So, yes, a one shot TopazTanaka for you here... Um... Anyone who treads the Sonic X waters remember who these guys are? Come on, one of you has gotta...

This was originally going to be a part of "Varieties" (my other fanfiction centred on minor or otherwise ignored characters) but it grew so large and developed so much that I thought it might be nice for it to have a section all its own. Besides, I heart Tanaka, so he deserved it. So here we are: one of the few technically canon couples in the Sonic X saga for you. Coffee, proverbs, and, interesting, not a Mobian in site.

Standard disclaimers apply. Reviews and concrit are appreciated.

"A memory is what is left when something happens and does not completely unhappen." -Edward de Bono

Proverbs and Coffee Breaks.

She misses Rogue.

Which is... Okay, Topaz will readily admit that it's kind of batty of her (oh ha-ha) to miss that self-centred, morally-questionable glitter-and-gold-obsessed jewel thief, but she does anyway. Especially right now, sitting in the very coffee shop that they so often frequented together and gazing absently into a pot of creamed coffee (not a low-fat anything in sight –take that gruelling daily health and fitness regime).

It's not something which feels as if it's going to go away any time soon. Topaz was never all that... what was the word that Rouge used, once? Oh yes, that's it: glamorous, so she never really got along brilliantly with many of other women she knows. As a kid, she would play basketball while the other girls in town played jump rope. As a teenager she had already decided she wanted to be in the police force, and spent all of her time planning for it and taking extra martial arts classes. Heck, she even showed up to her prom night in a glitzy shirt and slacks (her date hadn't complained).

Even nowadays, when the girls in Reception (Yeah, the White House has receptionists. Fifteen of them, in fact) call her over some mornings for "a chat", it's all Topaz can do to smile when she thinks a joke has been made, and to nod approvingly about some new shade of nail varnish and hope they don't realise that she is completely inept about things like that. So far she's been lucky: none of them have ever started a conversation about Lip Gloss. If they ever do then she'll be totally lost.

So Topaz was never especially up to date on that particular facet of her gender-heritage. And as much as she hates to admit it, and as much as she still grinds her teeth a little whenever she thinks about Rouge's "old maid" commentary, that Bat really had been the most chic member of their little partnership.

It kind of says something about the Agency that their most elegant member was a talking bat from another dimension. And a thief, at that. Still, how does that old saying go? "It takes a thief to catch a thief"? If nothing else, Rouge had proved that old maxim right over and over. They were a great team, when Topaz didn't have to watch her with both eyes wide open to check she wasn't swiping from the displays they were meant to be protecting. Rouge was an expert, which made it kind of hard to catch her in the act, but Topaz managed. Sometimes.

That had been another thing which made working with her so entertaining. With Rouge, you could never tell what was going to happen next. It was more like working with a fox than with a bat.

Still...

Topaz grunts irritably while spooning sugar straight into the coffee pot. Better to just accept it she supposes. She misses the snide remarks, carbohydrate-loaded coffee breaks and having someone to talk to in her department who isn't a military-brained male workaholic (and if Rouge were here, she'd probably make some comment about how calling her workmates things like that is "kinda rich, coming from you, Topaz"). She even misses not having to glimpse over her shoulder twenty times every mission to check her partner isn't trying to sneak off and "borrow" something shiny which doesn't belong to him).

The first thing Topaz sees beyond her coffee cup is a wicker shopping basket. She realises who it belongs to before looking due to the fact that there's a DVD about various Martial Arts and a book about the History of Cutlery sticking out of the top. Then her eyes trace a direct path upwards and confirm her suspicions.

'I apologise for my lateness,' he says, in that distinct (but weirdly dignified) accent. He even adds a little bow into the greeting. Which is just plain cute.

'Hey, Edward,' she smiles, faintly. She remembers hearing his whole name for the first time and almost not believing it. Edward Tanaka. Rouge once said that it sounded as if he'd been named after his grandfather and a restaurant, but Rouge is scathing like that. 'I think it's more a case of me being early than you being late.'

'Nonetheless, you are here and I wasn't present to accompany you,' he speaks with a little self reproach, but no particular guilt. He isn't that much of a basket case. 'It is undignified to keep a lady waiting.'

'Yeah, well, find me a lady and I'll be sure to tell her that.' Topaz chuckles.

He orders tea and lemon with no milk, of course. Because he always does. He's predictable like that, but there's something Topaz doesn't mind about it, though she can't quite work out what it is.

'You seem troubled. Are things not going well with your new partner?'

'How do you know about that?' she reacts quickly. she can't help it. It's a secret agent thing: she always gets edgy when people can work her out so damned easily.

'I didn't. But it was a logical assumption. You were previously partnered with Miss Rouge, but now she has returned to her own planet.'

