This has been in my head for a while and of course many despised my first Sonic fic that, again, was done just for entertainment for a friend and if this story's ending is rushed, sorry about that. Anyways I hope you enjoy this. (Sorry, but the real Cosmo isn't in here.) Enjoy!

"Tails! Tails! Come on, where are you buddy!?" Sonic called out as he searched for his friend, Tails, who had gone missing a month ago after they defeated the Metarex…and lost her. Sonic knew the reason for his disappearance and tried to help him through the situation as they returned to their home, but Tails had refused to talk to him, let alone look at him. He had tried to visit Tails at his house, but his house was locked down to the point that not even Robotnick himself would have been at a loss. Sonic continued his search though, growing much more worried, especially since yesterday half of Tails' lab exploded. To his relief, he had seen Tails leave his house yesterday, but quickly lost him somehow, giving him the assumption that Tails simply had another problem with an invention and locked his house real well whenever he left, although it seems that he has another location to stay at or an alternate entrance to his house because Sonic waited all night each day in order to talk to him, but Tails never came back. "Maybe Knuckles can help me." Sonic said to himself, "Tails won't like us barging in on him, but it for his own good."

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Tails sat in a corner of his home, knees to his chest and tails wrapped around himself for comfort as he cried. Tails has slowly begun to give up on life, it's been weeks since he's slept and days since he ate. His unstable health status has even led him to hallucinations time and time again since the second week he got back home. He had tried to continue his life where he left off, at least how he spent his time alone. With a broken heart and practically equally broken soul, Tails did what he did best and built for the first week. Day and night he had built with only a five minute break to eat a day before returning to fixing his plane and creating new machines. By the end of the first week, he had built so many things that his workshop could not be entered normally. In the second week, he began to see things…terrible things like demons, shadows of the Metarex, his lost love, all of which were depicted in unfavorable situations that continue to haunt him. By the third week, he stopped eating, began to lose his sense of time and reality, going as far as talking to himself and believing that she was there with him, even making a robotic look-alike of her in the process. Yesterday, he managed to regain enough of his sanity to destroy the imitation (but out of rage for his loss rather than common sense) and even blew up half his house to destroy his recent inventions of the first week with the exception of his plane, however he continued to isolate himself by making a hologram decoy of himself in order to trick others into thinking he had been going outside.

"…Tails." A voice called.

Tails lifted his head immediately and scanned his room, "H-hello?" He called out as he wiped his eyes clean.

"Tails…" the voice called again. Tails dreaded and held dear the familiarity of the voice as he saw a figure manifest itself before him, "Tails, are they gone?" it asked.

"Yes, no one will hurt you Cosmo, I won't let them." Tails replied happily and in a deranged fashion. Little to his knowledge, another being watched him.

"Why were you crying?" Cosmo asked with worry.

"Crying? What do you mean crying? I'm not crying." Tails replied, "I don't need to cry, I've got you with me, what do I need to cry about?"

"Tails…"

"Don't worry, I won't let them get you." Tails quickly interrupted.

"That's enough kid." A voice rang out. Tails quickly turned to see a figure in the shadows of the room.

"Who are you!?" Tails demanded before the figure looked at Cosmo, "What do you want with her!? You can't take her!" Tails snapped before hugging Cosmo close and closing his eyes, "I won't let you!"

The figure stepped forward and revealed himself to be Shadow, though a look of pity dominated his face as he watched the young boy hugging a plant pot, labeled "Cosmo", defensively. Shadow kneeled before the crying fox and slowly took the pot from him, "That's enough Tails." He said as he set the pot down on the nearest table, "I know what it's like to lose someone you care about, and sitting around waiting for the day you die is not going to help." Tails looked up at Shadow, life barely hanging on in his eyes as he took in the info.

"Th-that…..that's right…" Tails replied as he began to pull his head together, "You lost Maria…"

"Come on, I want to show you something." Shadow replied as he got up and tossed Tails a headset, the keys to his plane, and a sandwich as he walked out.

"Wait, how'd you get in?" Tails asked, "Even Sonic wouldn't be able to get inside!"

"Let's just say, I used the front door." Shadow replied before leaving the room.

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The sound of his plane taking life was one that Tails could admit that he missed as he took off and followed Shadow who led the way on a motorcycle. "Hey Shadow?" Tails asked, "I wanted to ask, why are you on a motorcycle?"

"Same reason I made you take your plane." Shadow replied, "When things get bad, you need to move on, but you can't…not without some help. Sometimes you just need something to do the forward motion for you while you get yourself together, because if you can't move forward, you can't move on."

