Note: Since I don't own Sonic X (for obvious reasons- because if I did, Cosmo wouldn't have died and the ending would have been nothing but her and Tails) there's really no reason for a disclaimer, but since I have to give a disclaimer, I'll give one. *sigh*

Disclaimer: I don't own Sonic X or any of the canon characters mentioned in this fanfiction. The only characters that are "mine" are two which will be introduced in the second half of this fanfic- and even then one of them really isn't mine...I'm just sort of borrowing him for the sake of the fanfic.

Dedication: This is for a good friend who is leaving in a about two days and I'm going to really miss them...and when said person reads this, I want them to know that they inspired me to force my ADHD/ distracted behind down in a chair and write this fanfic for them...so you're welcome ;)

But on a more serious note, I want to thank this person for being there when I just wanted to talk, and that I wish them all the best when they do leave.

*coughs*...well, anyways, let's just get on with the story.

Shall we?

Title: A Flower Among the Foxtails

Rating: T (for some violence)

Pairing: Tails and Cosmo

Summary: Read and find out...

Whenever he opens his eyes in the morning, she is the first thing he sees.

A soft, pre-dawn breeze wafts in through the open window, causing her velvet-soft petals to quiver slightly as he sits up, wiping sleep from his eyes with the back of his paw. He opens his mouth and yawns widely, small pinpricks of light flashing off the points of his fangs, reflecting the way the dew sparkles off the leaves wrapped around her unopened flowers. Pushing back the blankets with his feet, Miles "Tails" Prower rolls out of bed and pads over to the other side of the bed, the soft blue carpet underneath his paws taking away some of the morning chill.

"Wake up, Cosmo," he says to her as he walks around to her side of the bed, his voice soft and ever-so gentle. "It's dawn."

With infinite tenderness, he picks up a pot on the bedside table and places it upon the windowsill, angling her towards the horizon, where the sun is just beginning to peek up from behind the distant hills. This has become their daily ritual: waking up before the sun rises to watch the beautiful lights that come with dawn… something that he finds almost beautiful as her.

Almost, but not quite.

She is still the most beautiful thing to him, no matter how many dawns come or how many days pass.

And that is how it shall always be.

…As the dim rays of the sun stretch towards them like thin, spindly fingers, does she begin to fully awaken. Turning his attention away from the upcoming sun, he watches in rapt enthrallment as slowly, petal by dew-kissed petal, she unfurls herself from her bed of soft soil, until a flower unlike any other emerges -ready to greet the sunshine with a smile.

This is enough to put a smile on his lips, and turning back to the open window, he watches with softened eyes as the sun finally peeks its head over the hills that stretch over the horizon, painting the sky like a canvas¾the soft pinks, vibrant oranges, and rich purples creating a auroral masterpiece that never cease to amaze.

Yet after the sun becomes too bright to look at, and the aurora has came and gone, does he turn away from the window and begin to get prepared for the day ahead of him. He's got a lot to work on, and if he's going to meet the deadline on some of the jobs pending, he's going to have to hurry. Quickly donning a pair of pristine gloves -that will no doubt end up blackened with oil and grease by the end of the day- and his pair of white-and-red sneakers, Tails scoops up the potted plant from the windowsill and holds her tightly to his chest as he scampers out of his room.

He skips the traditional walk down the stairs and instead opts to slide down the banister with a smile. However, before he reaches the baluster, he hops down on the step and continues on his way into the kitchen. He sets Cosmo down in a sunlit corner of the counter and moves on to cook himself breakfast, like he does every morning. His mind shuts itself off as he goes the motions of the morning routine, his entire body running as if its on autopilot. The only time he pauses is to check off the previous day on the calendar hanging on the side of his refrigerator…and stops, staring at the date circled in red, a mere week from today.

However, before he has the chance to dwell any further on it, the scent of burning bacon reaches his nostrils and Tails quickly whirls around in a last-ditch attempt to save the side dish from being burnt to a complete crisp. Thankfully, its only a little bit too crispy around the edges, but still edible. He loads it onto his plate, along with scrambled eggs and hash browns from the other pans on his stove top, and after sitting Cosmo in her place directly across from him at the table, sits down and begins to eat.

