Cherry Berry followed nurse Redheart down the hallway. "Mr. Trails will probably want to see you to know you're alright," said Redheart, pushing a cart of patient care supplies as they went.

"Yeah, at least relatively okay," said Cherry. Her right front leg was in a weight-bearing cast. Her neck was also in a supporting brace, giving her stride a bit of a hitch. The pain for her was aggravating but bearable for a week or so. Thinking of her own injuries made her anxious to see how Contrail was doing. He had to have had it much worse, she though. Well of course he did have it worse; he went down with his aeroplane. Actually he went down with both their aeroplanes. She had bailed out of her's, her parachute softening her fall but not soon enough to prevent a bit of pain. But what he did after that with his plane. And all the fire from the treeline as she was being rushed to the hospital...

"Here we are, Miss Berry," said the nurse optimistically as they reached the door, "now just remember to be calm and please try not to excite him too much. He really needs to stay relaxed and rest in his condition, but I think you two seeing each other might make things a bit easier while you're staying here."

Cherry nodded and smiled. On the inside she was terrified. While nurse Redheart opened the door and pulled her cart inside, Cherry's mind raced over what she would say to him. She needed to apologize for her stubborn showponyship. Would he even listen? What will he say? Will he let her be his flight partner again? Will he even be able to fly again? Walk again? Do anything again?---

"Miss Berry? He is awake. You should come in and say hello," Redheart beckoned from the room. Building as much courage as she could muster, Cherry awkwardly strolled inside, her eyes glancing down to make up for not being able to put her head down. She was afraid to look at the one occupied bed in the room.

"There she is Mr. Trails. She's a little battered but will be out in no time," the nurse said cheerily as she began to prepare her care materials. Cherry was still frightened to look up, but was surprised to not hear a response from Contrail. The lack of his voice made her startled enough to look up at his bed. As soon as she did, she had wished she had not.

Without Nurse Redheart telling her, she would have recongnized Contrail by his evergreen eyes. Everything else from ears to back hooves was coated in hard plaster bandages, The grey fur around his eyes and nostrils was all that showed through his massive casts. His mouth was completely plastered over, making it painfully obvious why he wasn't responding. He was propped upright in his bed by assorted pillows. Pulleys and slings holding up all four of his plastered limbs in a spread out formation, and his muzzle rested on a puffy neck brace. An IV dripped what was probably a painkiller into a small hole in the plaster in his front leg. The most striking feature of his traction was a puffy pink diaper around his bandaged waist and crotch.

Contrail looked into Cherry's eyes with a look of pained sadness. Nurse Redheart finished opening a package on her cart and began to remove what appeared to be another padded diaper, this time in a pastel blue color. It was then that Cherry noticed a pale yellow stain on his current diaper. He had gone to the bathroom in them at some point before their arrival. "Normally we'd use a catheter or a bedpan, but he showed too much sensitivity to the catheter, and he obviously can't move to adjust himself over a bedpan. Why don't you stand on the other side of him while I change him up. Should only be a minute. You can talk while I work," she said.

"Oh!... sure, yeah," Cherry stammered and hobbled over to Contrail's unoccupied side. His eyes followed her, looking very sad but calm. She couldn't feel any hint of anger, but there was some kind of disappointment that was conveyed. She noticed that he began to glance down at her leg and at her neck. "Oh, don't... worry about these. There nothing really. I should have them off in a week or so...," she said haltingly to the casted stallion. "I mean... hopefully the itching doesn't drive me... crazy... erm...," she trailed off as soon as she realized her faux pas. "Excuse me, Nurse, but how long is he going to be like... this?"

"Sorry to say, but it's going to be two months like this to help with his neck and spine. His legs are going to need some more help. His jaw is a rougher estimate still," she said as she wiped his private area gently after disposing of the messy diaper. Cherry realized that her current standing position made it so Contrail could keep most of his modesty while still being there with him. "The initial operations he underwent set his limbs enough that they should heal fine. Everything else is all up to gentle and patient care. Hopefully the next round of surgeries on his jaw will show us what we're up against on that front," she had finished wiping and was beginning to apply creams and powder to his exposed fur and skin.

