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"Easy, easy it's going to be OK, Cloud Kicker. It'll be fine" Redheart whispered, running a hoof down the shivering pegasus' flank. Cloud Kicker whimpered.

"It hurts" she moaned softly, squirming in place and letting loose soft moans. Redheart nodded, and gave the IV bag attached to the pegasus a squeeze. Cloud Kicker gave one last shivering moan before she closed her eyes, breathing deep and heavy and at peace for a while. Redheart sighed slowly, looking at the damage that Cloud Kicker's attacker had caused. She'd been out flying at night, doing some last minute cloud repair when she vanished into a gap that had blocked out the sky.

Nopony could say just what happened up there, but seconds later her form came barrelling out of the low clouds, whistling through the air until she crashed straight into the flower beds that Daisy, Rose and Lily had spent weeks tending to. For once, the Flower sisters got themselves together and brought Cloud Kicker's mangled body to the clinic. It was late now, very late and Redheart was tired. She'd done what she could for poor Cloud Kicker but sleep was the best healer. She was about to collapse back at her desk when she realised there was somepony waiting for her.

He was big. Very big. She'd only ever seen pegasus males that big in the Royal Guard, and only Macintosh at the farm eclipsed the scale of this brute. He had some kind of fire in his eyes but it was quenched. As if tempered, like fine steel.

"C can I help you?" Redheart asked nervously, trotting to her desk and sitting behind it. The pegasus' body was a mess of scars and knots in his body where bones hadn't healed properly. She fought to keep a hoof from coming to her mouth. The big male put his head into the saddle bags and withdrew a crudely made card, and a single ruined flower that Redheart had seen in the gardens of the Flower Sisters.

"I believe you got a patient in who suffered a fall," he rumbled. Redheart nodded, mouth dry. "I didn't mean to kick her so hard she came upon me in a private moment. Me and my friends. We didn't want to be disturbed." The nurse licked her lips slowly.

"I see" she said quietly. The big stallion nodded.

"These are for her. They're bad, I know" he said, gesturing to the flower and the card. "And these" he murmured, drawing out a small bag of bits. "Are to cover any costs."

"Why?" asked Redheart suddenly. The white stallion looked at her and she shrank back. "N not that I'm complaining, sir but why are you being so generous?" He grunted.

"I know it's not pretty when you leave somepony without a medic," he said, gesturing to his broken body. "I don't make a habit of hurting innocents. I don't make a habit of killing. I especially don't make a habit of ignoring or disrespecting doctors." He turned to leave, the bag of money bulging on the desktop before Redheart.

"Wait!" she cried. "W who are you? Are you a royal guard?" Stratus laughed.

"Not any more," he said, leaving the clinic. "And call me Stratus." Redheart looked at the card, then the flower, and then at the bits. She looked back to Cloud Kicker's room, and picked up the card to place it in there. She kept the flower.

It was night-time the next time that Redheart met the mysterious stallion. Cloud Kicker was healed again, and had been thankful for the shower of gifts and get well cards that had been offered to her. Even the poorly made (though well written) card by Stratus himself was treasured, though Redheart had not told the mare who had given it. Nor had she spilt the beans on the money or the flower. The flower was already dead, and wilted within days of being in the vase by her desk. She came back one day to find Tenderheart had thrown it out. That was the first day she'd ever got into a shouting match with her superior and she found herself docked a week's pay. She survived on the funds leftover from paying for Cloud Kicker's surgery.

She got her next meeting a week later. The clinic door swung open past midnight, and Redheart was jerked from her tired slumber. "Hello there, how can I help…" she began, eyes widening at the sight of the great white pegasus. "Mr Stratus?" she asked. The big stallion chuckled softly.

"Stratus will do, Nurse," he said, looking from side to side about the empty clinic. "You run a quiet business here." Redheart swallowed, looking at the racks of unattended beds, the only patients in the back and peacefully asleep.

"Quiet and uneventful. Perhaps I should be thankful for that," she murmured, not meeting Stratus' eyes.

"You should be," he replied.

"I um I don't recall that I've had any further cases that have you as the modus operandi," Redheart blurted out to try and change the subject, avert the tension in the air. Stratus smiled. It made his scar twitch uncomfortably, but he did not show any pain.

"None of your patients have tried to walk in on my friends and I without our permission, Nurse," he said, dipping into his saddlebags. Redheart held her breath as a flower came out. A new one. A red rose.

"I I" the nurse replied.

"This one's for you," Stratus said with an impassive look. Redheart felt a sweat break out on her brow.

"I I took the last one, too."

She braced herself for anger, for rage, to be told she was a dreadful mare and should feel bad about what she did. Instead, Stratus chuckled, a low and dry sound. "I somehow knew you would," he muttered.

"How?" Redheart asked. Stratus smiled, and dipped his head into the other saddle bag, bringing out a bottle of pure blue shimmering liquid. Redheart stared at it as Stratus brought out a pair of shot glasses. "Is that Spin Juice?" she asked.

"For such a proper nurse, you're not exactly an angel," Stratus said, pouring the pair of them a glass each. "Stealing gifts for patients and you know what this stuff is." Redheart bristled.

"I was a medical student once," she pointed out. "I went for drinks, I went to clubs. Particularly at the beginning of my studies," she pointed out. Stratus nosed the glass of Spin Juice towards her. She looked at it warily as the stallion tipped it back in one smooth motion.

"Where?"

"Detrot," Redheart replied, gingerly reaching forward to grip the glass of juice and tip it back as well. The blue liquid brewed with some kind of Poison Joke rolled into her maw and stung as it trickled down her throat. She coughed and spluttered, and the glass fell from her lips to clatter onto her desk. She gasped for air. "A long time ago"

"I see," replied Stratus with a raised eyebrow. "And since then, you've been here, in Ponyville?" Redheart nodded as she trotted to the water fountain and tried to clear her maw. "Must have been a change."

"I didn't want it," she admitted. "It was well, a shock when I was assigned here. Assistant to some prissy older nurse, nothing but farm injuries and the occasional pregnancy to deal with. It hardly feels like I'm helping at all." Stratus saw the moment to strike.

"Well, I need your help." he said.

Originally uploaded as 130896 by And Brother I Hurt People at 2012-10-23 22:14:29+01:00

Upvotes at import: 17 | Stars at import: 9
Posted previously at: 2012-10-25T06:49:50 | Posted previously by: jspenguinbot