Cosmo-centric, because I just find the gal adorable and awesome. Standard disclaimers apply. Reviews and concrit are appreciated.

"What do you think of when alone at night?

Do not the things your mothers spoke about,

Before they took the candle from the bedside,

Rush up into the mind and master it,

till you believe in them against your will?"

William Butler Yeats.

Candlelight.

Cosmo doesn't like the dark.

It isn't that she's afraid of it (there are far more things to worry about out here than just shadows and blackness, after all). It's simply that… she is a plant, and light is important to her. She grows in it, lives and flourishes, feeding on its brightness.

Now there's no light at all, except for the dim glow of the ship's control panels, and the glimmers that are visible through the viewports, but so far away that they are known as stars rather than suns. All the other lights in the ship are faint and muted. It's very late, and almost everyone on board is asleep.

Sonic, of course, is not. He's running laps around the Blue Typhoon, inside and out, and every now and then, Cosmo will see him shoot past a window in front of her, stopping for a moment to offer a quick grin and a wave. By the time Cosmo waves back, he has already gone.

Tails isn't asleep either. Cosmo pauses at a doorway and listens to him inside, tinkering with the machines in the workshop and talking to himself about things Cosmo isn't sure she understands. She would like very much to speak with him, but she knows that he's working (always working, Cosmo wonders if he ever slows down) on something important, and she doesn't wish to disturb him. So to all intents and purposes, Cosmo is alone.

She's merely uncomfortable in the darkness, but the loneliness unsettles her far more. It reminds her of Black Narcissus and the coldness of the Metarex spacecraft. If Cosmo sleeps now, then she knows that she will dream of things she does not want to see again. Of closed metal doors, sunless rooms and running through the darkness, clutching Chris's hand like a life giving root, about to be cut.

Even knowing everything that happened, Cosmo does not regret her meeting with Black Narcissus. She isn't sure why this is true, but it is. Black Narcissus had had answers for her. Maybe answers that she had been searching for all her life. Perhaps if she hadn't brought Chris with her… if she hadn't been so silly as to put both of their lives in danger…

But no, Cosmo reminds herself. Going alone wouldn't have done her any good at all. Black Narcissus had never had any intention of telling her any secrets or answering the questions she had about the Metarex plans. He had lied to her, and Cosmo may have been unwise to go walk into his trap, but she was not reckless enough to go alone.

Amy had been angry when they returned to the Blue Typhoon. Only for a little while, though. She had yelled at Chris for about a minute before she realized he was unconscious, and then she had gotten upset, pulled Cosmo out of the plane and wrapped her arms around her in a massive hug, kept yelling at Chris until he was awake enough to hear her and then hugged him, too. She laughed, even though she was surely still annoyed, and made them promise to never do such a stupid thing again. Cosmo hadn't even had a chance to say she was sorry.

Sonic returned to the ship soon after. He hadn't explained how he escaped, but Cosmo had a feeling Eggman was involved. After all, hadn't it been Shadow who rescued them?

Cosmo doesn't understand what happened over there. Sonic had seemed… strange. Annoyed. Not like the Sonic she was familiar with. But hours have passed, and now it seems like Sonic is his old self again, running around outside the ship and leaving skid marks on the hull. Sonic is normal. The darkness is normal.

Cosmo does not feel normal, though. Since meeting with Black Narcissus, she feels as if something has changed within her, making everything seem that little bit darker and colder. It's a similar feeling to the one she had felt the night before her home was destroyed. The words that Black Narcissus spoke keep turning over and over in her head and refuse to allow her to forget them.

Sonic sweeps past the window once more, but doesn't stop to wave. Cosmo sits in the window for a while longer and waits, but he doesn't return, and she decides that maybe being alone isn't the best thing for her right now.

The room is the third one along in this corridor. She knows, because she ran into it once by mistake when she was trying to get away from Charmy during a game of Tag. He hadn't been there at the time, but Cosmo had still known it was his because of the photo sitting on the desk.

This time, she has the presence of mind to knock instead of just running in there, and then she stands quite still, with her hands folded carefully behind her back, waiting for the door to open. It takes a few minutes.

'Cosmo?'

'Hello.' He looks half asleep, and it dawns on Cosmo that he probably was sleeping only moments earlier. Normally she would apologise, but she's feeling very distracted right now. 'I... May I talk to you for a moment?'

