Fare thee well
My own true love
Farewell for a while
I'm going away
But Ill be back
Though I go 10,000 miles

10,000 miles
My own true love
10,000 miles or more
The rocks may melt
And the seas may burn
If I should not return

-Amy.

A verse from 10,00 miles, a song by... some... person... Mary Chapin, I think. Credit goes to her; I'm not breaking rules. It was used in that one movie, with the geese. I loved that movie... (sniff) Anyway that's the theme of this chapter, I suggest finding it and listening to it, or just watching fly away home, the movie about the geese. GEESE! MUAHAHAHAHA!

I finally figured out the perfect title, theme and song for this fic. (Grin). Yes, yes, I'm bad; this fic has a song. Anyway, here are my responses to your lovely reviews. Your ELEVEN lovely reviews. (Grin)

Max: yes, I love a PC. GOT A PROBLEM? Loads shotgun OO... (Sweat drop) just kidding there. Anyway thanks for all the supporting reviews, which were great! (Grin)

Blue blur: Ah, yes, the plot-twist... it will be there, and it WILL be awesome, there will just be a LITTLE delay. First I have to get sonic over the terrible, heartless institution of doom, and then I have to have him break down into a moderate level of insanity, and THEN I have to write a scene for Tails and Shadow. Anyway it's really great that you're posting your stories back up that's awesome! I missed ya!

Levee: ...well, actually that WAS chapter 8 --. Oh well, I knew what you meant. And by the way, don't reward hedgehogs with cookies... they go a little nuts... (Staring confusedly up at shadow, who is swinging from the chandelier like a monkey, and screaming things I'm sure you'd rather not hear...) I would reward them with. Umm... hmm... let me think, here...

"Giving back Amy and stop making me suffer!" Suggested a tearful Sonic.

Hmm... Naah. Maybe in chapter 10.

blurbgirl: ..Yes, yes I am. To balance it off, however, I have no social skills, have a tragic fear of UPS, and can't eat chicken anymore... ...you don't wanna know.

Fading hopes: Wow! Thanks! Sorry I made your heart heavy, though. Drink some red bull. Or put marshmellows in the blender.

anonymous: You demanded it, here it is.

Karen: The puppy eyes! They burn!I must type now!

Jedi wanda:Yeah, I agree that all my reviews sound similiar, but that's what you get when you stumble across agroup of Sonic torturers. Thanks for the review, it was really great!

Isu: um... you wrock! ...hey, give me a break, I've responded to 9 reviews already.

BTS: Whoo. yeah. thanks for the review!

Tierra: WHOOP! I'll be sure to update next chapter as soon as possible.

Knuckles collapsed to the ground once again, and would have lay there, panting for quite some time, when a shout awoke him from his par-time-travel trance. He immediately looked to his left, to see Amy bolt upright a few feet away, gasping for breath and looking around in confusion and shock while cradling her injured limbs close to her side. Finally the pink hedgehog noticed the red echidna, and began to calm down.

"Knuckles! Where am -" The hedgehog asked briefly, before she froze in her tracks and her eyes grew wide. "Sonic!" She shouted, looking around frantically. She tried to stand, but stumbled. "Knuckles, is he-"

"Sonic's fine." Knuckles lied, wanting Amy to calm down so that he could explain this to her. The pink hedgehog stared up at him, her eyes penetrating. Knuckles realized that she did not believe him. "Sonic's just fine; you saved him, Amy." Knuckles repeated. Amy stared up at him, wordless, before averting her eyes to the ground. Knuckles saw the faint gleam of tears-nothing but faint mist but a fraction of a tear nonetheless.

"Are you sure?" She asked quietly, panic hidden in her voice as she gave something between a sigh of weariness and relief. Knuckles nodded an image of Sonic lying in the hospital bed running through his mind. He froze, thinking over his actions. Knuckles shook his head. He couldn't lie to her.

"He will be. Now that' you're back... " Knuckles paused to get her attention. "Sonic will be fine." Amy at first relaxed, but then paused as something didn't click.