Cherry Berry was having a hard time hearing all of this. Two months? More? Surgery? SURGERIES? With her it was just a set bone, a funny looking collar and some painkillers for a few days. But him? He's has to lie here helpless and in so much pain for so long. She looked cautiously at him again. He couldn't move his head, but the one eye on her side stared back into her's. She knew she had a look of abject horror and despair on her face. She couldn't hide it. She had done this, it was her fault! She caused the structural failure! The tailplane stopped responding because of her silly stunts that obviously drove the airframe beyond its limits! And he did what he had to to save her. Her? No, it really wasn't just her he was saving... no...

Looking at that face must have had an effect on the stallion, for his eyes began to water. Muffled sobs came from his encased muzzle, and he began to sniffle. Nurse Redheart noticed this just as she was finishing taping the new diaper closed around his waist. Immediately she grabbed a dry cloth and came to his side, "Now Mr. Trails, it's okay. We'll get you through this. The doctors attached to your case are very confident of your full recovery. That's the reason they're taking all of your steps so carefully," she began to gently dab his eyes of their tears, "and I'll be here to help in any way I can. I'm going to keep you as comfortable as possible. You have my entire nurse staff here to help you." She looked Contrail in his eyes as his sobs subsided with a look of adoration, "beside, you are certainly a hero that deserves to be standing tall again as soon as you can."

It was those words that snapped Cherry out of her despair, "he is a hero, isn't he?"

"When you lost control of your flying machine, he raced to it in his own and rammed it out of the way before it could crash into the schoolhouse," said Redheart as she finished wiping his nose and began to check his IV drip, "there was a full class in there at the time. You're very lucky you chose to jump out when you did because the students and Miss Cheerilee found you quickly. Then they went to find Mr. Trails here. Even being as strong as he is, it's quite a miracle he's here with us right now. I don't know if you would have shared his luck in your own machine."

"Yeah," Cherry stepped closer to Contrail. His eyes still looked sad, but seemed to look brighter as she began build up courage to speak to him. "Contrail, I'm... I'm so sorry for what I did. I took too many risks testing that second airframe, I put too much force on the tail. I lost control when the surfaces failed," her eyes began to water, but she held back her sadness to try to finish her confession, "When I radioed to you, you told me to bail. But I thought I could control it enough to save it. I couldn't and I let it get too close to Ponyville. I bailed late because I wanted to know I couldn't control it anymore before I left it. I almost... didn't want to leave. If it was going to hurt anypony on the ground, then I don't think I could have lived with myself. But I saw you come from behind me, begging even more over the radio for me to bail. And at that moment, I knew it was what I had to do. I don't know what else I could have done to prevent it getting so close to town, but I felt at that moment that I had to trust your judgement. That you knew that I could have bailed safely much earlier because you had already known what you had to do at a much higher altitude. And that if I hadn't hesitated to do so, you would have gotten out without getting so hurt. And then you wouldn't be... be here...," it was almost too much for her to hold back. She began to wrack herself with gentle sobs. Nurse Reheart came over and held her shoulders.

"It wasn't truly your fault. I'm no engineer, but I assume that this kid of scenario can happen unexpectedly. Sometimes machinery fails, and as hard as you try there's sometimes nothing more you can do to rectify it. What you did was just as brave as what Mr. Trails did. You both followed your own instincts, and both saved lives."

