Sonic stared at Tails' proffered hand, but didn't take it. Unbidden, a thousand horrible images of what could have happened for Tails to have gained such an appendage flashed through his mind. Snapshots of steel tables covered in blood; echoes of spine-chilling screams that were no less terrible for having been imagined; his brother, broken and weak, huddled in a cell all alone...
Equally as unbidden, Sonic's eyes welled with tears.
Gently, he pushed Tails' hand aside and wrapped him a tight embrace. He squeezed his eyes shut against the imaginings conjured by his restless mind, focusing on one thought and one thought only. Eggman would pay. If it was the last thing he did, Sonic would make the Doctor pay for this. The suffering his nemesis had visited on his friends would not go unpunished.
"We missed you so much, Sonic," Tails mumbled into his fur. Sonic could tell by the tremble in his voice that he was crying. He tightened his grip.
"I'm sorry, pal. I... I don't know what happened..."
He loosened his grip and held Tails at arms' length, looking into those blue eyes he knew so well with as much conviction as he could possibly muster.
"But I promise, I'll set things right."
Tails took a shuddering breath, wiping away his tears with the heel of his one organic hand. He smiled shyly, giving Sonic the distinct impression that it was first time he'd done so in a long time, and cleared his throat.
"I know you will." He said it with absolute faith, as if there could never be any question. After more than a day of putting up with Amy's hostile mistrust, Sonic appreciated Tails' instant vote of confidence. "Easier said than done though. A lot has changed since you disappeared."
Sonic's gaze flicked towards Amy, who was still watching with shuttered eyes. "Yeah, I'm getting that. You should probably fill me in."
If Tails noticed the tension between the two hedgehogs he made no mention of it.
"I will... But I should warn you, Sonic, it's... it's not pretty. A lot of people died." Tails rubbed his mechanical wrist absently, sounding older and wearier than his (Sonic did a quick calculation)... his sixteen years. "Our friends – some of them didn't make it."
It was no less than he expected, but the news still hit Sonic hard. Worse still was the realisation that to Tails and Amy, their passing would be an old wound – a loss they'd already grieved. Already he felt the loneliness of it, of mourning friends long since dead and being the only one who felt it as a fresh bite. He steeled himself, preparing for the inevitable, but inside he felt sick... vulnerable.
I don't think I'm ready for this.
Tails must have seen it in his face. The fox shook his head gently and laid a sympathetic hand on his shoulder. Softly, he muttered, "We don't have to talk about them yet. We can wait till you've had time to adjust."
Sonic nodded gratefully.
Amy, however, had other ideas.
"No. Sorry, but I don't think so Tails," she interrupted, her voice cool, perfectly devoid of inflection.
"Amy?" Tails frowned, anxious on Sonic's behalf.
"If he's going to live with us, he needs to know." The young engineer looked like he might argue, but Amy cut him off with a sharp look. "I won't budge on this, Tails. If he doesn't have the guts to hear what his cowardice has cost us, then there's no place for him here."
"None of this was my fault, Amy," Sonic sighed, tired by now of repeating himself when he clearly wasn't being heard. " And I'm not a coward," he added bitterly.
Amy raised one eyebrow, just slightly. A challenge. Prove it.
"Amy," Tails cut in desperately. "Look at him. He hasn't aged a day, even though it's been seven years. And he obviously doesn't have a clue about... well, anything." He winced apologetically in Sonic's direction, to which the hedgehog merely shrugged. "Do you honestly think Sonic would-,"
"Tails." Sonic took his brother's hand, still resting on his shoulder, and patted it with a sad smile. He'd seen first hand that talk wasn't going to help; whatever was going on in Amy's head wouldn't be derailed by reason. She was a girl of deep passions, always had been – when she felt something, she felt it fiercely and in defiance of all logic.
And as he came to that very conclusion, Sonic finally understood. This wasn't about him, not really; this was about her. He was just an outlet.
"It's alright, bro." With a deep breath he stepped between them, blocking Tails' view and looking Amy right in the eyes. "If that's what you really want Ames, go right ahead."
She studied him, searching for weakness, for the slightest hesitation. Sonic set his jaw, grimly determined.
"Fine," Amy smirked, the expression humourless, predatory and utterly without mercy. Then, without preamble, she began to recount the horrors of his seven year absence in excruciating detail.
