"Sonic!" Amy called over the roar of the wind that whipped at their faces as Sonic ran. "Shouldn't we take the train?"

Sonic flashed her an award-winning smile. "Nah, this is better."

"But wouldn't the train be faster?"

"Amy, I'm the fastest thing alive."

"But you can't keep up that speed forever; that's why we take the train."

"Oh yeah? Watch me." He clutched her tighter against his chest as he went in a full tilt, trying to make his body as streamlined and aerodynamic as possible. His feet were a blur of motion as they began to pick up the pace, going even faster than before. Amy stared at him, wide-eyed, and Sonic tossed back his head and laughed. This was all for show, she realized. He was trying to impress her. The thought made her slightly annoyed.

"Sonic, I think you're getting far too much enjoyment out of this."

"Oh yeah? And what's wrong with having a little fun?"

"Hmm, I don't know," the little pink hedgehog said sarcastically. She feigned contemplation as she stroked her chin as best as she could, considering the awkward angle. "Maybe because Rouge is in the hospital and Robotnik could be on his way to get the emerald right now."

"Don't fret, Amy. We'll deal with things as they come. Right now, we're making good time, I swear." They had long since abandoned city streets, having opted for a more rural route. The open grasslands and dirt roads were being thinner and more precarious, however, and Amy saw that any trace of a man-made pathway abruptly disappeared directly ahead: the only thing before them was a cliff-side that shot straight up.

"Uh, Sonic..."

"Don't worry," Sonic said, beginning to make a wide arc and they began to scale the side of the mountain instead. Around the bend there was the tunnel that the train used to cross over into the Mystic Ruins, suspended some twenty-five feet off of the ground and connected by a concrete bridge. Sonic was heading straight at it. "You ready?"

"No!" Amy said, and she couldn't help but close her eyes. The impact never came, however, and suddenly she felt herself gaining lift. She opened them again: Sonic had jumped sideways, with surprising grace and agility, straight at the support beams suspending the bridge. He landed with the sound of crunching gravel and pushed off, rocketing the two of them toward a tree on the left just a few feet away. Amy screamed but Sonic shifted in mid-air and landed again, pushing off to shoot them back at the structure in the direction whence they had came. He shifted again and ricocheted off, adjusting so that he could ping-pong off of another tree. They did this several times in rapid succession, and Amy realized Sonic was landing steadily higher up on the pillars 

sustaining the bridge with each jump. He could nearly clear the top of the branches, now - and, having reached the altitude that he had wanted, leap one last time and sent them hurtling straight through the tunnel at supersonic speed.

"Pretty cool, huh?" Sonic said, after they had hit the ground running and skipped several dozen feet before regaining traction. "You having fun yet?"

"Sonic, I don't think this is supposed to be fun," Amy protested, still thinking about Rouge's lifeless form back in the hospital.

"And why not? Rouge'll be okay," Sonic told her confidently, as if reading her thoughts. His brilliant green eyes were homed in on the light at the end of the tunnel. "And we're about to get ourselves an Emerald."

"And what if Robotnik beats us there?"

"He won't. And even if he did, we could take him." He snorted a little. "C'mon Amy, you act like I haven't done this thousands of times before..."

"You're the one who was stressing the sense of urgency," Amy reminded him tartly, clutching to his shoulders for dear life as they went screaming through the darkness. "Aren't you being a little... well, reckless?"

"Amy, I've always been reckless," Sonic said, and it wasn't without some amount of pride. "It goes hand-in-hand with the whole hero thing. You've got to have very specific timing to make a good entrance."

"And by a good entrance, you mean being too late?"

"Who says we're gonna be late? And even if we were, it would only be fashionably late," Sonic said, and Amy had the feeling that if he wasn't holding her, he would have shrugged. "I always come in the nick of time to save the day. I've practically got this down to a science."

"But Sonic..."

"Amy, what's with you? You've pulled a 180 on me since the other night. Wasn't I the one who told you I was an idiot? And didn't you deny it? You've never had beef with the why or how before," Sonic clarified, shaking his head, "just so long as it happened. So who cares?"

