Applejack did not waste a moment. Yanking the neckerchief from around her neck, she rushed forward and pressed it to Pinkie’s bleeding forehead, putting Pinkie’s hand over it to hold it in place.
“Where’s your phone?” said Applejack.
“Backpack. Over there,” said Cheese, indicating the direction with his head.
Applejack grabbed Cheese’s backpack, quickly found the phone, and dialed the emergency number.
“Hello? We’re here at Canterlot High. A friend of mine fell in the gym. Looks like she’s hurt real bad. Her head’s bleeding. -- Yeah, she’s breathing.”
Cheese held his good hand in front of Pinkie’s face. “Pinkie, how many fingers am I holding up?”
Pinkie shook her head slightly. “How many fingers have you got?”
“And she’s conscious,” Applejack assured the dispatcher, pacing back and forth.
Cheese steadied Pinkie’s head so she couldn’t shake it again and held the neckerchief down with the hand he could use. “That’s irrelevant, Pinkie.”
Pinkie giggled a shadow of her usual giggle. “No, silly, it’s a hippopotamus!”
Cheese sighed with relief. “I think you’re going to be fine.”
Pinkie hiccupped, and a little of the focus came back into her eyes. “My head hurts.”
“I know,” said Cheese.
“It really, really hurts a whole lot,” Pinkie insisted, her voice quavering.
“I know, I know. I’m sorry.”
“We’re at the school gym, back entrance. The door’s unlocked.” Applejack hung up and immediately started towards her cousin.
“Wait, Applejack,” said Cheese. “Take some pictures.”
“Are you nuts, Cheese? I don’t know about you, but I sure as hay don’t want this on Twitter.”
“Just, you know—where everything is, and what it looks like. Especially the end of that girder.”
Applejack began to take some quick shots of the accident. “Where’d she fall from, anyhow? Off that ladder?” she said, taking a picture of it. It had fallen to one side, and was still braced open.
“No,” Cheese replied, trying to keep Pinkie from pushing the neckerchief away. “I fell off the ladder. She fell out of the grid.”
Applejack stopped taking pictures for a moment. “You were up in the grid? I didn’t know you were going to be up in the grid. You are both insane!”
“Well, yes, but that’s normal for –what’s that?”
Sharp, ringing footsteps could be heard coming quickly down the corridor, followed by the rattling of the hall doors.
“Vice Principal Luna! Quick, toss me my phone. No, put it on my right, where I can pick it up. Then get yourself back and hide somewhere!”
Applejack walked over and started to hand Cheese his phone, before she realized that he couldn’t take it from her. “I am not gonna leave you two. Not like this.”
“There’s no sense in both of us getting in trouble! Now go!” Applejack hesitated for a moment before sprinting back to a dark spot near the parking lot doors.
The hallway doors were flung open with a bang. Vice Principal Luna paused for a moment in the doorway. She took in the scene—two of her students, one seriously injured, trespassing on her school grounds, after hours, without her permission—and fury almost visibly boiled off of her. A draft blew down the corridor and whipped her long blue-black hair into a cloud swirling around her, and she might easily have been mistaken for a wrathful goddess in the eye of a storm of outrage, instead of an angry vice-principal who had been interrupted while catching up on writing disciplinary reports. She briskly made her way to a locked brown box on the wall, drawing out her cell phone.
“I already called 911 . . . ma’am,” called Cheese, shrinking back as she turned her full gaze on him. She turned back and removed a packet of sterile gauze, a thin foil blanket, and some other supplies before making her way to Cheese and Pinkie.
“When was this?” she snapped. “Hold still. Keep her head steady.” She removed the blood-soaked cloth and replaced it with gauze.
“A few minutes ago. They said the paramedics were on their way.”
She obviously was not finished with her interrogation, but turned her full attention to Pinkie, checking for herself to see that she was in fact breathing and conscious, and being careful not to move her any more than was necessary. Meanwhile, Cheese began to drag his left arm—the injured one—back where it was less visible, curled against his long-sleeved shirt and half-hidden by his jacket.
The Vice Principal sniffed. “At least you had the sense to call 911. Head injuries should always be taken seriously. Keep her steady, please, and let me see—”
“I’m fine!” Cheese said with a nervous grin. “I know, amazing, right? I mean, what are the odds that there would be all this metal scrap and collapsed ladders and busted steel and Pinkie here knocked out and me without a scratch on me, right? Must run in the family because my Great-Uncle Buster got carried down the street by a tornado and got put down on the ground not a bit worse for the wear and—”
“That’s enough. You and Miss Pie had no business being here at this hour. You in particular are not permitted to engage in any non-academic activities whatsoever. There is no possible excuse for this. What I want to know is—”
“Why?”
“No. You will have ample time to explain yourself in my office on Monday morning. I want to know how. How were you able to get into the gym at all?” Cheese said nothing, as though he hadn’t heard. “Well?”
Cheese’s eyes widened and then shifted rapidly from side to side. He took a deep breath and had just opened his mouth when the vice principal’s eye fell on the lanyard around Pinkie Pie’s neck. On it hung a keychain and a small fob: a rainbow-colored lightning bolt. As she reached for it, Pinkie suddenly seemed to be aware that a conversation had been going on.
“Oh, no, you can’t take those!” she protested. “Those are Dashie’s! And I promised to give them back to her tomorrow!”
“The keys are not ‘Dashie’s.’ They belong to the school,” Vice Principal Luna said with a frown. “Besides,” she added more gently, as Pinkie showed signs of agitation, “you probably won’t be able to give the keys back tomorrow. They are perfectly safe with me.”
The loud wail of a siren and flashing lights outside announced the arrival of the paramedics, who quickly took over. They carefully removed Pinkie Pie from her position propped up on Cheese, shone a light in her eyes, and placed her on a backboard. “She’s definitely concussed,” the chief paramedic said to the vice principal, “but we won’t know how badly until she’s been fully examined. And we’ll have to keep her immobile, in case there’s a fracture. Does she have any relatives who could—”
“Applejack!” Cheese exclaimed, a little too loudly. “She’s our ride. I called her right after I called 911. She should be here any minute now.”
Applejack came in from her position near the back door. “Well, gosh, Cheese, I just got here, sakes alive, Pinkie’s been hurt, what has been happening here,” she said in an unconvincing monotone. Cheese rolled his eyes.
The vice principal’s eyes narrowed in suspicion, but she merely said, “Good. Your cousin is being taken to the ER, and you should join her there as soon as possible. If there is room in the ambulance, Mr. Sandwich should go as well.”
