs around the orange mare. "Oh, Applejack, I had a horrible Pinkie sense last night that told me you were being hurt. Tell me it's not true Applejack, is it?"

Applejack turned her head away and shut her eyes tightly. Two tear drops trickled down her bruised face. "I can't tell a lie to ya'll. Sun Rise got hurt really bad and has been sufferin' with chronic pain and has been drinkin' in order to fergit about his pain. He's become very angry and he often lashes out at me and hits me. It's entirely my fault. I should have known that movin' those boxes in the barn was unsafe without his help."

Rainbow Dash got low to the ground and hugged her friend. "Applejack, you need to get out of here and come home with me. Your life may seriously be in danger and I can't let my best friend suffer like this. You're coming home with me now."

Applejack looked away from her friend. Suddenly, the painful memory replayed in her head again. The words echoed through her mind of that day when her stallion brought her home in his hooves on the day of their marriage.

"Applejack, do you really mean that you'll stay by my side through thick and thin? Will you promise to never leave me?"

"Of course!" Applejack said. "What do you think those vows were about? I promise that I will never leave yer side and will be with ya for as long as I live, no matter what happens between us. Ya know I'm bound to my word bein' that I represent the element of honesty, so don't ya fret sugar cube."

Applejack snapped out of it. She looked back to her friend and drew a line in the dirt as she dragged her hoof across the ground. "I can't do it girls," she confessed.

All of her friends looked at each other with confusion written all over their faces.

"What do you mean?" Rarity asked. "You can't stay here any longer. Just look at you! You're in terrible shape."

Applejack looked up at Rarity with sad eyes and said, "I made a special promise to him that I would never leave his side no matter what happens between us. I can't sin and break my word. I represent the element of honesty."

Just then she heard her stallion calling her name. "Applejack!" he cried out. The tone of his voice sounded like he was very, very angry.

Rainbow Dash felt the anger overwhelm her. "No one messes with my best friend like that! I'll show him a thing or two," she said. She dragged her hoof across the ground several times like an angry bull getting ready to charge and then took off into the air towards the house. She suddenly felt a tug at her tail and she was pulled backwards and fell to the ground.

Applejack had grabbed her tail with her mouth. She let go of her tail and shook her head in disapproval. "It's no use R.D.," Applejack said. "Arguin' with him is only gonna to make his anger worse and I'll end up payin' more for it. It's best to just let it go."

Twilight Sparkle shook her head several times in disbelief. "Applejack, this is crazy! You could die if you stay here any longer. Please come home with one of us. I even have an extra bed upstairs in my house that you can have."

Applejack looked back over to her and said, "It's my job as a wife to be submissive to my husband. If I die from the abuse, then I'll die bein' faithful and kind to my husband. I am the one who got us into this whole mess in the first place. I should have never moved anythin' in that barn without his help."

Pinkie Pie fell to the ground and begged Applejack to come home with her. The shade of her coat turned very dark.

Sun Rise screamed out her name again. This time he sounded even more angry.

"I'm sorry girls, but I already explained the situation to ya'll. I need to go now before he gets even more angry. I appreciate the offer, but I just can't accept it. Take care."

Applejack turned her back on her friends and walked slowly over to the house. She had her head hanging low and her ears were flat, as she mentally prepared herself for the verbal and physical abuse that was about to happen behind closed doors.

Her friends watched her in disbelief. Suddenly, Rainbow Dash's emotions began to run wild and she prepared to chase after Applejack.

Twilight Sparkle put her hoof to Rainbow's chest in an attempt to block her and said, "We have to let her go, Rainbow. We have to respect her decision to be honest and loyal. All we can do is pray for her."

When her friends saw the door slam behind Applejack, they turned around and began to head home. They were weeping and mourning for their friend. They could only imagine the horror that was going on behind the walls of the house.

After getting screamed at, Applejack got ready to go out again. She needed to go to the pharmacy to pick up more pain killers for Sun Rise. Before Applejack left the house, she noticed the newspaper that was on the dining room table. She quickly read the headlines. The story was about how after numerous studies and testing from no other than Twilight Sparkle, she was able to prove that the food from Sweet Apple Acres was in fact killing many ponies and reaking havoc on the ponies health, that ate the food long term. Upon reading the results of Twilight's discovery, Princess Celestia came to the barn, full of wrath, and burned it down to the ground along with all of the genetically modified crops. She banished the Flim and Flam brothers to the Everfree forest. Applejack couldn't believe it. She left the house and walked over to where Sweet Apple Acres once stood. Tears flooded her eyes at the charred remains of the barn, house, and the fields. It pained her to see the place that once filled her heart with such happiness now destroyed. She could no longer bare to look at the death of this place. She moved on to the Pharmacy and picked up the prescription. When she got back home, she got out a quill and a scroll and began to write a letter to Princess Celestia. Some of the ink was running down the page because Applejack couldn't control her emotions and the tears dripped off her nose and onto the letter. She placed the scroll in her mailbox and walked back inside.

