Thanks, Jake, for helping me develop the plot to this chapter. Unfortunately, this is the last chapter I'm going to be writing for a long time, until I have some real plot for this fanfic. Hope you readers enjoyed it so far.

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The girls continued chatting for a short while before turning out the lights. A few minutes after the last light was out and all the girls were asleep, one of the babies started crying. Cream was the first one to wake back up and walk over to the playpen.

"Sonic? What's wrong?" she asked as the hedgehog continued to cry. The rabbit knew it was the blue hedgehog without having to turn the lights back on, because she remembered exactly the position each of the babies were sleeping in. Tiara was next to wake up, and followed Cream into the kitchen.

"Cream?" whispered Tiara. "You're only six years old. You should be asleep right now, or else you'll be too tired to wake up tomorrow morning."

"Tiara?" responded the rabbit. "You're up too?"

"Here, let me take care of little Sonic. You go back to bed."

Just then, both girls got a familiar stench in their noses, which prompted Cream to hold hers. Tiara simply wrinkled her own nose while she used her arms to take Sonic from Cream.

"Sonic's diaper stinks," said the bunny rabbit, which of course, was rather obvious to the Manx kitten.

"Here, why don't you pour him some milk and warm it up while I change Sonic," replied Tiara.

While Tiara was busy changing Sonic's diaper, carefully following all the steps that Vanilla showed her and the other girls, Cream poured some milk into a baby bottle and put it into the microwave, but not having remembered how long to set the microwave for, she took a guess and set it for four minutes. By the time Tiara came back down, there was still one minutes and fourteen seconds on the timer, and upon opening the door, the bottle was scalding to touch.

"Cream, this is way too hot. Sonic can't drink this," informed Tiara.

"Oh. Sorry," said Cream.

"Don't worry. I'll wait for this to cool off. You go back upstairs."

When the milk did cool down to the right temperature, Sonic still didn't want it, so Tiara put it back in the fridge. Oh well, she thought. At least I won't have to change him again tonight…or at least I'd hope not.

Upon being put back into the playpen, Sonic still wouldn't fall asleep. He opted instead to make babbling noises and play with whichever toys were near him. Unfortunately for everyone else (the other babies included), one of those happened to be a toy radio that played one of various baby songs when its buttons were pushed.

"No, no, no, Sonic, this isn't playtime, this is sleepy time," said Tiara as she took the toy from him and popped the batteries out. Her actions prompted Sonic to start crying even harder than he did just roughly ten minutes ago. Amy then woke up to help Tiara as Cream held her pillow tighter to her body.

"Sonic sure is giving you a hard time, isn't he?" the pink hedgehog commented.

"Would you believe this?" replied the cat. "He stopped crying when Cream picked him up and brought him into the kitchen. I gave him a clean diaper and offered him some warm milk, and he didn't want the milk. Now he's back in the pen, and he's having another fit. I just don't get it. Do you?"

"Do you think he's trying to say something?" asked Amy. "Maybe he's scared of the dark."

"I guess. After all, this only started when we turned the last light out. I just hope that one of us got some night lights."

"I'd hope that Cream, Rouge, or Vanilla got some, because I remember being in the food aisle when we went shopping."

Not wanting to wake anyone else up, the two girls chose instead to think of what to use as a makeshift nightlight, without the intensity of a regular light bulb.

…

…

A candle?

No. It would be a fire hazard.

…

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Christmas tree lights? Even if they were packed neatly into a box, they would still be too noisy to take out, besides which, Amy nor Tiara knew where they would be.

…

…

…

"You think the TV would be a good source of light?" Amy suggested.

"It might work," Tiara responded. Even though Sonic would still be free to roam around, it was still a better suggestion than the previous two. The girls went back downstairs with Sonic, and turned the TV on. It didn't produce any sound, just an image of a ring in front of a black background, with wavy static lines flashing in front of it. To the girls' satisfaction, this had the effect of calming the baby hedgehog down and putting him to sleep.

Next step: where should he be put? Tiara went upstairs to retrieve her own and Amy's sleeping bags, while Amy opted to go back to sleep on the sofa. She would rather not have put Sonic anywhere above the floor, as he might hurt himself if he fell off of, say, one of the armchairs. After putting him in a sleeping bag and getting into the other one, all they could do was hope that nothing bad happened to Sonic.

The next morning…

Rouge was, naturally, the first person to wake up. Upon realizing that Amy and Tiara's sleeping bags weren't even in the bedroom, she walked downstairs into the living room. Sure enough, there were the two girls…and Sonic as well.

"Rouge?" asked Amy as she woke up slightly from hearing her footsteps.

"Amy?" replied the bat. "Why aren't you and Tiara still sleeping with me and Cream? And what's the TV doing on?"

"This was the only way Sonic would fall back asleep. Make sure you don't step on him, okay?"