Tails thought deeply about what Shadow said, trying to understand how literally moving forward had anything to with moving on emotionally, but then it hit him. Shadow keeps to himself and always seems to be wandering in his own mind, yet is perceptive of his surroundings. The fact that he doesn't have to move while traveling on the bike gives him the freedom to take in his surroundings and think about events that happened. Tails turned on the auto pilot on his plane and sat back in an attempt to relax. Minutes of silence followed as he saw grasslands and rock structures pass by, but Tails felt no different. In fact, the only thing that the silence and the plane managed to was remind him of the day that he sat on the ship with his trembling finger on the trigger of the barrel that would take his loved one's life, but then…something happened. It was as if the haunting memory shattered before his eyes and was replaced by the first time he realized his feelings for Cosmo. That night when they fell into a cave and Tails hurt himself that Cosmo took it upon herself to treat him by using a piece of her skirt as bandaging. Then he remembered the night that they sat side-by-side, watching the moon after they had fallen into that fountain. Soon her voice echoed in his head, her final words after he had pulled the trigger on her while she he held on in order to stop the Metarex, "I love you."

"TAILS!" Shadow shouted into the headset, snapping Tails out of his thoughts.

"What? What!?" Tails asked in surprise.

"Land here." Shadow replied calmly and Tails did as told, landing his plane near the edge of a cliff with the ocean just a short fall away. Tails slowly approached the edge and Shadow watched as he did, taking in the full realization of his condition. Tails approached slowly with a slight limp (the fact that he was able to stand was a miracle), the poor guy had lost weight severely, his fur was covered in oil stains and god knows what else, and his eyes were almost entirely red. Once Tails approached, Shadow side stepped and indicated for Tails to go to the edge of the cliff. Tails did so and was met with a sunset that nearly blinded him. Once his eyes adjusted he was able to see the beauty of the portrait like scenery.

"Cosmo would've loved to see this." Tails said to himself with a small smile that unfortunately lasted only a second before he heard something click behind him. It doesn't take a genius to realize what the cold steel that was placed on the back of his head was as his knees gave out, having used up the energy that sandwich had given him.

"So?" Shadow asked, "What's it going to be? I can send you to her right now."

"Y-you'd do that?" Tails asked as he turned to face Shadow, surprising him, "Would you really!? Please!? Do it!" Shadow shook his head, disappointed that Tails gave up so easily after seemingly making a small recovery.

"Good luck." Shadow replied before a loud bang echoed through the land. Tails dropped his head in disappointment as Shadow had shot next to him, only managing to make Tails deaf for a while. Shadow kneeled in front of Tails and placed a hand on his shoulder, "I can't take your life, you still have a promise to keep."

"Wha?" Tails asked as he looked up at Shadow, "Promise? What promise?"

"She asked you to do something for her, don't tell me you already forgot." Shadow replied with a straight face. Tails' eyes darted from side to side, trying to regain himself and remember the promise he made.

"The seed!" he whispered before looking back at Shadow who nodded and gave Tails a hand to get up before the little fox quickly made his way to his plane and headed home.

"Well, that was awfully nice of you." A voice said.

"You scared me for a moment there you know!" another voice added.

"How long have you been watching?" Shadow asked as he turned to see Rouge and Amy approach.

"Since you got here." Rouge replied before Amy walked up to Shadow and slapped him.

"HOW DARE YOU POINT A GUN AT TAILS!?" she shouted, "I really thought you were going to kill him!"

"Of course he wouldn't." Rouge interrupted, "Though it wasn't easy keeping you back. Anyway, why'd you do it?"

"I guess I felt it was my job to help him," Shadow replied, "after all, I went through the same thing." With that Shadow began to make his way to his bike, only to be stopped by Amy, who hugged him.

"As bad as your method was, thank you for helping him." She said before letting him go. Shadow simply nodded, got on his bike, and took off to god knows where.

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"TAILS!" Knuckles shouted as he smashed down Tails' door to reveal an empty home.

"Tails?" Sonic called out, "You in here buddy?" Knuckles looked at him and shrugged before the sound of a plane was heard. Sonic quickly made his way to the workshop, only to nearly have his head chopped off by the plane's propellers as Tails came crashing in.

"Where is it!?" Tails shouted as he jumped off the plane and made his way to the table in which the pot sat on.

"Tails, are you ok?" Sonic asked as Tails grabbed the pot to see a stem and a leaf growing out of it.

"Y-yeah…everything's great." Tails replied with a smile. Sonic watched him with a confused face, but said nothing because he knew that Tails would tell him what exactly happened the last month, later.

"So…um…you hungry?" Sonic asked as Knuckles came in and was about to ask, but Sonic held his hand up to stop him.

"Actually…" Tails replied before turning to them, "I'm starving."

"Come on," Sonic said with a chuckle, "Let's go to Amy's, I'm sure she'd be glad to make you something to eat."

"Sounds great!" Tails replied as he followed the hedgehog and the echidna with the pot cradled in his arms.