“No, no!” Cheese insisted. “I’m fine. See?” He rolled over on his right side and sprang to his feet in one movement.
“Nevertheless, I feel you probably need a full medical examination. A comprehensive one.” Cheese gulped, but said nothing.
“I’m headed off to the ER right now,” Applejack said. “I’ll take Cheese with me. It’s no extra bother.”
As they slid her into the back of the ambulance, Pinkie had clearly begun to panic. Her arms were strapped down, but she was clenching and unclenching her fists and kept trying to say something. Applejack followed the stretcher outside and leaned over her.
“Now you hang tight, sugarcube. I’m gonna be right there.” Pinkie continued to panic until she saw Cheese’s head pop around Applejack’s.
“Make that a double,” he said. Pinkie smiled and closed her eyes as the stretcher was slid in and the ambulance’s doors shut.
When the noise had died down, Vice Principal Luna said, “I will lock and secure everything. I suggest you go to the hospital immediately. And Mr. Sandwich—my office. Monday. You’ll have plenty of time to explain yourself then. In the meantime, I will be contacting your aunt.” Cheese nodded, his gaze fixed on the ground. “And your parents,” she added. Cheese quickly looked up again, eyes widened. His face went white, and his lips formed the word no. He looked as though he wanted to protest, but couldn’t, and as he stood there, frozen to the spot, the vice principal walked back into the gym and closed the doors.
“Well, that doesn’t sound good,” said Applejack. “C’mon, Pinkie’ll be worrying and what the hay is that?”
“That” was an ugly compound fracture, which had begun to bleed through Cheese’s jacket. Applejack could see odd bumps under the sleeve, which she guessed were projecting fragments of bone. Glancing at his whitened face, she assumed he might have been losing blood, too.
“Holy moly, Cheese,” she said, “we best rush you in. Why’d you hide that?”
Cheese rapidly shook his head, as though he were suddenly brought back to reality. “Ignore it,” he snapped. “Forget about it. There’s nothing wrong with me. Let’s get out of here.” They walked quickly over to Applejack’s truck, and he said, “Oh, um—and do you mind opening the door for me?”
~~
“I could kick myself,” Cheese muttered, as Applejack’s truck bounced along. “I should have known. I think I did know, but I just didn’t want to say anything. Can we go any faster?”
Applejack was making her way to the hospital as quickly as possible, but the shocks on the old truck were bad, forcing her to drive slowly. “If we go any quicker’n this, it’ll bounce something awful, and that’s not what you need right now. How’s the arm?”
“Ignore it!” he snapped. “Just forget it. I should have known something was bound to happen. Pinkie’s been on a massive high for weeks.”
“What?” retorted Applejack, slowing down a bit more and swerving to avoid a possum. “My cousin’s never touched drugs in her life.”
“That’s not what I meant,” he replied, shaking his head. “Pinkie has bipolar disorder.”
It wasn’t a question, but Applejack was still stunned. “How’d you know that?”
Even in the darkened cab, Applejack could feel the withering glance Cheese shot her. “How do you think I know that?”
There was silence, except for the bouncing and shuddering of the truck hitting some potholes.
“I noticed she was getting more wound up in those lessons we’ve got with Sunset Shimmer,” Cheese continued, “but maybe I blew it off because Sunset Shimmer always creeps me out and makes me feel antsy, too, and when she suggested dancing instead, of course I wanted to . . . but I still should have said something. And then I was spending all that time working on the party cannon, but that’s no excuse. I know exactly what it feels like. How could I have been so dumb?”
“Don’t you go hogging all the blame for yourself, Cheese,” Applejack said, shaking her head. “She was talking herself in circles in math class—that’s why I had to take her and show her what you were building in the barn. Then, at her birthday party, she told me she’d slept only three hours and spent most of the night re-organizing her room. I know better n’ that. I let her down, too. It’s just that—”
“—you hoped if you didn’t say anything,” Cheese said, finishing her thought, “somehow it wouldn’t be true and it would magically go away. I know. It’s just that I only know it from the inside. I’ve never seen it from the outside—when it’s a friend or someone you . . . someone you know who has it. I didn’t know how much I’d want it not to be happening to her.”
“Well,” said Applejack, stopping at a traffic light, “maybe that’s how your mama and daddy feel, too.”
“No. No, they don’t. Anyway, we’re talking about Pinkie.”
Applejack began to be aware of a sick, slushy, rubbery sound. She hadn’t noticed it on the back road, but here, closer to the hospital, it was hard to miss. It almost sounded as though it were coming from Cheese’s arm. “What in the hay is that, Cheese?” she said, trying not to turn around and stare.
“Ignore it,” he snapped. “Just forget about it.”
Cheese had begun to get edgy. His knee was pistoning up and down. “Are you sure we can’t get there any faster?” he complained.
“You can see the signs for yourself,” Applejack pointed out, “’Hospital Zone.’ Anyway, we’re nearly there. And I know you’re worried, but this is a good hospital. They’ll take good care of Pinkie, and they’re not gonna let her go until she’s all fixed up. You’ll see.”
To Applejack’s astonishment, this had the opposite of its intended effect. Instead of calming Cheese down, this only agitated him further, and she had the impression that he was considering jumping out of the truck if they hadn’t pulled into the hospital parking lot just then. As they pulled in, he was already unbuckling his seatbelt with his left hand.
The hand on his broken arm.
Or his formerly broken arm, because as he banged the door shut, Applejack could see that there didn’t seem to be anything wrong with it. Even the bloodstains on his jacket were fading. Her jaw dropped.
“What?” said Cheese. “Oh, this?” he added, following her gaze and holding up his perfectly healthy-looking left arm. “Yeah, it mostly sorts itself out if you don’t call attention to it. I wouldn’t mention it to anyone else if I were you, though. You wouldn’t want anyone to think you were crazy.” He winked at her, and then raced for the emergency entrance as quickly as his long legs would carry him.
~~
“I know you’re concerned,” said the emergency room receptionist, “but we can’t let everyone in the unit just because they’re concerned. Are you relatives of the patient?”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Applejack. “I’m her cousin.”
“And I’m her brother,” snarled Cheese. “We’ve even got the same hair.” He pulled his curly brown forelock, and it snapped back with an audible spoinnnng. “Obviously.”
A physician’s assistant carrying a clipboard stopped to see what was going on, and approached the desk. “Are you here for Miss Pie? Good. We’ve been trying to determine what medications she’s on, but unfortunately she’s much too confused to remember, and we haven’t been able to contact her doctor. Come this way.”
