Chapter 23: Something

Despite having slept most of the morning away, after the first day working on the fairy garden project, Amy was still tired at night. She had expected that she would refuse Vanilla's offer to feed her and Metal during the project, but had found herself falling back on the offer the entire day. It took a lot of the pressure off of her, as she could just sit and enjoy the journey home – Tails had been only too pleased to extend the life of his thrown-together limousine to transport everyone home in. As Vector, Vanilla and Cream lived in the opposite direction, they chose to make their own way home, Rouge and Shadow refused to get into Tails's vehicle (they were not even swayed by the large sad-eyed look he gave them), and, much to Amy's delight, Sonic and Knuckles fell asleep almost as soon as they began the journey home, which, with Tails in the front part of the limousine, left Amy in peace with Metal.

"Today was nice," she whispered to him as they travelled home.

He gave her a small smile.

"I wish every day could be like this," she continued. "I like getting to work with my friends."

Metal frowned slightly.

"You don't agree?" Amy asked him.

He shook his head.

"What part of it didn't you like?" she asked.

He looked thoughtful for a long moment before his face became blank again, his eyes staring forwards at nothing in particular. Amy watched him expectantly, but he stayed that way for some time.

"Dude, seriously?"

Amy yelped at the sound of Tails's voice suddenly snapping through the intercom, her outburst awakening Sonic and Knuckles, who both turned sleepy eyes towards her.

"What is it?" Knuckles asked her. "What's happening?"

"I don't know, I think Tails just got road rage," Amy replied, waving a dismissive hand at him.

Knuckles looked confused, but Sonic simply closed his eyes and slouched back into his seat again.

"Wake me up when we get home," he mumbled.

He took a deep breath and sank further into his seat.

"Tails, are you okay?" Knuckles yelled suddenly.

"Knuckles!" Sonic cried, sitting up abruptly.

"I'm fine Knuckles, how are you, Knuckles?" Tails answered through the intercom in a strangely sarcastic voice.

"I'm fine Tails," Knuckles obliviously replied.

"What about you, Sonic?" Tails asked. "How are you, Sonic?"

"I was asleep," Sonic grumbled.

"How about you, Amy?" Tails asked. "How are you, Amy?"

"I was fine," Amy answered. "But now I'm starting to get worried about you. Especially because you're driving this thing in this weird mood you're apparently in."

"And what about you, Metal?" Tails asked in a low voice. "How are you, Metal?"

Amy's face fell.

"Tails, don't be ridiculous," she said. "You know Metal can't answer you – at least not in a way you can understand while you are – again – driving this vehicle!"

"How are you, Metal?" Tails asked again in the same voice.

"Tails, stop that!" Amy snapped. "Metal's fine, just you concentrate on driving and stop being weird!"

"I want Metal to tell me how he is," Tails said.

"Give it up, buddy," Sonic said with a sigh.

Amy frowned, but when she noticed that Knuckles was the only other person who looked as confused as she felt, she started to worry that she had missed something.

"Sonic?" Tails asked over the intercom.

"Yeah, that was me," Sonic answered, before opening one eye and cocking a lop-sided smirk. "Did you really think you'd got through just like that?"

"...No," Tails said, in a small, clearly disappointed voice.

Sonic snorted and closed his eyes, relaxing into the seat. Knuckles looked around everyone else, before turning to Sonic.

"What are you guys talking about?" he asked.

Sonic didn't answer him, and, although she wanted to push for answers, Amy could sense that Metal was uncomfortable, and not just because he had fixed narrowed, slightly glowing eyes onto Sonic.

When Tails said nothing more and Sonic stayed asleep – or continued feigning sleep – and even Knuckles eventually sat back, Amy turned to Metal, placing a hand on his and smiling. At first, he didn't respond to her, so she curled her fingers around his hand and gave it a little shake, at which point the glow vanished from his eyes. He looked down at her hand on his, then his eyes ran up the length of her arm to her face. She widened her smile a little and his expression softened.

"Today was nice," she said again.

