Here's more, apparently.

Whisper sits up slowly, in stiff, unwilling inches, eyes strangely open, bright and cutting and cold.

Amy is here, already, having taken it upon herself as big sister figure to personally visit her charges when she can, this one in particular being a special case requiring special attention, but not the only one in need, despite being perhaps the least receptive to being helped. "Hi, sweetie."

"H'lo."

"Sleep well?"

"Mmph."

"I slept fine, myself."

"S'good."

Spread thin, the women can't manage much enthusiasm in this greeting, nor the pleasantries following it.

The hedgehog is perched on the corner of whatever it is that serves as a bed, in these hard times. And she's wearing that kind, worried expression, again. Unsure of what to say, even though she'd come here with a script in mind, having given it some thought.

"How long?" is the quiet question, spoken in brief. "How long have you been here, watching me dream, knowing my dream is happy, because you were too kind to wake me, and too cruel to spare me a broken neck?" would be the whole thing, if the wolf were the talkative, openly pathetic kind.

"Oh, I dunno, a couple of minutes?" More like just shy of an hour. Sitting and staring and thinking and feeling.

Whisper nods.

Amy's worry deepens.

The wolf swallows the urge to be bitter because she won't allow this all-consuming heartache to squeeze out what little good of her is left, inside. She can't. She has to preserve herself for the woman she aches for. But it's still so hard, to remain calm and composed when defeated, swinging one leg over the edge, followed by another, until she sits beside the hedgehog.

In the pause, they contemplate everything and nothing and then the pause ends.

"Can I?"

"Okay."

Amy loops an arm around Whisper's shoulders and leans in, so their heads rest together.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome, sweetheart. Thank you, too."

"S'fine."

Silence, for a while.

"Gimme a task," is the softly spoken shattering of this pause. "Almost anything."

Keeping busy is the safest thing to do, the hedgehog supposes, even if it isn't therapy, and even if keeping busy isn't always as easy as wallowing and self-destruction and suicide. "Thought you might like to help me with organising our rations and such." She turns a little to kiss the wolf's cheek, brief and soft. "While things are still quiet. Before that mad rush. Y'know."

"Yes."

"You've seen how grabby and demanding people can be."

"Yes."

"Not much fun, but it'd be very helpful."

"I'll do it."

"Thanks. Seems I've got my hands full with so little."

"I can go out, later. Gather supplies."

"That'd be great, too. I'm sure Espio could do with a distraction, and he's a quiet enough guy, so you two-"

"I can go alone."

"Yes, but you could get into trouble, sweetheart."

"Would prefer to go alone."

"You'll make me worry."

"Sorry. Don't wanna be responsible for anyone. Not again."

An attempt at a smile. "Well, let's just think on it a little more, okay?"

"Okay."

"For now, though, I want you to trust me when I tell you, you've been so helpful."

"You already told me."

"And I'm repeating myself. Really, you've helped so much. You just don't see it like I do."

"Okay."

"Thank you, sweetie. Again, for everything. Most of all, for being so brave."

"Okay."

"I look up to you."

"Amy."

"Whisper?"

"Please, don't."

That attempt suddenly ends. "Do you wanna talk?"

"No."

The women are left to linger, silently, for a while, in a bubble of tension and pain.

"How can I help?"

"You can't."

"Sweetie, I refuse to accept that."

"S'true."

"I told you. I refuse to believe it."

"Sorry."

"Don't be sorry. Just, please, open up a little, so I can reach in."

"No."

Another kiss, a little firmer on that cheek, and it doesn't end as quickly as the last, as if to convince them both that there's more, or less, or maybe it's making no effort to convince anyone of anything at all.

A sigh, catching halfway in a tightening throat.

Then, "I love you," comes out all strange.

These words are enough to make blue eyes rise from the floor, briefly meeting with green, then darting ahead.

"If you feel like maybe you'd like to talk, later, then talk to me. Or anyone. Please."

"Okay."

"And if you want somebody to hold you, or just your hand, or even if you just wanna be physically close to someone else, then that's okay, too, that's not weakness."

"Okay."

"Look at me."

"Why?"

"Because I love you."

"I'm sorry."

"Whisper."

"Amy. It hurts."

Green eyes still seek an audience with narrowed blue, which still stare ahead at a stain on the wall and, beyond that, nothing.

"I'm not alone. But I feel alone. Amy, I love you back."

"I know."

"But it's not the same."

"I know."

"Loved her, too."

"Yes."

"Loved her so much."

"And your love is precious. You're good to love others, even if that love isn't equal."

"Love won't bring her back. Doesn't matter how much. Can't wish her here. Can't turn a wish into a cure."

"Whisper, I…" But Amy doesn't know what else to say, so she says nothing.

"Love makes it hurt. I loved her when I told myself, no, I shouldn't. But she was comfort, she was drink, she was food. She was herself. Tangle."

Tears well up, again. Wanting to burst, again, no matter how thick the walls of the dam.

"When I was resolved to being alone, thirsty and starving, Tangle loved me." Whisper stops for a growl, some predatory, primeval sound, then whimpers. Blue eyes grow unsteady just then, for a moment. "Why did I let her in? She's gone. I'm not. If I hadn't loved her like I did, she'd have left me more than just this. More than alive. With something worthwhile living for."

The hedgehog imagines her own love, the fate that he flees from as much as fights against, in thoughtlessly pressing her mouth to the corner of the wolf's, pressing until they could both bruise.

"And I love you, too, and I could lose you, too. But after Tangle, I can't love and lose, again, not as much as she made me."

That kiss merely hardens, drags itself, pushes further.