As they were buzzed past the doors and followed the white-coated physician’s assistant past gurneys and hospital curtains, some open and some closed, Applejack muttered, “You have the same hair? Seriously?”
“It was the best I could come up with on the spur of the moment,” Cheese hissed back.
Pinkie’s face lit up as the curtain was pulled, and then she winced. Her head was bandaged and there were monitors measuring her pulse. “Hey, there, hon. You doing all right?” said Applejack, as she came and stood next to Pinkie.
A nurse in pink scrubs with cartoon animals on it approached. Pinkie smiled. “Cute,” she said.
“Hi—I’m Grace Redheart, and I’ve been looking after Pinkie. You’re Pinkie’s relatives?”
“Yes,” said Applejack and Cheese together. Applejack rolled her eyes.
“Well, I see from Pinkie’s records that she’s been taking several medications, but we weren’t sure it was accurate because it hasn’t been updated in a while. We’ve tried paging her doctor, but she hasn’t returned the call yet. Are you sure you can’t remember anything, dear?”
Pinkie started to shake her head again, then said “ow. Noperooni. All I know is there were a whole lot of them and most of them began with ‘B.’ Or was it ‘L?’ Anyhoo, they’ve changed a bunch of times and I don’t remember what they are, and I’m all confused and super-tired.”
“Do either of you know what they are?” the nurse asked, looking at each of them. Applejack hesitated, and then shook her head.
“Seriously?” said Cheese, looking at her. “You don’t know her cocktail?”
“No,” she replied, furrowing her brows. “Pinkie doesn’t always tell me that stuff. And what do you mean, ‘cocktail?’ Pinkie doesn’t drink.”
“The combo of meds she’s taking,” explained Cheese. “Most of us are on two or three, maybe five medications. They all work together. Well, some just offset the side effects of the others, but anyway, we call that a ‘cocktail.’ Hmm. Maybe this’ll help.” He moved closer to Pinkie. “Hiya, Pinks.”
“Hiya!” she said, smiling.
“Listen,” he said, putting his arm down on the bed next to her hand. “I’m going to say a whole lot of names. If you recognize one of them, just tap my arm like this.” He showed her. “Like that. Can you do that?” She started to nod, but he said, “don’t nod, just tap. Ok?”
He began to reel off a long list of drugs by their brand and their generic names. Applejack’s eyes widened as the list went on and on. Once or twice Pinkie tapped Cheese’s arm and he held up a finger for Nurse Redheart, who wrote it down.
Cheese mentioned a certain name, and Pinkie tapped, then paused and looked confused.
Cheese repeated it again. “Yes? No? How about this?” and he mentioned another. Pinkie tapped his arm several times. Cheese snorted.
“Great,” he said, turning to the nurse. “She’s on the generic. The generic doesn’t work. It’s like sugar pills, only worse, because you think it’s working right up until you realize it hasn’t worked in a long time and by then you’re in trouble. Her doctor should know that.” He went on listing names until Pinkie tapped again, then stopped, and tapped. Cheese furrowed his brows. “Yes? No? You were taking it, but now you’re not? Wait—you were taking it and you just stopped? Like, without telling anyone? Why?”
“Cupcakes,” said Pinkie.
“Cupcakes? What do you mean, ‘cupcakes?’ I mean, I like them, too, especially those new ones you—ohhhh. Cupcakes. I get it. Metalmouth?”
“Yepsidoodle!—ouch.”
He turned to Applejack. “Metalmouth. One of those meds makes everything you eat taste as though you’ve been licking an iron fence. And Pinkie’s been developing all those new cupcake flavors, so she stopped taking it. That was kind of dumb, Pinkie,” he added, turning back to her. “You can tell your doctor you can’t stand the side effects. Sometimes there’s something else you can take instead. Oh, wait. I forgot your doctor’s a moron. Well, fire her and get someone else. Anyway,” he said, smiling at her, “thanks.”
“That’s helpful,” remarked the nurse. “We still don’t know the dosage or the form or how many times a day she was taking them, but at least it’s a start. It looks as though they’re ready for you now, Pinkie. We’re just going to wheel you down the hall for a CT scan. It’ll take hardly any time at all. You two can stay here,” she added. Two orderlies pulled up the sides, unlatched the wheels, and took Pinkie away.
Applejack and Cheese sat there for a minute or two—not in silence, because the beeping and pumping noises, the paging over the announcement system, and the worried conversations of different patients on the other side of curtains make silence in an emergency ward impossible—but without talking. Finally Applejack said, “Have you really been on all of those?”
Cheese shook his head. “No. Some of them. Some of them I tried, but the side effects were too bad or they just didn’t work. Some of them I just know about from other people. Hey,” he added brightly, “do you think there are emergency rooms for cows? I wonder what those are like. I bet it’s really tough asking a cow what medications she’s on.”
Applejack frowned. “Are you trying to change the subject?”
“Nope,” said Cheese, “I’m succeeding. Pick a number from one to ten.” He held up a piece of paper that had been folded into a set of triangular shapes, divided in four and big enough for two fingers and two thumbs.
“Uh . . . four, I guess.”
Cheese moved the paper shape back and forth four times. “Now give me a letter of the alphabet.”
“R?”
Cheese repeated the motion eighteen times. “Ok—now give me a color.”
“Green?”
Cheese moved the paper back and forth, flipped up a corner, and read, “Fruit will be very important to you today.”
“Hang on a second—does it really say that?” Applejack grabbed the piece of paper out of Cheese’s hand, unfolded it, and looked at each side. They were both blank. Cheese grinned, and Applejack smiled, too. “Ok—you got me.” She yawned. “Boy, it sure is late. I’d call and let Granny know where I am, but I’d probably wake her up. I’ll just text Big Mac and let him know. Maybe you oughta . . .” Cheese grimaced, and she bit her lip. “Oh, right.”
Cheese took a deep breath. “So,” he said, “this pony walks into a bar . . .” Pinkie and the orderlies pushing her bed arrived, followed closely by a doctor. “I wonder if I’m ever going to get to finish that joke.”
“Well,” said the doctor, “the good news is that there’s no fractures and no signs of hemorrhage. It looks as though something hit her on the head, but I don’t think she hit her head on the floor, and if anything, it looks like something broke her fall. You’re very lucky,” she said, addressing Pinkie. “However, she’s still very woozy and confused, and there’s the issue of her medications as well, so we’re going to keep her in for observation.”