He nodded his head and she turned away from him to look out the window at her side, seeing that they were nearly home. Looking at the glass of the window, she could make out Metal's translucent reflection behind her. He was still looking at her, but the look on his face had changed from before she turned away. He no longer looked calm, though he didn't particularly look angry. His expressions were so slight, it was difficult to discern them sometimes, but it almost looked like there was some sort of sadness or frustration in his eyes. Ordinarily, Amy would have asked him about it outright, but as he had no way of explaining it to her, she felt that doing so would only cause him discomfort, and she didn't want to make him any more uncomfortable than he already appeared to be. She hoped that, whatever it was that was bothering him, it would pass, or else he would find a way to communicate it to her so that she could help him.

After a short journey in silence, the car slowed and Sonic and Knuckles got out, bidding everyone good night and promising they would help out again the next day. When the car started to move again, Amy turned to Metal and smiled. He turned a little towards her, but remained expressionless. She put her hand on his to try to reassure him, but his face didn't change. His eyes lowered to her hand on his and he watched it for a long moment, a moment so long, it started to feel awkward, and she considered retracting the offer: but just before she did, he lifted his eyes and focused them forwards, at the seat opposite his own, where Sonic had been sitting. Amy kept her hand on his, but looked away from him then, and they remained that way until they got home. Amy then slid her hand from Metal's to exit the car on one side as he exited it on the other. Once outside, Amy started towards her front door, but stopped halfway there when she realised that Metal wasn't with her. She turned around and found him with his back to her, facing Tails, who was talking to him in a hushed voice, his tone too low for her to make out actual words, only the faint murmur of his voice. Tails glanced at Amy and did a small double-take, and when he did so, Metal looked back over his shoulder at her.

"You guys okay over there?" she called over to them.

"We're fine," Tails called back. "Right, buddy?"

He fixed his eyes onto Metal with a look that was a little intense for what ought to just be two friends saying goodnight to each other. There was a short pause before Metal turned around and started towards Amy. Tails watched him until he had reached Amy, before sighing loudly and moving back into the driver's seat of his homemade car.

"Everything okay?" Amy asked Metal as they continued towards the front door together.

He nodded his head once and, as she was very tired, Amy decided to accept his answer. Once inside the house, she showered and went to bed, whereupon she discovered that she still had both blankets on her bed: her own and Metal's. She picked up one in each hand and stood there so long, he had a shower himself and retired to the living room. When she heard him shuffling about on the couch, she called out to him, and he duly came back through to her bedroom.

"I have your blanket here," she said, making no attempt to offer it to him.

He took a step closer to her, before stopping. She looked down at her bed, before throwing her own blanket down onto it. She then turned back to Metal, who, although he was watching her expectantly, likewise wasn't making any attempt to retrieve his blanket from her hand.

"Do you want to just sleep here with me again tonight?" she asked quietly.

He took a step closer and she held out the blanket towards him. He gently took it from her hands and nodded his head. She nodded back and then crawled onto her bed, wrapping herself up in her own blanket, facing away from the space she left for Metal. He shortly laid down behind her and settled there. She lay for several seconds listening to him breathe before being overtaken by an urge she apparently had no control over, and turning over to face him. He was lying on his back, his arms bent upwards at either side of his head. She laid an arm across his chest and rested her head on the inside of his nearest arm, snuggling into him and closing her eyes. For a long moment, things were very quiet and still. Then, a moment after she heard him start to breathe again, she felt Metal gently place his opposite hand onto her arm on his chest. She smiled and relaxed, quickly falling asleep.

The following day passed much the same as the one before. Amy went to city hall, and all her friends joined her there, and, after a long day of hard work (subsidised by Vanilla feeding everyone and Rouge bribing everyone), they made fantastic progress, getting the lawns all trimmed and tided, all the new plants in place and the statues repaired. At the end of the day, Amy invited Metal to sleep on her bed again, and again he did so without hesitation. He never tried to turn it into anything else, and, after what she had been through during their last battle with Eggman, she felt more at ease keeping him close. She still felt guilty for shouting at him after he had rescued Sonic, and she wanted to tell him as much, but decided that she would wait until the garden project was finished. After that, they would have more free time and, crucially, more alone time, during which she was going to try harder to communicate with him. She was going to ask Cream to teach her sign language, and she was going to take the time to really get to know Metal, his wants and desires now that he was a mostly biological being and now that he was free of Eggman's rule. But all of that would take time and she knew she didn't have the time (or the energy) until she had finished the onerous task Rouge had so kindly committed her to.

