> Fear & Loving In Sweet Apple Acres
>  by Alicia Van Hammer
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Chapter 1
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The living room door slammed open with a violent crash.

It had been a fairly calm and typical afternoon on the Apple family  farmhouse. The youngest sibling, Apple Bloom had sat herself down for a  late breakfast of pancakes and syrup. Apple-bucking season had already  wound down and her chores for the day could wait until later in the  afternoon so she had decided to sleep in a bit for once and have a nice  relaxing morning. 

That was until now. 

Startled, Apple Bloom looked up from her stack of pancakes to see her  elder sister, Applejack angrily stomp her way into the kitchen. 

The orange earth pony stared dead ahead, her brown stetson low on her  brow as she plowed forward like a wounded bear trailing the hunter what  done it.

From the living room came a familiar, high-pitched, raspy voice, shouting in strained tones. 

"Applejack Wait!" shouted Rainbow Dash. The sky blue pegasus trotted  briskly, catching up to her friend. Her brow was knit in  confusion. Repeatedly, she called out to her friend. "I said  Wait!" "A.J.?" "A.J.?!"

Apple Bloom looked up with fearful concern. She had never seen her  sister in such a state- and considering the myriad of strange and scary  adventures they'd shared over the years, that was really saying  something. She set down her forkful of pancakes. "Applejack? What's  goin' on?"

If her elder sister heard her, she gave no response, glaring away to  some HIGHLY offensive unseen presence and furiously thumping a hoof  against the floor.

"Applejack?!" Rainbow Dash shouted. "Come On... Please?!"

Apple Bloom looked from the familiar pegasus to her sister and back  again. The air between the two old friends was generally so warm,  caring, almost loving. Even at their most competitive, their rivalry  still held an air of joviality, akin more to siblings or maybe  schoolyard one-upmareship. Now it felt alien and very cold, dangerously  so, as if any moment something unthinkable might erupt. Apple Bloom  felt a pang of fear building in her gut, like something sharp and  venomous. Whatever had happened, her sister was clearly beside herself  with fury.

"Sis? What're ya doin'-" 

Applejack turned to her sharply, like a cornered animal. Her glare cut  into her little sister like a choppin' axe in her growling voice. 

"Stay OUT of it, Apple Bloom! This ain't none a'yer bizness!"

Apple Bloom visibly shrank under the baleful shouting, cowering into  silent submission. As siblings, they had fought, to be certain. On the  right topic, the whole Apple clan might tussle into an old-fashioned  slobberknocker. Such in-family brawls, sibling rivalry and good-natured  airing of grief was pretty average fare on the farm but Applejack had  never rounded on her like that before, never with such anger, such hate  in her eyes. It very nearly brought her to tears.

Rainbow Dash was in the kitchen with them now, her eyes pleading with  her best friend holding all the same desperation of her cracking  voice. The cyan pegasus was panting, catching her breath. "Applejack?!"

Applejack didn't respond. She only stood still and leaned against the counter of the sink with a heavy, exasperated sigh.

"A.J.? What'd I do?!"

Applejack didn't turn to face her friend. She hung her head, lips  pursed in a stiff, angry frown, framed by the hanging locks of her  mussed blonde mane like a lion brooding over it's kill. 

"A.J...." Rainbow stopped, standing cautiously by the breakfast table,  several feet away from her friend. With a tremble, her own lips began  to quiver as she pleaded. "Please..." 

Applejack's hoofs balled up like hammers on the countertop as her voice  came out in a whispered growl. "Why'd you have to go and do that..."

Rainbow's brow knit in anguish and fearful confusion. "What did I DO? What did I SAY? PLEASE, A.J.?"

Applejack banged her hoof on the countertop, shaking several plates and  causing a few pieces of silverware to clatter and clang in a hazardous  tumble to the kitchen floor. "You know DURN Well Whut you done SAID,  Rainbow."

Rainbow Dash's lips worked up to the empty shape of a "W". She was too  shaken to form the "what?" she desired. The best she could manage was  to mouth the word helplessly as she stared at her friend, fighting back  the tears as they desperately clawed from the insides of her eyelids.