“Observation?” stammered Cheese, his eyes wide with shock. He held his fists to his eyes and muttered to himself, “72 hours. 72 hours of living hell.” He looked up at the doctor again. “It was an accident!” He leaned over Pinkie’s bed. “Pinkie, listen. You’ve got to tell them you know what was going on. Tell them you’re happy to stay to look after your physical injuries. Tell them that!”
“Um, ok,” said Pinkie, looking bewildered. “What was going on again?”
“What’s your name?” insisted Cheese, an edge of panic in his voice.
“Pinkamena Diane Pie,” Pinkie stated.
“And mine?”
“Cheese Sandwich.”
“What’s today?”
“Friday?”
Cheese whirled around to the doctor. “She was injured before midnight. It was Friday. She couldn’t know that. She knows her name. She knows my name. She’s staying voluntarily. You can’t hold her.”
The doctor backed away. “We weren’t planning to,” she said slowly. “We’re keeping her overnight to monitor her. With any luck, she’ll go home tomorrow with her parents or an approved adult.”
“That would be the Cakes,” said Applejack. “I called them earlier, so they already know.”
“It takes a while to recover from a concussion,” continued the doctor, “and it’s best to take it slowly. She’ll probably be fine. You, on the other hand, might want to see your doctor for some sort of anti-anxiety medication.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that,” muttered Cheese. “I’m all fixed for that.”
“’Night, sugarcube,” said Applejack, and kissed Pinkie’s cheek.
Cheese stood at the side of the bed, looking extremely awkward. “Um. Well, goodnight, Pinkie, I’ll . . .uh . . . see you later then.” He backed away, and then made his way towards the exit, walking very fast.
“Goodnight, Miss Apple,” said the doctor, as Applejack left, and then muttered, “Goodnight, Mr. Pie,” and snorted with amusement.
~~
Applejack drove without talking for several minutes, and then Cheese broke the silence by asking, “Was Pinkie ever hospitalized before?”
Applejack thought for a moment. “Well, we did think she might need her appendix out once,” she said, “but that turned out to be a false alarm. Oh. You mean . . . for that.”
“Bipolar disorder,” Cheese said. “Yes, that.”
“Just once,” she replied, as she shifted gears. “No, I guess it was twice.”
“I see,” said Cheese, looking out the window at nothing. Applejack did a U-turn and headed in the opposite direction. “What was that for?”
“Because you got questions and I want answers,” said Applejack, “and it’s gonna be way easier to talk ‘em over if I’m not in a truck trying to keep my mind on the road. We’re going out for donuts.”
Cheese shook his head. “I’m already out after hours. I have to go home.”
Applejack snorted. “Seriously, Cheese? If Vice-Principal Luna already called your aunt, you think half an hour for donuts is gonna make that much of a difference? Don’t tell me you’re not hungry, ‘cause I never knew you when you weren’t. I’m driving, and I say we’re stopping for donuts.”
Applejack pulled into an almost deserted parking lot, squinting against the harsh glare of the parking lot lights. She and Cheese nearly slipped on the asphalt, which was slick with a mixture of early morning damp and motor oil. A neon sign over a chrome diner proudly proclaimed: “Don t Joe’s--OPEN 24 r .”
“Come on, Cheese,” Applejack said, holding open the door and ushering him in. “You’re gonna like these. There’s practically nobody here at this hour but Joe himself, and he’s got years of experience in keeping his mouth shut.” She chose a booth in the corner, as far away from the door as possible, and ordered two coffees and a dozen donuts. They were simple, freshly made, sprinkled with cinnamon sugar, and still slightly warm. It was much harder to feel miserable while eating them.
“Now,” she said, after her second donut, “you asked me about Pinkie, but let’s start with what that doctor said. She says Pinkie didn’t crack her head on the floor, or her head woulda been a lot more hurt than what it was. You had a broken arm. Pinkie says you ‘don’t tell all the way the truth.’ Well, for once, I want you to tell me the honest truth. You didn’t fall off that ladder, did you?” Cheese shook his head. “Did you jump?”
Cheese looked everywhere but at Applejack, and finally stammered, “I . . . well, you would have done the same thing.”
“So, really, Pinkie landed on you, and that’s how your arm got broken.” She frowned in thought. “How’d Pinkie’s head get hurt then?”
Cheese pulled out his phone. “I don’t know, but maybe there’s some kind of answer in these pictures. The honest truth, Applejack, is that I think there’s something fishy about the whole thing.”
Applejack pushed herself back and subjected Cheese to a long, steady gaze, and finally gave a decisive nod. “I don’t know what else to make of you, Cheese, but you tried to help Pinkie, and I’m gonna trust you with why Pinkie’s here. You know a bit what she’s like by now—all bright and bubbly. Always has been, too, though you wouldn’t know that.” Cheese coughed on a chunk of donut. “Don’t choke on that,” she cautioned, “because I’ve had enough of the hospital for one day. From what I understand, she was just getting happier and happier and more and more worked up. And Pinkie’s family—well, they’re just not like that. They’re kinda quiet. Then Pinkie calmed down all of a sudden, and at first Aunt Cloudy was relieved, ‘cause she wasn’t driving ‘em all crazy. But when Pinkie got slower and slower, she knew something wasn’t right, until one day that happy little girl could barely get out of bed.”
Applejack stirred her coffee in circles as she talked. “Aunt Cloudy and Uncle Igneous aren’t much for fancy education, and they don’t have a TV and all that, but they know their daughters. So finally, Aunt Cloudy asked Pinkie if she was feeling bad and could she take her to the doctor, and Pinkie, she was so down, she just nodded. And that’s how we found out Pinkie had a problem. The hospital out there’s kinda basic, so Pinkie was transferred here, and we all agreed it was best for her to stay here where she could get good care if she ever needed it again. Over at the farm, well—we’ve got our own row to hoe, and we couldn’t see how we could make room for Pinkie, too, but my Pie cousins know the Cakes from way back. So that’s how Pinkie came to be here, but you gotta understand, Cheese—she’s got lots of people looking out for her, and she never fought it, and she’s never told me otherwise, so being in the hospital can’t have been all that bad.”
Cheese snorted into his coffee. He shook his head as he held a napkin to his nose. When he’d recovered a bit from the sting, he said, “Sorry, Applejack, but that’s funny. The best you can say about one psych ward is that it’s a lot better than some other psych wards.”
Applejack gave him that long steady gaze again. “I trusted you about Pinkie. Now you trust me about you. How’d you wind up in the hospital?”
Cheese paused, unconsciously twisting a paper napkin until it started to fall apart. “Fine,” he burst out. “You really want to know how I wound up there? My mother called the doctor and told him I was throwing knives.”
Applejack just blinked at him. Finally, she said, “Were you?”