However, he can't help it as his eyes flicker to where the calendar is, the bright red circle immediately drawing his eye towards it, and it's suddenly much harder to actually taste the flavor of his food, much less swallow it down.

It had been nearly a year since the day Cosmo had given up her life to stop the leader of the Metarex, Dark Oak- who had turned out to be her father, Lucas- from destroying everything in the galaxy. She had fused herself with the Dark Planet, sacrificing her physical form and transforming into a beautiful tree in full bloom. This metamorphosis stage had ended up weakening the planet with her roots, and with the combined efforts of Shadow, Sonic, and the cannon that Tails had built…both had been completely obliterated.

All except for a tiny seed that had survived the blast.

Shadow had explained that he and Sonic had used the properties of Chaos Regeneration to keep this small part of Cosmo alive, but that the seed would forever remain in that state, trapped within its casing no matter what energy it was exposed to.

Yet to Tail's surprise, when they had finally returned to their world, he had found that the seed had already begun to germinate, despite not being planted to any soil or exposed to any water and sunlight.

That was when Tails had begun to believe that there was still a chance that Cosmo could be brought back. A vision of her had appeared to him after Sonic had handed him her seed, and she had whispered to the young fox that she wanted him to take care of it…that it was her child.

And he had. For every day since then, Tails had cared for the plant, making sure that it was always in good health and given everything a plant needed to thrive. When the flower had bloomed for the first time six month ago, he thoughts that his heart would explode out of his chest in pride. He was keeping his promise to Cosmo. He would watch over this small part of her that he had left, besides the memories he carried in his heart, and make sure that she was always well looked after. This simple act of caring for her flower managed to ease some of the pain and regret that he carried with him…but it was not enough to stop the nightmares that plagued him.

At first, the average of bad dreams a week was roughly one-to-two, but when the nightmares began to become more frequent, until it was an almost nightly occurrence. On top of that, there was also times that he could swear that he could see her standing just a little bit away from him, no matter where he went, staring at him with soft, tear-filled eyes and a sad smile. Yet when he tried to find her, she would be gone.

Hallucinations, everyone would whisper when he insisted that she was there, and why couldn't they see her when he so obviously could.

He moved away from the city after the fame following the Metarex invasion died down, unable to fully cope with the trauma of watching as Cosmo died, and of the possibility, minute as it was, that there was another way to save the galaxy without her sacrificing herself. Nightmares plagued his dreams, replaying the same horrific moment when he fired the cannon at the beautiful tree that Cosmo had become in order to stop the Metarex; when he would wake up, sweating and heart racing, he could swear that he could hear her voice calling out to him, and that was enough of a strain on his already fragile state to make him desperate enough to stop trying to sleep altogether.

So, after days of careful secrecy and hard work, his friends had decided that Tails needed some time away from things that would remind him of what had transpired in space, and had built this house for him, hoping that the quiet scenery and peaceful atmosphere would help to heal the emotional scars he carried. It was a beautiful, thoughtful gift on his friend's part, and he loved them for giving him a place to call his own, where he wouldn't have to deal with other's pitying looks when he passed by, or hear the whispers about him behind his back. Yes, he was a hero, they said, but the war had changed him. That the loss of one of their own -or as some had referred to her as 'that plant girl'- had caused his mind to become unstable.

But she was not just 'that plant girl', he wanted to snap at them whenever he heard them talk about her like that. Her name was Cosmo, and she was a hero. Because of her sacrifice, the galaxy was safe once more, and they were alive to see another day.

They were alive…she was gone…and he was all alone once more.

Shaking his head to clear his mind of these negative thoughts, knowing that it will only bring anger and take him down the path strewn with dark emotions, something that he's fought against for the past few months in the wake of Cosmo's death. After a particular bad event in which he had nearly taken his own life to get ride of the pain that seemed to grow with every day that passed -in which Sonic had thankfully found him in time before Tails had gone through with it- he swore on Cosmo's flower that he would never do something like that again.

He was going to live for her sake. He owed her that much.

