Sonic's shut eyes began to flicker open and catch indistinct blurs of pastel blue and black. What had happened? He vaguely recalled being beaten into a pulp by his archenemy. Then there was that last hit...

Sonic immediately sat up, clutching his head in agony, as it pulsed in pain. His mouth was completely dry when he choked out, "Where am I?" The words, being too quiet, fell flat in a short range from his lips, and he was left with no answer. However, he felt something slowly slide down his back, and he swiveled his head around to find a fuchsia pink jacket draped across his shoulders.

His eyes became more accustomed to the lighting as the blurs slowly separated to display distinct ice formations. As he twirled his head about, these ice formations were all around him from icicles hanging from the ceiling to stalagmites made of complete ice jutting up from the ground.

"Sonic, you're awake!"

Soon, a pink hedgehog came into view; she didn't say anything else, but her jade eyes spoke volumes. Sonic widened his eyes in his groggy state and attempted to scoot back.

"A-amy? Is that you?" he croaked. Instantly, he yelped in pain when his left leg drove over a cleft in the icy floor.

Amy was by his side in a Sonic second and began to tend to his throbbing ankle, hastily applying some sort of medicine to it. "I'm so glad you're conscious," she mumbled, her breath coming in relieved heaves, "I thought for a second there you were-" She broke off and simply stared at Sonic, the meaning in her tearful eyes starting to make him uncomfortable.

"How long was I out?" Sonic asked and grimaced at the brutal memories coming back to him. His eyes began to refocus from spinning out of control, and he identified what looked like a white sock wrapped around his ankle.

His gaze traveled to her sockless left leg as the pink hedgehog sighed and admitted, "I don't really know, but it seemed like forever. Probably about a couple of hours. All that matters now is that you're okay."

Determination flickered across Sonic's muzzle as the taunting of Eggman from his memories became realer every moment. "Fine then, let's go. The fat man's not going to wait forever," he said, standing up and hobbling on his way.

Suddenly, his legs gave in, and his knees flew to the floor. But they immediately halted when Amy wrapped a hasty arm around his shoulders, lifting the blue hero's body from the ground. "Sonic, you're not that okay!" her protesting voice rang in his ear, "You have to at least rest before you try and go after Doctor Eggman again."

A scowl impressed itself on Sonic's lips, and he allowed his weight to crash to the floor despite Amy's help. Pain exploded everywhere in his body on impact. Sonic hated to admit Amy was the voice of reason, but this time, she was right. The jacket had fallen off his shoulders, and he shivered, snarling, "Well, how else are we going to escape? The only natural way is gone now. I have to Spin Dash through this ice to get us out, and I can't do that if you're babying me like this!"

"Well, I don't want you to get hurt again! It hurts me to see you angry and confused and distraught, but it hurts me more when you're in pain like this. Please, could you rest? Eggman can wait, Sonic. He doesn't even know where we are," Amy said with a defiant look on her face.

Sonic gave no response to her words and clambered to his feet, his eyes trained on the ice wall. He easily shrugged off the pink hedgehog's grip and began to rev up.

"Sonic!" Amy cried, taking a swipe at his arms.

However, the blue hero released his momentum before she could stop him and shot off to the wall, starting to curl up at just the right moment. However, his feet lost their footing, sending him crashing headfirst into a stalagmite.

"Sonic!"

He was out like a light.

When Sonic's eyes finally fluttered open, the cavern around him was dark save for the wavering dim light coming from a measly campfire. Immediately, his hands flew to his head from a couple seconds of consciousness.

"Ugh..."

He noticed Amy out of the corner of his eye poking a lone stick into the fire, her back facing him. She crouched close to it and shook as if she were cold and needed warmth. Sonic brushed off her jacket into the pillow of snow under him and attempted to sit up.

However, he felt more immobilized from his wounds than he did before as he let out a grunt and plopped back onto the ground. Thank goodness that there was snow under him to catch his fall and not mini stalagmites.

Amy swiveled her head around to the noise, and her jade eyes showed a mix of concern and relief. "Good, you're awake," she said, nearing him as he struggled to sit up again. She assisted him in lifting his upper half on the ground but promptly slapped his arm.

Pain coursed through his appendage. "Ow, what was that for?" Sonic hissed, rubbing his injury.

"For getting yourself hurt when I specifically said not to!" Amy shot back, folding her arms in a pout, "Honestly, it's like you don't listen to anything I say."