“I don’t know,” he said, dropping the shreds of napkin. “Is juggling throwing? I was definitely practicing juggling, and I was definitely juggling knives, but I can juggle chainsaws and it doesn’t mean anything except that I’m a good juggler. No, I think what bugged my mother was that they weren’t her knives.”
“What do you mean?”
Cheese dropped his hand, and then raised it. Five spoons went flying through the air in a dizzying circle. After a minute or two, he caught them and lined them up one by one. “Notice something?”
Applejack squinted down at the spoons. Suddenly she saw it. “They’re not Joe’s spoons.”
“Exactly. And that’s not acceptable to my mother,” said Cheese, scooping up all five spoons so that they vanished up his sleeve again. “It never has been. Anyway, the next thing I knew, I was in the hospital.” He stared straight ahead, as though he were seeing something far away. “They take away your belt. They take away your shoes if they lace up—just in case. The first twenty-four hours, they’ve got you on suicide watch—just in case. And that means they open up the door every fifteen minutes while you’re trying to sleep. It took a couple of days before they brought me up in front of a panel.”
He looked Applejack in the eye again. “You’re right, AJ, I’m a liar, but I wasn’t always one. The head doctor on the panel asked me about the knives and where they came from and did I really think I could just make party hats come out of thin air, and I did something really dumb. I told them the truth. That meant I was delusional, so . . .” His voice trailed away, and he looked out the window, at the slick black parking lot. He shook his head. “Anyway, they can keep you up to 90 days after that, and I could have gone home a lot sooner, but it was my mom’s decision, and she wasn’t in a hurry to get me out.” He looked down into his coffee cup. “I was twelve.”
Applejack was staring at him in pure horror. He swallowed. “You have no idea how much I want to tell a joke right now. So, um—yeah, it’s not all that bad!” He grinned and spread his hands wide, then dropped them and the grin and said in a worried tone, “Does that count as a joke?”
Applejack frowned and looked at the ceiling, as though she were trying to work something out. “Are—are you saying you don’t really have . . . y’know . . .”
“Bipolar disorder? Oh, no.” Cheese shrugged. “No, I’ve got it, all right, and it’s no picnic. Poor Pinks. She must be feeling really awful right now. I should have said something. But I manage ok with some medication and a bit of common sense. Just because I’ve got bipolar disorder doesn’t mean that I had to get shoved through hospital after hospital as though they all had revolving doors.”
He leaned his chin against his fist. “Y’know, I take what I said before back. They weren’t all terrible. Remember when Fluttershy asked if my parents sent me to camp, and I said I’d been to the country? That place really wasn’t bad. The doctors got me stabilized, and I started feeling a lot better. There were a lot of kids who were way worse off than me, and I wanted to make them laugh, and I guess the staff just let me. They’d never let me do that anywhere else. So one morning, they had us all in a group, and we had to go around and check in. You know, ‘Hi, my name’s Mike, and I’m feeling very angry this morning.’ Anyway, they got around to me, and I just rocketed out of my chair: ‘Hi, I’m Cheese. And I feel like a PARTY.’” Cheese beamed. “And you know, they let me do it? Spontaneous joy among the lost boys on the third floor. It was amazing. And they must have done something, said something to someone, that they didn’t think I was all that sick, and that maybe I should go home.” He sighed. “I was so glad to get back to my accordion. I missed it so badly. I still don’t like letting it out of my sight.”
“So you never got sent to the hospital again?”
He blinked in confusion. “Did I say that? Oh, no. It’s always a possibility if I get too far out of line. As she always says, ‘Cheese, it’s for your own good.’ And you’d be amazed how something like that looks on your school record, especially if your mother pulls strings and lets the headmaster know about your ‘special problem.’ That’s what I meant by this being my last chance. If I flunk this time, and I don’t graduate . . . and I guess now I’ve also technically committed a crime. Sorry if I got a little upset back there. I’ve gotten used to the way this always plays out with me, and I didn’t want to see them doing something like that to Pinkie. I should go home,” he said. “I can’t put this off forever. I’ll get this.” He stood up and picked up the check.
“Why didn’t you tell us? Any of us?” Applejack protested.
“I didn’t want to be the kid with bipolar disorder,” he said simply, and walked towards the register.
They drove in silence the rest of the way to Cheese’s house. The lights were on in the first floor windows. “Thank you for the ride,” he said, looking through the window at Applejack. “Give my best to Pinkie, ok?”
“Cheese?” said Applejack. “You take care now.”
He nodded. Applejack watched as he walked up the porch stairs, unlocked the door, and slipped into the hall. The same shrill voice she’d heard before—the voice of the macaw—screeched, “You’re in a lot of trouble, young man.” And then a genteel elderly lady’s voice replied, “The bird is right for once, young man. You really are in quite a lot of trouble.”
Bravo. Bipolar is a scary thing and while I've skirted close to the line I'm not formally diagnosed as such. Crazy meds is indeed an invaluable site.
Wow... This is getting deeper than I thought. Seriously, I think I feel tears forming. You're creating a masterpiece bit by bit here, scoots. *waves pom poms*
Now this is heavier than I thought it'd be. Seriously... my goodness...
And... here comes the feels.
So much practical info in here and awesome chapter!
And so reality ensues... and yet, it doesn't. Cheese displays a sort of quantum superposition regeneration. As long as the injury stays unobserved, it drifts back to the original ground state. Of course, a head gusher isn't going to go ignored long enough to seal up like that. However, such abilities come with a real cost, especially in such a low-magic universe, and that may be where the bipolar disorder comes in...
We also get further information on his mother; she's a Dursely. Such deviations from the norm are utterly unacceptable, and she thinks it's a problem. Moreover, she thinks it's one she can somehow fix. Perhaps the worst part is that she may really believe that this is for Cheese's own good. She may be doing this not just out of fear, but also out of love. That's just tragic for all involved parties.
Eagerly looking forward to more, especially the fallout of the fall. A number of consequences are already visible, and the ripples could be devastating.
Wait how the hell did cheese do that with he's arm? UHHHHHHHH WHAT IF HE CAN BREAK THE FOURTH WALL LIKE PINKIE
Umm so Cheese has magic healing powahs? Cheese has a serious mental (is disease the right word? Probably not...) and DOES take a lot of meds. Pinkie does too....
Da Faq?
Really nice chapter by the way .