"... Now that I'm ba-" She grew silent, and finally looked back up at Knuckles. "Knuckles, how am I alive? Where am I? Knuckles, what' going on-" Amy began to ask, when Knuckles held up a hand and removed the time-travel device attached to his wrist. Amy stared up at him, confused. Knuckles sighed.

"I think I should do some explaining."

Then, leaving out the parts concerning Sonic, (he didn't want Amy to know that quite yet) Knuckles explained everything. He often had to pause as Amy would either need a moment to rest due to her injuries or the concept of death and time-travel would simply overwhelm her. As he explained the past events to Amy, Knuckles couldn't help but devote a small pocket of his mind to why he couldn't just tell her now. He finally discovered his answer. It would be too much for Amy, for anyone, when added to the already big plate of disturbing facts that had been dumped upon her. Besides, if she knew Sonic was hurt, she wouldn't take any time to go to a doctor- and her wounds needed to be looked at. Sonic had waited five days; he could wait another 30 minutes.

Amy listened intentfuly when she could, but every so often would ask about Sonic. Knuckles stressed that he would get to that later. And so Amy listened, learning about the plan with the time stones and going to find her. Meanwhile she occasionally winced in pain and held her injured arm to her side, Knuckles took notice and took out the chaos emerald he had brought with him, his tale concluded.

"I'm going to chaos control you to a hospital. They'll take care of your wounds. We'll talk about Sonic there." Knuckles said. Amy glared.

"Why can't we talk about Sonic here?" Amy asked. Knuckles, knowing he was caught, stared up at Amy. The pink hedgehog sighed as one of those tears finally escaped her misty eyes. "Sonic isn't fine, is he?" She asked, and Knuckles stared at her blankly, out of words. "Is he, Knuckles?"

"No." he answered truthfully. "But he will be." Knuckles said. He took the hedgehog's hand. "We'll talk about him. Just not now. Let's get you to a hospita-"

Knuckles froze. He looked around; confused, suddenly realizing what was wrong.

"What's wrong, Knuckles."

"It's dark." He said. "It shouldn't be dark, it's supposed to be 2:30. It shouldn't be dark." Knuckles stammered, standing up and looking around, frantic. Amy, worried, sat where she was and stared after the red echidna.

'Knuckles, what's going on?" She demanded. The red echidna paused, rubbed his temples and looked around. They were right where they were supposed to be, on the steps of the museum. He looked up at the clock. 2:30.

2:30 AM. Knuckles thought to himself, looking around. He froze... Did this mean that they were transported to the morning of the day he went back? He inhaled sharply, remembering the time warp Tails had mentioned. He quickly looked to Amy, who was still there, and then to the time stones, which were still there. No, that was not the case. But what day was it? He noticed a newspaper booth, and went over and grabbed one of the papers. He quickly read the date, then went rigid in shock, and promptly swore. Amy jumped, surprised.

"What's wrong?" She demanded. Knuckles turned to her.

"We're a week late." He said.

At that moment, lots of things were going through Knuckles' mind. Was Sonic still okay? What had happened while they were gone? Would everything still work? He didn't know for sure, but all he knew was that Amy needed medical attention quickly and then she needed to be told about Sonic. Everything. And he would tell her, he and Tails and Shadow, and then Sonic would be okay, because Amy would come for him...

Knuckles prayed that this was how it would happen.

Seven days ago.

"What do you mean?" Asked Mr. Phillips. "I was never informed that he-"

"That's because no one told you, Phillips." Answered the doctor. "Now, if you please, He would like to take sonic to the mental institution now." The doctor said, gesturing to the representative. The therapist glanced between the two, then over at Sonic, who looked confused and heartbroken. He sighed.

"I was just going to take him outside for his therapy-"

"His therapy is no longer or your concern. He's now issued to the institution's care. His wounds are healed." The doctor explained. Phillips sighed and stared at the representative...