Applejack glared at Rainbow Dash. Her normally pleasant, down-home  cordiality was nowhere to be seen. She was nothing more than a bubbling  cauldron of frustration, outrage and barely-contained anger. She began  to speak but the words got caught in her throat, descending into a  growl of frustration and finally exploding outward. "Just....  RrrraAAUGH!!" She threw up both hooves, shaking in her restrained fury.

All the commotion seemed to have finally drawn in the Apple Family's  eldest sibling, "Big" Macintosh. The large red earth pony tromped down  the stairs with the heavy hoofbeats of his massive frame. His normally  impassive expression was now as much a mask of panicked confusion and  familial concern as anything. "Now, whut in cousin Apple-Bottom Jeans'  jambalayah is goin' ON down here? I could hear ya'll shoutin' clean  upstairs while a'hammerin' on th'ROOF!"

Applejack whirled on her brother, lips curled into a snarl, her green  eyes once more as sharp as a boot-knife. "YEW stay out a'this, Big Mac!"  

The red earth pony was shocked into silence. Moments ago he had been  atop the Apple family home, hammering away at repairing some damage done  during the last particularly raucous Apple-family "Cider-fest and  Watermelon-hunkin' Competition" when all the shouting had caught his  attention. With the Element of Honesty for a sister, he was accustomed  to some degree of insanity in his life, so he'd learned to take the  strange and often other-worldly parts of her life in stride. Monsters,  curses and evil magics had all become almost the norm for him. He  wasn't sure what he had expected to find when he came downstairs but  this was definitely not it. He looked to Rainbow Dash as she stared  helplessly, eyes silently pleading with his younger sister. "Rainbow,  did y'all two get into a faight r'sumthin?"

Applejack stomped at the ground hard enough to cause Apple Bloom's  breakfast plate to clatter and toppled the salt and pepper shakers from  their cozy perch in the middle of the family breakfast table. The  middle Apple sibling was not only the Element of Honesty but also the  inheritor of the ancient Element of Strength- a fact which was  frighteningly clear at the moment. Apple Bloom whimpered and scooted  back in her chair at the display. 

Applejack pursed her lips and lowered her tone. "Mac, it ain't yer oats  ta stir... Keep yer snoot outta it or I swear, I'll buck you so hard  Sugar Belle will be pickn' yer rump outta my hoofs till next week!"

Mac gasped, aghast, horrified. He and his sister had had their  squabbles and spats before as any family is want to do but this was  something else entirely. "Applejack! There ain't NO call fer that  kinda talk! What the HAY has gotten inta you?"

Something in his tone seemed to quell her rage. "Big" Macintosh was  known for his stoic, calm, good-natured demeanour and reserved  character. He was a source of stability and an anchor for his family at  their hardest of times. Meeting the disappointment in his eyes as he  stopped at the bottom of the stairs, Applejack took a deep breath and  relaxed her baleful glare. With a disdainful snoft, she turned away to  rest on her elbows against the counter again, giving only a sidelong  glance to the others in the room.

Rainbow Dash took a step forward. "A.J., Please... Can't we just talk about this?"

The orange mare was silent, giving no response but the air of ice and  ancient war hammers in every breath, turning the cozy country kitchen  into something which felt every bit as dangerous as a minefield. 

Rainbow took another few steps forward. "A.J.? Look, I'm sorry, okay? I... I didn't mean to-"

Applejack cut her off. Her voice was low and even, but every bit as  powerful as the stomp which shook the room mere seconds ago. "Why'd you  have to go an' say that...?"

Rainbow Dash stopped, now only a few feet from her friend. "Say WHAT? ... That I LOVE you?"

Applejack's brow creased. She stumbled as if stabbed through her chest  by an invisible spear, tightly shutting her eyes and biting on her lip  to contain the pained response.

Rainbow continued, touching a hoof to her chest, as if in a gesture of promise "Because I DO, A.J.!"

Apple Bloom rallied, trying to mount a cheer and bring some levity back  into the room. Her spunky optimism and joyful smile had often  brightened the darkest hour. Tentatively, the little mare pumped a hoof  in celebration of the announcement. "Yeah! I knew it! Right on,  Sis!"

