Tails' plane, the Tornado, was ready to go; Sonic had called ahead and told him to get the plane ready. Rouge had Tails transport her back down the continent to her original base, where her helicopter was waiting.
The noise of the helicopter chopped through the island's normal sounds. Just to be sure Knuckles heard her, Rouge kept the chopper in the air for several minutes before landing.
She put down in the same place as before. When she got out, she saw that the equipment she'd abandoned in her mad rush away had been neatly piled near her landing spot.
She sighed. "I didn't come here to get my gear, Knuckles, you can come out now." Seconds passed. "I said, come out!"
The red echidna hesitantly emerged from his cover. "What do you want?" he said.
Rouge chuckled. "This is the third time I've done this in a week. Third time's the charm, right?"
"Rouge… I said, what do you want?" said Knuckles, his voice uncharacteristically weak.
Guilt washed over Rouge, a most unusual sensation. She knew that the pain and weakness he felt was directly her fault. She couldn't face him; she turned her face away but otherwise didn't move.
"You're not making this any easier," she said.
"Sorry," said Knuckles, without sarcasm.
She steeled herself to say what had to be said. "No… I should be apologizing, not you. I… I'm sorry… I really hurt you. You let me close and I tore you up. Again," she added sheepishly. "But this time, I wasn't trying to hurt you."
"Which makes it all fine," said Knuckles disconsolately.
From anyone else, those words would have earned an acerbic comeback from Rouge. But it was Knuckles, and she knew he was right. "I know… I know. You're right. I was terrified of leaving you, so I seduced you in my panic. I was wrong, and I hurt you, and all I can do is beg your forgiveness."
Knuckles cocked his head, as if unsure he was hearing correctly. "Rouge, you don't panic, and you never beg."
"I did panic." She dropped to her knees. "And I'm begging now."
"Get up," said Knuckles, obviously uncomfortable. She did. "You shouldn't be below me. You did mess up, but so did I. I blew a fuse because… well, because I was so scared."
Rouge blinked several times. "You were… scared?"
He nodded. "You were right about that. I didn't know how to handle anyone actually… thinking about me like that."
They stood uncomfortably, their faces pained and avoiding one another's glance. It was as if being so close to one another was unbearable, but something they couldn't help.
Rouge had to say it—if only she could gather her wits and will. "Knuckles… given how much I've hurt you, I don't…. I don't deserve this, but…"
"What?"
She hesitated. "Well, I've got something I want to ask you. A favor, I guess, though it's much bigger than that."
"Stop dancing and tell me," Knuckles demanded.
Now that it came to it, Rouge felt her courage melt away. "Will you… well…"
"What?!"
Rouge thought deeply to herself as she summoned up her strength.
'Everything within me that screams for a new beginning… I need you now! It's say it now, or forever be torn asunder.'
All her concentration had to be siphoned into controlling the exact motions of speaking—but she said it nonetheless. Weakly, pathetically, but the words were out and would never be recalled. She broke through her fear and uncertainty and said it.
"Knuckles, I beg of you… let me love you."
He stumbled backwards as if struck.
"Let you… what?"
"Let me love you," she said, desperation in her voice. "It's something no one else would understand. Please, Knuckles."
He blinked and shook his head as if he couldn't possibly be seeing or hearing what was happening. "What… what are you here as this time? Hunter? Spy?"
His voice sounded harsh, but it was shallow—it was the voice of someone looking for excuses. 'After all that struggle,' thought Rouge, 'I'm not going to stop for excuses!'
"I'm here as Rouge," she said. "It's a person I don't know very well. I'm hoping you can introduce me to her sometime. The Hunter, the spy, and the thief have retired."
He had one more card to play. "Promise me something," he said, grabbing her hand and raising it between them.
"Anything," she said.
"Stay away from the Emerald."
"You idiot!" she said, shoving his hand away. "If I love you, I can exorcise my lust for jewels! If I have something to love… I'll… become a better person for it."
He staggered again, and she nodded. "Knuckles, since I met you, I've changed. It's our contact that's done this. Knowing you makes me want to be a better person."
Some invisible burden dragged Knuckles to the ground, though his eyes remained on her. Then, slowly but steadily, his fear evaporated. His eyes assumed more normal proportions; the flow of sweat ceased; his trembling steadied.
He stood before her with a strength she hadn't seen in him since their first meeting. "Then promise me something else," he said.
"Just say it," Rouge said.
"Actually love me," Knuckles said. "Genuinely. If you want to love me, actually give a thought to my feelings. Anything else is just going to hurt me—both of us—all over again."
"Hurting you," Rouge said, "is the one thing I want to avoid." There was an awkward but warm silence. "If I can love you… then, do you think you could find it within yourself to love me?"
"If I can accept your love," he replied, "then you can accept mine." They both smiled.
Rouge looked down to Knuckles' hands. It was so odd… even when they'd had sex, he'd kept his gloves on his hands. It was a barrier between them—and should have been notice to Rouge that they weren't really ready for sex at that point. "Knuckles… tell me something… have you ever taken your gloves off before?"
He shook his head nervously. "Only for a few moments at a time when they need washing."
Rouge grasped one of his hands and raised it to her face. She picked at the glove with her fingers. She could see that his first reaction was to jerk away, but he steadied himself somehow.
She got a good hold of his glove and drew it off cleanly.
There was his hand, exposed.
Knuckles turned away in shame. "It's ugly, isn't it?" he said.
The hand was, indeed, ugly. The fur was thin and ragged; rough, thick calluses covered the tops of his fingers. The fingers moved almost as one, and a thick accumulation of fur and dead skin created a sort of membrane between the fingers.
