Rouge was right—the food wasn't the best. But Knuckles was devouring it all the same.
"You were really tired of the fruits-and-ants diet, weren't you?" she asked.
He nodded thoughtfully while he chewed. "I think you could say I was ready for a little variety. Fifteen years of ants was getting kind of old. I mean, they taste different depending on which species and where the nest is, but when it comes down to it, ants are ants."
Rouge laughed. "Sometime, I'm going to have to show you what real eating is like. In reality, this is pretty poor. I prefer better food, but this was more portable. But I know places down there that produce food so good it could almost kill you. I'm sure, with the bland diet you've had, that you'd be comatose after a few bites, but it would be the happiest coma you'd ever have."
"That sounds really bizarre," Knuckles said. "The happiest coma?"
"I was hoping you wouldn't be dead," she replied—and realized after the words had passed her lips what they meant. Hoping for Knuckles to live meant that she actually had some investment in his life. With most of the people she'd known, their life or death mattered to her only on a professional or practical level, but not personally. Knuckles did.
Wishing against his death was as close as she could come to admitting that, slowly but surely, she was beginning to like the last of the echidnas.
"I have a question for you," said Knuckles, breaking into her reverie.
"I'm ready," she responded.
"Are you actually planning to do any treasure hunting while you're here?"
Rouge laughed heartily. "I wanted to, I really did, but I'm beginning to run out of time. I'll do the preliminary work, but I won't do any full hunting. Mostly I'll just get a feel for the island and its places. I do have a tight schedule, I'm in very high demand. And I'm always on call," she said. She reached behind her and pulled out a satellite phone array, drawing her fingers along its back. "It used to say GUN here. It's military-grade communications. It's so the President can contact me at any time should a crisis come up."
"This is another thing that's bothered me," Knuckles said. "How is it possible you're working for the president?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well, you're not exactly… law-abiding."
She smirked. "Which is one of the reasons he appreciates my services. As to why I accept… for starters, my rate while on duty is good, but I get a retainer to carry that array around. They pay me to be on-call. Normally they don't call me often, so the retainer makes a nice little way to earn money for doing nothing."
"How much
money do you have, exactly?"
"You don't want to know."
He chuckled. "Hm… for some reason, I figured there would be another reason."
Rouge scratched her ears. Should she reveal these things to him? Well, of all the people she could tell, he was the least likely to blab about it to someone else. Honestly, how often would he discuss her with someone else? It was safe.
Besides, she wanted to.
"For another thing, it's fun. The President usually gives me very difficult assignment that other people just can't manage, so it's a lot of fun to work for him. But the main reason… There's a little-known file in the President's office," she said. "Not in the normal files, but in the private ones. Each time I do a job for the President, a bit of that file disappears."
"And in that file is information about you," Knuckles said, catching on. "Specifically, about your criminal activities?"
"Mostly. But it's the entire file I want deleted. The only people who need to know about me are the people who already do. I don't want more scrutiny, particularly from the government."
Knuckles laughed like he'd just heard the funniest joke ever. "Care to enlighten me as to what's so funny?" Rouge asked.
"You do community service!" he said in between laughs. He reached for more food.
"I do not! I get paid handsomely for my work!"
"But the point is that you do government jobs in exchange for getting rid of your record. That sounds like community service to me!"
"How can breaking laws be community service? Especially given my rules for bounties and acquisitions?"
"Let me guess: when you're spying on someone, any jewels that 'disappear' from his possession are yours to keep?"
"Of course. If they let me that close, they deserved it!" she said. "Anyone who doesn't protect their jewels deserves to lose them."
Knuckles turned away suddenly, his face downcast.
'Was it something I said?' Rouge wondered.
"What is it?" she asked.
"Nothing," he said. "I just suppose that I'm included in "anyone"."
She drew back. What had she said? "Not—no, you don't," she said hurriedly.
He turned towards her and raised an eyebrow.
"I told you, I'm on my Hunter's honor not to steal it. I mean, when you went to put out that forest fire, I could have stolen it then, but I didn't!"
He seemed to brighten a bit, and Rouge was suddenly chilled. 'But I had to tie myself up to do that! Oh, please don't ask about that! Don't ask about that! Don't ask about that!'