Her elder sibling spun about on her with a snarl. "Apple Bloom, I told you ta shut yer dadburned fool MOUTH!"

Apple Bloom cowered back into her chair again, her lips curling and quivering. She was now on the verge of tears.

Big Mac stepped forward and puffed out his chest, his massive frame made  even more imposing by the yoke harness he was almost never seen  without. The roan stallion was easily as large as any guard in Princess  Celestia's private forces and he let all the bass in his barrel of a  chest out as he barked at his sister "APPLE JACK, that is ENOUGH!"

The siblings bristled at each other like two angry dogs on opposite sides of a fence. "Now what is this all about?"

The two ponies traded eyes for several tense seconds of  silence. Finally it was Rainbow Dash who broke the chill in the air  with a tentative step closer to her best friend. "Applejack, please...  Why won't you just say it?"

"WHY?!" The indignance in her voice was practically tangible in the  air. "Yew wanna know wh-" She cut herself off mid-sentence and pursed  out her lips again with a heavy exhale before continuing. 

"Because I DON'T!"

Rainbow froze, seemingly cut through her very heart. The normally  proud, puffed-up and pompous pegasus, pride of The Wonderbolts was  little more now than a marionette, clinging to the last of it's strings  in a struggle to remain upright. The rest of her frayed support cables  invisibly crashed to the floor around her.

"Ah DON'T love you, Rainbow. There, ya happy? I said it." 

Applejack glared at Dash, her best friend since foal-hood. Her green  eyes were rimmed in stinging redness. "NOW will yuh just shut up an  leave me be?!"

The room was silent as Rainbow's eyes teared over. She made no  noise. She made no motion. Something inside her had clearly stumbled  and staggered, crumpling up like discarded paper and tumbling to the  floor but the lithe muscles of her cyan body had yet to catch up with  it. Her ruby eyes were wide as each one produced a single tear, loosing  them to trickle along her cheeks like tiny blades of ice, melting away  from a dying winter scene.

Apple Bloom and Big Mac were both silent, stunned, incapable of words or  motion. The two siblings stood helplessly, unable to conceal the pity  as they watched the unstoppable Rainbow Dash collapse inside. 

Rainbow lowered her head and slowly shut her eyes. The wet pressing of  her lashes cut free several more tears which plummeted to the tile of  the kitchen floor. In the silence, their impact was audible, the same  soft patter of a cat alighting upon a windowsill, or a heart breaking  into a million jagged, irrepairable fragments. 

There are moments in some lives- moments of extreme duress- in which  silence can actually be described as 'deafening'. It was in one of  these moments that they now stood, a roomful of hearts too raw and ready  for war to do a damned thing.

Seconds passed in this accursed moment.

Minutes.

They were all transfixed, frozen in the morass of emotion without reason or name.

Finally, it was the most bizarre and out of place sounds which cut into the tension of the air- 

A snicker. 

From beneath the disheveled mass of of her spikey mane of brilliant  colours, Rainbow Dash gave a chuckle. Her lips turned slightly upwards  and she sniffled back the ice-wind pain of her tears. She coughed,  sputtered and looked up with an almost wicked expression, tainted only  slightly with what might be the expectation of triumph...

"Eheh... Y- ...you're a terrible liar, A.J..."

Applejack's eyes went wide. She set her chin as some of the colour drained from her freckled cheeks. "Ah AIN'T Lyin'!"

Apple Bloom whispered in agonized disbelief "Applejack..."

Her elder sister pounded a hoof on the countertop, sending a glass to  tumble to the floor and shatter. "AH DON'T LOVE You, Rainbow!" Her  voice cracked around the edges, losing some of it's baleful outrage in a  trade for something only slightly less confident. "I DON'T!"

Apple Bloom spoke up, her voice a tiny, frightened thing, barely more  than a whisper but it carried with it the strength and purity of the  kind of truth only a child could ever muster the courage to speak. "We  all know that ain't true, sis... Why'd you say that? ...lookit how yer  hurtin' her..."