After breakfast is over and everything is put washed and put away, Tails gets ready to go to work. He places Cosmo on a ledge under the window, where she'll be able to enjoy the warmth of the sun, making sure to add water to the soil so that she won't be thirsty when the temperate goes up in the afternoon.

"I'll be back after work, okay Cosmo?" he tells her as he opens the door, though when he looks over his shoulder at the window, the entire blossom seems to bob its head, like she's agreeing with him. This brings a wry smile to the fox's lips and before he leaves gives her a cheery wave, wishing her a good day.

The words he longs to say hover just in reach, waiting for him to speak them, but no matter how much he wants to…he just can't bring himself to say them.

I love you, Cosmo.

It just doesn't feel like the right moment…not yet, anyways.

All he knows that when it is the right time to tell her, he'll know. And that's all that matters to him.

He closes the door behind him quietly and fires up his tails until they've got a good rotation going, producing a steady whirr, and then pushes up off the ground with a small hop. Angling his body in the direction of the hills, Tails begins his morning commute to his workshop. It's a bit farther than he would like, not wanting to be too far away from Cosmo in case of an emergency, but once he had seen just how big the interior of the building space was, he couldn't pass it up.

The fact that no one short of him knew about it was an added bonus as well.

He had found it after flying back from the city in one of the smaller planes he had designed and built, the cockpit and seat nearly filled to the brim with groceries. While looking down at some of the hills as he flew over, he had noticed that the grass that grew on one hill was just a shade lighter than the others around it. So he had gone to investigate, and it had eventually led to the discovery of a trapdoor built into the side of hill, neatly camouflaged and so cleverly concealed that at first Tails had missed it completely.

Yet persistence eventually paid off, and when the nine-year old fox had shimmied down a narrow ladder, the wood rotted with age, a feat that earned him a couple of splinters; after stumbling around the dark for a while, he finally hit upon a button jutting out of the wall. When he had pressed it, both apprehensive and excited to see what exactly was built under the hill, he had nearly been blinded by the high-power fluorescent lights that immediately came on. Blinking spots from his vision, he had waited for his eyesight to adjust to the sudden lights, but when he was finally able to look around, he felt his heart leap up in his throat.

He was standing in the biggest workshop he had ever seen.

It looked as if it had been abandoned for years, but how much dust was over the tables that lined the far wall, littered with mechanisms someone had just left behind. However, even with the furniture, the remaining space, Tails had estimated, would have easily fit the X Typhoon, the Blue Tornado, and Windstorm (the aforementioned plane), and still have room for Tails to build other machines.

This place was massive. It was extraordinary.

It was beautiful.

So Tails had come to claim the workshop as his own, using the space as a storing place for his three aircrafts and as the place where he could work on both old and new projects. Since he and the others had returned, Tails had found himself asked countless times by neighbors, acquaintances, or even random strangers if he could take a look at whatever gadget or machine that they had, and if he had the time, would he fix it for them?

Of course, he would, for sometimes the things they brought in would provide a worthy challenge, and the genius inventor in his thrived at the chance to take a look at a machine's inner workings, tinker around a bit and fiddle with the mechanical components until at last, the device began to work as it should. This last part always brought a smile to his face when he was done; the machine functioning perfectly to the delight of the owner, their heartfelt thanks to him always making him feel a little better. They would offer to pay him and he would politely decline, but they would always insist that he had earned it for the wonderful work that he did, and that it just wouldn't feel right to them if they didn't give him some form of payment as compensation for his time. So he would take it with a bashful smile and the customer would leave happy, and he would be content for a little while before the melancholy would come back and eat at him.

But now, as the prevailing cloud of gloom and sorrow was eased somewhat as the days went by, Tails had begun to turn the small favors of fixing broken machines into the beginnings of a business. Now, if people needed something to be fixed, they would come to him while he was in the city, telling him about the problem with their broken-down gadgets and appliances, and if he wasn't too busy with some of the other requests, then he would accept. A grappling claw had been installed into the underbelly of the Windstorm, allowing him to carry nearly anything back to his workshop where he would be able to work on it in peace.

As he fell back into the usual swing of work, the grief that had built a thick wall around his heart began to ease marginally, and with every new job request that he took, he discovered that some small happiness could still be found in tinkering and fixing broken-down mechanisms.

