Still, Life

by MasterThief

III. I See A Darkness

The rain continued for the third straight night, banging against the tin roof of the house. Bright Mac steeled himself for the dangerous work he had to do.

But Buttercup wouldn’t let him.

“It’s too dangerous, Mac! The dam could give way at any second! No way you can be up there fixing things if it starts to go--”

Mac stamped a giant hoof on the floor. “If I don’t get that spillway gate open, all the Acre’s gonna be flooded. We’ll lose everything. The trees, the pens, the cider presses, the wagons. Everything. I can’t…”

He stopped when he saw Buttercup collapse the floor, tears streaming down her face, a hoof rubbing her belly protectively.

“I won’t let that happen. I promised I’d take care of you, whatever happens.”

“Mac…” Buttercup sobbed, pleading.

“A stallion has gotta provide for his family. Or... what’s his life worth?”

Papple’s words comin’ outta my mouth, Mac thought.

“Mac, all those things out there are just things!” Buttercup screamed. “We can always grow new trees and buy new things. But how are we supposed to go on if something happens to you?” She stifled another sob, rubbing her pregnant belly faster, as if the foal inside could sense something terribly wrong. “You… you told me you’d never leave.”

“You’re strong. You got Granny and Lil’ Mac. But they can’t open the valve. I gotta.” Mac tried to give her some comfort, but Buttercup was balled up and crying too hard, and time was short. So he put on his hat and opened the door.

“POPPA!” He heard AJ screaming at the top of her little lungs, tumbling down the stairs.

“AJ!” Mac turned around. “Yer supposed to be up in bed!”

Before he knew it, AJ had both her forehooves wrapped around her Poppa, as if she was trying to hold on to a fence post in a tornado. “Don’t go out there Poppa! Please don’t go, don’t go, don’t go!!!”

Mac turned around. “Daddy’s gotta go do some work. But I’ll be safe, I promise. I’ll be back soon. Now you just go on up ta bed and I’ll see you in the mornin’.”

“No you won’t!” AJ shrieked, with a force and a fear that rattled Mac to his core. She looked up into his eyes, and he saw the sheer desperation in them. AJ’s face flushed and her jaw trembled. He’d never seen her like this.

Mac closed the door to stop the rain from getting in. Then he knelt down in front of her. “What’s wrong, sugarcube?”

“I had a bad dream that you wen’ out in the storm and ya never came back and when they finally found ya you were dead and we had a big funeral and then momma got sad and real sick and something happened and momma died ‘cause of the baby an’ we were just all left alone and it was so hard an’ I missed you so darn much every single night and–” Young AJ’s nightmares poured out at ten country miles a minute before she simply dissolved in inconsolable tears. Mac stroked his daughter’s mane, and she looked up at him, a glimmer in her eyes. “Please Poppa… don’ leave us.”

It was as if Mac saw his daughter’s vision, foggy, but unmistakable.

For the first time in as long as he could remember, he was afraid.

“Shhh…” he shushed his baby filly, stroking her back. “Okay, okay. You win. Poppa ain’t goin nowhere tonight. Not until daylight.”

He felt his voice cracking. Then Buttercup with her hooves around him, also quietly crying, but with strange tears of thanks. Mac picked up his still-inconsolable daughter, and laid her on the couch. He tossed his hat on the rack and pulled off his poncho, then sat down next to her. She nuzzled close in his lap. Buttercup never strayed more than inches away from him.

They all fell asleep on that couch, to the sound of the rain beating on the tin roof.

---

The dam indeed failed that night, and two-thirds of Sweet Apple Acres was under withers-deep water at first light. The dam, the spillway, the sluice gate, were all simply gone. The basement of the house, the barns, and the cider pressing house were all flooded. The pig pens and the chicken coops had been carried away, with only fence posts and a few beams jutting out of the ground at odd angles where they had been.

Two days later, two engineers came out to look at the damage. Mac followed as they walked around what remained of the dam, chunks of concrete thrown around like children’s building blocks.

“I thought about going up there when the storm hit, tryin’ ta open the emergency spillway according to the instructions,” He said.

The lead engineer just shook his head. “Doubt it would have made a difference with how much water was behind there in the reservoir. Even if you had gotten it open, you’d have been swept away when it was overtopped.”