Oh, right. Of course he would know that. It was kind of obvious really. Her own planet. Damn. Topaz doesn't think she'll ever get used to that idea. What kind of world did Rouge come from anyway? She'd never thought to ask and figures that even if she had, Rouge would've been whimsical about the subject and refused to answer any questions directly. The government psychologists had tried and failed to get some useful information out of her often enough. Rouge only spoke about anything when she wanted to (or when she thought the price placed on her words was high enough).

'Oh, yeah...' Topaz pauses, trying to think how best to describe her new "field partner". It isn't easy. 'He's okay. I guess. He's a little... well...'

'A little?' Unlike Rouge (who would've taken the words right out of her mouth before Topaz had even thought of them), Tanaka makes no assumptions or guesses at what she could possibly mean, whether or not he actually knows the answers in the first place. Chivalrous to the last, Topaz thinks. Then she waves her hand about a little by way of visual explanation.

Tanaka frowns for a second. 'He is a kite flyer?'

Topaz only discovers that she's going to laugh after the fact, by which point it's too later to stop herself. 'No,' she sniggers. 'No, not that. Sorry, I...' She swallows a gulp of coffee to compose herself. 'I mean he's... wishy-washy, you know. Lacking in heart and...'

'As in... He is somewhat ineffectual?'

'Well I was going to say that he's worryingly spineless for a guy who's meant to be a government agent in one of the most dangerous departments, but your way works too.' She sighs. 'I guess I should be happy really. At least he doesn't need to be checked on for suspected illegal activities every five minutes and bribed to go out into the field.'

Edward stirs his tea methodically (how much lemon does one guy need to use in a single cup anyway? She swears he's on his third slice...). 'If I might be so bold as to suggest: perhaps you felt more comfortable with Miss Rouge because of her audacity.'

'I'm not sure. It definitely made life a lot more interesting, I'll give her that.'

'Hm. That said, of course, I would have thought that a government agent's life was interesting enough without adding jewel thieves into the equation.'

'You'd be surprised. How do you think this incredible addiction of mine developed? Too many long hours sitting around office and airports and staff rooms waiting to escort some important person or another, that's how. I read coffee machines like most people read horoscopes.'

Edward blinks at her. 'I beg your pardon?'

Topaz smiles. 'Well, Frappe as the top option means that it's going to be a boring day,' she explains. 'And that I'll spend most of it sitting around drinking the aforementioned Frappe. Cappuccino means it'll be a complicated day with much paperwork involved, black means I'll be taking a night shift, and espresso means that I'm probably going to be shot at. It's kinda like reading tea leaves except... you know. Without the tea. And the leaves.'

Edward glimpses rather worriedly at the cup in front of her. '...This is espresso?'

Topaz laughs. 'Nah, don't worry: it's plain, with cream and sugar.'

He seems to relax again. 'What does that usually mean?'

'It means I'm damn well tired of reading meaning into my daily Pick-Me-Up's and I just want a coffee.'

'I find myself preferring the traditional horoscopes. Though mine are rarely as accurate as I imagine coffee to be.'

'Probably not,' Topaz raises an eyebrow amusedly. 'I'll have to learn to read real tea leaves or something. It's probably more reliable, not that I enjoy placing my fate in what kind of beverage I'm drinking.'

'No, I suppose you spend more time than is healthy concerned with your daily survival as it is, Miss Topaz. Yours is a dangerous profession.'

'Well I doubt being a butler for one of the richest families in the continent is entirely safe either.'

'True, but there are usually fewer firearms involved. Usually. There were a few near kidnapping incidents when Master Chris was younger, but...'

'Nothing you couldn't handle, eh?'

'That is... pretty much it,' Edward says, and she can tell he's borrowing that phrase from someone ten years younger than he is. It sounds a little strange hearing someone like him say something so casual. 'An important lesson I learned after coming into the Thorndyke's employ is that the paparazzi tend to be more of an immediate threat than kidnappers. They are less restrained and larger in number.'

Topaz smirked. 'I can believe that. We dealt with them a few times, you know: the Thorndykes. You most likely remember it. It was only about five years ago, when I was still in S.S.P.D. There was supposed to have been a robbery?'

'Ah. Yes, I recall the altercation very well. The missing items turned out to have been mislaid on a plane to Europe, rather than stolen,' He looked amused. 'Mrs Thorndyke tends to make such miscalculations. That was you in the retrieval squad?'