I noticed a few things in here:
(1) Cheese metaphorically took a bullet for Pinkie. If she'd fallen and he hadn't been there, she might have gotten very seriously hurt. Cheese -- and he must have done this in a fraction of a second -- realized that Pinkie was in danger, that the only possible thing he could do to help her given that he was on a ladder and not directly under her was to fling himself from the ladder to intercept her fall, and he did so despite the very real danger to himself of getting seriously injured in the process. Which he was. This has got to be a Crowning Moment of Awesome for the Humanoid Cheese Sandwich so far, and proof of how much he cares for Pinkie.
(2) Cheese can reality warp; and he has some idea how the power works. This is also interesting, since the Humanoid Verse is basically a Secret Magic universe as far as I can see -- it's what I'd call "Urban Fantasy" rather than "High Fantasy." I do not know how much AJ grasps of what she is seeing -- she's intelligent and very wise, but probably not well versed in mystical lore. I think she's noticed that both Pinkie and Cheese are strange in ways that she can't easily comprehend.
(3) Because it's a Secret Magic universe, that poses a threat to people like Pinkie and Cheese, who if caught off guard (a dazed Pinkie) or when still very young and naïve (a 12-year-old Cheese) may be diagnosed as suffering from psychotic delusions rather than believed as having unusual magic powers (as is the case with the Pony Pinkie and Cheese). Once upon a time, a more naïve Jordan would have told you that it's silly to imagine the psychiatrists failing to grasp the display of magic right in front of their faces. Since then, I've become more experienced (due to the travails of my wife and her sisters dealing with doctors, both psychological and medical) and aware that medical professionals facing a situation they don't understand may well try to bang the case into the category they want it to fit into, rather than make the effort to understand what they are really seeing. So, yeah. I can easily see them acting this way.
Very interesting. I'm still trying to get a hang on mama cheese's motives. Last chapter I got the impression that both parents, as members of the state department on different continents, have written Cheese off and basically want Aunt Mela to keep him on a curfew so Cheese won't embarrass them or distract them from their jobs. Now it seems like she actually put a lot of effort into having Cheese committed as often as possible. Maybe she genuinely wants what she thinks is best for Cheese, but then why not take him with her and put him in one of those fancy private schools they have for American expat kids near US Embassies. (I'm assuming Papa Cheese has basically forgotten he even HAS a family.)
Oh and please don't have it be a jealous Trixie sabotaging the rafters, not after she made such progress in atoning to Pinkie by supplying Cheese with the black powder for the party cannon!
4857518 Quickie response, just for you. Everybody else--no fair looking! This is a mystery story! it wasn't.
4857535 You the best scoots2! You make scoots1 look like garbage! (There isn't really a scoots1 is there? I'd feel terrible if there was)
HA! I used to love making those back in the day (so like 4 years ago).
Good times.
4857408
The funniest part about the bomb-the-Smurfs cartoon was that it was apparently meant to be taken seriously as an indictment of Western, specifically American, military power.
4855572 Thank you! You wouldn't want to use it to diagnose anything, and as always, reading medical info on the internet can be more scary than helpful, but info about side effects really IS helpful. And I suggested that Cheese was having his meds adjusted as far back as Chapter Four: headache, dry mouth, insomnia, grogginess.
4855607 Wow, I'm glad you like it. I've had the major arcs planned for ages. By now, I have several files of notes (not pages: files), outlines, and I recently created a spreadsheet so that I don't drop a plot thread or major theme for too long at a time.
4855648 I hope this is OK? Yes. It was always going to have a heavy element, but we're at the beginning of some major developments. And I've only written one story with the Tragedy Tag. This one doesn't even have the "Sad" tag. So take from that what comfort you will.
On the other hand, in any universe, my Cheese's mom is a real piece of work.
4855652 I hope that's a good thing.
4855748 I don't know what's wrong with me. I don't seem to be able to write a complete chapter without including "always spay and neuter your pets" or basic first aid. I am too much like Purple Smart, I'm afraid, which is why she will never be my favorite character. I like her, but she's not my favorite.
4855987 Yes, that's pretty close. It definitely doesn't work if you look at it and think "that's impossible." Another problem is that in the quasi-Human world of Equestria Girls, it doesn't work as consistently as it does in real Equestria. Cheese suspects, and he's right, that it sort of works like this. That's a YouTube link, and you may or may not consider it a spoiler.
Mmm, yes, the bipolar disorder, and whether or not it's connected. Maybe, and maybe not. If you look at Party of One, Pinkie's nervous breakdown is unconnected--probably--with her ability to nearly out-Dash Dash. Party pony magic is intuitive and creative: things that are often associated with bipolar disorder, or so I've heard. But without revealing too much, I can say this much: Cheese's mother is most definitely a Dursley.
4856076 Hmm--well, breaking the fourth wall suggests awareness of an audience, so not exactly. Not yet, anyhow.
4856182 Thank you! And it's not exactly "magic healing powers." If you really want to know mostly how it works, you can click on the YouTube link I put in FanOfMostEverything's response. Mental illness, I suppose, although most people call it a "mood disorder" now.
4857154 1. YES. Absolutely. That is exactly what he did. It's nice to hear that it was a Crowning Moment of Awesome. It'll come up again, of course.
2. yes; isn't that odd? I think the way I'm trending with this is that Pinkie can do it much better, but that Cheese intellectually or theoretically understands it more--and therefore can't do it as well. You'll notice his horsy equivalent is very nervous about connecting party pony magic and libraries, and it's certainly not because he's stupid. AJ is actually quite smart, but she's also rational--more rational than Twilight, maybe, and she much prefers sensible things she can see to weird stuff that she can't. On the other hand, she'll accept things at face value when convinced of their truth, which is quite sensible. If Pinkie's got twitchy tail, what's smarter: to argue that this can't be happening, or to get the heck out of the way?
3. Yes, unfortunately, and I don't think I'm dissing psychiatrists here. I hope I've made it clear that Cheese knows what bipolar disorder is, that it sucks, and that it's nice to have suckage reduced or moderated enough to function. He also knows that being able to juggle spoons out of nowhere isn't an illness.
4857518 A bit of everything, I think. Having him around is always risking embarrassment. But she'd also like to have a son who functions at what she thinks is important. Basically, FanOfMostEverything is right. She's a Dursley. I've always thought that when Cheese's dad was informed that his son had run away, his first response was "we have a son?" And that is PONY Cheese's dad living in a smallish home in Bayroan, Neigh Jersey. He mentally checked out years ago.
4857824 Augh! You caught a typo for me! Augh! (And good job.) Also, I'm glad you recognized that!
4858352
If Cheese's family doesn't even like him, that makes an incident in Substitute Mentor even more blackly funny or utterly horrible, depending on how one looks like it. Nightmare Delusion wasn't even killing people who liked him. Of course, in either case, most of the population of that town would have been utterly innocent bystanders.