Applejack looked from one face to the other. Rainbow's spiky mane of  many colours was a mess, even moreso than usual. Her red eyes were  fiery, somehow as defiant as they were tired, the whole of her tear-streaked face, that face she'd known since foal-hood was... "No. No, I  DON'T." Her bottom lip hinted at the motion of curling inward, if only  for a fraction of a second. "I... I don't... Know. No. No- I..."

Something inside her returned to it's seat and gripped the reigns firmly once more. She stood straight, bowed up and resolute.  Digging in her hooves, she glared at  Rainbow, wheeling about on her. "Git out!" pointing a hoof at the  door. "Just... go. Git outta mah house."

Big Mac looked between the two mares. He was about to speak up again  when Rainbow Dash cut him off. Jaw set, she turned up to look back to  her friend. In a firm, even intonation of her gravelly voice she  spoke. 

"No."

Applejack staggered as if she were a giant, forehead struck by the sling-stone of legend. "Whut?"

"NO." Rainbow matched her friend's stance, back firm and strong, bowed up and ready for the fight. 

"I'm not going anywhere until you tell me why!"

Applejack stomped towards her, her earth pony element of strength was  showing as her hoofsteps shook the walls and caused two family portraits  to loosen and clatter to the floor. "Git... OUT..."

"NOT. UNTIL. YOU. TELL... ME... WHY!"

Rainbow Dash did not move. 

Applejack stopped a hoof's-reach away from Rainbow Dash, eyes narrowed and ferocious. "Ah sed... git OUT, Rainbow."

Rainbow Dash did not so much as flinch.

Applejack's lip began to quiver. Her voice was becoming more of a steely whispered threat now. "Giddout..."

Rainbow remained resolute. Her ruby-red eyes returned every inch of the intensity of her best friend's fury.

Applejack's voice began to crack, her cheeks visibly heating up.  "Rainbow..." The orange earth pony's breath began to become laboured.

"Applejack...?" Rainbow Dash uttered- the intensity and defiance in her  voice replaced with concern as she watched her dearest friend begin to  crack and fray at the edges. 

"W- whah'd you have to say that...?" the redness around the edges of the apple-farmers eyes began to gloss with wetness.

"WHAT? That I LOVE YOU?!"

Applejack visibly recoiled, as sure as if Rainbow Dash had struck her.

"I love you, A.J."

"STOP IT!" With a shout, Applejack pushed her friend away, slamming the  much lighter pegasus into the wall. Apple Bloom shrieked and leapt out  of the way. Rainbow Dash groaned, staggered and rose to her hooves. 

"No... I... I love you..." Rainbow Dash took a few staggered steps towards her lifelong friend.

Applejack shook her head as if in total disbelief and began to sob. "no..."

Rainbow Dash approached her with an increasing confidence, struggling to contain her own tears. "I love you."

"Shut up..."

"I love you. Applejack..."

"Shut UP..." There was no longer anger in her voice- only pleading now, desperation. "No... no..."

Big Mac and Apple Bloom watched the old friends in stunned silence,  neither knowing what to do. As the two mares made their way across the  kitchen, Big Mac made his way to Apple Bloom, hugging her close to the  shield of his protective strength.

Rainbow approached Applejack with hooves outstretched, beckoning and  open. The scene was almost a mirror-opposite of the vicious intensity of  mere minutes ago as Rainbow moved with a slow, steady  confidence. Applejack was now almost whimpering, backing away from her  dearest friend since school-filly days, shaking her head and sobbing. "I  love you, Applejack..."

"Shut UP, Rainbow... PLEASE just shut up..." The tears made muddy  trails down her face, small streams between the rocky soil of her  freckled orange cheeks.

"I've always loved you..."

As Applejack backed into the kitchen counter Rainbow reached out to touch her oldest and best friend's cheek.

"I've always loved you... and..." She swallowed hard, adjusting the  angle of her neck to meet the bleary sobbing eyes of her friend.  "...and... you've... you've loved ME ...too..."

"No!" Applejack's sobs shook her entire body. "no... no... no..." She  nuzzled into the cyan mare's touch and squeezed Rainbow Dash's hoof with  her own in a vice-like grip which sent arcs of pain along the whole of  the weather-mare's spine. She bit her lip and rode out the  pain. Applejack covered her face with her free hoof beneath the  bedraggled mess of her blonde mane and the brim of her ever-present  stetson hat. Seeing her beloved in such duress, Rainbow Dash was barely  managing to contain her own tears as she continued.