'Mmhm,' Topaz grinned, her memory starting to come back to her. 'I remember seeing you...' Talking about "justice being wreaked upon the perpetrator of the crime post hence!" She added mentally, but didn't say aloud. She recalled the scene very well now, and how she hadn't quite known whether to laugh. 'And of course we were around at your place a few times since then, what with Eggman having this obsession with the same Chaos emeralds that your guys had an obsession with. Lucky Rouge was employed by us by then, otherwise your employer probably would've mislaid a few more pieces of precious jewellery.'

'I think you must have had a positive effect on Miss Rouge.'

'Heh. Maybe a little one. She certainly seemed to steal fewer things when I was looking her way... though that may just've been because she knew I'd call her out on it.' No, Rouge certainly hadn't been the same person when she left their world as she had been when Topaz first met her. Not entirely anyway.

...But Rouge had saved her once. Right at the beginning, almost the same day that they met. A thief Rouge may well have been, arrogant too, self obsessed, rude and blunt, but she was never a bad person. Not entirely. No more than Topaz was. And she had this way of pointing out the faults Topaz had without Topaz simple deciding to ignore them the way she did the comments of so many other people. Rouge had been right when she called Topaz old fashioned and pessimistic; authoritarian and self righteous...

They had balanced each other out. And now that balance was gone, only partly filled by the comforting presence of Edward Tanaka. The rest of the world may have been missing their heroes and their idols, but Edward Tanaka and Topaz Stone were missing their friends.

'Clearly you were closer friends than either of you preferred to reveal.' Edward says, and Topaz feels a lump in her throat. Because she knows that, for all their jibing and bickering and however little they seemed to agree, it was true. She can see him smiling rather sadly over her coffee cup. 'I am 

very much aware of their absence also. It has been strangely quiet at the Thorndyke residence since their departure.'

'But doesn't this seem a little strange to you, Edward?' Topaz waved her spoon in the air in her exasperation. 'We should be happy, right? They probably are. They'll be having the time of their lives back in their own world no doubt, we got rid of Eggman at last –no joy lost there, let me tell you– and it's not like Rouge would spend any time dwelling in coffee stores wondering what I was up to...' She looked around at the crowded streets of Station Square. The mid summer sun beat down on the heads of women in sunglasses and small children without shirts. 'It's just... everyone keeps going, you know? It's like we never even touched this other world filled with so many people like us, but... different. I know that Sonic was pretty much everyone's hero but...'

'But Rouge was your friend; that is different. Do not be so sure that she would not dwell on you, if not perhaps in the same manner as we do on them. There is nothing peculiar about missing a friend, no matter how peculiar the friend themselves may seem.'

'I suppose. Even if that friend's idea of a social life involves hanging out in a lot of dark places and occasionally making jibes at the resident Talking Echidna's pride.'

The silence hangs for a moment. it's something of an uneasy silence, too, because Topaz just can't seem to look at him without seeing that spacesuit, or remembering that she didn't know what it was like to be caught in someone's arms after falling from a great height without being dropped immediately afterwards until she met him.

They should know each other, Topaz finds herself thinking. She just told him about the horoscopes in her coffee cup and she never tells anyone about that – not even Rouge. He'd given her jewellery once (as an ulterior motive, sure but what the hell, it has still been twenty-four carat). Heck, they'd even been into space together for goodness sakes. And yet...

'There is an old proverb,' Takana says, eventually. '"Your friend is the man who knows all about you, and still likes you."'

Topaz smiles vaguely. 'Is that Japanese?'

Tanaka shakes his head. 'Elbert Hubbard. An American writer and philosopher. I have studied several of his works. He was a survivor of the Titanic disaster.'

'No kidding?' Topaz blinks.

...Where on earth did the Thorndyke's find this guy? Rich celebrities can hire just about anyone they damn well please, she supposes. The more eccentric your personnel, the better. 'You know a lot of things I wouldn't normally expect a butler to know. Like how to fly a space shuttle, for example. And quotes from obscure American philosophers... You're really not like a normal Butler at all, Ed.'

Edward Tanaka pauses for a second, tapping his teacup with the edge of the spoon. 'May I ask a direct question, Miss Topaz?'

'Sure, fire away.'

'How many butlers do you know?'

Topaz pauses, coffee mug freezing halfway on its return journey to her mouth. 'Well... actually you're the first, unless you count the ones in movies. And the ones who work at DC, and I don't really know them.' She wouldn't trust them to catch her if she was falling from a giant stone monolith, that was for sure. 'I want to know this one, though.'

'Then this is as good a place to begin amassing knowledge of Butlerian culture as any.'

Ed raises his teacup and Topaz sniggers as she lifts her own cup to chink them together. 'Butlerian. Is that even a real word?'

'It is now.'

Figures. You never realise how little you know someone (and how much more you would like to know them) until you sit down and have coffee together.

...Kind of like her and Rouge, really.

Topaz can deal with that.

End.