Sonic snorted at the statement, head still whirling. His gaze traveled to the fire and then back to her. They both remained there in mutual silence until he said, "How did you find me anyway? It's not like you guys had a tracking device on me."

The pink hedgehog forced him to sit upright as she spoke, "Well, after that...argument...we all knew that you might do something crazy after we told you that Tails was captured. Knuckles followed to where you ran off to and found the crazy Christmas light show. We didn't know what would happen to you...we figured it was a trap, so we gathered some important provisions and went after you as soon as possible."

Sonic eyed the makeshift bandage on his ankle. "Not enough provisions to bandage me properly, huh?" he said, causing Amy to blush furiously.

"Well, we couldn't just carry around a huge first aid kit when we thought that you were in danger," she protested, biting her lip in nervousness, "I have some medicine from my injury and some rations as well though. You hungry?"

The blue hedgehog teetered backwards as he exaggeratingly said, "Starved!"

Amy giggled and headed to where the food was, and Sonic scratched his head, dumbfounded. Now that he thought about it, his stomach was growling as loud as a blender, and he felt as if it was going to eat his insides in hunger. In fact, he hadn't eaten since they had left for White Acropolis Zone. Maybe that's why I couldn't beat ol' Eggbum.

The tendrils of cooking food reached Sonic's nostrils, and he let a gloved fist fall to the icy floor. "Yo, Amy, when is it gonna be ready?" he asked impatiently. He wished that he would be able to tap his foot against the ground right about now.

"It's almost ready," the muffled voice assured, her back facing him. Finally, with a beaming smile, she placed the hot meal in his hands. "Finished!"

Sonic widened his eyes, and he felt his stomach lurch at the sight, a chilidog laying innocently in his gloved hands. Never mind, he wasn't that hungry.

"You can eat, Sonic. You said you were starved," Amy calmly said, watching the blue hedgehog slowly raise it in the air.

Sonic continued to study it with a thousand thoughts zooming in his head and a stomach that refused to be silenced. Was his hunger really worth eating it? He was going to puke it back up anyway. But he was practically running on nothing. And the smell was so enticing...

He took a hesitant bite out of the chilidog, his hunger getting the better of him. His thoughts were filled with fear as he could literally feel the warm nugget slither down his throat. His lime orbs glanced towards the pink hedgehog staring at him intently. She had better be prepared when he spewed chunks all over her cute red dress.

Sonic sat there on edge, waiting, waiting, waiting, as the bite of food reached his stomach, expecting a complete backlash on him. But there was nothing, only a warm feeling spreading throughout his body. The blue hedgehog crashed backwards from his overwrought position and licked his lips, emitting a small sigh. He had forgotten how filling chilidogs were.

His stomach growled yet again to show it was not entirely satisfied. Sonic felt a smirk play on his lips as he raised the chilidog to his wide open mouth to experience the delicious flavor, the spice, and the warm feeling once again. Now he understood once again why he liked chilidogs so much as he garbled the last remains.

Sonic smacked his lips and sucked the remnants off his fingers, noticing that Amy was still watching. "So, why did you have the ingredients to make a chilidog in your rations?" he asked simply, watching Amy once again blush and fiddle with her meal, a sandwich.

"Well, you know, just in case," she mumbled, "It seemed you liked it though."

He nodded and put his hands behind his head, his stomach finally at rest. She was right; he really liked it. "Uh huh, I always liked chilidogs," he said coolly, "They've always been my favorite."

Amy leaned forward a little and scooted closer to him, her eyes sparkling with curiosity. "So when did you really like chilidogs?" she asked, "What do you really like about them, anyway?"

Sonic blinked in wonder towards the unforeseen questions and stared at the fire in thought. He shrugged. "Well, I dunno really about a specific time or year," he admitted, "But...I remember I was young. And I took food whenever I could. Y'know, that was when I first started fighting ol' Egghead." He tipped his head back and gazed at the murky, glacial ceiling. "I guess when I first found out about 'em sometime when I fought the doc by myself it brought comfort to me, something to cling on to. Some warmth, I guess. The spiciness, the homeliness, how it filled me and fueled me to fight ol' Eggbum...I guess you could say they were my motivators, y'know."

The pink hedgehog nodded in slight understanding, still trying to comprehend his words, and gazed wordlessly at the fire.