A few more months went by and Applejack's body was breaking down very quickly. Her spouse became more and more abusive as time went on and she found herself being hit multiple times a day, instead of once. Each time he connected his hoof hard to her body, she would shake tremendously from the pain. Applejack stayed submissive and loyal to him just like she promised. Every time he tried to do some farm work on his own, he would end up getting hurt and taking it out on his wife. He exploded in rage that he ran out of alcohol and that he also couldn't get a refill on his pain medication because he had been taking more than he should have been. Applejack cowered in the back of the kitchen, near the stairs that led to the basement. A spew of swear words and put downs came out of the mouth of Sun Rise. He walked over to her and began to beat her as hard as he possibly could. Applejack took the hard hits without even lifting a hoof to defend herself. In between the hits, she looked up at him with tears in her eyes and said in a quivering voice, "I know this ain't the real you, and I forgive ya fer what yer doin' to me. Please know that I'll always love ya no matter what."

Sun Rise suddenly stopped the assault and turned his back to her. He put his front hooves to his head in distress over the words that he just heard come from the battered mare.

Applejack very slowly got up to her hooves again. She stumbled around a bit. Her whole body was quivering in pain.

Sun Rise was still very much under the influence of alcohol. He suddenly became filled with anger in his heart once more and he gave her one final buck. Even though he hadn't been working his back legs too much, he was still an incredibly strong kicker. His back hooves landed so very hard against the side of Applejack's body that she went tumbling down the stairs. Her head smacked hard against the cement wall behind her and she lost consciousness.

Sun Rise slammed the door behind him and went out to pick up some more liquor.

Rainbow Dash sped on over to Applejack's and Sun Rises's house. She felt horribly guilty in her heart for what she was about to do, but she represented the element of loyalty and she could no longer sleep knowing that her friend was suffering from such terrible abuse. Rainbow Dash noticed that the door to the house was unlocked. She bucked it open and hurried inside. "Applejack! Applejack!" the cyan colored Pegasus called out, but there was no response. She frantically searched the house for her friend. She ran into the kitchen and noticed that the place was a mess. Pots, pans, and utensils were scattered across the floor as if a war had just occurred. Rainbow Dash continued to the back of the kitchen and looked down the stairs. There she saw Applejack laying unconscious on the cold, hard cement floor. She tried to shake her awake, but there was no response. Rainbow Dash scooped her up in her hooves and flew as fast as she could to the hospital.

Once inside the hospital, Applejack was rushed to intensive care. Rainbow Dash was asked to sit in the waiting room, but she became extremely hostile towards the Doctors and demanded that she stayed by the side of her best friend. With enough arguing, she finally got her way and she was allowed to enter the room.

Applejack was awake, but she was having trouble breathing.

Rainbow Dash kept an eye on the heart rate monitor making sure that her friend was still hanging in there.

Applejack finally was able to speak. "R.D. I just wana tell ya how much I love ya and I thank ya fer bein' so kind to me all my life. We shared the closest bond together, and I want ya to tell the other girls that I said thanks for all their friendship and love."

Rainbow Dash looked puzzled. "Huh? What do you mean by that A.J.?"

Applejack coughed up some blood and continued, "I think I'll be goin' home now R.D., thank ya for blessin' me with yer friendship. It was so very special and magical to me."

"Going home?" Rainbow asked. "I don't understand what you're talking about."

Applejack's eyes began to slowly close and she said her final words before she passed on. "Mom? Dad? It's so good to finally be home with ya'll."

A loud ringing could be heard and Rainbow Dash looked up at the heart monitor. The lines that were spiking up and down stopped and there was nothing but a flat green line. Rainbow Dash had realized that A.J. had just passed on. She threw her front legs around her friend and sobbed into her chest. "Why did you have to go A.J.? Why did this all have to happen?" she cried out in distress.

The Doctors soon had discovered that she died from internal bleeding and organ damage.