'You mean right now?' Chris blinks, as if trying to make sure she's really there. 'It's a really weird hour for talking, Cosmo.'

Cosmo shuffles her feet, but manages not to run off in embarrassment. How silly, she thinks, to be embarrassed just about catching someone off guard like this. But then she supposes that she's been doing an awful lot of silly things, lately. That's how she ended up here in the first place. 'It's… very important. I need to talk, Chris. Please.'

She knows she must look upset, because he has that same expression on his face that he had back in Black Narcissus's ship. He gazes at her with an odd, half tired expression. He doesn't know what this is about, but still, he won't turn her away. The door slides to, and allows her entrance.

'...Okay.'

'I'm sorry to laugh, Cosmo it's just thatyou remind me of myself when I was younger.'

'When you were younger?'

'When we make it back to the Blue Typhoon, I'll try to explain. Let's get going.'

He seems older than he looks, Cosmo thinks.

This is something that she has never quite understood about him. She doesn't know much about how humans age, so she can't be sure how old he is precisely but Chris had said that she was like him, "when he was younger", hadn't he?

It doesn't really matter right now, however. She can ask him about it later but right now she just can't seem to stop talking, about so many things…

'Mother never really spoke very often after she gave me my name, but you knew she was always listening to you. She was very good at that. Galaxina said that she always had a "sympathetic root" for it. The night before the Metarex came, I think Mother must have been listening very hard.' Cosmo frowned slightly, pulling her knees up close to her chest. 'Maybe she knew that they were coming. But I can't imagine why she wouldn't have found some way to warn us, if that were true. I suppose she only dreamed they would come. Still, being around her and doing my chores… it didn't feel the same way it usually did.'

'I can believe that,' Chris smiles. She's been talking for almost an hour now, but he's still listening.

'You don't think I was just imagining it?'

'No, I don't think that. Actually something like it happened to me once, a long time ago. This one night? I just kept feeling like something wasn't the same… things weren't the way they usually were.'

'And were they?' Cosmo asks, eagerly.

'Well, that was also the night that a blue hedgehog crash landed in my swimming pool. I guess that counts.'

Cosmo smiles. 'Then you do understand.'

'A little. I'm not exactly keyed in with empathic thinking, but I know intuition when I see it. I guess it's like what you can do with the plants on all the worlds we come to. You just… know things.'

Cosmo nods, paying a little too much attention to her feet hanging off the edge of the bed. He's sat on the desk nearby just looking at her, but Cosmo tries not to look at him too much, because every time she does she sees glass shattering across his face and has to swallow down her fear. She has to take a deep breath before continuing.

'When I finished talking to mother that night, she said something to me. It was very quiet. Just a whisper but…' But it had felt good, Cosmo thought. It had felt warm and loving, and thoughtful. The kind of voice that she would listen for, for the rest of her life, but might never hear again.

'Cosmo?' Chris's voice snaps her back to reality.

'Sorry. Mother said to me… "Go and look at the stars tonight, Cosmo". I thought maybe I just imagined her talking. I did that sometimes. But now I don't think that I was imagining her at all, Chris. She spoke to me… mother never spoke anymore, not even to Galaxina.'

Chris says nothing. He's sitting very still opposite her in the dim light and Cosmo wishes they could figure out how to turn the lighting up in here, but neither of them can make heads or tails (no joke intended) of the computer systems in every room. The dim light from the muted windows will have to do, for now.

'I didn't realize it at the time, but I think that mother was protecting me. I don't think she knew why, or what from, but she was. She kept me out of my room so that I could see the Metarex coming, and run away faster. She told me to go look at the stars.' She falls silent for a moment, thinking of mother's voice and mother's gentleness in her mind. The feeling of loneliness crushes down on her like stones crushing leaves. Even with Chris sitting opposite her, she had never felt so lonely before. 'I had time to run to a ship and get away. I could have warned them all, the same way mother warned me, but I didn't. I was too afraid. And then the Metarex came, and Galaxina told me to run too, and… and I did that,' she said, faintly. 'I killed everyone on that ship. Chris. Mother, too.'