And so, as she took a break in the garden on Monday lunchtime, eating a sandwich and looking about with a smile of pride at all the hard work everyone had done, she shortly found herself wondering why she had thought she would have more free time after the garden project was finished, as Rouge arrived to inform her of her next big "project".

"So I've been talking to Annalise," Rouge began, sitting down on the newly installed stone bench next to Amy.

"Who's Annalise?" Amy asked her through a mouthful of food.

"The mayor's aide," Rouge smoothly replied. "And she is so taken with the garden so far, she's thinking it would make a great venue for outdoor weddings."

"Cool," Amy casually replied, hoping her disinterest was evident in her tone.

"And since we're making such great progress here, I was thinking we would have time to set it all up for our wedding tomorrow," Rouge continued. "That way she can get photos of it all to use in her future promotional material: and also that way you and I are her future promotional material."

Amy swallowed suddenly, almost choking as she inadvertently swallowed down an only half-chewed mouthful of food.

"Wait, what?" she said, turning to look at Rouge with fearful eyes.

"We're getting married tomorrow," Rouge answered her. "So, you know, make sure you cover up that scratch on your face there and don't go slapping yourself in the face with any more rosebushes, you need to be looking your absolute best."

"Wait, Rouge, I'm not marrying you!" Amy said, shaking her head. "It was fine when we were pretending, but I'm not actually gonna marry you!"

"Sweetie, we'll get a divorce," Rouge said, eying her as though she was the one suggesting something ridiculous.

"I don't want to get a divorce!" Amy protested. "I don't want to get married! I mean – I do want to get married – but not to you! And I don't want to just get married for no good reason! I want my wedding to be something special, with someone I love!"

"You don't love me?"

"Not like that I don't!"

Rouge sighed.

"I already promised Annalise she would get to see this place used for a wedding tomorrow," she said in that voice she used when she was trying to make Amy suggest something she didn't really want to do.

"Well, that's your problem," Amy said, standing up angrily. "I am not marrying you tomorrow, so you have to go explain yourself!"

Amy marched away until she almost bumped into Sonic, at which point she realised she had crushed the remainder of her sandwich in her fist in her anger.

"Whoa Ames, are you okay?" he asked her.

"No," she moaned.

"What's up?"

Amy sighed before looking about to be sure nobody would hear what she was going to say next. When she noticed that only Metal was within earshot, laying bricks for the base of what was going to be a decorative well, she turned back to Sonic.

"Rouge promised the mayor's aide I would get married here tomorrow," she said quietly.

Sonic started to laugh, but quickly stopped when Amy squeezed her fists tighter, and a doughy mixture of compressed bread, tuna and salad began oozing out between the fingers of her left hand.

"Oh," he sobered. "Uh, well, what do you wanna do?"

"I want to kill Rouge," Amy flatly replied.

"Well, that would get you out of it," Sonic said with a shrug.

Amy growled and squeezed more of her sandwich through her fingers.

"Okay, okay, I'll think of something serious," he said.

He rolled his eyes skyward and rubbed his chin with his thumb and forefinger; but Amy quickly grew tired of his gesture, as she was almost certain it was just a show he was putting on and that, in reality, he wasn't thinking of how to help her at all.

"I want my wedding day to be something special, Sonic!" she wailed. "It's a day I've been dreaming about all my life, I don't want it to be something rushed and something that's basically just an advert!"

Sonic lowered his eyes to hers, a strange look appearing on his face.

"Please, Sonic," she begged.

He nodded, before looking to one side for a moment.

"Come over here," he said, putting a hand on her shoulder and steering her around.

She let him push her across the garden to a corner where Vector had installed a steel trellised arch earlier that morning. He stopped when they were underneath it, and her first thought was how pretty it was and how pretty it would be once they had decorated it: but then she began to think that it would probably also serve as the head of the alter for any weddings held there and she became distraught.

"I don't want a fake, pointless wedding!" she complained. "There are so many things I'm prepared to do to help a friend, but this isn't one of them!"

"Maybe there's a way you can do what Rouge wants but it doesn't ruin what you want either," Sonic said.

Amy pouted and frowned at him, but, when she saw the genuinely serious look on his face, she softened.

"Why don't you just get married tomorrow?" he said. "But not to Rouge?"

