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Chapter one: Eavesdropping a Bombshell1,869 words
Chapter two: Thoughtful Stroll1,854 words
Chapter three: Hindsight4,167 words
Chapter four: Laid Bare4,692 words
Chapter five: From Bitter to Sweet2,732 words

Chapter three: Hindsight

Cheerilee pressed the button for the doorbell, prancing in place as she waited with bated breath. Surely her best friend Nook was home. It was past six, and Nook was always home at five-thirty sharp on Mondays. She had to be home. There was no way in Equestria she wasn’t home.

The seconds continued to tick by, and Cheerilee was acutely aware of each and every one as she waited, biting her lip with worry.

Could Nook be late? Where was she? Why wasn’t she here to—

The door opened, revealing the cream-coated unicorn mare. “Sorry, I was just finishing a son—oh. Hi, Cheerilee!” Nook’s smile faded as she looked Cheerilee up and down, and she cocked an eyebrow. “What’s up?”

“Can I just come in? It’s a long story,” Cheerilee said.

“Sure, come on in!” Nook stepped aside, and Cheerilee slipped in. She followed the entry hall down to the small lounge near the kitchen and took a seat on the sofa .

“Nook, how did you meet your coltfriend?” Cheerilee asked as Nook approached the sofa. The purple-maned unicorn pulled a rocking chair over from across the room and took a seat facing Cheerilee.

“That’s a little bit of an odd question,” Nook commented. “Let me guess, relationship trouble?”

“Something like that,” Cheerilee answered, laying her ears back.

“Well, you’ve come to the right place!” Nook leaned back in the chair, looking up at the ceiling as she rocked backwards. “I met Emerald Green during that huge contest Pinkie Pie had with that Cheesy Sandwiches pony. We just happened to be standing next to each other while all of that was going down, and we started talking. Next thing I knew, he walked me home and the rest is history.”

“If only it were that simple,” said Cheerilee.

“I’m gonna assume you’re talking about your problems there.” Nook leaned back forward, fixing her gaze on Cheerilee. “Alright, so tell me. Who’s knocking on your doorstep?”

“That’s just the thing. Right now, there technically isn’t anypony.”

“So it’s a crush?”

“Yes and no. I really don’t know what it is.”

“So what are—” Nook stopped herself, closing her eyes. She clasped her hooves in front of her face and blew a puff of air into her bangs. “Okay, you tell me what the problem is.”

Cheerilee sighed, closing her eyes and hugging her tail to her chest. “Alright, here goes. You remember how Big Macintosh and I nearly got married after three of my students used magical potion to get us to fall in love?”

Nook couldn’t help but giggle. “How could I forget? That was one of the highlights of last year’s gossip.”

“Well, yesterday I happened to overhear Pinkie Pie talking, and apparently Big Mac had a... thing with her sister over Hearth’s Warming.” As Cheerilee revealed her point, Nook rocked back in her chair and hummed to herself. “I never really considered Big Mac as anything other than a friend, but yesterday I felt a little jealous. Today it just got worse and now he’s all I can think about!”

“I hate to make things so simplified for you Cheerilee, but why not just go talk to him and see what’s up?”

“I don’t think that’s the best way to do things. I’m still not even sure if I could see myself in a relationship with him,” said Cheerilee.

Nook shook her head. “That’s fear talking.”

“Yes and no. Sure, I’m nervous about going and having that sort of conversation with anypony, but I don’t even know if this is me feeling this way.”

“Not following you there,” said Nook.

Cheerilee paused, trying to gather her thoughts. “What if it’s just a leftover sentiment from that love poison? Could it have lasting effects like that?” The room stayed silent for a few moments, neither mare having a response to the question.

“I don’t really know what to say for that,” said Nook, breaking the awkward silence that was trying to develop. “Look, uh, I can see we’re gonna be here for a little while. Do you want some tea or hot cocoa?”

“Hot cocoa sounds great right now. Thanks, Nook.”