Then there were the barbs themselves, and they were ugliest of all. Rouge's guess had been correct: they were nothing but bone. Neither fur nor flesh offered any concealment; it was naked bone, dull and dry. The barbs split through the hair and skin of his hands as if impaling it, like the barbs were foreign objects whose existence wounded. Scar tissue, cracked and dead, caked the area around where the barbs emerged, heightening the resemblance to an injury.
His hand was most certainly ugly. But it was more than simply physically ugly. It was the symbol of Knuckles' Guardianship, and all the costs that the role entailed. It was the exemplar of Knuckles' isolation, his inability and fear of closeness. Knuckles felt unworthy of the cares of others, and his hands were the symbol of that. It was little wonder that Knuckles thought of them as 'tools'.
For once, though, Rouge's insensitivity paid off.
She simply didn't care what Knuckles thought about his hands.
Knuckles kept looking away, shamed that his disgusting hands had to be revealed. But then he felt the oddest feeling on the skin where his barbs penetrated. He managed to look up.
Rouge was kissing his hand.
Not just the hand, but the point where the barbs emerged, the most hideous part of his hand.
He was thunderstruck.
He stood motionless, eyes wide, as she carefully inspected the hand, liberally applying kisses. Somehow, this was even more intimate than their sex had been. There wasn't now the same passionate immediacy, but he felt still more naked. He was letting her in to the deepest, most private, most shameful parts of him—and she was kissing them.
She smiled at him—the real smile that made him melt. "Hate yourself all you want, but I won't hate you, or any part of you. If this is the worst thing about you, loving you won't be a problem."
She pulled the hand up and caressed her cheek with it, affectionately pressing the rough flesh against her soft fur.
Knuckles was immobilized with the unreality of it all, the feeling of illusion permeating his being. If she could love his hands—his hideousness... Acceptance came at a much slower rate than the events happening around him, but come it did. He regained control of his body and reached a little further up Rouge's face. With his bare fingers he stroked one of her massive ears.
She froze and shook, then let out a small, "Ooh." She looked at him and smiled again. "There's another thing I'd like to try with you, okay?"
He nodded, giving her permission. She took the hand on her ear and eased it south until it rested on her side. Then she reached for his other hand and stripped the glove from it in turn. With care, she threaded her fingers between his.
It stung Knuckles a bit—the nearly-coagulated mass of dead skin and hair between his fingers had almost attached his fingers together. She deliberately swept all that detritus out. There was slight pain as she did. Some of his skin came away with the debris, leaving the sides of his fingers tender and sensitive. His fingers crackled as he wriggled them individually. What freedom of motion! Each finger was light and agile, a feeling that both confused and fascinated him.
She reached for his hand again and wormed her fingers in between his, filling up the space his refuse had occupied just moments before. The nerves in his fingers, newly awakened, gloried in the novel feeling of her smooth hands. Her fingers pressed his hand to hers, tightly, and he used his fingers to the same effect.
Rouge reached for his neck with her other hand. She paused for a moment when he eyed her warily. Then she smiled and displayed her fingers before his eyes. She'd removed the claws from her gloves. The tension eased out of him. She extended her arm and worked it beneath his dreadlocks around to the scruff of his neck. She stroked him once or twice with that hand.
So, his right hand held her left hand; his left was above her hip, and her right was on his neck. "So what now?" he asked.
She smiled again. "React to me," she said.
What was that supposed to mean? Without explanation she stepped forward. Knuckles took a step back. She stepped again; Knuckles moved back again. And again, and again, and again. Within moments they were moving together, attuned, anticipating the motions of one another. They gracefully swept and twirled about, focused only on their actions and each other. To Knuckles, it had elements common to a fight—but, whatever this was, it was far more beautiful.
Beautiful, and thoroughly enjoyable. He sped the tempo up a little, and she matched him step-for-step. They whirled about the area, avoiding objects without conscious thought or attention, as they stared at one another through the narrow space that separated their faces. They fell into each others' eyes.
"What is this called?" Knuckles asked.
"It's called 'dancing'," Rouge answered.
"Hmm…" he half-sighed. "Maybe I can handle being loved, after all."
"And maybe I can handle loving you," Rouge responded. They smiled, and their faces approached. Some irresistible force drew them closer and closer to each other.
Karma got to them first. A rock that they'd somehow avoided three times already finally got its due. The back of Knuckles' shoe hit it first; even as he stumbled to balance and regain his footing, Rouge kept moving forward. They collided and fell, tumbling around until they lay side by side.
They said or did nothing for several seconds. They simply stayed there, staring up at the lovely sky, the feelings of their loved ones by their sides.
"It's your fault," said Rouge.
"You know what?" replied Knuckles. "I don't care. This is nice, too."
They stared up at a pure blue sky, warming themselves as the sun's rays worked into their fur. A soft breeze swept over them, bringing all the fragrances of the island's trees and flowers right to them. The grass was soft beneath their bodies.
'But more importantly than all of that,' thought Rouge, 'he's here with me.'
And as she thought that, she tingled—every part of her, from the smallest organelle in each individual cell, all the way up to the entirety of her being.
Finally she understood. The source of happiness, contentment, couldn't be found by having or attaining. It was found by giving, by loving.
It wasn't like that romantic trash where "he completes me". It was that knowing him made her want to be complete. She desired to be complete—for him.
Loving, she realized, was hard work. It was rough. It meant that fights were more brutal, that hurts were deeper, and that risks were greater, because it was all from the depths of heart and soul. And striving to be a better person for his sake would mean a lot of pain and reforging on her part.
But she would tingle the whole time.
And that would make it worth it.
Rouge clasped his hand with hers; their fingers intertwined and their palms pressed together. "I hate to admit it," she said, "but I think you're right. This IS nice."
"Every once in a while, I get lucky," he said.
They giggled.
The island ran its course.
FIN