Realizing he had stolen the spotlight, he quipped calmly, "So when did you start cooking like this? Was it just an old hobby of yours?"

Amy grinned and nibbled a little of her sandwich as the fire once again crackled to fill the void of conversation. "Well, it all started when I took a break from chasing you," she began, "I went to help at the Rabbit's house because I always figured that Cream wanted me helping her with her flower garden. After all, she accompanied me on a trip to find you, so the least I could do was stand by her when her mother wasn't around to supervise her."

Sonic sat there in shock, her first words still reeling in his brain. When she wasn't chasing him? When was that?

"But when I got there, Cream wasn't in her flower garden. Instead, she was helping her mother in the kitchen with baking and cooking for the Chaotix," Amy continued, biting her lip nervously, "And, you know, I felt kind of obliged to leave because Cream's mother was there and I might've been interrupting them. But Cream saw me and wanted me to stay. In fact, she wanted me to help and cook..."

The pink hedgehog took a deep breath and gazed into the fire, her jade eyes reflecting the flames. "Cream is my best friend. She's always been supporting me in my ambitions, and she's been encouraging me to cook. She's the reason why I continue to do it; I want to see the happiness, the joy, on people's faces when they eat it. It's like I actually make a difference..." she paused to toss a piece of snow into the fire, "That's why I've applied for Le Cordon Bleu. I hope I get in though..."

Sonic didn't know what to say at the montage of words that were suddenly flung at him as the sizzling, effervescing fire continued to break the silence between the two hedgehogs. He was still befuddled that Amy didn't always chase him around. Still, the pink hedgehog was no longer looking at him, and she seemed forlorn, which was starting to make him uncomfortable.

Sonic scrambled for a solution in his mind, his head swiveling about hastily. Finally, his eyes rested on the snow underneath him, and his gaze turned back to Amy in thought. "Hey, Amy?" he asked.

"Yeah, Son-umf!" Amy said before being pelted by snow directly in the face.

The blue hedgehog jumped to his feet despite the pain and cheered, "Oh yeah! Direct hit!"

Amy wiped the bits of snow off her face and shivered though a smile began to grow on her lips. "You're not going to be-umf!" Another snowball to the face.

Sonic cackled, gathering his barrage of snowballs in his arms and ejecting them at her in rapid-fire succession. "Whatcha gonna do about it, huh? Huh?"

The blue hedgehog pondered to himself whether or not he was going too far as she never got a chance to open her mouth much less speak before she got a gloveful of snow. Nah, this was way too much fun, maybe even more fun than his snowball fight with Knuckles.

The snowball fight, or the one-sided storm of snowballs, continued with Sonic joyfully bombarding her all around and Amy trying to at least land a hit on him. However, despite his injuries, his super speed surpassed every attempt at a strike, and he was in a laughing fit at her efforts, not even trying to tease her any more.

Amy huffed as she threw her poor excuses for snowballs. "This-umf! Is no-umf! Fair!" she wailed.

Sonic still continued though, rather impressed and utterly hysterical at her persistence, her useless spinning to catch him in his tracks. As the fight was prolonged, her movements were more sluggish than before, a sign that she was getting tired.

The blue hero wondered why she wouldn't just give up and save her energy, but a thought occurred to him. Does she ever give up? He let a small groan escape out of his lips and skidded to a full stop, allowing Amy to throw a snowball at his face.

"Ha!" she cried exuberantly, collapsing in fatigue on the icy floor. "I did it! I did it! I actually-umf!"

Sonic chuckled to himself, amused, and sat down next to her as the pink hedgehog tried to remove the snow of his last snowball from her eyelashes. "Don't get too ahead of yourself," he said, his eyes gazing at the fire, the only light in the cavern. Outside, it was probably pitch black, midnight.

He watched Amy pull back into a yawn and rest her body into the snow. Only then did he see her shoulder cast from the glowing flames. Sonic mentally slapped himself at forgetting that she was injured as well. He felt he needed to say something to her, but the pink hedgehog had already drifted off into sleep.

The blue hero snarled, angry at his slowness, until he noticed that she was shivering. Then, snatching the fuchsia pink jacket buried in the snow, he draped the piece of cloth across her body, and soon enough, she ceased her movement.

Sonic sat back in all his injuries and in all his thoughts. Unlike her, he couldn't rest right now. Instead, he sat there perched on the tips of his toes, dismayed, and watched the fire as it crackled throughout the night.