Chapter 13: Understanding

Amy awoke to the sound of someone knocking on her front door. She blinked her eyes blearily, feeling a little confused at first to find herself in her living room, and the room dull, the window showing her it was evening time. She snapped to attention when she realised that she had been sleeping cuddled into Metal's side: but he was as deep asleep as he had been when she had first rested her head on his shoulder, unmoved from his original position, still snoring softly. She stood up and smoothed her quills and clothes, before wincing as she was reminded of the aches and pains from their earlier battle with Eggman's latest creations.

When she heard another knock on her front door, she checked that Metal was still asleep, before moving to answer it. She mostly expected to find Sonic and Rouge, likely come to lecture her again, and so, when she opened her door and found Cream facing her, she was pleasantly surprised.

"Hi, Cream!" she said cheerfully. "I didn't expect to see you!"

"I got all those supplies you wanted, for your projects!" Cream replied, holding up a cloth bag stretched almost to breaking point.

"Oh, wow!" Amy said. "Um, come in."

Amy stepped back and Cream happily skipped past her into the house. She moved all the way into the living room, where her smile vanished, her eyes growing large. Amy joined her there, looking at Metal, still sleeping soundly on the couch.

"Mr Metal Sonic must be very sleepy," Cream mused.

"Nah, he's always like that," Amy began. "He could sleep through an earthquake – wait, Cream, you know...?"

Amy turned to Cream, who smiled sweetly and nodded her head.

"How...?" Amy asked cautiously.

"I met Mister Sonic on my way over here," Cream replied. "He told me I shouldn't come to your house because Metal Sonic was here. I asked him why Metal Sonic was at your house, and he said you were hiding him there and that he wasn't really much of a robot any more, and I realised he was actually Mister Thistle."

Amy nodded slowly.

"I wish you'd told me sooner that you were dating Mister Metal Sonic, Amy."

Amy started to correct Cream, to tell her that she was in no way dating Metal: but she stopped as a thought occurred to her.

"You do?" she asked instead. "Why?"

"I didn't know you liked Mister Metal Sonic that way," Cream replied. "I thought you were still in love with Mister Sonic."

Metal made a snorting sound and Amy hesitated, watching him through narrowed eyes, checking that he was still asleep before addressing Cream again.

"You think it's a good thing that I'm, um, that I like Metal that way?" she asked, her eyes still on Metal as she spoke, assuring herself that he could not hear her.

"I'm so glad you do like him that way, Amy!" Cream replied.

"Glad?" Amy asked, turning her attention fully to Cream, surprised at her choice of words.

"Yes, because I thought I was the only one who felt that way."

Amy tilted her head involuntarily.

"You were always talking about how Sonic was your one true love," Cream said. "I didn't think I could tell you that I felt the same way about Emerl."

"Oh..." Amy said softly.

"But now that I know you're dating Mister Metal Sonic, I feel like I can finally talk about it," Cream said, smiling warmly.

"Well that's great, Cream!" Amy said. "And I'm sorry if you never felt you could tell me before."

"That's okay."

"No, it's not. We're best friends, you should be able to tell me anything."

"Well, you always said you were going to marry Mister Sonic, and then, when I started to grow up a bit, you started asking me to go with you when you were meeting Mister Sonic and Tails, and I thought you were trying to say that I should like Tails just because you liked Mister Sonic."

Amy's lip curled.

"Did-did I really go on and on about Sonic all the time like that?" she asked.

Cream gave her a sad look.

"Oh wow," she said with a sigh. "In that case, I really am sorry."

"That's okay!" Cream said sweetly. "Would it be alright if you and Mister Metal Sonic came to my house for dinner some time? I want to show my mom that someone can be happy in a relationship like yours."

Amy smiled and nodded.

"I'd like that," she said. "And so would Metal."

"He would?" Cream asked.

"He loves anything to do with food," Amy flatly replied. "He's never not hungry."

"That's so funny!"

Cream giggled and Amy smiled.

"Yeah," she said. "I'm glad you came by, Cream."

"Me too," Cream replied. "Do you think Mister Metal will wake up soon?"

"Uh..." Amy began, smiling awkwardly. "It's hard to say..."

"Oh, well then would it be okay if I come back tomorrow?" Cream asked.

"I have work to do tomorrow."

"I can help!"

"It's mostly cutting flowers."

"I love doing that!"

"Well, okay then. I won't say no to an extra pair of hands."

Cream smiled, then looked over at Metal for a long, hopeful moment. He snorted and twitched, and she gasped, her eyes widening like a child on Christmas day: but, when he sank deeper into the couch without waking, she made a small noise of disappointment.

"He'll wake up when he's hungry," Amy assured her.

Cream turned to her and smiled warmly, before grabbing her into a hug. Amy returned her gesture, trying to hold back her own emotions. After the day she had endured, it was welcomingly reassuring that at least one of her friends was on her side.

"Okay, I'll see you both tomorrow!" Cream said as she released Amy.

"Definitely!"