“No problem, I’ll be right back.” Nook rose from her chair and trotted into the kitchen, leaving Cheerilee alone in the den. Taking advantage of the short intermission, Cheerilee decided to try and think of anything besides her current dilemma. Nothing came to mind, so she decided to just start counting up from zero.

“Alright, the water’s heating up now,” Nook announced as she returned to the den. Cheerilee’s count had barely gotten to twenty before she got back. She plopped down in her rocking chair, which creaked faintly in response. “So, where were we?”

“Ethics,” said Cheerilee. “Or rather, would it be ethical for me to even consider a relationship with Big Mac?”

“You know, that makes me think. There’s two ethics questions you should be thinking about here.”

“What’s the second one?” asked Cheerilee.

Nook’s eyes narrowed slightly, her expression becoming a bit more serious than before. “What does Pinkie’s sister think?”

Cheerilee opened her mouth to reply, but no words came out. She slowly closed her jaw and chose a spot on the floor to rest her gaze. She stayed silent for several more moments before she simply hummed in reply.

“Tell me, Cheers, what exactly did you hear about this new relationship of his? Do you know all of the facts?”

Cheerilee’s response was again delayed as she reminisced about what she heard Pinkie say the day before. “I… I really don’t know much. All I know is that Big Mac and Marble Pie had a ‘fling’ of some sort over Hearth’s Warming.”

“Oh, Cheerilee!” Nook picked up a magazine from the coffee table, rolling it up tightly. “I have half a mind to smack you over the head for that!”

Cheerilee merely laid her ears flat and looked away, a feeling of warmth rushed through her cheeks.

“What happened to the rational, level-headed mare I knew yesterday?” Nook dropped the rolled-up magazine on the table, where it slid on the smooth surface and fell to the floor. “You’re starting to act like me when I was in high school!”

Cheerilee stayed silent, more content to look at her hooves. She suddenly felt about the same as her students likely did when she caught them misbehaving on the playground.

“I never expected you to start letting emotions make your decisions! You of al—!”

“I would appreciate it if you stopped talking to me like that,” said Cheerilee. Though she didn’t raise her voice, her expression made up for it. She was looking Nook dead in the eyes, her mouth twisted into a tight-lipped frown and her eyes beginning to tear up despite the intensity of the glare she was giving.

Nook stayed silent, clasping her hooves over her mouth. Several moments of tense silence followed, persisting until Cheerilee broke eye contact with Nook and returned her gaze to that spot on the carpet.

“What am I doing, Nook?” Cheerilee asked, not looking for an answer. “I’ve never gotten jealous of my old coltfriends. I’ve always been rational, logical. Heck, I’ve always been the sane one between you and me.”

Cheerilee frowned, thinking over her options and her time with Big Mac. “I never even had a relationship with Big Mac that I can remember. I know we almost ended up married to each other, and if the potion effects hadn’t gone away, who knows where I would be now?”

“Cheerilee…” Nook began.

“I remember a conversation we had the same day as the incident…”

“Ready to go, Sugar Bear?” Cheerilee asked.

“Eeyup, Pumpkin Pie!” Big Mac replied, a bit of extra sappiness to his voice. He and Cheerilee watched as the Cutie Mark Crusaders pupils all simultaneously shrank to pinpricks.

“Nooooooo!” the three fillies cried in terror. Big Mac and Cheerilee smiled and exchanged a wink, each suppressing their giggles as they walked side by side towards the setting sun.

Once they were out of earshot, Cheerilee was the first to let loose her mirth. She first let out a giggle, but the guffaws soon won out, leaving her clutching at her barrel as she rode out the wave of laughter. Big Mac was a little more reserved, but he was belly-laughing all the same. It took the better part of a minute for the giggles to run their course

“Great idea for that prank, Big Mac!” Cheerilee said, the last few residual chuckles escaping her.

“E’yup!” he agreed, still not quite done laughing himself.

“I’d say that’s the most terrified I’ve ever seen those three, and after some of the trouble they’ve gotten into, I’d almost expect them to be fearless!”