Amy blinked. She hadn't really thought about that, and he was right - she had never had a problem with it before. He was right on something else too - they had just had this conversation a few days with the roles reversed. This was just another indication of how Shadow had influenced their relationship. "Well, maybe I'm a little anxious because it's Shadow's reputation on the line," she admitted grudgingly, after a moment of careful consideration. "I mean, what if we show up and it's already gone? We wont know it was Robotnik for sure, and you guys will keep blaming him. All because you wanted to take a completely unnecessary detour."

"Amy, even if we took the train and showed up there first, we still wouldn't know if he was guilty or not, because it wouldn't be stolen, right? We wouldn't see him in action," Sonic reasoned, although his voice had taken on a strange tune. "We would still blame him anyway."

"'We'?" Amy asked. "So you do think he did it?"

"Dude, we already went over this too," Sonic said, sounding a little exasperated. The light before them was now steadily approaching, growing rapidly larger with Sonic's every footstep. "Here we go. Make sure you hang on!" The exit of the tunnel went whipping past and suddenly they exploded outside as the wind came rushing up to meet them. Without any real warning, Sonic leap and the two of them were sent hurtling off to the side, sideways down through a dense forest of trees. Amy threw up her hands to shield her face as the branches went streaking past, scratching her arms as they fell. Suddenly there was an enormous splash and the two of them crashed into waist-deep water.

"Sorry 'bout that. Didn't mean to land right here," Sonic said absently, sloshing around ungracefully as he scrambled for the shore some several feet away. He seemed uncharacteristically distracted all of a sudden, but Amy figured he had good reason to be: Sonic was a terrible swimmer. He trudged up onto the muddy banks and he cast an almost admiring look back at the rushing current of the river. Amy could see that he was mentally congratulating himself. "Broke our fall though. Pretty cool." He set Amy gently down before him, apparently inspecting for any kind of lasting damage. "You okay?"

"Just a few scratches," Amy said absently, checking her dress for rips and tears.

"Aw, Amy, I'm sorry," Sonic said, setting a hand on her shoulder. She looked up to saw that he truly meant it. "I didn't pull off that last move as spectacularly as I had originally intended."

"Don't worry. It's purely cosmetic," Amy said, and she could feel herself blushing beneath the scrutiny of his emerald-hued stare.

"Sometimes I forget how tough you are," Sonic said, with a slightly sardonic smile. "Wielding that pico pico hammer, smashin' up the bad-guys... going on a little treasure hunt is a total cake-walk for us seasoned warriors, right?" He flashed her a wink and then looked at the area surrounding them. Miles of trees stretched before them in every direction and Sonic frowned, squinting into the distance. "Now I know it's around here somewhere, but I'm not sure exactly where... I hate to say it, but maybe I should have asked to keep the radar. Knux is much better at this sort of thing I am.. he's practically got a built-in radar, right here," he thumbed himself on the forehead a little too enthusiastically, and then rubbed the spot tenderly. "Ouch. Anyway. Should we split up? I don't like it, but it might be quicker that way..."

"Yeah," Amy said, eager to start combing the area for the Emerald and clear Shadow's name. Even if she couldn't make Knuckles believe her when she said he hadn't taken Rouge's, she could at least eliminate any argument that Shadow had gotten this one, too - at least if Sonic nabbed it first. The thought gave her a little comfort. "You go there." She pointed in one direction. "And I'll head South." She pointed behind her. "If we don't find anything by..." she chewed her lower 

lip, and turned her head thoughtfully to the lightening sky above them. It was almost sunrise. "...Uhm, noon? We should meet up. Over there." She pointed over to where the tunnel emerged from the wall. "At the base of that bridge."

Sonic seemed reluctant to agree. "Well..."

"Well, what?" she asked him, putting her hands on her hips. "The longer we sit here idly twiddling our thumbs, the longer it's gonna take to find the thing! And by then Robotnik could already have figured out that it's in here, somewhere." She gestured to the rows upon rows of identical trees that dotted the countryside.

"Calm down there, tiger," Sonic said, throwing up his hands in defense. Amy glared at him and he tilted his head to one side. "You're really convinced this guy is innocent, aren't you? You must really care about him," he mused thoughtfully, as if he was just beginning to take the idea seriously. "You're just rearin' to go."

Amy emitted a deep sigh. "Yes, Sonic," she said, closing her eyes. "I really do."

"I was afraid you'd say that," Sonic said, seeming to deflate a little. "Well, I could always dream..." He gave a little half-hearted shrug, but she could tell that her words had stung. He turned to amble off.