"Big was the first to die." She said it so plainly, so matter-of-fact. Like she was reeling off a statistic, instead of recounting someone's demise. "By then, nearly everyone who'd ever associated with you was already a prisoner aboard the Egg Carrier." A dark chuckle. "The irony – we spent so much time looking for you, we didn't realise we were being rounded up till it was already too late. Everyone, except Knuckles, Shadow and – for some reason – Big. People you hadn't spoken to in years, people like the Chaotix, dragged aboard his ship and thrown in a tiny cell for no other reason than that they knew you.
"In between torturing us, bleeding us – sometimes literally – for information on the Chaos Emeralds, Eggman made a hobby of destroying your old haunts. Station Square, East City, Mystic Ruin... Anywhere you'd spent more than a handful of days. Big's forest was the opening act. He carpet bombed it in the dead of night, but not before he sent in his robots to kill Big as he slept. We were all made to watch, by the way. "
"Amy, that' enough!" Tails hissed, his eyes wide with shock.
"Knuckles and Shadow were next," Amy continued, deaf to the fox's objections. "They tried to rescue us you know. They did rescue us. Shadow fought to seize the Egg Carrier's flight controls, guiding the ship close enough to a nearby cliff so we could jump to safety. Knuckles released us from the cells. He had to carry Rouge, who'd been there so long her mind had cracked under the strain of captivity. I had to carry Tails because Eggman cut his arm off!"
She was shouting now, hurling every word at him like a stone. Sonic stood straight and stiff, fighting back tears. It was so much worse than anything he could have imagined.
"Then we got separated – Eggman activated his security doors and I had to drag Tails to the deck. I don't know what happened, exactly, but the Chaotix tell me Knuckles died a heroic death fighting to help them escape. Not like Vanilla, who was shot in the back as we tried to jump to safety – she died slowly and painfully on the ground. Cream screamed by her side the whole time. Then I was forced to bury her alone, and wait helplessly for Tails to die too from blood loss. I was sure he would – it's a miracle he didn't. As for Shadow... I hear he got overrun by Eggman's robots. Rather than kill him outright, the Doctor has him alive in stasis... a monument to his grandfather."
By this point Sonic felt physically ill. He thought he might faint, faced now with the brutal reality of this awful new world he found himself trapped in. It was no wonder Amy hated him, if she believed for even one second that he'd abandoned them to a fate like that.
"We lost Vector last year," she said finally, voice – in stark contrast to her shouting of moments before – a bleak almost-whisper. "He got pinned down by a robot patrol out North, looking for food. This is our reality. Hunted, haunted... We can't escape the past, and there's no future worth looking forward to. And that's on you. That's all on you."
With that, she spun on her heel and disappeared into the cave, leaving Sonic and Tails alone with their thoughts.
Tails rallied to extend what comfort he could, his words thin and trembling. "That's not true, Sonic. It's not your fault. I know you would have done something, if you could've..."
Sonic grimaced. "Thanks pal..." He coughed, trying to clear the lump from his throat. "Do you think we could... Can we go somewhere more private for a bit? I need to..." Get a hold of myself...He couldn't bring himself to say it. He'd crack if he did, he was sure of it – and he didn't want to cry, not in the open, where anyone could see him. Certainly not where Amy could.
"S-sure. Uh, this way."
Tails led the way to what, judging by the various unfinished projects lying around the place, must have been his new workshop. Sonic had barley registered the many other tunnels and hollowed out caves they passed, his eyes firmly on his feet as they'd walked. Whispers, soft and full of judgement, had followed close on their heels, and when he had dared to look up – just once, when he could contain his curiosity no longer – he'd been met with blank, hollow-eyed stares in every direction.
He hadn't looked again.
Sonic sat down heavily on a crate in Tails' workshop, elbows on his knees, hands clasped together to keep them from shaking. His best friend – only friend, it now seemed – remained standing, leaning against the wall by the curtained entrance with a concerned look on his face. For a long time, the only sounds were of Sonic's laboured breathing as he tried to reign in his emotions, and of passers-by talking in hushed tones.
Eventually, Tails pushed off of the wall with a grunt and started to rummage around his assorted mountains of scrap. A minute later he was squatting in front of Sonic, the most primitive of 'walkie-talkie' devices held out in his mechanical hand.
"Here," he said, nudging Sonic's arm. When Sonic raised his head he offered a small, encouraging smile. "It's not much... nothing like my old stuff, anyway. But I did the best with what we have."