“E’yup,” said Mac, wiping his eyes on his fetlock as the last of his mirth faded. They hadn’t stopped walking while they laughed, and Sweet Apple Acres was now a good distance behind them. They were now out in the middle of the orchard, completely alone. Silence took hold on the two ponies as they walked aimlessly through the trees. The sun was just starting to kiss the horizon, the day preparing to transition to night.

“We’d best not get too far out this late. It’s hard finding your way back in the dark,” said Mac, bringing them to a stop. All around was nothing but apple trees, like they were completely isolated from the rest of the world in this one little spot.

“The sunset is beautiful here, Mac. Why have I never come out here to see it?” Cheerilee asked.

“I like thinking of it as my little secret. No better way to end the day than watching the sun go down out here in the orchard.” Big Mac plopped himself down in the grass, resting on his haunches. Cheerilee followed suit, choosing a spot right next to him.

“Big Mac?”

“E’yup?”

Cheerilee hesitated for a moment, looking up at Mac. She tapped his hoof, getting him to look her in the eye.

“I think we need to talk about a few things.”

“E’yup.”

Cheerilee stopped, trying to find the right words. “Oh Celestia, this is a little harder than I thought it would be.”

“E’yup.”

“I, uh… Big Mac, as funny as this sounds, we need to talk about us.”

Cheerilee waited for a response from Big Mac, but he remained silent. He broke eye contact and instead returned his gaze to the sunset. Cheerilee frowned; surely he knew that they needed to talk about this subject. She was about to tap his hoof again before he finally broke the silence.

“Miss Cheerilee, I don’t know what to do. I’ve been thinking a lot after we woke up in the pit, and I just keep getting all mixed up.” Big Mac paused, taking a deep breath before he looked Cheerilee directly in the eyes again. “I figure this’ll come out soon enough anyway, so I’ll be honest with you. I think you’re right pretty as a mare can be. You’re sweet, great with the kids, and I realized this afternoon that I enjoy being around you.”

He looked away again. “But when I start thinking about if you’d want to start a real relationship with me, it scares me. I can’t help feeling like that potion might still be making me crazy when I think about you like that. How’d I know if I’m thinking right?”

Cheerilee sat there and looked out into orchard.The sun was more than halfway across the horizon now, and the entire area was beginning to lose the light. The darker colors of the sunset painted the trees in the orange hues of fall as time kept slipping further and further away from the two

“Big Mac, I… I agree,” said Cheerilee. “I had a few thoughts like that earlier too, and I don’t feel right about them. I just don’t think we should take our relationship in that way, especially after what happened today.”

“Honestly, I just want to forget all of what happened today.”

Another long pause took hold, leaving the breeze to fill the void. Finally, Cheerilee tried to continue the conversation, but only one word managed to make it out. “Agreed.”

“It’s getting late, so we should start moseying on back,” said Mac, lifting himself back to his hooves. He offered a hoof to Cheerilee, which she took. They started back towards the farm in silence, and she was more than content to let the crickets do the talking for the time being...

“Cheerilee? Hello?” Nook waved a hoof in front of Cheerilee’s face. She blinked, her mind rushing back to the present.

“Nook, I just realized something. Big Mac and I always avoided talking out how we felt about Hearts and Hooves Day!”

“What do you mean?” Nook asked, taking a seat on the couch next to Cheerilee.

“We only ever really talked about it once, and all we ever really got out in the open was that we both wanted to forget that it had ever happened.” Cheerilee leaned back into the couch, blowing a puff of air into her bangs.

“That’s it? It never came up after that?”

Cheerilee shook her head. “Never.”

Nook hummed to herself, examining a hoof thoughtfully. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Okay,” said Cheerilee. Nook surprised her by taking one of her hooves and looking her straight in the eyes.

“If you only see him as a friend, why do you think you feel this way?”

The question brought everything to a standstill. Cheerilee stared into Nook’s eyes for a few seconds before she looked away, pulling her hoof out of Nook’s grasp. She looked down at the floor, her ears splaying back.

Nook waited patiently for Cheerilee to mull over the question. Finally, after several minutes, Cheerilee looked back her way, which Nook took as the signal to proceed.

“Do you want to hear my advice?”

Cheerilee nodded. A faint whisper came from the teapot in the kitchen.