Mac didn’t tell anyone else that part.

Since it was all from the flood, none of the family’s insurance that Mac had so conscientiously paid up for years would cover any of the damage. The one saving grace was that the flood waters hadn’t come up to the leaves and the fruit of their trees. There would still be a harvest this year, albeit a lean one. The soil, of course, would be waterlogged, and the longer the floodwaters stayed up the more likely rot would set in and the trees would have to come down anyway. All the Apple Family could do was wait, and hope, and pray.

---

It took a week, but the waters did recede.

But their work was only beginning

As soon as they were able, Mac and Lil’ Mac and Granny and even young AJ and even Buttercup herself were out there buckin’ every last apple they could and pressing as much cider as they could make. Mac was used to the 18 hour days, but he saw the toll it was taking on Buttercup most of all, her belly growing with each passing day and bitterly fighting fatigue.

And yet, no matter how many times Mac or Granny told her to rest, she said that she was fine.

“It’s gotta be done, and its gotta be done now,” she said. “We’ll just deal with the rest when it comes.”

Finally, it was done. Mac sold almost everything they had harvested and then some, but even then it was going to be a hard winter. Lil’ Mac took things in stride, even asking Mac if he could get a paper route in town to raise extra bits. He overheard AJ telling Buttercup she’d be fine without a Hearth’s Warming that year. One night, Granny came to him with a bag of bits and said it was “for the family,” that she had sold some old knick-knacks that were just taking up space, but he soon noticed that her silver brush set was gone and nowhere to be seen.

All Mac could do was work outside, try to keep as many of the trees alive and safe from rot as he could.

He ended up selling much more firewood than he wanted.

---

It was three weeks past Hearth’s Warming, in the middle of the night, when he awoke to find Buttercup in terrible pain, panting and groaning.

“What’s wrong, Buttercup? Is it time?”

“Mac…” she panted. “Just… get yer mother. Please.”

Mac did as his wife asked. His mother told her to give them some privacy and get some rest, and said he could take her bed for the night.

He was awoken two hours later.

“Mac. Mac, there’s… something wrong. Foal’s in the wrong position. I’m gonna ring for an ambulance. I need you to go in there and keep her calm and breathing.”

Mac saw the streaks of blood on his mother’s hoof. He went straight for his wife, who was lying on her side, panting.

“I just heard. Don’t you worry,” he said. “There’s an ambulance a comin’ for you. But I’m here now. Just keep breathin.’”

Buttercup said nothing. But she smiled faintly. He took his hoof in hers.

“Guess I shouldn’t have tried to out-work you,” she whispered.

The ambulance came a half-hour later, and Mac and Granny watched as two burly pegasi medics placed buttercup onto a stretcher and flew her down the stairs.

“We can only take one family member,” they said.

Granny nodded. “He’s the husband. Take him.”

One look from his mother, and Bright Mac did as he was told.

The weather outside was bitter cold, and the ambulance cart wasn’t insulated. Mac sat beside Buttercup the whole way, squeezing her hoof and trying to keep her breathing slow and steady, even as pains wracked her. When he arrived at the hospital, he watched as doctors took Buttercup away. He gave her one last kiss.

“It’ll be over soon, Buttercup. You’ll be a mama again.”

Buttercup nodded. “Thank you, Mac.”

“Your wife’s in good hands, Mr. Mac,” said the unicorn doctor, interrupting. We’ve got this. Just stay in the hospital. We’ll come find you when we have news.”

Mac was left there, alone. So went and got a muffin, then sat in the waiting room, for hours until he fell asleep.

He was awoken again, byt the same doctor, and a unicorn nurse shaking him roughly, with urgent looks in their eyes. “Wh--what’s happened? Did Buttercup have the foal?”

“She did, your daughter was born half an hour ago.” The doctor’s lack of smile told Mac all he needed to know.

“Oh, no… Buttercup? The baby?” He asked.

“The baby’s fine, but your wife… there’s been a complication. It was a breech birth and she experienced a hemorrhage. We’re taking her into surgery to stop the bleeding, but…” the doctor sighed. “Unless we can give her a transfusion of compatible blood-”

Mac stood up, as tall as he could get. “Take mine. As much as you need.”

The doctor gritted his teeth. “Sir, I’m afraid it’s not that simple.”

