Disclaimer: Not my characters, just my story.

A/N: Written for Dr. Sipp as part of the Boiz and Gurlz fic-request meme on LiveJournal. The request was Knuckles, Terra and the prompt 'Traitor'.

Defect

© Scribbler, 2007.

Defect –

1. (Verb) To abandon one place or group and go to another. To defect to the other side.

2. (Noun) Flaw; fault; imperfection, shortcoming. To have/be a defect.

Knuckles wasn't sure the word 'traitor' really applied. 'Traitor' implied commitment to ideals that were then contravened. 'Traitor' implied broken promises – broken by the one given the label, which was most important. All he perceived was a scared and lonely little girl who made bad choices based on the equally bad choices that were made and thrust upon her by others. She was never meant to be on a team. She was never meant to wield power. She was meant to be an ordinary teenager with ordinary problems; someone who failed trigonometry, ran with windmill arms, had a pet and called it something stupid like 'Fluffy'.

Someone tapped him on the shoulder. He looked up to see the green human, whose eyes were also glued to the scrapbook on the table. He looked shocked but trying to hide it. Even though he wasn't used to interpreting the flatness of human features Knuckles could tell there was more going on behind his eyes that the boy's smile let on.

He was in a lot of the pictures. He looked happy. That and the smile told Knuckles a lot.

"I … who gave you that?"

"The alien girl. She was helping me acclimatise to this world's culture and history, to make me feel more comfortable during my stay here. Apparently the history of your team comes top of her list of important things I should know."

"Man, she couldn't just point you at Wikipedia and let you pick your own topic?"

Knuckles didn't know what a Wikipedia was, so he ignored that comment. Instead he tapped one of the photographs with the tip of his glove. The blonde girl was making a face at the camera, yanking her eyelids down and showing her lower teeth. It didn't seem like she was challenging the photographer to a duel, though that was what he habitually associated that expression with. "Who was she?"

"Didn't the files tell you?"

"Yes."

The green human looked strangely at him, but sighed and said, "Her name was Terra. It's Tara now."

"This says she died."

"We thought so too. She got better."

Knuckles blinked up at him, then rested his forehead in his palms. "Got … better?"

"Yup."

"This world is even stranger than I thought."

The human patted him gingerly on the back, then more firmly when he found only smooth fur instead of quills. "Don't worry, dude. Cy and Robin are both working on a way to zap you back home. Raven, too. They'll solve the problem, no worries."

Knuckles appreciate the attempt at comfort and brindled against it at the same time. He didn't need soothing. He needed to get home. "I hope so. I need to return to my duties before that stupid hedgehog loses my Emerald. Plus the echidnas in your dimension are the ugliest things I've ever seen."

Fin.