“Talk,” said Nook as if it was the simplest answer in the entire world. “Go talk to Big Mac, let him know that you feel this way. Don’t force things, but lay the whole situation bare.”

The tea kettle’s whistle grew more insistent, and Nook rose from her seat. “Heck, you don’t even know for sure if he really is going somewhere with Marble Pie. Maybe there’s a chance it could work out after all.”

“But I can’t just go up there and ask him about that! I don’t want him to get the idea that I’m trying to steal him away and then get him angry at me for trying!”

Nook shook her head fervently. “If you want to get this weight off of your shoulders, you’ll go talk to Big Mac. Even bad closure is better than no closure at all.” Nook walked towards the kitchen, “I‘ll be right back,” she said, exiting the room.

Cheerilee slowly leaned back into the sofa, letting its cushions support her weight entirely. She mulled over the idea of going to talk to Big Mac, and the mere thought made butterflies fill her stomach. A few nervous jitters made their way to her hooves as her heart fluttered.

There was no way she was going to be able to do it.

Cheerilee pushed the front door open, letting it swing unchecked until it hit the doorstop. She stepped into the foyer and draped her scarf on the hook before shuffling slowly into the kitchen, where she flipped on the lights with little enthusiasm.

She made her way to the fridge and pulled the door open, peering in with bleary eyes. She was after the one thing that had a remote chance at cheering her up: Chocolate Overload cake. She pushed the strategically placed fruits and vegetables to reveal her prize, which she carefully pulled out and set on the countertop before she closed the door with a kick of her hind leg.

She retrieved a fork from the drawer and took her cake to the small table that served as her personal eating space. The fork clinked on the plate as she set it down and she took a seat without much regard for being gentle to the furniture. With a single lunge, she scooted herself in and hunched over her dessert, resting one elbow on the table top. She picked up the fork with her hoof, making sure that it was firmly in the grasp of the magic in her hooves.

She peeled the foil wrapping back from the slice of cake, revealing it in the same glory it had been in the day before. The cake was quite generously cut, and though the chocolate shavings had migrated away from the surface, they still sat ready for enjoyment. The layers of mousse had stayed fresh, and the very thin layer that made up the bottom of the cake drew her attention. Cheerilee wondered what that part would be like.

No point sitting around wondering what it’s like. Cheerilee carved into it with her fork.. She caught a bit of the middle, the mousse, and most importantly, the curious base. She didn’t hesitate to take the bite once she had it.

“Mmmm! No wonder they call it Chocolate Overload!” Cheerilee exclaimed. That base layer seemed to be a chocolate cookie of some kind; crunchy, and it blended with the smooth cake and creamy mousse to create a wonderfully rich sensation of chocolatey splendor. As the taste of the first bite faded, Cheerilee found herself less distracted, and her thoughts circled back to the same loop they’d been making ever since she’d talked to Nook.

There’s no way in Equestria I can go talk to Big Macintosh about this. Cheerilee felt her face heat up again at just the thought, and took another bite of the incredibly rich cake to calm her nerves. There was no possible good outcome for that scenario. She would go to meet him, she would speak her mind, he would interpret it as an attempt to crush his budding relationship with Marble Pie, and then their friendship would be at the least strained, but more likely, it would be over.

I can’t risk it. His friendship is much more important to me than these impulsive feelings. Cheerilee had been through crushes before. They always passed in a few weeks if she didn’t decide to make a move on them. This too would pass if she was strong.

Weeks of feeling internal torment. Weeks of getting nervous every time I hear his name or see something related to him. Weeks of feeling jealous about his new relationship. Cheerilee took another bite of cake. Weeks of needing comfort food to help mitigate the stress.

Cheerilee had to fight the urge to drop her face into the cake. There was no way she was going to make it through and let this infatuation go by the wayside without it hurting her somehow other than just emotionally. I can either go talk to him, or I’ll gain ten pounds from the cake.

