"What do you think he's dreaming about?" Knuckles softly asks, nudging Shadow. Shadow glimpses through this peripheral the other side of the couch to see Sonic still asleep, hugging a throw pillow, sucking his thumb, and mumbling something about a runaway chili dog. "No idea." getting up, he goes to the diaper bag digging for something inside. Finding what he was searching for, he disappears into the kitchen. A moment later, he returns, holding the red pacifier now tied to the end of a string. Skillfully he ties the string around Sonic's neck and pops the pacifier in; with that done, he sits down, turning his attention back to the movie they were watching.

An hour later, Amy and Tails return from their expedition. "Hey, guys, we're back!" Amy calls, "Hey, Amy! Hi, Tails!" Knuckles greets. Sonic wakes up, "Heeeey guys." he yawns, "Everything go ok? No more weird rooms?"

"Yup! Everything went great! I think we might have found a few things that will help me make a cure for you." Tails reply's happily. "That's awesome little buddy!"

"You ready to head down to the workshop?"

"Workshop?" Still a bit drowsy, it takes Sonic's mind a second to boot up, "Oh, yeah...those tests. Sure I guess so."

"Cool!" Tails proceed to walk out the door, leaving his friend behind, "Uh Tails, wait, aren't you forgetting something?!" Sonic yells, "What? Oh, sorry." Tails smiles apologetically; he returns, twirling his two tails and picks up Sonic by the arms. "We'll be back for dinner." Sonic calls as they fly out, "We will be back for dinner, right, Tails?"

"Don't worry, Sonic," his best bud chuckles, "We'll be back with plenty of time to fill your stomach." With that, the duo leave their friends for the rest of the afternoon.

*At the workshop*

Sonic sits on top of the workshop table again, kicking his legs a bit, waiting for Tails to begin the tests, "Ok, Sonic, the first thing I want you to do is to follow this pen with your eyes only."

"Ok, seems easy enough." Sonic does so with no problem, "Good. Now touch your nose with your index finger." again, Sonic does said task with no issue, "Now, can you...blink your left eye, twitch your right ear and tap both your feet?" Sonic does it without missing a beat. "Excellent!" Tails quickly wrote down his progress. "Now I'm going to ask you some questions about your history, some math problems, and current events. Answer to the best of your ability, ok?"

"No prob, bud, but I can't guarantee anything about those math problems."

"Don't worry; they are all simple." Tails chuckled, Sonic gave his famous thumbs up and a wink signaling he was ready. "Ok, Sonic, first question; How old are you?"

"19 years old."

"What's your full name?"

"Sonic The Hedgehog."

"What's 2+2?"

"4"

"How long have you been fighting Dr. Eggman?"

"Since I was 9, so 10 years."

"What is the name of our town?"

"Hedgehog Village."

"What's 4x4?"

"16"

"When did we meet?"

"Just a few months after my first fight with Egghead."

"What's my full name?"

"Miles Tails Prower."

"Who is the current mayor?"

"E. Pluribus Fink."

"What's 16x16?" Sonic paused, a blank expression on his face, "Uhhhh...43?"

"Close 256." Sonic frowned in irritation, "That's not close." Tails ignored him, continuing with the questions. "What is Knuckles?" Sonic knew this one for sure, "He's the last echidna from Angel Island." adding the last detail hoping to make up for his failure at that last math question. "What's your favorite food and drink?"

"Chili dogs and soda."

"What is Dr. Eggman's real name?"

"Robotnik or as I like to call him Robuttnik."

"And the last question, do you have a crush on Amy Rose?" Sonic slammed his mouth shut, cheeks puffed up glaring at Tails, refusing to answer the trick question. "Ah, well, it was worth a shot." Tails shrugged, smirking, and wrote down his results, "Now this last test is a little different." he said, picking up a stack of papers, "This is called 'The Ink Blot Test.' I'll show you these pictures of random inkblot shapes, and you tell me what you see." Sonic scratched his head. "So, like cloud watching but with ink?"

"Sure, yeah. I guess it's kinda the same thing. Just tell me what you see; there are no wrong answers." Sonic cocked a brow at that last remark, this test seemed odd, but he shrugged it off, wanting to finish. Tails pulled up the first paper, "Ok, what do you see?"

"Looks like a palm tree." Tails nodded and picked up the next picture. "Chili dog!" Next card. "Rattle." Now it was Tails turn to cock his brow; he went to the next image, "Bee-bot." As they continued through the stack of inkblot pictures, Tails noticed something interesting. Sonic started the test seeing everyday objects and things that he knew Sonic was interested in, but as they went on, Sonic saw more and more things that were for a baby; bottles, cribs, a paci (yes, Sonic said paci without blinking), and random baby toys. "Ok, Sonic, last picture, what do you see?" Sonic stared at the picture leaning in, narrowing his eyes, searching for something. Finally, he leaned back and said, "Eh, a sunflower, I guess?" Tails sighed and wrote down the final results. "So um...how did I do?" Sonic asks, nervously pointing his index fingers at each other.