"Mmmmph mmm, Mmmph mmm," a muffled voice from the plastered muzzle confirmed what Nurse Redheart had to say. Contrail's eyes had immediately brightened up as he looked thoughtfully at the pink and blonde mare. The one he so desperately wanted to tell that the airframe might have had a fault even before they left that morning. That she was doing just as he did with his planes all the time. He had warned her about the limit these sort of contraptions could handle but didn't heed his own advice, just as he expected her not to. It was important to know the risks you take, but you have to also push things to their limits in order to discover new things. And what happened to him was just part of the risk of the process of discovery. The only thing that disappointed him was that she chose such a late time to bail, and got hurt because of it. Her stubborn will to ensure a safe crash landing made him feel frustrated, but also proud of who he chose as his business partner. He wanted to tell her all of this, but his mouth was wired shut and bandaged over. He wanted to hold her close but he was stuck in this plaster cocoon. He could only try to pantomime his sympathy, his understanding, and his own remorse.

What was worse was the feelings he had for her. Feelings that had been nagging him for some time now about his future relations with his business partner that had become even more magnified by this accident. He was so astoundingly relieved when he first woke up after the accident to hear she was going to be alright that he briefly forgot that he was going to be in what was essentially a full bodycast for a long, long time. When Nurse Redheart had mentioned that she was going to bring Cherry Berry around today, his thoughts immediately went to embarrassment at having her see him helpless in a diaper. Not that he was bothered by that humorous implications, but that it would bother her to see him in this state. He didn't want her to worry about him. Seeing her injured, however, was impossible to handle. She didn't deserve to be in pain, and he couldn't console her.
He knew after he recovered that he had to make it up to her in any way he could.v

"I think he agrees, don't you," said Redheart as she began to go through the rest of her routine with Contrail, checking his traction pulleys and his placement on his mattress, "we were lucky to have you both flying that day. You both make such great progress in your work," she walked over to Cherry again and patted her on the cheek with her hoof, "and that day he was there to save you and all those colts and fillies."

Both mares smiled at one another. Then they turned their attention to Contrail, whose eyes were pinched in a grin. These two Earth Ponies were a perfect pair. Cherry knew that it might not go much beyond a professional friendship. But a mare can dream. And besides, she knew vaguely how to get in touch with his elusive Special Some-Pony, Widget. Maybe something can be worked out in the future between the three of them, however crazy that sounds...

But for now, "Oh hey, Miss Redheart. Hope this is not too... unusual to ask, but how does this little stallion eat? I mean, his mouth is all sealed up," asked Cherry as they approached the bodycasted Contrail.

"Not unusual at all, really. It actually quite simple," said Redheart as she went to her cart and retrieved long thin plastic tube with a clip-like device on the end of it, and a syringe with what appeared to be a paste-like substance inside of it, "this tube goes inside his nostril and down his throat to his stomach, and then we push the nutrient paste through the tube... Miss Berry?"

Cherry was shivering at the thought of something like that happening to her. She also heard a muffled groan from Contrail. "Sorry miss, I don't think either of us like the idea."

"Oh now you two. We don't want Mr. Trails here to go malnourished, now do we," the nurse chided as she prepped the tube and syringe, "besides, I think Contrail had a worse experience earlier when Miss Cheerilee's class came to visit to thank him for his bravery. Many of them asked him and I why he was wearing a diaper like a foal," she chucked a bit at the memory. Contrail, however, began to blush a deep red around the visible portions of his cheeks, moaning with embarrassment.

"Now don't be so embarrassed, Contrail. You should be proud of what you do," said Cherry as she went to Nurse Redheart's side, "besides, you deserved to be pampered and taken care of. Now Miss Redheart, how can I help out my friend's new diet today?"

And with that, the anxiety that hovered over Cherry for the past few days finally subsided. She hoped that soon she'd be able to have a real conversation with her partner. She still wanted to make sure that he truly had forgiven her. But what had happened today will give enough comfort for now. It's going to be a long several months for the cute grey stallion, but she has decided that she will be there for him until he is well and flying once more.

Hopefully, maybe she'll be able to confess her feelings to him. Feelings that make her want to be with him for more than just their love for the air. Feelings that will never let him get hurt like this again. She wanted this stallion to make her feel like a real mare.


F5 FOR SPELLING FIXES PL0X