His trust in her mattered more than simply determining how closely he guarded her. It had more value than that—it mattered to her personally.
He didn't ask; he smiled instead. "Yeah, that's right," he said. "Hey, when you came to the island before, were you looking for it, or were you on another assignment and it was nearby?"
"I was just lucky," she said, silently sighing in relief. "I'd heard of it a lot before—in my line of work, you can't help that—and when I came across it I couldn't pass it up. I was actually already looking for Eggman at that point, but when I saw Angel Island, I thought to myself, 'Well, I guess the lard-bucket can wait a few hours, right?'"
Knuckles crossed his arms. "Great, so generation after generation of thieves couldn't even find the island, and when someone finds it by pure accident it's almost stolen? I feel weak."
Rouge pouted and rubbed her shoulder where, in their first encounter, he'd driven one of his knuckle-barbs into her. "My shoulder doesn't think you were so weak!"
He laughed. "We're reversing our usual roles. I'm calling myself a weakling and you're complimenting me. Usually it's you insulting me, and me pointing out your arrogance."
She shrugged. "Or I can go back to insulting you, if you want me to. I'm flexible."
He mock-considered for a moment, but couldn't keep his smile off his face. "No, I think I like your flattery better."
They laughed.
Rouge's mind wouldn't let her sleep. Too much had happened.
She and Knuckles had explored some of the upper regions of the abandoned mines. They looked like they might pan out pretty well, but she hadn't been able to concentrate as well as she might have hoped.
She left her tent and walked to where Knuckles was curled up. As before, his sleeping form was pathetic, a revelation of the weakness and—she realized now—the loneliness in the mighty guardian.
"I should feel angry at you," she said. "You're part of the reason I can't sleep. You must be laughing at me for that. Yeah, well, I'd prefer not sleeping over sleeping how you sleep any day."
She tingled when she finished speaking—not because of her words, but because of this proximity to Knuckles unveiled.
Against her will, against her better judgment, against the tendencies and methods that had brought her success and wealth in this world, Rouge… was… feeling… some…
…affection for this wretched creature.
So… unnatural, unwanted, unearned… but more powerful for all of that. The sheer improbability, no, impossibility of it was intoxicating.
She looked up, past him, almost afraid of what she might do if she kept focusing on him. She tried to think of other things—and her mind picked up a train of thought from the other day. Out there, in the middle of the island, was the jewel. Its presence was the other reason she couldn't sleep.
'He's down and out; he won't bother you. You can go in, snatch the jewel, and be gone before he wakes. No problem whatsoever. You can afford the equipment losses; it would be peanuts compared to the value of that massive emerald.'
The madness, the desire was sweeping over her again. Tormenting her.
"I will not submit to this," she said. "I will not let my desire control me again." She looked down. "I would lose Knuckles, and I… I can't deal with that. Not even for the jewel."
She calmed. The insanity broke and receded from her thoughts.
"Though, naturally, feeling attached to you is also a form of insanity," she said, shaking her head at the sleeping guardian.
A newer compulsion came upon her. She went to her tent, then returned to Knuckles' sleeping form. She grunted as she lifted his head, then let it fall again. She then returned to her tent, satisfied—and with one less pillow beneath her head.
Her spare was beneath Knuckles.
She was finally able to sleep.
When she awoke, Knuckles had already been up and active for a while. She emerged from her tent to see him stretching.
"How was the pillow?" she asked.
Knuckles turned his neck, which emitted a loud crack. "Not too good," he said. "I've slept on the ground all my life, that wasn't gonna change in one night."
Rouge narrowed her eyes; it was the only outward expression of her anger at his ingratitude. "Fine. May I have my pillow back?"
Knuckles pointed, then resumed stretching.
Rouge stomped in that direction, but when she came upon it, it wasn't how she expected. The pillow itself was lying on top of one of her packs, keeping it off the ground, while the pillowcase was suspended from a tree branch, drying.
"It got really dirty last night," Knuckles called after her, "so I gave it a quick wash in the lake."
She looked back at him. He'd been staring after her, and speedily turned away. She smiled. 'Darn it, now I can't be mad at you.'
"Thank you," she said.
"No problem," he replied.
'But it's not like I wanted to be mad at you in the first place,' she thought. 'I really must be going insane. But I think I like it.'
TO BE CONTINUED…