The jobs that were his favorite, however, were when the object had some sort of sentimental value, such as an old clock that had once belonged to someone's family who was no longer alive, or even from friends of the client that had moved away. Some of the tales that Tails had heard from a number of his clients had him reaching for a tissue, and the knowledge that he was going to fix something that people loved dearly because it actually meant something to them always made him feel a little bit happier…and yet also sadder at the same time.

Because no matter how hard he tries to fix the hole in his life, he still feels as if there is a few cogs short of a fully-operational apparatus.

It's ironic really, that a mechanically-inclined genius knows how to fix nearly everything except himself.

A sort of poetic justice, don't you think?

(Roughly nine and a half-hours later…)

Tails scoots back from his desk and stretches languidly, wincing slightly as his vertebrae give a few pops of disapproval, all in response for the hours he's been sitting there, hunched over the surface of his work table, working on the blueprints of a new machine he plans on building. He's already done with some of the job orders he gotten, and it will only take another couple of days or so to finish up the others, so he thought that he could make some headway on his machine's design.

According to Sonic, Dr. Eggman has been a little too quiet in the past few weeks, a sure sign that he's up to no good ¾if their previous battles were any indication¾ so Tails decided to work on something that would certainly put a sizable dent in the good doctor's plans for world domination. The device that Tails had in mind was one that would short out any mechanical device it was adhered to via the specific range of the electromagnetic field built into the device itself. No other machine would be affected by the device's effect except for the one it was attached to, making it very effective against the vast machines that Dr. Eggman loved to employ against the blue hedgehog -each that would inevitably and spectacularly fail in the end.

The good doctor is nothing if not persistent.

That's why Tails wants to build this device as soon as possible, so that he can give it to Sonic to use when Dr. Eggman does his move.

However, as others have said when he's worked for hours without a break, the work can always get done the next day. So, with a quick glance at the clock, Tails decides that he's a good stopping point in his work and that it'll be alright if he goes home.

(That, plus the fact that his stomach is rumbling quite insistently also factors into the equation quite a bit.)

After making sure that all his tools and diagrams are put away in their proper places and everything covered with white canvas tarps, Tails takes one last look around before going over to the ladder that leads up to the underground workshop -he made a new ladder out of sanded boards to replace the old one so he'd stop getting pieces of wood stuck in his gloves- and presses the button on the wall. Instantly, the lights go out, save for a singular light bulb that hangs from an overhead fixture to prevent it from being pitch black when Tails comes in or when he turns everything off at the end of working.

He scampers up the ladder and pushes open the trapdoor, used to the weight of it by now despite it being made out of heavy wood. As soon as he's out of the opening and the door is once again lowered back in place, Tails smooths down the blanket of grass to cover any evidence of the trapdoor ever being there before standing, dusting his gloves off with a satisfied smile.

Another work day done. Time to go back home.

With one last look to see if everything is as it should be, and that the door to his private workshop is completely camouflaged, he gives his nickname a whirl and hovers for a moment before angling his body up at the sky. Why he's able to fly has always boggled his mind, and for a time he hated that the extra tail he was born with made him the source of ridicule among some of his peers, but after he befriended Sonic, he discovered that something that made him different also made him special. And flying…well, flying always brings him a bit of happiness, even when things are at their darkest.

It is with this thought in mind that Tails takes off from the ground, heading in the direction of home and Cosmo. He can see the curve of the river that cuts a path through the grassy zone and angles his body a little further to the northeast, using the long channel of water as a directional marker to make sure he's on the right flight path home.

The river is the reason that he loves his little home his friends built for him. It's so peaceful there that he sometimes wishes that he would never have leave to go into the city, and would be content to live there for the rest of his life, working in his own workshop whenever he wants. Yes, the absence of his friends is sometimes hard to bear, when they live so far away…but he's far happier here, in his home by the river, with the foxtail grass growing along the water's edge, soft enough for him to lay down in a stare up at the clouds, daydreaming.

It is in thinking of his riverside haven that he nearly misses movement beneath him on the ground, but by some twist of fate, he does notice it, and looks down to see someone wandering mindlessly along a path between the thick outcropping of hills in that particular area.