"Sonic, wait!" Amy said suddenly, reaching out to grab him.

Sonic turned back to face her, her arm hanging uselessly out in the open air between them. "Yeah?

"Sonic, maybe I..." Belatedly, she realized she was trying to explain herself. "I don't think you... well... I don't know. Do you believe in God?" she asked suddenly.

"What?"

"Okay, maybe I shouldn't ask that," Amy said, and she wrapped her arms around herself. "But assuming you believe in God, let's say, or a higher power, or whatever, you do it without scientific or physical proof. You just believe, right? That's faith. Are you following me?"

"Sort of," Sonic said, watching her renewed interest.

Amy sighed. "Well... People just believe in a higher power, without any definite evidence that proves it, right? That's just the way faith works. And... well, that's like how it is with Shadow. You guys are so determined to hate him. Which is fine: you two have faced off in the past and you have that whole quasi-rivalry thing going, so it's only natural to feel some level of mistrust, right? The way you see it, since you're the good guy, that has to automatically make him the bad-guy, because you guys often have opposing viewpoints. It's like, the natural order of things. That's how you see it: in terms of black and white. But maybe that's not the way it really is. Maybe it's deeper than that.

"Meanwhile, I'm determined to find the good in him. Because... well, I know he can be considered, well, shady at times, but I also know that beneath all the accumulated crap he's built up from isolation, he has a good heart. No matter what you say, I know he isn't the kind of person to beat up his friends. And Rouge was his friend, Sonic, no matter how you look at it. They may not have had a relationship like you and I, let's say, but you couldn't deny that they were close." She looked up to see if she had made an impression on Sonic whatsoever, but he just seemed to be regarding her with a deeply skeptical look. She sighed and shook her head, well aware that she was ranting. Still, she proceeded.

"Whatever. Anyway, the point I was trying to make: you know he's guilty. I know he isn't. But neither of us have anything to prove or disprove what we think. We just know. So please, please try to keep an open mind and... try not to think too poorly of me."

"Amy," Sonic said slowly. "Why are you making excuses for yourself?"

"I'm not making excuses."

"Then why are you telling me all this?"

"Because..." Amy said, and she actually wasn't sure. "Because... your opinion means a lot to me," she admitted quietly. "And I don't want you to hate me."

"Amy, I could never hate you," Sonic admonished, apparently shocked by the statement. "That's like, physically impossible." She smiled at him, reassured by the statement. She was almost ready to tell him that they should get a move on, that it was getting late, but something about Sonic's expression had changed entirely and she waited. He watched her for a moment, seeming to mull something over in his head, and then suddenly said, "But I do think you're giving the guy a little too much credit. How well do you really know him, anyway? How really do any of us know him?" He said quickly, putting a hand on her shoulder again to silence her angry retort. "That's what I'm saying. The guy is unpredictable, at best. And well, as much as I hate to say it, all signs point to 'jerk'. We certainly know he's capable of it. Look at the whole ARK incident."

"Well, look at what else he was capable of," Amy responded, flaring up immediately. "He sacrificed himself to save himself for millions of people!"

"For Maria," Sonic reminded her. ("And me," Amy murmured, but the other hedgehog didn't hear her.) "What makes you think he isn't capable of something else equally devious though? We already know he's suffered from amnesia. His perspective could be a little... how can we say this delicately? Warped. More so than before, I mean. It could put a whole new spin on just what kind of dude he is. And he was already a twisto."

"He promised me, Sonic," Amy said, nearly pleading now. "He gave me his word."

"And you think you'll have any influence over him? Some girl he barely knows?" Sonic shook his head, smiling at her with a look that greatly resembled pity. For a minute, she hated him. Then she felt her eyes begin to swim with tears as loathing gave way to despair. They went unnoticed, however, and Sonic continued to blunder on, oblivious to her obvious agony. "I'm sorry, Amy, but you're being ridiculous. You can't replace Maria. You could never be her. And especially not in just a few weeks."

"I'M NOT TRYING TO BE MARIA!" She bellowed suddenly.

Sonic actually leap back, startled beyond words by her sudden outburst. Admittedly, she was a little shocked by it, too - the mere suggestion of Maria had worked as a catalyst, sending her violently over the edge with a spectacular explosion. She was actually trembling with rage and sadness, rolling over her in waves that left her feeling drained and fatigued.