"I love you A.J... Why won't you say it?"

"No... Rainbow..." Applejack's voice was a tiny shrill thing, squeaking out between her tears.

"Why, A.J.?"

"I CAIN'T!"

"Why?"

Finally, at long last, the dam seemed to break, her words coming out as a  tidal wave of violent, raw emotions she could no longer  contain. "BECAUSE! Because if yew love me like Ah've always loved yew  then Ah'm gonna hold yuh- and ah'm gonna kiss yuh- and we'll get  married... and I'll only love yuh more and more every day because yer  the most beautiful mare ah've EVER seen and the ONLY mare I've ever  LOVED!"

Apple Bloom wept quietly for her sister now, gently sobbing into the  strong arms of her elder brother. Big Macintosh stared, taking in the  scene in wide-eyed shock. He did his best to choke back his own tears  for his sister.

The room remained respectfully silent except for the racked sobs and shrill screams of Applejack's cries. 

"And we'll have a MESS of adorable little babies and Ah'll love'em AWL  'cuz they'll awl be beautiful, just like yew an' Ah'll be happier n'  happier ev'ry day Ah come home from buckin' the orchard just tah see yew  in owr home- ev'ry day... until the day Ah find yuh- and yer GONE!"

The gathered ponies were stunned into a cold, numbing pain.

"Just like MOM and DAD..."

Applejack rubbed at her eyes, wiping the drizzle of snot from her  face. "... an' I'll have to tell awl our little babies Why yer... why  their momma is gone... n' y'ain't naiver comin' back... "

Applejack's tears came like rain as she gasped for breath between  sobs. "Or even worse..." She looked up to meet Rainbow's own teary  eyes with shameful remorse. "Ah'LL be th'one ta go, an' leave YOU awl  alone ta carry on without me..."

Applejack choked and coughed, her body wracked with the agonizing effort  of fighting back her sobs. Slowly, she shook her head, meeting her  friend's teary-eyes at long last in an honest, loving gaze. "Ah... I  couldn't live with myself... knowin' I'd hurt you like that...  Rainbow... not you..."

Almost as one, the two mares reached up with their free hoofs to stroke  at each other's cheeks. The tender touch drew a smile from both of their  faces which trailed into a gentle, if nervous, moment of shared  laughter. They each studied the vision of tears and genuine, emotion  uncovered and unabashed, before them now, as if finally seeing their  friend for who they truly were for the first time in their lives and  being amazed by the beauty of what was before them. 

Applejack looked sidelong to her brother and sister with a spark of shame. She had behaved horribly and she knew it.

However, as she made motion to speak her apology Big Macintosh raised a  hoof to shush her into silence again. Their eyes met in the wordless  communication of siblings. No words were needed. Big Mac  understood. They were family. They all knew what had been done and  there would be time enough for apologies later. Right now, this was a  moment between them- her and her marefriend- one that had been a LONG  time coming.

Applejack gave a small noise of surprise as Rainbow Dash applied a  gentle push to guide her friend's gaze back to her. "A.J.... You know  what finally gave me the guts to tell you how I feel?"

Applejack looked to Rainbow's big, imploring, rose-red eyes. She had  finally recovered enough to offer up her usual smirk, if a bit of a  tired one. "Twilight?" offered the farm-pony with a wet sniffle. "It's  always Twilight."

"Nope." Rainbow Dash shook her head with a grin. "Pinkie Pie."

"Pinkie?" She laughed, a little incredulous. "Whut's that sweet little goofball have ta do with anythin'?"

Rainbow held her gaze with a far more earnest and open expression than  Applejack had ever seen from her dear friend. "I... I told her that I  was afraid of telling you what I've felt all these years because I was  afraid of..." Rainbow choked on the words, struggling through the final  lingering remnants of her decades of fears to at long last give them  form.