Mac snorted. “The hell it ain’t. I’m ACQ-negative. So’s she. We’re compatible.” The doctor looked at him. Mac looked back, resolute. “Just because I’m a farmer doesn’t mean I don’t know my own life sciences. We ain’t dumb, we just work for a livin’.”

The doctor sized him up. “All right. Nurse, get Mister Mac here typed and cross-matched. If he’s a match, prep him for donor transfusion in OR-4. We’re gonna have to do it live.”

It wasn’t long before Mac had a big bandage on his hoof from the first draw, and was being wheeled into an operating room.

“...Mac?” He heard Buttercup’s voice, faintly. He looked over, and saw Buttercup, turned to face him. Her face was ashen, pale as Death herself.

“I’m here, Buttercup,” Mac said. “Heard you might need some help.”

“Mac… our daughter… I…” she whispered. “I’m so tired…”

Mac reached out, and took her hoof as he felt the transfusion needle go into his neck. “I’m right here, honey. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

He heard her sigh contentedly. “I thought it was my time…”

He squeezed her hoof. “Not today, my precious Pear. I’m with you, and I’m not going anywhere.”

Mac saw her wince as the transfusion needle went into her neck, then the blood flowing down with gravity. “What’s… what’s going on,” she asked, her eyes glassy.

“Doc said you just needed some extra blood. That’s all.”

“... oh,” she said. “I… tired.”

Mac kept squeezing her hoof. “You don’t sleep now, honey. Don’t sleep. I’m here.”

On the far side of the drapes, Mac could hear steel clicking and clanking, suction, squishing noises, all mixed in with his wife’s soft moans and rattling breathing.

He kept squeezing her hoof. “You stay with me,” he kept repeating. “You stay with me…”

---

Mac felt himself floating, out of his body, out of time, out of mind. He was seeing… something. Voices all around him, muffled, mostly indistinct. What he saw, he saw as through glass, darkly.

He saw himself wrapped around and pinned under a tree trunk, his eyes open and tongue bloated. In the distance, he heard screams.

He saw his mother, Buttercup, Little Mac, and Applejack, looks of despair upon all of them. Buttercup falling to the ground with a loud, keening wail.

He saw them all dressed in mourning black, alongside Burnt Oak, Chiffon Swirl, the mayor, the preacher.

He saw a coffin lowered into the ground under the tree… under their trees.

He heard Buttercup wailing in pain, a baby’s cry. The words massive blood loss and systemic organ failure and you should say your goodbyes now.

He heard more wailing, more sobbing. Little Applejack, crying hardest of all.

He saw another funeral, another gathering of ponies in mourning black, another coffin lowered into the ground, beside what he knew what was his own resting place.

Then, years upon years of memories, sad ones, empty ones, ones of pain and heartache, words like why did they go Granny and what happened and I miss them so much.

And then he heard one, last, sonorous, booming, thunderous, determined, voice.

NO.

---

Mac was awoken, again. He gasped, filled his lungs with air (was it air?), felt his hooves and head and tail flailing about.

“Mr. Macintosh. Bright Mac!” He heard the voice. It was a mare’s, but unfamiliar, and yet, and yet…

Mac opened his eyes. The world was unfocused. A light shined in one of his eyes, then the other.

“Come back to us, Bright Mac, you’re OK.”

Mac gasped again. “Buttercup… how…”

“She’s fine,” the voice said. “She’s fine. She’s out of surgery. She made it. We just almost lost you.”

Mac slowed his breathing. “What… happen…”

“Before we realized it, you’d lost about nearly half the blood in your body. You’re a damned superhero, Mister Mac!”

Mac looked around, or tried to. He was still in the hospital. There were IV’s going into his neck. He felt like a barrel that had been drained to the dregs, being refilled one drop of rainwater at a time.

He looked over, and saw his mother. “Mama… I think I’m all right. You mind Buttercup, I’ll be all right–”

He felt something backside his head, and yelped.

“That was the most durn foolish thing you ever did!” He heard his mother’s voice through tears. “We almost lost you.”

“Almost…” Mac wheezed. “Just… just not quite.” Then he felt his mother’s embrace.

“Don’t you dare leave me like that,” she whispered.

Before Mac passed out, yet again, a stray thought entered his mind.

You have been given a second chance.