"Whoa, Amy," he said, finally taking notice of her tears. "I'm sorry. I didn't realize I was being so... so insensitive... Jeez, I'm such a jerk..."

He clasped each hand on either one of her shoulder's and pulled her against him. She flopped bonelessly in his embrace, resistant to his charms, crying freely now. She was gasping with breath when he released her, angrily dragging her forearm across her face to wipe away the tears. "Y-you don't understand," she moaned accusingly.

"No, you're right," Sonic admitted honestly, with eyes as large as dinner-plates. He looked a little off-put by the extremity of her sobs. "I don't understand it at all. Something's up with you, Amy. How did you fall so hard, so fast?"

"Don't even suggest it," she managed to gasp between sobs. "He's not a rebound, he's not a replacement, don't you dare compare him to you--"

"Amy!" Sonic cried, aghast. "That's not what I'm saying at all!"

"Yes it is!" she told him shrilly, hiccupping as her racing thoughts gained momentum inside of her. "That's what you want it to be! I bet that'd make you feel better, wouldn't it? Knowing that I'm trying to find another you. It would make winning me over that much easier, wouldn't it? Because that's what you're trying to do, showing off and carrying on when we're supposed to be finding Chaos Emeralds before Robotnik does. Meanwhile Rouge is in a coma but that's perfectly fine, isn't it? You don't even care, do you? Is that all this whole thing is to you, a game, or - or a competition or something? Funny, how you never seemed interested in me until after you'd thought I had found someone else--"

"Amy, you are out of your freakin' mind!" Sonic yelled, clenching his fists at his sides. "That is such utter crap, and you and I both know it! I told you I had feelings for you before I even know one retarded thing about you and Shadow--"

"Liar!" Amy screamed. "You thought we had hooked up in the forest! I remember!"

"What the - I - you - No way!" Sonic sputtered, his face bright red. "I was just joking, I thought you'd got that part!" But if he was telling the truth it was only a half-truth, and it was clear he knew that she knew it.

"See!"

"It doesn't even MATTER," Sonic continued loudly, his voice ringing through the trees. "Because I had planning on doing it for a while now, before Shadow even tried to off himself, before this whole stupid thing ever began! I was just getting ready to take the first step--"

"You're always making excuses, Sonic," Amy snarled hatefully. "If you were just about ready, what was the hold up? What was taking you so long?!"

"I WAS SCARED, OKAY?" Sonic hollered, and the sound of his voice carried through the countryside, startling birds into flight in the distance. "I was... I was afraid of being weak... you make me weak... I was afraid you'd hurt me..."

"You're... what?" Amy choked, recoiling in disbelief. "How could I... that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard..." She winced, not sure the best thing to do at the present moment was to insult him, but Sonic plowed deafly on, apparently caught up in the current of his own confession.

"It's new to me, Amy! I've never felt anything like this before... and I didn't want to hurt you as well, to hurt either of us! I wanted to wait a long time and make sure it was genuine! The last thing I would ever want to do is hurt you, Amy... because... because I love you! Did you hear me? I love you! Are you happy now?!" And he suddenly grabbed her by the back of her head and yanked her forward, bruising her lips with his own.

It wasn't romantic by any means - it hurt, and it was awkward, and it lacked the certain finesse Sonic had tried to put into their earlier kiss. But at the same time, it was raw and savage and honest, and the purity of it was nearly crippling. She could tell that Sonic was putting his all into this kiss - that he wasn't trying to make it pretty, or artful, or superficial - he made it purposely animalistic and forceful, desperately trying to convey a point to her with its power, however fruitless the attempt may have been. There was no bravado here - he wasn't trying to simply kiss her, or win her over, or impress her in any manner - they were beyond all that now, and he knew that he had lost. This was a kiss of hurt and pain and loss and desperate yearning, passionate and poignant in its brutality. It caused an explosion of chaotic feelings to erupt inside of her, and she felt herself sway beneath the feel of his rough hands on her shoulders.

After what seemed like an eternity they broke apart. Amy dragged her arm across her mouth to wipe away the spit as she stumbled back and Sonic tried his best to regain his breathing. He was standing with his legs slightly spread, arms swung out on either side, as though preparing to flee. He looked exactly like a deer in the headlights of an oncoming car before it was struck, terrified and thunderstruck. This was Sonic at his worst, most vulnerable point. It was something that almost frightened her, and for a long time she could not find the words to speak.