'Cosmo…' Chris starts to say something, but can't seem to work out what that something is. He sighs, slumping slightly forwards. 'Have you told Tails? You know that he's been worried, right? That whole time we were on the ship, Amy said he wouldn't sit still. He thinks it's his fault that we got out in the first place. Of all the times he could've chosen not to check the security…'

Cosmo's head bolted up, and she looked right at him without intended too. The glass splintered in her memory, and she shivered. 'But it's not. That's silly; it isn't Tails' fault at all!'

'Nope. It's kind of mine, actually, for getting six extra years of training and being able to hack through the security walls the same way he can.' Chris smiles slightly when he says that, almost proud, but afraid to show it. 'I figure I should've warned him about that. He was kind of surprised the first time I started messing around with his control panels back on Mobius and knew exactly what I was doing.'

Cosmo tries to work this out, but can't no matter how she tries. How could poor Tails, of all people, ever blame himself for such a thing? 'But it has nothing to do with either of you. You were just doing what I asked; it's not your fault.'

'Right. Just like it's not your fault the Metarex hate us. We didn't ask for their hate. We don't even know why it's there! Remember what I said on the ship? Just forget it. We can't spend all our lives trying to work out how we could've done things differently, or else we just end up all messing up and being messed up.'

'You mean like Shadow?' Cosmo asks, quietly. And there in her mind again is the look on the hedgehog's face when he saw her in the Metarex ship. No trust or faith, just a job that he had been set to complete.

Chris seems to flinch a little at that, and Cosmo feels instantly guilty. 'I'm sorry, I don't know where that came from.'

'It's alright, Cosmo. Just that maybe you're right. Shadow's life hasn't been fair, either. He keeps losing people, and there's never anyone to take their place.'

'And he didn't have a mother, did he?' Cosmo asks. 'Or a sister, like Galaxina. Or someone to fall into a swimming pool in the middle of the night.'

'I guess he didn't.' Chris looked as if this was something he'd never really thought about before.

'But he still chose to rescue us,' Cosmo said quickly, remembering the fact so abruptly that the suddenness almost shocked her. Shadow had saved them both when Sonic couldn't. The thought was surprising and exciting all in one. 'That means something, doesn't it? Maybe that means he'll try to be our friend now.'

'I don't know if it's that simple, Cosmo.'

'Why not? It's important to have people who love you,' Cosmo said, feeling sure of herself for once. 'Even if bad things can happen to them. You have to care about others because if you don't, then you just care about yourself instead, and that means you end up doing selfish things.' Like letting your family die when you could have saved them just by being a little braver. Or scaring your friends by running off to get captured. And getting a friend hurt because you were too afraid to go alone. 'Chris, please, try and understand me. It feels like it's all a big pretence, sometimes.'

'A pretence? Cosmo, you're not pretending anything.'

'But I tell everyone I want to save the galaxy but I'm so scared all the time.' Her eyes screw up without her meaning to let them. She will not cry, she tells herself. She will not. 'Sometimes I think all I really want is answers as to why all of this is happening. I don't care how I get them.'

'Cosmo, that's not true.'

'Yes it is!' Her voice raises, and she feels glad that there's no one else sleeping on this floor because she probably would've woken them up. Cosmo clasps her hands to her mouth and takes a deep breath, speaking through her fingers. 'I let me family die. I hurt everyone by making you come on this horrible journey. And I nearly killed you because I didn't want to meet Black Narcissus alone.' She pulls her body closer in. if she tries hard enough she can imagine she's a seed again. 'And I have no idea what happens next. I have no idea where mother went. Or where Galaxina went. Or where you'll all go if the Metarex take you, too. I have to know, so I go looking for answers and I don't care enough who gets hurt.'

'Hold on a sec. What're you trying to say?'

Cosmo hesitates, as she realizes she's not certain how to answer that question. Because she's really not certain what she's trying to say, or what she's thinking.

Chris laughs. And that makes her look up again in confusion. She never understands how he can laugh at moments like this. He soon stops when he sees her looking, however. 'I'm sorry, it's just… we've had this conversation before, haven't we?'

'We have?'

'Yeah. Only I think we were both a little less confused by it, then. Back on Black Narcissus's base, remember?'

'I remember that you laughed,' Cosmo says. 'I remember how badly I had to go there when he called me, and you weren't angry about it, even though you should be.'

'That's right. And do you remember why?'