4859413 While it's true in Pony Cheese's case that he doesn't get along with his parents, and they are less awful that their EG equivalents, and he doesn't like them much, he still was capable of distress when he felt the tanking out of happiness in Bayroan. Plus it's his old neighborhood. He'd feel really terrible if something bad happened to it. EG Cheese's parents aren't currently in Equestria, but since Substitute Mentor takes place in the future, they'll have relocated to Manehattan. Bayroan is beneath them. They're from a higher socio-economic class than FiM Cheese's family. But he'd feel bad about that, too. Family is family, even if you don't get along. Even if you loathe each other. You're still going to feel bad about something like that.
4858352 Lol, I didn't even see that typo myself.
4858352 It's a good thing.
4859507
My comment was perhaps too dark -- and you're right, there's no way that Cheese and Pinkie wouldn't feel bad about that.
Delusion, of course, is tragically-demented. The more so because of the horrendously-high levels of power which she has to act upon her insane hatreds and murderous whims.
Dang... bipolar... didn't see that coming. I don't have much experience with it myself; I'm not sure if I actually know anyone who's been diagnosed with it. I'd like to say you nailed it perfectly and all that, but the truth is, I don't know much about it myself. So everything Cheese was saying kind of lost me. But that's not a negative; that's just my own lack of research.
But this did feel like a shift. I don't know; I can't fully explain it. But I can tell this is going to get very tense soon.
Cheese's hammerspace ability reading went off the chart too.
4860500 Of course, chances are that you do and don't know it. What you see when you see Cheese here is what a person with bipolar disorder looks like when it's responding to treatment: pretty much a normal person. Well, as normal as a guy can be who can do weird stuff like grabbing a flashlight with his hair or juggling with stuff from nowhere or whose bones spontaneously reset.
Yes. Things are shortly about to get very real. This, to me, is what happens when you translate colorful equines into a (more) human world. Without hitting the misery button too hard, all the time, Bad Things Do Happen Sometimes, and it's why I rated this Teen--not because of sex or violence, but because stuff like hospitalization for mental illness isn't really for Everyone. At the same time, I think things are going to get more interesting as some of the plot threads start to tighten and the stuff I've been holding back on gets revealed, bit by bit.
4860678
My adoptive mother was bipolar. My wife is almost certainly bipolar (she's diagnosed as having clinical depression but her up-cycle is very cheerful and energetic). It's common in the family into which I married.
I've never been diagnosed as being but probably am somewhat manic. My normal state is very cheerful, but I have occasional dark depressions.
So yes, I can sympathize with both Cheese and Pinkie here. In fact, Cheese the way you write him reminds me in some ways of a physically more energetic, and nicer, version of myself in my teenage years.
4859507
Also, several years ago I was in a position similar to Cheese's with Pinkie and the ladder. My then-girlfriend (now wife) Rosanna and I were hiking along the top of a ravine. It wasn't a sheer drop, but it was a hundred or more feet down and the fall would have been bone-breaking, possibly fatal. Rosanna was ahead of me.
She told me in a calm voice "If I call for help it's because I've started to slide, okay?"
I affirmed.
Less than a minute later, she called for help. She was starting to slide. I grabbed her and realized that I too was starting to slide. I needed to increase the friction so I sat down hard. On a thornbush. Wearing shorts. I didn't care, because my priority was to keep her from getting hurt; all other considerations were secondary.
It worked. She didn't even sit on the thornbush, but on open ground beyond. I wasn't even hurt much. But at the moment that I was sitting down, not getting hurt myself wasn't even part of the equation.
So I've been where Cheese has been, and him doing something like that, without thinking twice about it, means he sincerely loves her. The subtleties of his love can be discussed, but one doesn't lie to oneself when making a snap decision of that sort. I know it.
Wow, this was good. Well written, and hard-hitting, and some reveal is good to have!
Just one note: The sign
really confused me for a good minute. I'd somehow missed the bit where it was a sign, and the quotes made me think Applejack was saying it. Blank spaces and all. I had to re-read the paragraph three or four times before I figured out what was up. Maybe italics or single-quotes would have worked better?
Interesting chapter. I hope Cheese doesn't have to leave. I am thinking though he will. Good luck Pinkie and Cheese. You two will need it.
I'm loving this story!
I think I know what he was going to say!
Pinkie, my poor baby
4861052 Women with bipolar disorder are frequently misdiagnosed as having unipolar depression.That's because the upswings aren't really manic, but hypomanic, as in "suddenly Mom decided CLEAN ALL THE THINGS." This is too bad, as a lot of antidepressants make bipolar disorder worse.
4861071 While the image of someone slamming his keister down on a thornbush is unfortunately funny, I have to agree with your assessment here:
Yep. That's exactly it. As you'll see, there's no guarantee that something like that would come out well, and it had to be a split-second decision anyway. Not limited to romantic love, either. Parents move scary fast when a kid is in trouble.
4861172 Good point, and thanks for pointing it out. I'm not positive I'll change it, but I can't know if readers find it confusing if they don't tell me, so I appreciate that.
4875714 You'll see--although you sort of have, a bit.
4891330 I think you are probably right.
4891861 Alas, yes, although she is getting better.
4896661 I hope that doesn't mean you dislike anything! I guess the best way I can put it is this: there are conflicts and troubles in any story, especially a long one like this, because otherwise it wouldn't be interesting, but there are no Sad or Tragedy tags on this for a reason.
4896662 Depends on how you define "badass," but she's already done something pretty hard core brave. Standing up for one of her friends against her other friends is HARD for her, and walking up to a scary stranger's house like that is terrifying. I certainly wouldn't want to do it, but she did.
4896876 It's mostly his mom, but yes. FanOfMostEverything nailed it when he described her as a Dursley. It's too bad, because not only is she trying to remove everything that makes Cheese unique, she even wants to suppress the latent talents he would have had even if he had never met Pinkie. It's always been my idea that Cheese is a born musician; that he rebuilt his great uncle's accordion (pretty well impossible, by the way, if it's truly ruined), and taught himself to play it long before he met Pinkie. He might have been a more shy and withdrawn musician, but you cannot remove the music from Cheese. Unless, of course, you want to end up with a result like The Birthmark. You'll see more about this in the next chapter.