Amy slowly shook her head.

"What do you mean?" she asked softly.

"Well, this place looks pretty sweet, surely getting married here can't be too far off what you wanted for your own wedding, right?" he responded. "It's got flowers and butterflies and those little lights on strings you like – what do you call them?"

"Fairy lights?"

"Right, yeah, fairy lights – oh hey, I get why you want to use so many of them now! Fairy garden, fairy lights!"

Amy raised her eyebrows expectantly, but Sonic didn't continue.

"Sonic, what are you talking about?" she asked.

"The fairy garden?" he responded, looking and sounding confused.

"No, before that!" she snapped irritably. "You said I should just get married here. What do you mean?"

"Well, what more would you need to make this your perfect wedding?" he asked with a shrug.

"Gee, I dunno, Sonic. For starters, a willing groom would be nice."

"Well, don't you sort of already have that?"

Amy frowned, but Sonic nodded his head to one side. She frowned harder and he sighed, grabbing her shoulders and turning her around to look across the garden.

"Knuckles?" she asked.

"No idiot, behind Knuckles," he replied. "I'm talking about our knight in formerly shining armour back there."

"Metal?"

Amy blinked, watching Metal meticulously place a brick onto the round structure he had almost completed already.

"I can't marry Metal," she said, turning look at Sonic again.

"Why not?" Sonic asked.

"Because I just met him, that's why not!" Amy protested.

"You met him like eleven years ago, Amy," he replied.

"Yeah, when he kidnapped me!" she pointed out.

"But you two are kinda… Together, right?"

Amy swallowed carefully as she fought to keep the colour from rising in her face.

"I wouldn't say that," she said quietly.

"After you ran out to see him in your pyjamas and your bare feet?" Sonic asked.

"I mean… I do really like him…" she said slowly.

"So?"

"But I don't know how he feels about me."

"You don't?"

"He hasn't exactly been able to tell me, has he?"

"…I guess not. But, does he really need to say it? You can't see it with how he is around you?"

Amy looked over at Metal again, biting her lip as she watched him place another brick and gently press it into place.

"Wait, no!" she said, turning back to Sonic. "Even if he did… Even if I did… I can't marry him, just like that. Not until I can at least…"

"At least what?" Sonic asked.

"At least tell him… You know…"

Sonic slowly narrowed his eyes.

"What?" Amy asked softly. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"I can just about get that he hasn't said anything to you," he began. "But you – you're always talking about your feelings, and other people's feelings, and just feelings in general – how have you not said anything to him about your feelings yet?"

"It's not that simple, Sonic!" Amy protested. "It's complicated!"

"Is it?"

"Yes!"

"In what way?"

"Well there's… And then there's… And let's not forget there's also…"

Amy pursed her lips.

"You've never had a problem telling any of us what you think about us before," Sonic pointed out.

"That was different," she quietly replied.

"Oh yeah?" he asked.

"Oh yeah."

Sonic frowned and Amy shook her head.

"This is different," she said quietly. "I've never… I mean, the way I feel now is different… It's never felt like this before."

Sonic smiled and Amy scowled at him.

"Don't make light of it!" she snapped. "It's serious!"

"Yeah, it is!" he replied. "You're in love!"

"Shut-up, Sonic!"

"Why are you getting mad? Isn't being in love kinda your favourite thing?"

"Don't say it like that!"

Amy slapped Sonic's arm but he laughed it off, before ruffling a hand over her quills.

"Don't mess up my hair!" she protested, swinging a hand at his arm but missing as he dodged out of her reach.

"Your hair's full of bugs and twigs and dead leaves, it's not like I made it look any worse," he replied.

"Don't say that!" she wailed, reaching her hands up to feel about her head self-consciously.

"Don't worry about it Ames, I'm pretty sure Metal still thinks you're pretty."

Amy made to hit him, but, when he pointed a thumb in Metal's direction, she turned to look over at him, all the way over at the other side of the garden. He was standing by his almost complete circular construction, the last brick in one hand, looking directly back across the garden at her. He was quite a bit away, and even though his face was about as neutral as it usually was, she found something slightly amiss about the way he was looking at her.

"I wonder what he actually thinks..." she muttered.

"Why don't you just ask him?" Sonic replied.

Amy turned to him with a pout.

