Chapter Ten:

Big Sister

"Jessica Ann Binger!"

Jessy flinched at the both the sound of her mother's voice over the phone, and the use of her full name. Oh boy. She was in deep trouble if her mother used her full name…

Why couldn't mom wait to rant until tomorrow? Hadn't she enough of relatives calling and ranting after Aunt Mini earlier? It was almost bed time for this mechanic, and the thunder storm had just started.

"Hi mom," She said into the phone, Jessy just wanting to be in bed with a brownie and watch the calming patters of falling rain through her sky light. But she also couldn't help wondering how the older woman could give such a reprimand with just three words. It had be a Mother Thing, as those words where her name, not a curse or scolding tone.

"Don't you 'hi mom' me young lady! What's this I hear about you living with a man?"

"….wha?" The younger woman blinked a few times at her cabinet stupidly, trying to wake back up. Jessy had just started to get ready to flop over in bed before the phone rang again

"I had to find this out from my sister, do you know-"

"Aunt Mini! Oh hell no, she didn't!" Jessy smacked her face, dropping the cordless gracelessly as she did a face-plant on the counter, arms dangling limply. She trusted her aunt to not only stretch the truth, but blow it way out of proportion.

Snatching the phone up, Jessy spook as she straightened up, awake and wanted to kill this spazz before it became another misled late night intervention. She didn't want another innocent where she had stumbled out to the bathroom and find family members in the living room because Aunt Mini hadn't paid full attention that the 'Jorge' that would be living with Jessy for a few months was a golden retriever, a dog not a human man.

"Mom, Mom…MOM!" Jessy yelled, wincing at having to do so to her mother, but she knew her mother could go off on a tangent like her aunt. "Listen, I have a friend staying here with me, no it's not like that. You know how Aunt Mini is, remember Jorge? Why would I hock up with anyone when I'm going to be leaving any time this year? Yeah I'll tell you all about it next weekend at the dinner. Yes, I'm sure mom. Okay, love you too. Good night, and don't listen to aunt Mini, and please for the love of the north winds don't come here at three in the morning, or let her. Better yet, I'm barricading the doors."

That last part was added more to Jessy then her mother as she hung up.

"Your family sure is noisy."

Jessy looked up from putting the phone away at the Anthro hedgehog who was leaning on the counter behind her, arms crossed.

"More or less," The woman agreed as she shrugged, "It's mostly on Mom's side of things from what I've seen. Doesn't help I'm the only girl of my mom's."

"Huh." Sonic sniffed and scratched behind his ear, "So what's all the fuss about this dinner at your granddad's? Almost everyone that's called the last three weeks that wasn't a costumer is asking if you're going."

"Well," Jessy turned and leaned back on the fridge, "The dinner is tradition on my dad's side. Almost the whole family, mostly immediate family that is, gets together about three times a year. We tend to wander off and don't come back for some time. Like my older brothers," The woman shamelessly yawned that jaw stretching yawn, glancing at Sonic as he lounged on the other side of the counter, his back to the living room. "I've only seen Sam and Jake about five, maybe six times, for more then a day since they left on their wander year, years, I think I was sixteen back then when they left."

"Wander year?" Sonic echoed back as, "You've mentioned that before. What does it really mean? You're going to 'wander off?'"

"That's basically it." Jessy grinned.

"Eh?" Sonic tipped his ears up at her.

"Everyone in my family, those from dad's side that is in the nations, just up and leave when they're around my age, twenty one to twenty six." The mechanic said, "Something just makes us want to go. I think it's because there was so many nomads in the blood lines. And we are a part of the Nomadic Nations as well." She picked at her fuzzy shaking her head. "But if you hear Great Grandma talk about it, she'll tell you that it's because of some old curse put on our blood some three hundred or so generations ago."

"Curse?" The dark blue hedgehog pricked his ears. "The roam-roam one?"

"The very one," Jessy yawned, waving at the fold out couch while stuffing her wrist into her mouth, then, "Okay, see you in the morning Blue."

"Night Wrench," Sonic tossed off a back handed wave as he turned to his bed as well.

"Cursed blood…" jessy muttered to herself as she gratefully fell into bed, pulling her brown comforter and sheets over her head almost. "Roam, roam your children will. Roam, roam you children's children will. 'Til the day you give birth. Then roam, roam your children will.'" Jessy said in a very soft whisper, the mechanic, the nomad at heart swallowed thickly as her eyes drifted to the sliding door that led to the covered patio, then rolled slowly in her warming patch in the bed. "Roam, roam… A nomad's heart will always be…where the endless road leads away."

Personally, she thought it was a good thing it would be raining a lot this winter, despite Sonic's complaints. It was always soothing, reassuring, and like the rain kept Jessy rooted by a vital thread, wanting to finish her last honor bound duty…

Thunder roared above in the heavens, rolling over the lands and Jessy sighed. Firmly reminding herself that there was no curse in her veins. She would go on the wonder years, but on her own terms.

Crack-Boom!