"Maybe it would be getting BLASTED by Tirek... or maybe getting eaten up  by The Smooze... or maybe it'd just... be some accident in a  Wonderbolts air-show... but whatever it would be... one of us would be  gone... and then whoever was left behind would be all alone again...  only they'd be hurting in a way like they'd NEVER hurt before." The  blue pegasus gave her best friend's hoof a squeeze. "No matter how  badly I wanted... THIS... I couldn't imagine hurting you like that,  A.J...."

It was Applejack's turn to be shocked into momentary silence now. It  had never occurred to her that not only could Dash feel the same about  her but also that she might share in her fears. She blinked a few times  before clearing her throat and continuing. "So...whut'd she say to  that...?"

"She laughed."

In a single, sharp, crisp-cut motion, Applejack's voice dropped an octave as a single eyebrow raised. 

"Whut?"

Rainbow sniffled and coughed out a nervous chuckle at her friend's  display. "She LAUGHED at me... told me I was being silly." Rainbow  Dash raised a hoof in pantomime. "She said that being sad because the  party would have to end was the WORST reason to EVER miss out on a  party... but it was the BEST reason to make sure you DIDN'T miss out on a  party."

Applejack's eyes scanned away, drinking in the surprising wisdom Pinkie was capable of.  Her drying cheeks warmed up again into a soft blush. "...yeah... I s'pose thet's true..."

Rainbow drew her attention back again. "A.J... I don't want to miss out on this anymore... on US. I LOVE you..." 

Something about her touch, the way she held Applejack's hoof felt  different now. The way Rainbow Dash held her friend's hoof was no  longer the touch of a friend. There was something tender in it,  yearning yet giving. This was the firm, yet gentle, caress of a  lover. 

"A.J., could we PLEASE start over and have another try at this...?"

Applejack smiled sheepishly and gave a tentative nod. Looking into Rainbow's face her eyes were somehow bigger and greener than they'd ever been.

"Applejack... I love y-"

"Rainbow, would yew just shut up and kiss me?"

Rainbow smiled brightly and leaned forward.

Taking the orange farm-pony in her hooves, she pulled her  close. Applejack offered no resistance, clasping her own hooves around  her friend as their lips finally met. It was an awkward kiss but what  it missed in technique and experience it more than made up for in the  depth of passion. The two friends were finally giving each other the  physical expression of what they'd hidden for years and it was  positively electric, burning streaks of pure, fiery joy down the backs  of their necks, along the lengths of their spines and blazing trails  through the pits of their stomachs, each holding a curious new hunger  and an unspoken promise that they would soon explore further. 

After several warm, wet, wonderful seconds of their lips dancing  together, kneading and tasting the sweet joy denied for FAR too long,  they parted, pulling away only far enough to rest their foreheads  against each other and look deeply into the eyes of their love. Almost  immediately, the tears came once more. These were not the icy-hot  daggers of anguish from before. These were the strange and silly tears  of joy, finally allowed to run free from two caged hearts, their love  set loose to find it's twin in the partner they'd always dreamed of.

"I love you Apple Jack..." Rainbow chuckled, swallowing as she said the  words. It felt good to say them, as good as it did to hear herself  saying them and to see the smile on her paramour's face upon hearing  them. She looked deeply into Applejack's eyes- her lifelong friend,  now, her beloved. The soft yet robust tones of sweet summer grass had  taken on a deeper, lush emerald hue as the two mares held each  other. She could spend all day in those eyes- and now, she had every  intention of doing so.

"Ah love yew too, Rainbow..." Applejack licked her lips and beamed, her  freckled cheeks growing almost as rosy as the ruby eyes of her dearly  beloved pegasus. It felt good, so very good, to be honest again and say  what she'd truly needed to. "Awl Ah've ever wanted, Rainbow... was a  sweet little farm to call our own... and you tuh share it with..."

She sniffled back her tears before pressing another tender kiss to Rainbow's lips.

"And a few dozen little'uns runnin' 'round underhoof tah love on..."

The two mares laughed and kissed again. Rainbow Dash hugged her dearly  beloved Applejack tightly with an ear-to-ear grin and draped her wings  around her like a feathery halo.

"MAYBE we can start with just the one, okay? After we see how bad we can screw that one up, we'll talk..."


--fin--