Amy walked Cream out, waving her off at the door before heading back inside. She peered into the bag Cream had left her, smiling at the array of colourful shells, pebbles, pine cones, berries and sea-glass. She then looked over at Metal again, deciding that he looked as though he would sleep through the night, and, if the twinges she felt in her shoulders were any indication, she would do the same, and likely wake up with lingering aches and pains from their earlier battle against Eggman's latest projects. She moved over and picked up the blanket, draping it over Metal as best she could: but, in his upright position, it shortly slid down his chest.

Amy paused. The blanket he was using wasn't as dense as the one on her bed, and if she couldn't even cover him up properly, he might get cold, and that would do no good for strained muscles. Would he suffer from strained muscles the way she did? Amy had never seen Sonic suffer after a battle the way she, Tails, Knuckles and just about anyone else she knew did. Between Sonic's DNA and his robotic body parts, it was unlikely Metal would suffer, but she felt that was a gamble it would be reckless to take, and so she formulated a plan.

Amy gathered up Metal's blanket and took it through to her room, swapping it for the one on her bed. She brought her own blanket back and tucked it around his body as best she could. When she finished, she stepped back to watch him, and, when the blanket remained in place, she gave a satisfied nod and headed back to her bedroom.

As she spread Metal's blanket over her own bed, the smell of the shower gel she gave him rising from it, a series of thoughts unfurled through her mind unbidden. She wondered how he would have reacted if he had woken up first – if he had woken up and found her snuggled up to him on the couch. She wondered if he even had any understanding of why it might have been embarrassing for her if he had woken up first. She wondered if he ever thought or felt anything close to love or romance.

And then Amy remembered what Cream had told her about her own feelings for a non-biological being, and she found herself pausing for thought.

Ordinarily, after arguing with Sonic the way she had that day, Amy would still be devastated and would cry herself to sleep. She would torture herself for days, torn between wanting to fall at his feet and apologise and beg his forgiveness and wanting to stand her ground and refuse to acquiesce, to make him see her side of things. Usually, she ended up doing something somewhere in between the two: her will to stand by her own argument would lessen over time, and she would seek Sonic out and make a roundabout, indirect, apology for shouting at him, and he would tell her he had forgotten all about it already, and they would fall back into the usual rhythm of their friendship.

Or rather, Amy would continue to adore Sonic, and he would continue to be evasive any time she so much as looked at him admiringly.

She sometimes wondered if Sonic would ever return – or even just openly acknowledge – her feelings for him. She often felt like giving up, accepting that he would only ever be her friend; but the one thing that had always drawn her back to him was the cards.

Amy looked down at her bedside table, realising then that the seven cards from her original deck of tarot cards were still there, where she had laid them down when she had shown her new deck to Metal.

She crawled onto her bed at her pillows, sitting down cross-legged, before retrieving the cards and turning them over. In a long practised ritual, she laid them out in the order and formation she had that day over eleven years ago when she had first asked the cards about her true love. Seven cards: The Ace of Cups, The Lovers, The Fool, the Ten of Wands, the Six of Cups, the Knight of Swords and the Nine of Cups, in that order. The Cups were the suit of matters of emotion, and the Ace of Cups meant a new beginning was ahead of her, which pointed towards a new love. The Lovers was self-explanatory, a confirmation that love was in her future. The Fool – despite seeming like a bad card, especially when a robot with no knowledge of the card's meaning chose it to represent her – meant approaching a new beginning with an open heart, which she would of course do when it came to finding her one true love. The Ten of Wands meant a struggle was ahead of her, but there was something incredible waiting for her at the end of her journey if she could endure: this was her kidnap and detainment by Eggman, and the prize for enduring was Sonic's love. The Six of Cups was again a card from the suit of water and emotion, and six was the number of development, so this signified her growing relationship with Sonic. The Knight of Swords meant someone brave would rush into her life to shake things up – and that was literally the definition of Sonic: in fact, the Knight of Swords was the card Amy had always associated with Sonic because it was about speed and bravery, and, on her old original deck of tarot cards, the Knight of Swords was depicted as a blue hedgehog, yet another clear sign that Sonic was her hero and one true love. And finally, she had the Nine of Cups, which was the card that signified contentment in a relationship, being content with a love: literally the only card that could have been more perfect would have been the Ten of Cups, which depicted a happy loving couple with their children.

It seemed simple enough to Amy as it always had: she was about to meet a new love, it would be her destined love, she would have to keep her heart open to love, she would have a struggle (which, as she thought about it again, could refer to either her time as a captive on Little Planet or the time she had spent pursuing Sonic in vain), love would develop over time (Sonic would come to love her just as she loved him), someone brave would rush in to shake things up (obviously Sonic) and in the end, she would find contentment with that hero.

It was a little odd that the second last card was actually so late in the sequence, since, logically, Sonic, the Knight of Swords, ought to be nearer to the beginning of the story.

