Interstella

by Rust

Fate

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The doctor lowers his clipboard, mumbles a final word of apology, and retreats from her. The door opens briefly, filling the sterile room with the busy hum of a hospital, before shutting with a metallic click.

They're alone.

Stella can't take her eyes off a fold in the sheets. At the bed side, she hears her husband desperately trying to control his breathing. It sounds like he's about to cry. Ironic, given the circumstances.

"Shhh. Blue." At his name, he jerks. Sniffles. "C'mere."

His warmth takes her from the side, and he slumps over her shoulder, shuddering. Stella can't focus on it, can't focus on anything really, but she knows he needs somepony right now. Even if it shouldn't be her. She strokes the back of his neck. Something warm and wet is dripping onto her pillow. "Shhhh.... shhh, hun. It's okay, it's all right..."

Stella can't bring herself to join in his misery. By all rights, she should be hysterical right now. She should be screaming, raging against the fates and the unfairness of it all.

What's going to happen to them?

That's it. That's the only thing in her mind, repeating itself endlessly. Why? Surely she should feel something. Anything. Was a cold sweat too much to ask? A single tear? Alas, her face might as well have been carved from stone.

So she lies there in her scratchy gown, comforting Blue when he finally couldn't hold it back any longer, and holding him long after he fell into a fitful sleep.

She watches the shadows race across the floor. Watches as the moonlight shines in through gaps in the blinds. Watches the rise and fall of her own breast, irritatingly consistent. Watches as the sun comes up. Watches as Blue twitches, lost in a nightmare.

At some point, Stella realizes she accepted her fate as soon as the words left the doctor's mouth.

"...Blood tests... startling... cells aren't acting properly... there's nothing like this ever seen before... we aren't even sure... possible magic mutation... no, not genetic... wrong cells in wrong places... spell can hold it off... temporary measures... delaying the inevitable... total organ failure... slow collapse... one year... we estimate about one year... one year..."

One year.

Miss Lights, you have one year to live.

Stella gently wriggles out from underneath her sleeping husband, placing a kiss upon his cheek as he whimpers into the pillow. She stands, stretching the cramp from her wings. A familiar feeling down below leads her to the bathroom.

After doing her business, she looks into the mirror.

A placid expression stares back at her. No red eyes, no puffy cheeks, barely even a dirty coat. Aside from a messy mane -- which she kept short, anyway -- she looked fine.

The nasty lurch in her stomach returns. There's that stabbing again. Her eyes widen. She rushes back to the toilet, barely making it in time before she heaves, spewing dark liquid into the waters. "G'hhhaaaach!" It hurts, feels like something's taking her insides and turning them inside out.

When she's done, she wipes her mouth off with a hoof and staggers to her hooves.

The door to the bathroom opens, and the doctor walks in. "Miss Lights!? I heard the noise, are you--"

"No," she interrupts. "I'm dying. Left a gift for you, by the way." She jerks her head towards the toilet. "Sorry about that. Are those for me?" She doesn't wait for him to answer, simply lifting a bottle of pills out of his stunned grip and plodding past him. "Thanks."

Somehow she slithers back into bed with Blue without disturbing him. He unconsciously nestles into her, pulling her close. She doesn't resist.

Stella is gone the second her head hits the pillow.