It's early in the morning.

Panting breaths and broken moans permeate the temperate air of the brittle greenhouse.

Rouge scrabbles for purchase on a wooden surface, her bowed head surrounded by an assortment of plants in pots of various designs and sizes. The little plastic spoon is on the countertop, poised below her open mouth, catching some of her sweat and spit. She's beyond words.

Behind her stands Shadow, his firm arm outstretched, fingers sinking into her muscles, massaging her lower back with gestures and pulses. Watching her fall apart, he seeks to mend her as well, pumping into her desirous flesh his otherworldly energy, bringing her to orgasm repeatedly. He doesn't entirely understand. He knows she enjoys what he's doing but he isn't made to be a mortal man. In some ways, she is as alien as half of himself.

She will feel horribly guilty when it's over and at a more socially acceptable time she will look for a bottle and she will find someplace to be alone where she will think of all the awful names attributed to predators such as her and she will hate herself because she'll know that this won't be the last time because she won't allow it to be. This is the closest thing to a release she can steal from him. A way out, except it's just a wall she keeps smashing into. She tells herself she's better than this, because after all, she loves him too much. But then she acts like this is what she needs to survive.

He doesn't feel arousal at the sight of her ecstasy. His curiosity is intellectual and emotional. Generally speaking, he is innocent. He just wants to help her, somehow, and maybe this helps. He still isn't sure.

She sinks her nails deeper into the wood and pulls herself up when her legs momentarily buckle.


"Ugh, I can't do this."

Espio opens his eyes, discovering Amy's irritable expression, replying to it with serenity and patience.

"I'm sorry, sweetheart." She apologetically sighs. Shrugging. "I'm so grateful for your help, but this isn't working for me. My feelings are too… turbulent. My body is restless but all I want to do is do nothing or…" She hesitates.

Do nothing, or touch herself, or touch Rouge.

"It took me many years to, as Charmy would say, 'figure this stuff out' for myself." The chameleon's deep, soft-spoken voice is so very soothing, but not soothing enough. "Please, don't feel as if you need to push yourself to excellence so soon. Some things take time. You know this as well as I do, blossoming flower."

"I guess I was hoping for something of a quick fix." The hedgehog shakes her head with disapproval. "How arrogant and insensitive of me."

"Don't beat yourself up. Would you like to take a break and try again, later?"

"No. I think I'm done for today."

"Alright. But if you feel ready to try again tomorrow, you know where to find me."

"Thank you. Really. You're such a lovely person and a great friend."

"Likewise."

They gaze fondly at each other for several intimate, silent seconds.

"I'm gonna head out, then."

Espio doesn't mention the building site, leaving it up to Amy, not wishing to pry into a clearly difficult and private situation. He remains seated in his meditative pose as she untangles her slender limbs.

She shifts onto her knees, leaning over to peck his cheek before getting up with a womanly grunt.

He blushes furiously but manages a pleasant smile without embarrassing himself, golden eyes gazing up into her downcast green.

"Take care, sweetie, okay?"

"You, too. Please, be kind to yourself."

"If I felt I deserved it," she mutters, but he hears her. She puts on a fierce face, one that can easily be mistaken for heroic determination to face anything and everything that comes her way. She has a reputation to maintain even if she finds herself caring less for it.

His brows lower with worry as she turns and carefully walks out of his sanctuary, closing the door behind herself, leaving him to ponder her wellbeing within the quiet solitude of the otherwise rarely visited storage space. The outdoors had proved to be too distracting for her, but he isn't sure the indoors will provide much more solace for her body, soul and mind. Not when she is the eye of her own storm.

"There she goes," Vector whispers, peering from around the corner in a way that unintentionally projects his lengthy snout within potential visibility, had she been paying attention. "She looks kinda intense. Wow. Must've been pretty heated in there."

"The passion! Murder and romance!"

"Lucky guy. I'm so happy for him."

Charmy gathers his wits quick enough to yank the crocodile back by his headphones, the bee weighed down by the chain he is permitted to borrow for this investigation. "Dude, stealth."