Amy's heart was pounding in her ears. Eventually, she asked, "So is that what it's really like?"

"Yeah," Sonic affirmed, breathing heavily. "That's what it was really like." He seemed just as stunned as she was by this strange turn of events. "I'm just sorry that it took so long for me to just come out and say it."

"I know you are," Amy murmured. The sheer velocity of the kiss had literally sucked the anger right out of her and she felt like sitting down. The whole aftermath of the situation had a surreal, almost dream-like quality to it. She felt like she was having an out-of-body experience, viewing the whole episode from an outside, almost detached perspective. She found an overturned log behind her and stumbled backwards into it.

"Are you okay?" Sonic asked, although he appeared to be firmly rooted to the spot. He did not step forward to assist her with sitting down.

"No," she said, and although she was beginning to feel awful again, but it was a different kind of awful than before, and she would not let the tears come.

"What's wrong?"

"Everything!" she cried, staring up at his lingering form in overwhelming anguish. Then she looked down at her hands, which were laced tightly in her lap. "Sonic, we can't... well, what I mean is, I can't..."

"Amy, I'm right here," Sonic said, but his voice was hollow: he had already admitted defeat. "It's me. Sonic. Why are you doing this to me?"

"I'm not doing it to you because I want to..."

"Yes, you are," he insisted, and his voice cracked. He bowed his head and covered his eyes with his hands simultaneously, completely obscuring his face from view. Amy's stomach gave an unpleasant lurch - it looked very much as though he might cry.

Nononononono, her mind whispered desperately. Please don't, you can't, pleasedontpleaseno--

She was afraid that if he broke down and ripped away the strong, sturdy protagonist persona, it would shatter the illusion, break the perfectly sculpted image she had created of him: the infallible hero. It wouldn't be Sonic. But this was Sonic, and she was trying to rob him of his emotions. It was cruel, and she knew it was cruel, but more than anything she didn't want him to cry, to ruin it for her, for everyone. She wanted him to be okay, and so that in turn, that she could be okay with what she was about to do. Because if he was the ever-glowing optimist with the shield that could not be penetrated, he was less humanoid somehow, and she would know that he could move past this and be content. But this, the actuality of what was happening - this! This was a crack in the facade, allowing the real Sonic to reveal himself, a Sonic she had never seen before. This was Sonic, broken, Sonic, defeated - and it scared her, more than anything else in this world.

And she realized that maybe after all this time, she had not been all that fair to him this whole time. That she had never taken his feelings into consideration, not in all the years she had known him. She had always thought of him as somewhat dense, clueless, and maybe a little insensitive to her needs - and that wasn't the case at all. The truth of the matter was that Sonic was actually hyper-sensitive to what was transpiring between them, and was terrified of it. He was frightened of her, frightened of the power she held over him if he admitted it to himself and frightened with how she could use it against him. It was flattering and awe-inspiring and at the same time it was also something that made her feel sick to her stomach. Because now she was fulfilling a self-inflicted prophecy: he had opened up to her and she had done exactly what he was afraid she would do, and that was hurt him. And there was nothing either of them could do to stop it. It was a calamity in which neither side could have foreseen.

You'll never know how much it hurts me to hurt you, she thought, her stomach churning painfully. Is this is how you felt, for all those years? Were you afraid of hurting me, of getting hurt, as much as I'm afraid of being the one to do it to you? Why didn't you tell me sooner! she thought, suddenly angry. We could have avoided all of this!

But it didn't do anyone any good to put the blame on him, except perhaps it made her feel a little better about what was going to happen next. But then again, she wasn't sure that she wanted to be okay with that. Because he was Sonic - her Sonic, and she would always love him too, in some form or another.

"I'm... I'm going to ask you a favor," Amy said, swallowing the especially painful lump that had suddenly occupied the back of her throat.

"... Okay," Sonic said tunelessly.