Concerned that said person might be lost, Tails brow furrow and swiftly changes course, angling his body to come in for a landing. The closer he gets to the ground, however, his ears prick up at the sound of someone singing. It's a wordless tune, unlike one he's ever heard…but it still manages to send a chill down his spine, though he can't figure out why.

"Hey!" he calls as he sticks his landing perfectly, the grass muffling the sound of it to nearly a silent hush. Now that he's up close, the young fox can see that the person is wearing a soft cream-colored robe that skims the ground, the cowl pulled up over their head, preventing him from seeing anything else but the cloth. The song is also most definitely coming from this mysterious figure, though now the notes sound strained, and Tails can feel another shiver run through him.

The sound is unnerving and strange…but strangely compelling and familiar in a way that he cannot recognize.

"Are you lost? Do you need help?" Tails asks in a curious tone, though he's still a bit wary. After all, who knows if this is some kind of trick from Dr. Eggman in an attempt to capture him in order to use him as a hostage against Sonic. It's devious, yes, but as far as anyone's concerned, that's just the kind of sneaky, underhanded trick the rotund man would try and pull.

The person stops dead in their tracks and turns slightly, as if they are looking at Tails over their shoulder, though the hood still manages to cover their face from view. When he speaks, the person abruptly stops singing and a tense silence falls between the two of them.

Not quite knowing what to say -and yet knowing that he has to say something- he stretches out his hand, opening his mouth to speak, when all of a sudden, a visible tremor runs through the cloaked figure, and a voice comes from the empty place in the shadows of the cowl.

"…T-Tails…?" a soft, feminine voice asks in a slightly quavering voice; the long word laden with uncertainty and confusion, as if the person is trying to remember something but the recognition is hovering just out of their reach.

But to Tails, the voice is impossible to not recognize, and even more impossible to forget.

His hand freezes in midair and a shocked gasp whistles air down his throat, but it's as if his body has completely stopped working, unable to comprehend such things as breathing in oxygen in that split second. Even his heart, he dimly thinks to himself, has gone utterly silent in his chest, unbeating and motionless.

As another silence, one fraught of disbelief and heartache, comes over Tails and the mysterious figure (he can't even think her name, he's so afraid he's wrong), the clasp of the cloak suddenly comes undone, and the material slides down in the grass with a soft, almost inaudible swish.

And it is there, standing in that narrow valley, the two of them come face to face…and she looks exactly as he remembers her.

She still wears the dress made from soft white flower petals, its hem tipped with green, a few shades lighter than the green bolero the same color as her bob-cut hair, the edges of the sleeves trimmed with gold. A red gem shimmers brightly in the center of her chest, matching the tightly closed buds on the side of her head, each enclosed with bright, verdant leaves. White stockings adorn her slender legs, with a pair of green-and-gold flats on her feet. Her eyes, a shimmering cerulean blue, still manage to captivate him, like they did the first time he had set eyes on her.

So he simply stands there, dumbfounded, unable to quite believe his eyes and yet unable to look away at the same time as she opens her mouth and begins to sing that same haunting melody from before.

T-this…this is…impossible.

Yet the longer he stands there, mouth agape, it's as if the world has suddenly turned on it's head and become a place were up is down and right is left, for his mind can find no possible explanation or rational scenario where it truly is the girl he loves in front of him.

"C-Cosmo?" he whispers in disbelief, not daring to blink, or even breathe…scared that if he does, this vision of her will disappear with it.

Though when she nods, his heart feels like its being squeezed too tightly while his lungs burn for air. He opens his mouth to speak, to ask her questions of what and why and how, but before he is able to, she beats him to the punch.

"So much to tell you/And most of all goodbye," she sings softly, pressing her hands to her chest as her voice resonates from every direction, from every hill, from every blade of grass. "But I know that you can't hear me anymore," she continues, but when Tails takes a shaky step towards her, she lifts her head and opens her eyes, revealing the sapphire color of her irises…as well as the tears that dance along her lashes.