Amy picked up the card in question, smiling to herself at the image depicted there. Like all of the knights in the tarot deck, the Knight of Swords was on horseback. The Knight of Swords was distinct from the others for being shown in rapid motion, his horse charging forwards, the horse's mane stretched out behind it, the background scenery blurry as he raced by it. Each of the cards in both Amy's original tarot deck and her new one were depicted by different species, and the Knight of Swords in her original deck was the only out of all her cards (old and new) to show a blue hedgehog. It of course was all part of the cards' message to her, part of her reading, part of her destiny.

Amy had based her entire life around that reading. Her every ounce of emotion had been invested into realising that reading. Yet, as she looked at it again, in the cold critical light of her current conundrum, she found herself wondering why the Knight of Swords appeared so late, and why the Six of Cups was even part of the reading at all. The Six of Cups wasn't necessarily a positive card – it was the sort of card that could often be misinterpreted by the eyes of someone looking for something that wasn't actually there. In fact, Amy thought wryly, the card itself literally represented someone seeing something that wasn't actually there: it showed a young green bird sitting at a table with six cups, a wizened old cat looking on at her.

Slowly, as another memory sprang forth with alarming clarity in her mind, Amy turned the card upside-down. It wasn't often that she drew an upside-down card, but the Six of Cups had definitely been upside-down when she drew it back then. In that position, the card held a different meaning. In that position, it meant clinging onto something from childhood that had long since lost its meaning, and, in the process of doing so, overlooking something more important that was present.

Amy placed the card down again and closed her eyes, drawing in a deep breath and exhaling slowly. She cleared her mind and opened her eyes again, looking down at the cards before her as though they were not the story of her own destiny, as though she was looking in on someone else's fortune.

And, with that level of cold clarity, they told a slightly different story.

The Ace of Cups, The Lovers, The Fool, the Ten of Wands, the Six of Cups, the Knight of Swords and the Nine of Cups, in that order. The Ace of Cups meant she was looking for love, opening her heart: she had asked the cards about her one true love, and the first thing they had done was acknowledge her question by showing her asking it. The Lovers was a card that was so often mistakenly read as literal, much like its Major Arcana sibling, Death. The card did not always refer directly to love, and was most often not a sign or guarantee that a great romance was ahead. The Lovers, in fact, more often represented choice. It literally depicted a purple fox standing between two other foxes, one black and one white. Diametrically opposite choices faced the fox – and therefore the reader – and what those choices would mean would only become clearer from reviewing the cards that followed. And, with that correct, less rose-tinted interpretation of The Lovers, the remainder of the cards told not only a different story to the one Amy had originally inferred, but also a very distinct one. The Fool followed because she needed to keep an open mind and be open to new experiences – but, although The Fool showed a happy face, it also showed a figure about to step off the edge of a cliff – the implication being that, although an open mind was important, it was also important not to be blinded to what was really going on around her. The Ten of Wands spoke of a hardship, but it spoke of a self-inflicted hardship: this was the card that showed what making the wrong choice would lead to. Making the wrong choice – being the fool who falls off the cliff edge – would lead to walking a long and winding road, carrying a burden that was entirely of her own doing. And, the end of that winding road was not as glorious as it appeared, because, when she arrived, she found the upside-down Six of Cups, telling her that her entire journey had been pointless, because it had merely been in pursuit of something she had imagined in her childhood, something that was not, and would never be, a reality. The Knight of Swords followed, showing that someone would sweep into her life and change everything rapidly: and the result of that change was the Nine of Cups, the content and loving relationship she sought, the romance she had asked the cards about in the first place.

Amy bit her lip, a strange idea blossoming in the back of her mind. It almost seemed as though the cards were telling her that she had gone to Little Planet looking for her Knight of Swords but come away carrying the Ten of Wands because she had made the wrong choice in the face of The Lovers. Her wrong choice would bring a sort of emotional happiness, but not the sort she was seeking, but the Nine of Cups she sought was still the end of the story, and the one thing standing between that ultimately disappointing Six of Cups and the sweet romantic Nine of Cups was the Knight of Swords.

Amy picked up the Knight of Swords again. She had always thought it was Sonic, and a fast-moving, brave blue hedgehog could only be Sonic.

Amy gasped and flinched, the card falling from her hand in her shock as she heard a thump from her living room. She tensed, but, as she heard thumping footsteps cross the room and move into her kitchen, followed by the sound of the kitchen tap turning on, she realised it was just Metal waking up. She smiled to herself and gathered up her special seven cards, placing them back onto her bedside table, before gladly enveloping herself into her bedsheets and snuggling down to sleep.

As she closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, once more drawing in the scent of that shower gel she loved so much, she found herself struck by one, single thought: Metal was a fast-moving, brave blue hedgehog.

Next Chapter: Cream bonds with Metal over his obsession with eating, and, when Metal is unusually forthcoming with her, Amy learns a little more about him, but, just when it seems like Cream might have found a way for Metal to talk directly to Amy, he seems to have a change of heart. Sonic visits Amy, and although Metal still clearly isn't ready to accept Sonic, Sonic tries to bond with Metal and seems to be scheming something. Chapter 14: Opportunity