"What is it?" Sonic mumbled, still reeling. He no longer felt quite as broken – at least, he didn't think he was in immediate danger of having a complete meltdown – but the loss of so many good friends and comrades sat like a lead ball in his chest. It wasn't something he could simply recover from, he knew that much.
"Honestly? It's just a radio. We call them communicators, but that's kind of optimistic..." Tails cleared his throat sheepishly. "I change the frequencies daily just in case, but I doubt Eggman bothers to check regular radio waves any more. All the important Resistance members have one. You'll need one too if... I mean..."
Suddenly awkward, Tails began to fidget. He passed the radio from hand to hand, a shy and uncertain child again.
"Yeah." Sonic took the device with a weak approximation of a grin. "Thanks bud."
Tails nodded.
Quiet settled around them again, but unlike the tense, sorrowful silence of before, this one was companionable – almost tranquil. Sonic tucked the radio into his quills. His fingers brushed against the soothing warmth of the chaos emerald, and he briefly considered showing it to Tails. After a moment's hesitation he brushed the idea aside. He would show him eventually, he promised. Just not now. Not with Amy's onslaught still so fresh in his mind.
"Look," Tails began, scratching the back of his head. "About Amy? She shouldn't have-,"
"It's fine." Sonic didn't want to talk about it.
"No, it's not. You didn't deserve that. She's just..." The fox sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. "Amy blames herself. She doesn't talk about it, not even to me... But I know she feels responsible. When you didn't show up to save us," he shrugged, "she thought it was her fault. She's spent the last seven years believing she got you killed."
"I... why would she think that?" Sonic asked, eyebrows pinching in confusion. He tried again to remember, to piece together the events leading up to his capture. But just like before there was a grey fog, obscuring the finer details in his mind. His last clear memory was of leaving Mystic Ruin, waving goodbye to Tails in his workshop before taking off aimlessly in his usual manner. Nothing odd about that – he'd done it often enough before.
And yet...
There was something different about it. A feeling... Not of aimlessness at all, but of purpose. He'd had something to do, something specific; he was suddenly sure of it. Where had he been going that day?
He strained for a moment, reaching for fragmented memories that were just infuriating inches beyond his reach. Then Tails spoke and all at once he lost his train of thought. The answers, so close, drifted entirely out of his grasp, leaving the blue blur with nothing but that half-forgotten morning and an impression of vague intent.
"Sorry, what did you say?" he asked, returning his focus to his worried-looking little brother.
"I said, don't you remember? The day before... before everything went down?"
"I don't remember much," Sonic admitted, frowning. "It's all kinda... blurry. Do you know?"
"Some of it," Tails replied slowly, reluctantly. "Like I said, Amy doesn't like to talk about it. She only told me because she thought I was dying at the time..."
Sonic shuddered. He didn't need to ask to know what the kit meant. Of all the horrible things Amy had told him, the thought of Tails bleeding out, mutilated and delirious with pain, had to be one of the worst. It wasn't a subject he wanted to explore in further detail.
"Would you fill me in, pal?" He swallowed, realising for the first time how dry his mouth felt, and quickly added, "About what she said I mean?"
"I dunno..." Tails made a face. "I don't remember the finer points. Anyway, it's not really my place."
Sonic considered arguing, but quickly changed his mind. He didn't want to put Tails in that position, not when the young engineer was the only ally he had. And he especially didn't want to give Amy even more reason to hate him.
"Never mind, bud. Give it a few days, I'll probably remember myself." He didn't sound convinced, even to himself.
"You should ask Amy," Tails said seriously.
"Nah. It's cool." Asking Amy was the very last thing he wanted to do. He would deal with Amy eventually, but he suspected some time apart would do the both of them a world of good. "Hey, I'm kinda hungry. What do you guys do for food down here."
Tails studied him a second longer, not fooled by his change in subject for even an instant. For whatever reason, he decided not to press the matter and instead motioned for Sonic to follow him out into the hall.
Their reappearance was met with sudden silence, the kind that occurred when people who had been deep in conversation abruptly stopped. One glance at the guilty faces of several loitering humans was enough to confirm the topic of discussion.
Tails ignored them, brushing past with an air of authority down the tunnel to their right. Sonic followed, head hung low. He was used to attention, but something about the stares that followed them made him distinctly uncomfortable.
This might take some getting used to.