Oh, yes. Trixie actually likes Cheese, to the extent that she likes anyone. She's a bit miffed over the black powder thing, but the truth is that I think she continued to "help" with conceptualizing the party cannon even after that initial problem. They're not exactly best buds, but at least he appreciates her abilities, and he is perfectly sincere about it. People don't say sincerely nice things to Trixie very much--not that she really allows them to--so when someone who doesn't know says something nice anyway, she probably appreciates it disproportionately.
So how did the interaction between Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash come across? I've given some thought to it, but you never really know whether things work or not.
4896934 You know, I haven't really decided about Discord. I don't expect for him to come into the story, but I'm reluctant to say that he won't. I don't have an idea exactly what Discord is in my EG universe, although he isn't a student, and I don't think he's a teacher. He's probably whatever he wants to be. My guess is that he'd be something like Mr. Wednesday or Mr. Nancy in Neil Gaiman's American Gods: human in appearance, but bizarrely so, and actually gods in disguise.
4897345 Rainbow is very upset and angry about that, but at the same time, even she has to recognize that it was fair, and really had nothing to do with Cheese. Vice Principal Luna did not like doing it, either, as she is passionate about games, so sidelining her winningest student really cost her something.
4897669 Hang on! They're a-coming! Just not right away!
4899561 Do people not dissect things in Biology classes anymore? I think Fluttershy would prefer doing that online, but she wants to be a vet, so she's going to have to get used to it.
Thanks! I'm glad you liked the interaction between Dash and Fluttershy! I really wanted that to be good.
Hmm. I probably could have made it clearer that Applejack doesn't really want Pinkie involved with Cheese because of the bipolar disorder--hence, "he sets her off." It's a net negative, as far as she's concerned. She might be sorry for him and everything, and she's grateful to him for saving her cousin, but-but-but . . . she's also supposed to be protecting her cousin, and family comes first. And she's been acting overprotective of Pinkie since Chapters 1 and 2.
Yes, we do, and I probably soft-pedaled that too much. What was originally going to happen was a lot of poltergeist humor going on, because what you've got on the grounds is a FRUSTRATED party
ponyperson. He is very locked up, and very bored. And the mood of the school is very down and depressed, too, which shrieks out "make them laugh," but he isn't able to. So random humorous noises coming out of the P.A. system, mysterious buckets of water where no one could possibly have placed them, disappearing chalk and dry-erase writing--that kind of thing. I think I lost my nerve, to be honest, but there's still time to get it in the next chapter, and I may revise this one to hint at it, too. (To be more specific, Monday was the first day Cheese was suspended, and it was also the day the school found out about Pinkie. Seriously weird stuff went on all day. During the rest of the week, it died down. Monday, it will all be back again.)Pinkie always knows more about stuff than anyone realizes. She may not remember a whole lot about the actual accident--I didn't. Life was going on as usual, and then it wasn't. I was hit with a steel stage support--enough to knock me out. I refused to go to the hospital until I'd performed my scene, and THEN I went. But there is a LOT she knows about that she just hasn't happened to mention.
4897991 Yes, he really does, but he's willing to take it. He respects her a lot.
4898535
4897669
That's not really going to happen.
4897811 I don't think of Discord as a student. I don't have any fixed spot for him, but I don't even think of him as a teacher.
4898418 I'm glad you like my characterization of Dash. She's one of my favorites!
It's funny how many people liked "the bit stops here," when they don't use bits in EG, but dollars! I almost left that out because of that. Oh, well, I bent it to be funny, and it sounds as though it worked.
4900295 Oh, there will be dancing at the Cake Festival. I think you'll be surprised. I like happy endings, so I don't that's TOO much of a spoiler!
I wrote this more or less without shipper goggles, but I'm curious about what this looks like WITH shipper goggles. Anything shippy here? And no, I'm not going to expunge anything, either.
4900532 Fluttershy can be a real boss. And she's really moved on from Cloudsdale Prep, which was a nasty experience for her.
4901964 Things could always be worse. Important to remember!
4902152 Hah! That made me laugh. I was tempted to use terms like "Victorian" and "Addams Family," but I didn't want to get too human. Although come to think of it, it probably should have been Nightmare Night, not Halloween. Shucks. Maybe I'll change it.
4898254
Pretty much. I had a lot of fun with Dash here, and I also dropped a lot of hints about what their relationship was like at Cloudsdale Prep and what got Dash expelled. It's not a huge, dark secret, but something I borrowed from the show is that Pinkie calls Rainbow Dash "Dashie" all the time, and Fluttershy doesn't--often. I think the first time she called her that on the show was "Hurricane Fluttershy." Basically, they go way back, so their friendship has a slightly different dynamic. (Dash's default strategy for dealing with threats to her friends, however, remains fairly constant across universes.)
Headinjuries are very serious. Miss Pinkamena Diane Pie probably should take the next week off of school and it might take a month for her to completely recover.
Speedbumps increase the jostling and cause injuries. Speedbumps slow emegencyresponse and increase injuries.
Mister CheeseSandwich has the rapid regeneration of the ManeVerse.
It should be Pinkie’s Doctrix because the Doctrix is female.
Despite being in another Universe, Mister CheeseSandwich and possibly Miss Pinkamena Diane Pie have hammerspace.
Miss Pinkamena Diane Pie, Mister CheeseSandwich, Miss RainBowDash, and Possibly Miss AppleJack are in huge trouble. Vice Principal Luna was on premises during the accident, so she may loose her job. Given what happened during the FallFormal, the 2 Royal PonySisters might both loose their jobs.
Wow. This was... unexpected.
This is a drastic change from your fluffy, romance-filled CheesePie. This is far more deep than your other stories, and there is so much more than what meets the eye. The history on both Cheese and Pinkie's sides, even the motherliness of Applejack show really deep characters and tons of development. I'm really impressed.
But...
I dunno. I disagree with your view on Pinkie's and Cheese's mental states. I have a relative that has bipolar and is constantly on different meds, so I understood what was going on. But... I don't like how bronies think Pinkie's got a disorder. I can see how that can add some depth to her character, and can even make her relatable, but I still disagree with it. I'm constantly smiley and have lots of energy and sometimes have really down days, and people think and sometimes have THE NERVE to ask me if there is something wrong with me mentally. Just because I act that way does not mean I have a disorder. I feel the same way about Pinkie.
But to each his own. I still love your writing, and this story, that hasn't changed. But I'm a teeny bit disappointed. Is this how you see these two in all your works? I always though Cheese understood Pinkie because they were connected by magic, not similar disorders. Maybe this is only for EQG to explain their behavior in a the world they're in, the only way to rationalize their behavior and make it realistic.
So yeah, still good chapter. Can't wait until I'm all caught up!