The Chocolate Overload cake suddenly looked a little less appetizing. More than half of it was left, so she covered it back over with the foil and rose from her seat. She pushed the cake into the first open space she saw in the fridge and dropped her fork in the sink on her way out of the kitchen. She climbed the stairs slowly, trudging her way to the top with heavy hooves.

At the top of the stairs, she turned to enter the bathroom, but stopped short of the doorway. Her line of sight came to rest on the bathroom door’s hinges, and another memory kicked itself loose…

“Hold it steady,” said Big Mac, holding the hammer tight in his teeth. Cheerilee held the door firmly, keeping a careful eye on how it was lined up. He dropped the hinge bolt into place on the top one, giving it two light taps that sent it down into place. He did the same with the middle and bottom hinges and then stepped back.

“E’yup, let’s try it out,” Mac said. After two hours of work, the moment of truth to see their efforts come to fruition was here. Cheerilee stepped back, letting the door stand under its own weight. Mac carefully placed a hoof in the center of the door and gave a gentle push. It swung silently on the well-oiled hinges, and it slid perfectly into place, the latch giving a resounding and satisfying click.

“It’s perfect!”

“Eeyup!”

Cheerilee pulled Big Mac into a hug, “Thank you so much, Mac!”

Big Macintosh chuckled, “Aww shucks, Cheerilee. It wasn’t no trouble. Always happy to help.”

Cheerilee broke the hug. “Are you sure that you don’t want me to give you some money for the work? I paid for materials, but it feels like I should reimburse you for your time.”

“Eenope,” Mac said, shaking his head. “I did this because you’re my friend, and friends help friends out.”

“Are you sure you don’t need something? I’d hate to not give something back.”

Big Mac shook his head again. “Nope, I’m sure.” He picked up his hammer from the sink, but immediately paused and set it back down. “Tell you what. If you really want to repay me, would you mind cooking us up something to eat? All that work made me hungry as a rabbit in a carrot patch.

“Sure! I’ll go get started on that right now!” Cheerilee pushed the lever down and opened the door, which swung so smoothly now that it fit the frame properly, and waltzed down the stairs, running ideas of what she could make through her head…

The memory faded, and Cheerilee blinked, finding herself staring at that same door. A part of her wished that Big Mac was still in that bathroom, gathering up his tools, there so she could just tell him how she felt and get it all over with.

As far as stallions go, he sure is something special. How many boys around town would spend an entire Saturday afternoon helping me fix up a sticking bathroom door? Cheerilee broke her stare from the bathroom and shifted it to the closet that was the second door down the short path towards the guest bedroom.

Something special was stashed in there.

She opened the closet, pulling a small folding step stool out and opening it up. She climbed the step, reaching up to the top shelf. She pulled a box down, taking care to not jostle it as she set it on the floor. She lifted the lid and there on the very top, laid carefully over a bed of books purchased from Princess Twilight herself, was the wedding veil she had worn on Hearts and Hooves Day. She picked up the delicate piece of fabric, letting it drape over one hoof as she caressed the beautifully intricate, personalized designs that only a seamstress of Rarity’s caliber could make on such short order.

Would I have kept this if I didn’t feel something for Big Mac deep down?

Cheerilee sat on the stool, admiring the piece of fabric for several minutes. She remembered all the times they’d shared like how she’d helped him harvest apples one day while Applejack was busy with some sort of business that the Map had called her to do. How he’d come over and had a visit with her parents one day while they were waiting for her to return from work; Her mother had given her a little bit of a ribbing over that as well. He’d been there for her birthday this last year, and she’d done the same for him. Every now and again they would just go out to some place in town to catch up and hang out a bit...

Cheerilee blinked, and she nearly dropped the veil as she realized where her thoughts were leading. Am I... falling in love with Big Macintosh?

She replaced the wedding veil into the box and returned it to its shelf. As she stepped down from the stool and put it back into the closet, Cheerilee finally resolved to do exactly as Nook had told her.

She was going to see tomorrow.

Author's Note:

If you remember me mentioning that this story takes place in the same universe as Learning Curve, then you know exactly who Nook is. This is the biggest reason that I recommend familiarity with LC in the story description. And no, she is not an OC! Here's her picture!