"When you found me, Amy, I was in a dream." The words are muffled as that mouth traverses further along another. "When you found me. Amy. I was dreaming of her and it felt so real but it's not real. We wake up when our dreams die."

"Whisper."

"Sorry."

"Whisper!" the hedgehog speaks into a gap, into the other's pained gasp, and tightens her arm, drawing their upright bodies closer together, finding no resistance, as if there's no life and no willingness to live, the latter of which scares her the most.

"She was there." The wolf is barely articulate, barely cognisant. "With me. Inside, but I couldn't keep her, I woke up, she died."

Amy feels herself, though, shuddering into the kiss as those words are forced out in breathy intervals, distorted by motions approximating sensuality, drawing Whisper's cold gaze, finally, acknowledgement dawning in some distant sort of way.

"Sorry."

The hedgehog kisses the wolf more fiercely. There's not an ounce of romance in it, not even when Whisper's lips unthinkingly give way for Amy's numb tongue, claws dragging through quills and blunt fingers seeking ribs, the world tipping sideways. This passion is something akin to the desperation small, furry animals might feel when huddled in a pile of fear for their tender lives, trapped together, tiny hearts racing in their crumbling burrow with the frothing hounds outside, digging in, and the men wielding pitchforks that rise above, stabbing down.

Amy aches without Sonic's touch. She aches with what little of it she can coax out of him, what little he can give. And it's all gone, now. It's indecent, pure. Her womanhood, her soul, it all hurts and thrums for him. She aches.

He used to give her hugs, sometimes, and he'd let her hold his hand or punch him fondly on the arm or blow soft kisses in his ear, nothing too far from being sisterly. He is unable to satisfy her in all the ways she needs. And when he could, he was unwilling, as if her blossoming, then final bloom, didn't do a thing for her attractiveness.

She doesn't blame him, having overgrown the urge to be angry. But she mourns something, and she's mourning a lot more, nowadays, as the infection digs itself deeper into his skin, reaching for bones, altering his organs, and she watches him change while he tries so hard not to, straining to stay the same.

He is her hero, always, though.

She can see him, whenever she looks his way, which is often, and she can still find his beauty, that she adores, tarnished as it is by polluting mercury that changes friends to recognisable monstrosities. Then there's the exhaustion in fighting the changes in himself, and the effort in hiding the guilt he feels. She also tries to listen, to what is said and what is suggested, and she can hear the waver in his voice whenever he speaks, the shortness of his breaths, the heaviness in his steps. She stays at his side as he faces the anguish of civilians missing families and endures the scorn of survivors with broken lives. She says she understands him, whenever he asks, even when he almost dozes off and doesn't quite make sense, she pretends.

He doesn't love her like that.

Amy hurts and it's lonely.

Whisper's grief isn't the same, but the way she grieves for Tangle does hurt just as much. It probably hurts worse.

"I didn't… I didn't mean to…"

"S'okay."

"No, it's not, this is unfair and-"

"I don't blame you."

Misery is intoxication and it can be held at fault for this lapse in judgement.

"Shit." Amy hurriedly gathers her clothes, trying to hide her nakedness, her eyes wild with horror.

Whisper is sprawled out, staring at the ceiling, feeling like a traitor with a noose, already.

"Shit, shit, shit!"

"S'my fault."

"No, no, I initiated…"

"You're young," the wolf tells the ceiling.

"I'm an adult," the hedgehog snaps back, not meaning to snap at all. "God, dammit, what was I thinking!"

"You weren't thinking."

"Shit!"

"Neither was I. Or we thought too hard and our thoughts got broken."

Amy groans, trying to get dressed, incapable of out-squirming the bodily twinges of pleasure and pain. She almost falls at one point and she catches herself, because she has to, because Whisper can't be trusted, right now.

"I'm so sorry."

"We… We need to pretend."

"Pretend?"

"This never happened."

"Should've stopped you. I'm sorry."

"We'll just move on."

"Should've said no, but…"

"We'll keep going. We have to."

"Why… didn't I?"

"We'll be fine."

"Sorry."

"Stop that, please!"

The wolf covers her face with her hands and says the lemur's name, like it's the answer or the solution or the thing that mends broken people in broken circumstances.

The hedgehog is momentarily distracted by the other woman's plea, wanting to reach out, then recalling her nakedness, reconsidering, but it isn't lust, instead it's the snag of pity and self-directed revulsion, the feeling of having taken advantage of another, undeserving.

Whisper is covered in scars and bruises and an inescapable sheen of sorrow, her beauty tainted in a way akin to Sonic's, as she hides from Tangle's memory.

Amy bites her lip, then a part of her tongue, still numb, jaw working.

The wolf's leg jerks away when the hedgehog sits close by.

"Sweetie, listen to me, okay?"

"Mmmph."

"You need to get up and get busy. We need you. We need your help. And I know you're hurting, I know you're tired, I know you've given everything and most of the people don't appreciate it because they don't know, but I need you and our friends do, too. So, please."

Whisper rolls over, baring her back, unaware of Amy's torn expression.

"And if I leave you, lying here, alone and used and… worse off, because of me." Green eyes squeeze shut as blue dart in the dim, between caged fingers. "I'll break my heart on the way out and it's already very broken, so, please."

"Sorry," is the murmured reply, unintelligible, a parody of an echo of a dream. "So sorry." Whisper still has her imagination, and the imagination is the cement that keeps bricks of social construction together, keeps people together, allowing brilliant and dull minds alike to build their towers and cities in the light of hope and meaning, despite the crushing reality that is birth and death and error in disasters, natural and manmade.

Amy rubs her forehead, sniffling, sisterly, nursing a headache that doesn't let her be.