A Little Thing

"Blaarg." I 'said,' expressing my opinion at and of the world.

I was echoed by, "Blah." from Sonic where he was resting his head on my right shoulder.

"Mlah," That came from Shadow, he was holding my left hand and leaning against me as we walked for more support.

"Ah-chi!" Silver sneezed, holding a rather pretty looking yellow flower away from him, having just sniffed it. He was the only one not hanging onto me in one form or another.

"Bless you." I said automatically, glancing behind me and heaved a sighed. I looked down, just managing to keep the black hedgie from falling after tripping by heaving up and putting him back on his feet.

"I tired."

"'I'm,'" I corrected and sighed again.

"I'm tired." Shadow repeated.

"I know hedgie," I said as I shifted Sonic, who couldn't even stand up on his own. It was something that really worried me, an hour ago he had started wiggling his toes though. "But we can't stop, not yet."

We only had about... fifteen or nearly that many miles between us and the complex. If we had gone straight, maybe there would have been more, I don't know right now. I was existed and just about at the ends of my endurance.

"Silver stay by me." I said, watching the albino comeback, and then frowned. "What do you have?" I asked, seeing how he was holding something. I felt Sonic shift to peek and see what was going on, and boosted him up more, back into my center of balance.

Silver looked up from showing his what-ever to Shadow and held it up for me to see, "What is mommy?"

I stared.

I looked around, more alert now and spotted the tree the apple came from.

"Apple!" Sonic proclaimed, trying to reach for it, only he didn't have the best of balance and I have to catch him.

"Whoa, hang on." I said and grinned down at the white hedgie so he would worry about anything being wrong, "Good find hedgie, come on." I led my little…herd? Litter? What was the proper term for a bunch a hedgehogs? I made a mental note to look that up sometime as I set down Sonic and picked up another fallen apple.

All three watched me give it a thorough inspection, bit off and spat a blemished spot before taking a larger bite, the kind you use to tare of a chuck of something, too big for one mouthful. I gave that to Sonic, after everything that just happened in the last day...or eternity, 'germs' weren't high on my list of worries. As Sonic crunched away I sat, let Silver crawl in my lap as I used my teeth to take another chuck of apple off, giving that to Shadow and another for Silver. Two demolished apples later I managed to get a few bites too, by the fifth Shadow had started collecting dragging Silver with him. They didn't eat anything unless I gave the okay, some I pitched.

After a bit I got up to inspect the ground, and then told the boys to stay together as I backed up. Tired or not I was just as starving as the hedgies, but I could jump up and climb to get the apples on the tree. Trees as it turned out.

Ever tried climbing an apple tree? A little easier than say, pines, but still not so easy. I shook the fruit free more than I picked them yet it worked. From what I could tell the boys liked any food they could get, and all three where little bottomless pits. If it wasn't for them, I wouldn't have been climbing up and down apple trees for an hour, carrying Sonic from once spot to the next. At least another good thing about fruit is that most kinds take the edge of thirst from you. Nothing as good as an almost over ripe peach but the apples worked.

Down side: Full hedgies also meant ever more tired hedgies, meaning when I wanted to head off again I had to carry them. The pace was slower, but at least steady enough.

Unfortunately it gave me time to think, a lot of time at that.

Jack, Lark... were they okay? I mean, I knew them for only a short time, and for all the annoyance of the raccoon anthro, he had seemed like a nice person. What Lark did too...

I kissed the sleeping Sonic between the ears, Shadow too, Silver was leached onto my back. The three weren't that heavy, being so slender in build, but any dead weight gets heavier after a while, I think I had maybe an hour before I had to stop. When I did stop the boys woke up just enough to be more zombie than awake, but they rearranged themselves so Sonic was against my right side (why couldn't I feel the stitches?) and Silver was now slumped on my left side while Shadow was half curled up on my lap.

With only the sounds of three small bodies breathing steadily, some cricket like bugs sounding off and an unnaturally large and full moon. I had time to absorb what had all happened.

How...long had I been out between snuggling with a much tinier Sonic on my couched in a cocoon of blankets, to waking up in Jack's care? I stared down at Sonic, who was about the same size of the other two now, the body of a four year old I guess. He had a perfect tiny bundle, easily able to hide under my poncho when I had to turn in my paper.

I stopped playing with the sapphire quills, near freezing as that thought triggered a chain.

My paper.

Collage.

Work.

Mom.

My sisters.

I looked around me at the strange forest that was like and unlike what I knew. Broad leaved trees, not a pine in sight. Near tropic air even in full night, no crisp tang that tinted the spring nights. The air itself smelled of earth and grass, no random whiffs of low tied or sea breeze and far off rain on the wind…no wind.

Home...

No one, not Jake or even Lark had said anything about me going back home, my home. Where I had a life truly starting, I had a part time job, going for another writing degree. My family, my pets- I had three betas and a goldfish that depended on me!

The lab had been well on its way to be crumbling as I hauled the hedgies down that escape route. I had been scared the less stable looking tunnel was going to collapse on us. Dirt and grit had fallen enough that it mixed with whatever was pretty much covering Sonic and I and half of the other two boys, tugging into a more muddy past by the time we crawled out. It had only gotten worst, at points I was scrambling on my stomach with the boys trying to will themselves one with the ground right along with me as I crawled, more dragging the boys since they were hanging onto my jeans, with elbows under bushes to keep out of sight of real, live and hostel robots.

Nothing like Autobots unfortunately.

At one point in my personal take-along-with-you-hell, I had rinsed the worst of the stuff off in a pool, but crunching sounds had me yanking Shadow out of the water and grabbing the other two and running for as long as I could.

Now...now I just wanted to cry and sleep forever or at least until next Friday, pizza day.

I settled for quietly crying and curling up a little.

What else could I do at the exact moment other then let the stress out in the only way I could? The moon lit scenery around me blurred and cleared a little as the wetness spilled down my cheeks. One should never under estimate how much better they can be after a good long cry. Granted I couldn't sob for fear of waking the hedgies, I didn't want and probably couldn't deal with them seeing me like this. I had already seen the way Shadow stared at me whenever I openly limped, or had to stop to lean against something for a minute to be able to breathe right again without gasping.

God I'm going to kill myself if I keep up this pace…but what if we weren't far enough away yet? How far did I have to get us to 'be somewhere safe'? Was I going the right way at all?

Damn it Lark, why couldn't you have- What was he thinking-

That idiot!

I wanted to scream those words, but…I looked down at a small black side lifting and falling, shifted my gaze to look at Sonic clutching my belt loop in one hand and Silver limp in that utterly tired way of the young...

I thumped my head back against the wooden trunk behind me a few times, resigned. I tried to stay up, or at least doze since we weren't completely hidden, but I was so tired.

Queen's note: La-GASP! I think I have a plot for this again!