"Please award me some of same courtesies I've awarded you." Sonic choked at the sound of her words, and she knew how it felt, to be at the mercy of someone else's whims. "Wait for me." She sucked in a huge breath of air, taking it a step further. "If we're meant to be together, we'll be together. But I don't think it's fair to do something half-cocked and then drop it when something better comes along." She nodded, although Sonic had not done a single thing to indicate that he had even heard her. "Yes, I'm saying that you're better. But I mean, Shadow came to me as he was, with his feelings made readily available. There was very little guesswork and waiting involved." This was a lie of mammoth proportions, as she wasn't exactly sure what Shadow felt, but whatever it was, she knew it was a strange and wonderful and she didn't want to abandon it just yet. Either way, she was pretty sure Sonic couldn't tell how much she was actually reaching with that statement. He seemed completely caught up in his own drama.

It was especially weird and uncomfortable to be the one giving this kind of talk, as opposed to being the receiving end, which she had grown more accustomed to over the years. Still, it gave her a twisted sense of power that could almost be misconstrued with perverse pleasure, if it weren't for the fact that she felt so terrible and confused. "I shouldn't just cast him aside, especially when... well, when I've developed feelings for him too..."

Sonic was half-staring, half-glaring at her now, searching her face to see if he could locate any trace of a lie. She tried to keep her gaze level with him, but it was becoming increasingly more difficult as the seconds ticked past.

"I think you're confusing the desire to help him and the desire to be with him," Sonic spat unkindly. "Wanting to mother him and wanting to be his girlfriend are not supposed to be the same thing."

"That's a terrible thing to say!" Amy said, feeling some of her old anger rushing toward the surface. She leapt to her feet and stomped forward until they were just a few centimeters apart, grotesquely invading one another's personal space. "Don't pretend that you get me, Sonic, because you don't! If you did, you would have told me all of this a lot sooner, because you would know that I would never hurt you--"

"That's strange," Sonic said contemptuously, rolling his eyes. "Because that's what you seem to be doing right now. Or do you like being the center of attention or something? Is that why you're torturing me? You like having two guys fight over you?"

"Who's fighting, except you? Sonic, do you know how long I've waited for you to tell me all that? Honestly?" Amy said as she clenched her fists at her sides. "Do you know how long you've tortured me, by making me wait? Years, Sonic! Years I've been suffering in SILENCE! And I'm just supposed to drop everything now that you've come around? My life is just supposed to revolve around entirely you or something, to cater to your every whim? Well, you've got another thing coming, mister, because... because maybe I've decided it took you too long, Sonic! Maybe I got sick of waiting on you!"

"Man, ain't that the truth," Sonic spat. "It's as clear as day to me, now. The fact that you'd switch over to some faker is pretty sad, though. Talk about going backwards, not forwards. It's an insult!"

"You are such an arrogant jerk," Amy said, and she slapped him directly across the face. The blow had enough force behind it that it knocked his head sideways, and he made an audible 'oof!' sound as it made contact. Sonic staggered and fell back a step before rubbing the spot where she had hit him. It was turning a vivid pink beneath his fingertips as he stared at her incredulously. There was a beat in which Amy dared not to speak, afraid of what might happen, and then -

"You're right," he said, and the anger seemed to rush out of him like a deflating balloon. "I am. I totally lost my head there, Amy. Thanks for puttin' me in my place." He seemed incredibly sheepish suddenly, rubbing the back of his head as he tried to give a reassuring smile. It came out more as a grimace, however, and Amy frowned.

"You are so bipolar," she said, but without any sort of disgust backing it. It was in that abrupt moment that they had reverted back to their usual roles - the parts they had played before this whole thing had come unraveling at the seams. It was as if none of it had ever happened.

- But something had happened, and it had changed them forever, no matter how hard they might try to forget in the near future. "Just one last question," he said, and Amy waved him on dismissively, eager to let the whole thing just die

"Has he told you that he loved you?"

"Yes," she lied immediately, so that he would not ridicule her further. She could feel her resolve crumbling with every lingering moment, and she hated herself for allowing it to happen.

Am I doing the right thing?

"Okay." Sonic said. "Well, we've wasted enough time on that. Let's get started on findin' that Emerald, whaddya say?" The sudden change in his demeanor made it clear he wanted to dismiss the topic entirely, and she allowed it. And if he had not taken her word for it on the matter, he said nothing to contradict her, and she was relieved that they had avoided another argument. There was no denying they had clashed, however; no denying that blows had been exchanged and wounds had been inflicted. It was these grievances that would probably remain with both sides forever. Things would never be the same, Amy realized wistfully as they both walked off in opposite directions, and she was sorry to see that it had happened that way.