"Don't be mean, Sonic!" she protested.

He looked as though he was about to give her a meaningful answer, but after a moment he groaned and shook his head.

"Never mind," he said instead. "So what do you want me to do next?"

Amy smiled, glad that the conversation had returned to the task at hand. She pointed Sonic in the direction of what needed to be done next, and then turned to go and help Metal with the well: but when she turned around, Knuckles and Tails were already at his side, and so she moved on.

Amy took an extra long shower after her extra long day working on the fairy garden project. When she was finally done, she headed through to her bedroom. She heard Metal going into the bathroom after her, and smiled to herself. It had been very soothing – especially after a couple of hectic days – having Metal come home with her, and she was starting to get accustomed to sharing her bed with him. Like everything else they did together, it was quiet, and relaxing. Amy started to crawl onto her bed, but paused, one knee on the bed, her other foot still on the floor, as she noticed that something was amiss. Slowly, she lowered her leg back down, planting her foot back onto the floor, and tilted her head as she looked down at her bed.

Metal's blanket was gone.

Amy looked about herself, looked all over the floor and under the bed, before starting back through the house, all the time sure that she must have missed it somewhere. When she reached the living room and found it on the couch, she paused for a long moment, questioning herself as to how it had got there. It had been on her bed in the morning when she had left the house. Eventually, she came to the realisation that Metal must have moved it there while she was in the shower. She wondered why, and, quickly, she started to worry that he had done it because he didn't like sleeping in the same bed as her. She felt a bitter pang of rejection and foolishness, but she tried to quash it, tried to tell herself it was probably just a misunderstanding. Just as she was warring between getting upset and just picking up the blanket and taking it back to her bedroom, Metal emerged from the bathroom. She turned to him and smiled. He looked her in the eye as he approached but otherwise did not acknowledge her. Once he had passed her, he didn't look back, and simply settled himself onto the couch, lying on it as opposed to sitting on it as he usually did even when sleeping. He buried himself in his blanket until only his head was visible, and then closed his eyes.

"Metal?" Amy asked softly. "Are you okay?"

He didn't answer her, which she had not really expected him to, but when he did not even open his eyes, that pang of unpleasantness returned in the pit of her stomach.

"You don't have to sleep here," she tried. "You can sleep in my bed with me again if you like."

She waited for him to acknowledge her somehow, but still he kept his eyes closed and remained still.

"I mean, only if you want to," she added. "Because… I would like you to, if you want to."

Still he ignored her. She was sure that he could hear her perfectly well and was wilfully ignoring her, and so, after she had waited a little longer in the off-chance that he might yet respond, she turned and went back to her bedroom. She closed the door behind her and crawled into her bed, curling up into a ball in the middle of the mattress. Even though they had slept with their own blankets on the bed the past two nights, she could still faintly smell him on the sheets, which did little to help how bad she already felt about his absence. She didn't think he was trying to hurt her in any way, but nonetheless, she felt rejected by the fact he had chosen to go back to sleeping on the couch and had ignored her. Even if he had refused her offer to sleep in her bed, she would have been a little hurt, but could have let it go, but the fact that he had just ignored her made it worse. It felt like he was sulking with her, which then made her wonder if she was the one who had done something to hurt him.

Metal was hardly an emotionally complex person, she thought to herself, so it was difficult to think of any way she could actually hurt his feelings other than to wound his pride somehow. Maybe he was tired of working for her, maybe he thought it was beneath him: but he never refused anything she asked of him and always performed any task she gave him efficiently and without complaint. It was so hard to know what he was thinking, but she made a mental note to start learning sign language as soon as possible and, the following morning, she would try to find out if Tails had any idea what might be upsetting Metal – if anything was at all.

Next Chapter: It's time for the wedding, and Amy manages to dodge the bullet, but that doesn't stop the event, as Rouge finds someone else to marry for the sake of getting her face in the promotional material for the fairy garden wedding venue. Finishing the garden ahead of schedule, Rouge upholds her promise and takes everyone to Charlie's for dinner. Amy and Metal meet a familiar street vendor on the way, before Metal gets unwillingly roped into Sonic's scheme to get free food at Charlie's. After, the gang return to city hall to see their completed garden at dark with the lights all turned on – but they find a surprise there waiting for them. Chapter 24: Everything