"Right, right, sorry."

The detectives wait for her steps to dissipate before turning to grin at each other, as if she might overhear their expressions of glee.


"I feel like a ghost." Rouge giggles to herself, after talking to herself, sprawled out on the surgical table with her eyes rolled back, staring at some poster of anatomy plastered on the wall from upside-down. "I hate myself. I shouldn't be me. And I hate this place. I shouldn't be here."

Their lack of an actual doctor is going to be very detrimental to them all, someday, if Eggman ever does come back. But not many injuries happen during peacetime, now that most, if not all, of the robots have been cleared out of the city.

"The smell. The memories. This is bullshit. All of it." She plays with a pill between her fingertips. "I miss my life, when I was a person and not this ghost. I used to be a treasure hunter," she tells the poster. "I was also the owner of a successful nightclub. I had a great apartment in a nicer part of the city. Shadow and Omega lived with me. We were happy."

There is nobody else around to listen to her, but she talks, anyway.

"Or we were happy enough. Definitely happier than we are, now." She groans, scratching her stomach. "Why did it all have to change?" She pauses for effect, then exclaims, "I feel stuff, and I'm not even a little bit drunk, yet. Hmm. That reminds me. I'm about to hit my quota for the month. Dammit."

The pill bounces off the wall once tossed.

"Damn it all."


"I m-miss my mom," the anonymous teenager explains, "and my d-dad," whilst sobbing into Amy's comforting chest. "I wanna g-go h-home."

She bends over him, every teenager's big sister figure, here, and uses her big sisterly voice to say cliché things such as, "They're in a better place."

This, of course, assumes that 'they' were not turned into two of the robots currently lost in the wilderness beyond the city, wandering without their master, killing the wildlife or capturing helpless, lesser animals to drag them to some desolate shell of a non-functional factory.

Refusing to mention this possibility because it is disheartening, the hedgehog tries to convince the teenager to be happy to be alive. To be grateful for whatever they can consider some small mercy. But it sounds patronising, deceitful, even to her, especially to her, because she is alive, she has saved so many lives, and yet she is unhappy.


Their meeting is inevitable. Anticipated.

Amy braces herself for Rouge to do something daring and flirtatious, brave enough to respond in kind.

The bat simply stops in the passageway, warily staring at the hedgehog, and waits, too. As if faced with a predator of equal stature.

Amy frowns.

Rouge frowns, as well.

"Have you had a nice day, so far?"

"No."

"Me, neither. Have you been busy?"

"No. You?"

"I wouldn't say mine has been productive."

The bat allows her hip to tilt a bit, posturing herself more casually.

"Hmm." The hedgehog sways on her heels, echoing her girlhood with the gesture. "That's an idea."

"What is?"

"Ah." Amy stops swaying, green eyes steady and bright. "Wanna come to my room?"

Rouge takes a powerful step closer. "Interesting."

"Do you?"

"Yes, I do."

"How about tonight, around seven?"

"It's a date."

"Cool."

Another step. "It's funny how the world just keeps on going, isn't it? Keeps turning all by itself."

A smile. "I wouldn't call it funny. It's what keeps us alive."

"Alive." The distance grows smaller. "How people keep living their lives without us doing much to participate in anything. How small and unimportant we are. And yet we may notice each other. We can fixate."

The smile broadens. "Even if we're small and unimportant, we're inspiring to others. We're heroes."

"We were heroes, honey." A final step brings their noses together.

The smile vanishes.

"Now we're just symbols and metaphors, stand-ins for what isn't really there, implying things without truly replacing them. Without Eggman, we're just like everybody else, only we're famous."

The hedgehog reaches for the bat, gripping her arms in vices.

"Careful. You might hurt me."

"I'm not like that. I don't want to be."

"It's your choice."

"Are you trying to make me angry? Does this… excite you?"

"I'm trying to incite something in you. And I'm saying that I could spend the whole day in bed with you, keeping you to myself, and the world wouldn't end. At worst, we'd inconvenience someone, maybe hurt each other."