Sonic and Tails got back home at four in the morning. From the Underground, they'd taken the side tunnel that led to the downtown Capitol Aero, where lines of lean-to-like shacks squatted under trees.

It was a funny place for the one and only Ringweilder of Mobia to live, but Sonic wasn't going to live in some palace when he could be with Grampa Chuck. Also, he was a little farther away from Robotnik here.

Not that Robotnik didn't try to come to him. A guard robot with treads and a long pointed nose wheeled down the dirt street, keeping an eye on their shack. Sonic and Tails waited for him to reach the far end of his trail before scrambling to the back door.

Sonic snatched up a pebble and shot it through the end of a drain pipe sticking out just above the back door. The two boys listened with their ears cocked as the pebble bounced into the shack, hopefully where Grampa Chuck would see it.

In a few seconds, the door unlocked and opened. Grampa Chuck stood in the doorway, undressed for bed. Of course, he'd been waiting all night. He was a good looking hedgehog, though not because he was physically fit. His fur had aged to a light gray blue over the years, and his mustache had turned white. His spikes hung limp and ragged from his head and back. But his hazel eyes still pulsed with warmth and vitality, and this one feature outshone the others.

His eyes lit up at the sight of his grandson and Tails. A warm smile spread over his worn face, and then, just as quickly, the smile disappeared.

"Hey, Gramps," Sonic whispered, his voice thick and scratched.

"You boys look awful," Grampa Chuck said, sadness filling his eyes.

He was right. Sonic's shoulders slumped with weariness, and exhaustion shone in his eyes. Tails leaned against Sonic, already half dozing. They were bruised and dirty and the uncertainty about what would happen to them the next morning had done nothing to help their morale.

Sonic pushed inside and Tails stumbled after him. The fox's twin tails dragged on the floor.

Grampa Chuck shut the door, and followed them into the back room of their shack, where they slept. The front part of the shack was the makeshift grounds of operation for Grampa Chuck's fast food business. The back room was cramped and almost empty, except for Grampa Chuck's bed and two hammocks for Sonic and Tails. They'd moved most of their belongings to the Underground, where they would be safe.

"I was trying not to worry," Grampa Chuck admitted, clasping his hands and looking away. "You know you have ring delivery in three hours, don't you? You two didn't get into any trouble?"

Sonic paused, his back to Grampa Chuck. His brain eked out a cynical heh-heh in his sleep-deprived state. Thankfully he didn't voice it.

The hedgehog turned around, rolled his shoulders, and scratched the back of his neck. "Yeah, well…we made it back." He flashed a forced grin.

Questions blared in Grampa Chuck's eyes. He never knew the details of what they did. Of course, it was probably illegal, but he had no choice but to trust them. ….Sonic was the Ringweilder. He'd been born to guard their planet and people.

But at the end of the day, Sonic was still his grandson. And the last member of his family still living.

"You…got what you were looking for?" Grampa Chuck asked.

"Nope." Anger sparked in Sonic's eyes. "Don't worry about it though, we're still on it."

A wry frown spread over Grampa Chuck's face then. It has gone very badly then.

"Goodnight, Grampa Chuck," Tails murmured, almost tripping over his feet. He had already taken off his cargo pants and shoes for bed.

Grampa Chuck caught Tails' shoulder and squeezed it. "Goodnight to you too, Tails."

Tails smiled up at him, his large blue eyes shining. There was always a hint of pain in his smiles, but this time it burned stronger. Chuck's stomach turned. His boys were not okay. He wished he could scoop up Tails and somehow hug him long enough to burn all the pain out of him.

But at least Tails recognized his own pain. The fox was so transparent that, one way or another, Chuck could get him to open up and talk about it. Chuck could remember back when he had finally taken the boys to his little house, back after they had escaped out of New Mobius. The new tech-city had just fallen, and Robotnik had taken all the children as hostages, incentives for their parents to become roboticized. According to Tails, his parents had been roboticized before the attack. Chuck remembered one night when it was just Tails and him, soon after he arrived at the shack. Tails told him, through his sobs, all about his time as a hostage and about seeing Robotnik reveal his parents to the world on television as the first roboticized Mobians. In vivid detail he described his parent's dead eyes and their long metal claws and their machine-replicated voices.

Grampa Chuck sighed. He ran a hand over Tail's forehead, brushing his fingers through his forelocks. "Now, you better get some rest. There's leftover pizza in the morning."

Tails smiled and crawled into the lower hammock. He coiled one tail over his body like a blanket and the other he tucked under his head.

Grampa Chuck turned to face his grandson,

Sonic, on the other head, never slowed down enough to let himself hurt over anything, let alone talk about it. Grampa Chuck frowned. Sonic had finally broken down and cried after Sparks had left them, but he'd never talked to Chuck about his own time as a hostage, or his mother's murder, or his lost father and two little brothers.

Perhaps he was afraid of the things that would start to speak inside his heart if he took the time to listen.

Grampa Chuck sighed and walked over to a flickering electro lamp hanging from the ceiling. He began to turn it down. "You need a ring, Sawni." His tone was kind, but firm. "Does that bruise on your neck hurt? I don't want to think about what you two have been up to…"

Sonic shivered as he unzipped his leather tunic front, making a face. He just wanted to go to bed so he could get tomorrow over with.

"I'll get one in the morning, or else I'll never get to sleep, don't worry about it," Sonic's voice was almost a mumble. "We had a good time, we're both fine, just—we'll just…" Sonic began unbuckling the belts that wound up the waist of his leather tunic. He unloosed the leather wraps around his calves, letting them slip into a pile at his ankles. "….we'll just have to see how things go these next couple days, but don't worry about it." He kicked his sneakers off as he worked on the wraps around his arms and white gloves.

Grampa Chuck turned off the light completely. Sonic slid his tunic off his shoulders and rolled his head back on his neck. Pain streaked through his throat, but he ignored it. He sucked in a deep breath.

Even in the dark, Grampa Chuck could see the raw bruises stretching across his neck.

Grampa Chuck circled an arm around Sonic's back. He pulled his grandson into a hug.

Sonic stiffened, hesitating. His eyes widened.

Fear bolted through his mind.

His resolve wavered.

He flung his arms around Grampa Chuck, and held on hard. His arms locked and his muscles burned. He felt Grampa Chucks hands run over his head spikes, pressing against his scalp. He pushed his face harder into his Grampa's shoulder.

If Robotnik did know he'd broken into Robotropolis and he was arrested, what would Grampa Chuck do? It was Sonic's job to keep things up and running. Gramps was getting up there in years, and business wasn't easy now, thanks to politics. He had to take the filled meal orders to Grampa Chuck's customers, and pick up ingredients, and Gramps was always asking him to dig up something in the garden…Grampa Chuck couldn't handle all that on his own.

Plus, he was the last piece of family Grampa Chuck had. It wouldn't be fair.

Sometimes, Sonic actually wished he didn't have to fight. He could be like everyone else. He could just stay home and be a good little boy and watch Robotnik stomp all over the planet.

But no, he had Speed, he couldn't just let things happen, and too much had happened already.

It still wasn't fair though…that he had to keep on doing the right thing, whether it did any good or not. And just so he could get cut down for it over and over again.