Tails scratches the back of his head, tails twitching behind him, "Well...your memory seems to be intact, and your brain connections are working properly, so that's good." Sonic scanned his adopted little brother. He noticed Tails was avoiding direct eye contact; his body language conveyed hesitation, and his two tails we're moving erratically. Growing up using only sign language for most of his life, Sonic could easily read people since facial expressions and posture are half the language. He could guess pretty accurately what Tails was thinking after knowing the two-tailed fox for so long. Tails thinks there's something is wrong; he's not telling me everything. Is he afraid that I'll get mad at him? Whatever's wrong isn't his fault...sigh, it's more my fault for getting myself in this situation in the first place.

"Tails," Sonic gently breaks the silence, putting an ungloved hand on his little brother's knee. Tails looked down at the blue hand; ears turned down, he wearily looked up at those reassuring emerald eyes. "Whatever it is, we'll work it out, you can tell me. I promise I won't freak out." Tails glances back at the floor. He wasn't sure how Sonic would take this kind of information, his brother was pretty open-minded, but this was... a little out of the ordinary. But he also knew Sonic could read him like a book, and as long as he looked like he was hiding something, Sonic wasn't going to let this go until he told him what was up.

He out a big sigh, "Sonic, you-your...its-there's nothing wrong per se. Sonic, I know you don't like to talk about your past, but...did you...have a family or a home at any point in your life before you meet me?" Sonic flinched, quickly looking at the floor sadly. He didn't like thinking or talking about his life when he was younger. It wasn't pleasant. It was lonely. He always felt unusually bashful when the subject came up, as much as he didn't want to talk about it, Tails seemed to think it was necessary at the moment. "No," he spoke quietly, "I didn't have anyone before I meet you."

"So, you were just wandering all around by yourself?" Sonic silently nodded this confirmed Tails' hypothesis. "Sonic, I think you are maybe beginning to experience a second childhood." Sonic's head jerked up, "A-a-what?"

"A second childhood. A period in someone's adult life when they act and think like a little kid." Sonic blinked, confused. What did his little brother just say? Did he hear him, right? "Wait a minute, wait a minute," he waved his hands, "You're saying that that machine is turning me into a kid again?!"

"Maybe, or maybe since you were turned into a baby again, your brain could be recognizing that you never got to have a childhood in the first place and is taking this opportunity to have one." Sonic stared at him, eyes as big as an owl's, shaking his head in disbelief. He knew he could act childishly at times. Amy, Shadow, and even Tails complained at times about his little games of competition, short attention span, and frequent jokes but...this was just ridiculous! "Nononononono way. There's no way! Just because my childhood wasn't the "greatest" doesn't mean I didn't have one."

"Let me ask you this, Sonic. Have you found yourself doing things only a little kid or toddler would do today? Such as sucking your thumb or a pacifier, playing with toys, having accidents, or having a hard time controlling your emotions in the last 24 hours?" Sonic guilty looked back to the floor; he had found himself acting childishly several times today. Playing with baby toys, having accidents (though he as much as he tried to deny it, he liked the feeling of wearing the diapers), and he remembered sucking his thumb earlier during Eggman's visit for comfort, heck he was wearing a pacifier around his neck and wanting to pop into his mouth right now.

He blushed, "I-I-I-I...um *gulp* may have done a few of those things t-today." Tails leaned over and pat his shoulder, "And that's ok. There nothing wrong with acting like a little kid."

"There's not?" Sonic usually never had any reason to doubt Tails. He was a brilliant fox, but what he just said didn't match up with how he knew the world worked. Acting like a baby or kid was in no way cool. Behaving so childishly in public would ruin his hero reputation.

"Yeah! There's a whole community of people out there who live this kind of lifestyle. In fact, I think this might be good for you! Let you experience something you've never had before."

"But Tails, won't this kind of thing affect my reputation as a hero? It's not exactly respectable or cool for someone of my position and rep. to act like...this." And I get enough backlash as it is from the villagers after calling Mike just a guy.

"Well, there will be people who won't understand or agree with it, but it's not like you have to broadcast this kind of thing to the whole village or the world. Just close friends. That is, if you're comfortable with that, we can keep this just between you and me if you want too." Sonic stared warily at Tails; this was a lot of information to take in. He wasn't sure how he felt about it right now. He felt like he needed to wait until he learned more and was comfortable with the idea before thinking about telling anyone else. Then again, he was behaving like a toddler without entirely realizing it anyway. If this continued, it probably wouldn't be long before the rest of his team and the village would start to ask questions. "Let's just keep this between us for now, Tails, this is...a lot to take in. I'm struggling with just to understand it all right now. Do you think we could talk about this more later?"

"Sure thing Bro! No problem." Tails agreed with a comforting smile; he was going to support his brother through this. This was not going to be easy for the blue blur, but with Tails' help, they were a force to be reckoned with. He knew Sonic would do anything for him, and had proved it time and time again. Now it was Tails' turn to show he felt the same. They were going to work this all out just like he said.