'Because… because I wanted answers.' Cosmo gets the feeling that this conversation is going round in circles.

'Just like we all do. There's nothing wrong with that. It's not that you blame yourself, Cosmo, it's just that… you never had any explanations for why all these awful things happened, did you? You never knew why the Metarex destroyed your planet, or went after your ship. You never knew why you were the only one left. So you think there has to be something wrong with you, right? That there has to be some reason why things didn't happen to you the way they did everyone else.'

He sounds almost as if he understands what he's talking about. Cosmo sits quietly gazing at the picture still in Chris's hand. She can't see it clearly, but she knows what it's a picture of anyway. 'There's nothing wrong with being different, Cosmo. Just like there's nothing wrong with being afraid.'

'I don't want to be afraid,' Cosmo says. 'Sometimes I just want her here. I want mother and all the people I left behind. I just want to know they're alright. That they aren't just gone forever.' Mother would have had answers for her, she thinks. Mother would have been gentle and kind and told her everything she needed to know. Cosmo loves her friends, but she can't help feeling like all she ever does is put them in danger. That she's just tempting all of them towards the same place her mother went.

'I'm sorry, Cosmo. I can't answer that for you. I came from another world, but worlds are worlds. Your family's somewhere different now.'

'But where?'

'I'm sorry.' Seems to be all Chris can say. She can feel him watching her in the darkness. It isn't the answer she was hoping for. But then, how could he possibly have the answers she desires? Black Narcissus didn't. Shadow didn't. And mother isn't here to ask anymore.

'Here, hold on. I might have something for you.' A few seconds later, she hears the sound of a drawer opening and looks up to see Chris rooting around in one. Eventually he turns back again holding something in each hand.

'Chris?'

'Here,' He hands something over to her. It's red, and feels strange and familiar in her hands, like the skin of certain plants. 'I have no idea why mom and dad thought to put these in one of those boxes they sent through the portal, but they did.'

'Um, what is it, exactly?'

'A candlem' Chris said. 'Maybe my parents thought it'd be dark here, or something. They planned for every possible eventuality. And then some.' Cosmo nods in agreement. The look on Chris's face when he saw the mountain that had been sent through the portal was memorable enough.

He places something else next to her. She knows, at least, what matches look like. 'A lot of humans like to use these when they say goodbye to someone. They're mostly used in rituals where I come from, but we light them at some celebrations too. You don't have to know where they are, or what really happened to them. You just light the candle and talk through it.'

'But… what if I ask for her, and she isn't there?' this is what Cosmo fears most, after all. The idea that all the questions she has might never be answered.

Talking to a small light to find your family? How did that work, exactly?

'You have to believe that she will be.' Chris says. He has no more answers for her than this. Cosmo can sense that much. She gazes carefully at the candle in her hand before reaching out to take the glass holder from Chris's other hand.

'May… May I stay here?' she asks. Saying goodbye alone is not something she wants to do.

'Sure ou can. Go easy on me if I go back to sleep though, okay? It's even later now than it was before. Or earlier, depending on how you look at it.'

Cosmo smiles and waits until he's back in bed, maybe even asleep again, before she takes the match and carefully strikes it against the side on the box, raising it to the candle's wick.

It's quiet, and still dark, but the candles glow is soft and reassuring, almost like a piece of sunlight. Almost making up for the shadows it casts simply by being.

Just believe, Chris had said. Was it honestly that simple?

Cosmo takes a deep breath, and speaks quietly so as not to wake anyone.

'Hello, Mother. I know I haven't spoken to you for a long time. My new friends and I have been working very hard lately. I wanted to thank you for helping me, the night the Metarex came for us. And also, I wanted to say… I'm sorry.'

Fin.

I wish I could call it a happy ending but… well, you all know what happens.

Additional info from Wikipedia: "Candles are a traditional part of Buddhist ritual observances. Along with incense and flowers, candles (or some other type of light source, such as butter lamps) are placed before Buddhist shrines or images of the Buddha as a show of respect. They may also be accompanied by offerings of food and drink. The light of the candles is described as representing the light of the Buddha's teachings, echoing the metaphor of light used in various Buddhist scriptures.[1 See Ubon Ratchathani Candle Festival for an example of a Buddhist festival that makes extensive use of candles."