Sonic flattened his ears at the sound of thunder and tried vainly to block out the storm. Really, just what was it with this region and its thunderstorms? Was it always this bad in the winters? Jessy didn't seem too worried about it, though she was probably use to it as she seemed to like it.

The woman had said something about this being an early winter and the storms might be a bit stronger than normal.

Another thunderclap rolled over the house and the hedgehog tried to burrow deeper into his folded out couch bed. He was warm, with the three blankets that the mechanic had piled on top of his nightly nest, but… Sonic peeked out of covers, looking at the windows and the rain pounding on or past them depending on the wall.

He really didn't like water… Sonic shivered, more of a reaction to a fractured memory that kept popping up the most in relation to baths or rain, or even the thought of going on a dock.

Get to safety. Some part of him said, egging him to move. The feeling Sonic had niggling at the back of his brain just had was getting worse. Safety. Go.

But the anthro was safe here, wasn't he? Jessy had locked all the doors and windows, as well as the workshop below. Chaos, Sonic had helped her in this as apart of their now established, nightly routine.

Gooo! Now! Gogogogo!

Slipping out from under the blankets the blue hedgehog went to the only other 'safe place' he could think of: Jessy's room. Sonic stopped just before the door, not even a metal one like the main two doors, just something to give the two a divider of space at night for personal time, or when Jessy had to focus on the paper work aspect of her business. The blue and brown hedgehog retreated back to his bed to grab the blankets and then carefully opened the door.

The room was a bit darker then the living room, but only because it had the one window/skylight and the patio door, but something about it made it seem… well, secure? Protected? Was that just because he woke up here that first time after coming to this house (having passed out in Red's truck)? Or that he had made friends with the human and she said he could stay here, and Jessy was well, here?

Whatever the reason, he just knew that it was indeed safer here then out on the couch. It couldn't possibly be any worse right?

"Hey, Jessy…?" Sonic half whispered as he poked the soft lump under the giant comforter.

No reaction.

"Jessy, are you awake?" The dark blue hedgehog flattened his ears again as yet another thunderclap made its self known. He poked her again, a little harder.

"…ehrm…?" barely cracking an eye open Jessy shifted away from whatever was prodding her left side. With another unintelligible sound that might have been a word at any other time of day that wasn't in the middle of the night she lifted her head up a fraction from under her pillow and blanket. What? She had an air tunnel.

"Jessy?"

"…eh?" the woman slowly pushed some of the fabric out of her face after, cracking an eye open, and squinted at the blurry blue shape by her bed. "Wha'srong?" she muttered, jumbling her words together.

"…can you… I mean…" Sonic shifted as thunder cracked, after a visible flash, once again, and making him flatten his ears tighter against his head and shift his hold on the blanks.

"Etin." Jessy muttered shifting over and lifting the comforter up. Having only been living on her own for not all that long, and used to overnight baby sits, she was still use to having a little brother come into her room, seeking safety from a nightmare or a monster in the closet. In her sleepy, not even half awake state of mind Jessy honestly couldn't tell the difference between her biological siblings and the Anthro hedgehog.

So, being the older, monster-slaying sister she was, Jessy moved over.

A moment later Sonic crawled under the comforter, after he gotten over his surprise. He hadn't thought Jessy would let him… The hedgehog snorted softly and sighed, scooting closer and closer to the human.

Sonic shivered at another thunderclap and the sound of rain everywhere... How could Jessy stand it in here?

"S'kay bro…" Jessy muttered reaching over, she hugged the slightly smaller Anthro when he glomped her side. Still running on older sister habits she started humming with her eyes closed. Then in a tired, soft voice started a lullaby that always worked, well most of the time it did, "Oh this is my home, these roads that I roam. Oh this is Our home, these roads that we have roamed. I need a father, someone that will show me the way. I need a mother, someone that will love me when I leave."

Blue ears started to lift up at the old caravan tune, listening.

"Oh this is my home, these roads that I roam. Oh this is my home, these roads that we have roamed." Jessy paused to yawn, "With the sun on my face, snow at my feet and the rain on my back. I just need a big brother, someone that will save me from the monsters that are outside."

Sonic's shivers slowly died away as he focused on the warm body beside him, the vibrations from her song.

"With the moon on my face, the storm pressing on my back and shadows nipping at my feet. I just want a big sister, someone that will fight the monsters that others don't believe are there."

The hedgehog took a deep breath, taking in Jessy's scent, locking it into his mind as someone safe. Someone that could be trusted…like a family member. A sister… Soon, Sonic's eyes close as he snuggled into Jessy's side.

"Oh this is my home, with the wind in my hair, the stares in my eyes and the sea below, these wandering roads, these unknown paths." Jessy stroked a fuzzy ear, drifting back to sleep herself. "This is our home, where we shall roam and roam before freedom's wake. No kiss of magic holding us…" she trailed off, twitching minutely as if something itched for a moment in her feet.

Well, going to start doing review replies from last chapters again! I do miss interacting with people.

ChojisGirl-

XD I'm glad you like the pairing, there also might be a meeting with the Ex next story when Knuckles is around...