Tears fill his own eyes at the realization that it really is Cosmo in front of him, and throwing all caution and reasoning to the wind, begins to sprint towards the girl he loves with all his heart, calling her name over and over in-between the broken sobs of relief. She's here she's back she's right in front of me…

Yet she lowers her hands and turns away from him as he runs over the grassy field, beginning to walk up one of the hills, not stopping despite the numerous times that Tails calls out for her.

Though if Tails dared to look past her sudden reappearance and his own mind-consuming joy, the young fox cub would have noticed that she was not walking so much as floating about two inches off the ground, and that she was slightly see-through, like a ghost or perhaps a mirage would be…

…or perhaps an afterimage.

But none of these facts even once cross his mind as he runs towards the girl he believes with his heart is his Cosmo, returned to life once more. All he knows is that no matter what, he has to catch up with her. Even as she disappears over the ridge of the hill she had climbed at the same time that Tails reaches the bottom of the slope, the sound of her voice still manages to carry, guiding him forward.

"It's so loud inside my head/ With words that I should have said/ And as I drown in my regrets/ I can't take back the words I never said…"

"Cosmo, wait for me! Don't go! Please Cosmo, it's me, Tails!"

"I never said…/ I can't take back the words I never said…"

"COSMO!"

Yet when he pushes himself the feet up the side of the slope and onto the top of the hill, her name bursting from his throat in desperation, he cannot see Cosmo descending down the side of the grassy knoll, or waiting for him at the bottom of the slope.

He can't see Cosmo anywhere.

It's like she's…disappeared.

"N-no," Tails whispers disbelievingly at the thought of her slipping through his fingers and leaving him alone once more, or being just a phantasm makes his heart break along an invisible fissure all over again. It can't be…It just isn't right…I saw her…she was right here…, he thinks to himself as he looks all around in denial, desperately searching for a sign that she's still out there among the hills, just hidden. He holds on to this irrational thought with every single fiber of his being, hoping down to the very core of his being that he's right… but when he can't even hear the sound of her voice out there among the hills, like before, does he realize what she was.

A tempting image. An impossible wish. A dream that will never come true.

An illusion. A phantasm. A hallucination.

He takes a shaky step forward, shaking his head in acute denial despite every piece of evidence presented, and somehow trips over his own feet, sending him rolling down the side of the hill like the proverbial Jack in the nursery rhyme. He cries out with every bounce of his body against the hard ground as the world swirls together into an indistinct mass of green and brown, making him so dizzy until he's forced to close his eyes and wait for this motion-induced nightmare to be over.

When he finally rolls to a stop at the bottom of the hill, sick to his stomach, he simply lies on his stomach without moving, the tears making tracks down his gold-brown fur as the sobs wrack his body. He's too overwhelmed by the knowledge that the Cosmo he saw was not truly his Cosmo; too overcome with grief to even think about anything else but his own heartbreaking anguish.

Instead, he simply lies there, surrendering his will to move or roll over onto his side as he sobs bitterly, brokenly…hopelessly. Every tear that he had stored up since Cosmo died came flooding out of him in wave after wave of heartbreaking anguish, until at when the last of his tears falls, he feels as if his soul is empty of every emotion but a grief so devastating that it scares him.

Yet not even this fear is enough to force him into getting back on his feet and begin the staggering journey back to his little home next to the river. Rather, he resigns himself to his own heartache and rolls over onto his side to curl up in a fetal position, feeling his eyes close as the last of his strength gives out and blessed oblivion comes, sweeping all the thoughts from his mind and swallowing him up into a dark, dreamless void.

A place so dark and deep that at one time he feared of slipping into forever and never waking up…but now he welcomes it willingly, without fear, as if it were an old friend welcoming him.

And with this last thought, Tails slips into a sweet, hollow abyss of nothingness, torn between the comfort of knowing the dark will allow him to forget everything and just rest… and the slowly wavering desire to live.

(End of Part 1)

So, that's it for the first half of this two-shot story, and I hope that those who read it enjoy it (or hate me because I left it on a sad cliffhanger), but please, leave comments and/or constructive criticisms at your leisure. Just no flames, or I swear I will put them back in my catapult and launch them back at the sender...so arsonists beware. :)

See you readers in part two of 'A Flower Among the Foxtails'!

-BlackRoseEden28