The little blue hedgehog, Sonic, had grown on him during his stay at the hospital. And he had seen how the doctor misinterpreted things and put Sonic through more pain than necessary. What if, by some chance, the doctors at the institution were the same way? What if their antics only proved to further crush Sonic into his misery? Mr. Phillips stepped up to the doctor, and said firmly:

"I want to see him off on his first day." The therapist implied. Although his tone was not harsh in anyway, the two men were taken back, something about the determination or tone or whatever the hell it's called in Phillips' voice just seemed to eek the voice of reason and the doctor could only respond-

"...Sure."

At first Sonic struggled against the representative- it was obvious that Sonic did not wish to go to whatever horrid place they were taking him- and Mr. Phillips could not help but agree with him. But soon enough the sedatives were injected into Sonic's forearm (despite the hedgehog' struggling) and soon he fell asleep, and was carted over to the van that would probably take him to his doom.

---

Sonic felt a shudder pass through his body as he entered the building. He was awake now, and they had just entered the institution. On the outside, it looked like any normal house. Big, yes, but normal...

But on the inside...

It was just like the hospital. It was all white, and silent, and sanitized, and... scary. He saw many people lying motionless, staring expressionlessly into the air around them, their eyes hollow. He shuddered. They looked like machines. Was that what he would have become if he had stayed under longer? Sonic did not want to know. He quickly looked away, his heart aching for answers to questions he didn't even have yet. He ached to run, to run away from this terrible place and feel the wind through his quills, run until it felt like his lungs would burst, and then collapse into the soft grass, and sleep off his exhaustion. And he waned Amy to be there to watch over him during it all. Sonic thought about the 'institution'.

It was a lie. Like a trap. It tried to calm down it's victim with it's normal appearance, but on the inside, it was the same white, tiled-floor poison that had been force-fed to him since the day he jumped off the dock. It was a trap, and Sonic had been pushed right into it.

And that wasn't the worst part. The worst part was yet to come. The poison was bitter enough on it's way in, but Sonic had yet to experience the damage it would do. He exhausted himself trying to find a way to save himself from the plate of insanity and misery put before him, but he found no way around it. What else was there to do? ...Sonic didn't want to say it, but a part of him knew the answer. Nothing. He could do nothing. Lie there and take it in, maybe scream every few minutes, but otherwise...

Sonic's thoughts were stopped quite brutally when he and the doctors apparently reached their destination. The blue hedgehog breathed in sharply as he saw what was before him. He shook his head, to the best of his ability, and glared.

"No." he carefully mouthed. 'No' was one of the three words he had learned to say from the therapy. "N-no." he repeated, staring at what lay before him. He was ignored.

A padded cell. The handcuffs. Was that what they were going to do? Chain him up like an animal, put him in a cage and keep him drugged? All of us that know Sonic are aware that the very idea was hell to him. He struggled, and Mr. Phillips seemed to be agitated as well. It did not get any better when the therapist noticed something else wrong about the situation...

"Wait a minute... wait a minute, there's no lights in there" Mr. Phillips pointed out. "Is that a mistake, or-?"

"Oh, no, it's a new type of treatment... " The owner said, struggling to put the resisting Sonic in the room. The blue hedgehog was fighting back to the best of his ability, although tat wasn't very much, and staring at the darkness in sheer horror. Mr. Phillips glared.

"Darkness? Darkness is a treatment?" He asked incredulously. The new doctor momentarily looked up from the reluctant hedgehog.

"Yes, yes it is. Would you like me to repeat something else?" He spat sarcastically. Mr. Phillips' stern glare grew as he stared at the unlit, padded cell with contempt.

"I never did believe in these things, and a dark one isn't any better-"

"When the patient is unable to see his or her surroundings, the brain is more active, which exercises the nerve connection. And the lack of artificial heating and his own habit of starving himself will force the muscles to become more active as well, trying to produce heat."

"Well what about the psychological effects?" Mr. Phillips shot back, not really caring if the cold, dark room could raise the dead.

"He'll get used to it. The dark can't hurt him."

"It can, sir. I'm a psychiatrist. And if the muscles are forced to overwork, he will tear himself to pieces due to the lack of nutrition!"

"In all due respect, I've been a psychiatrist for four years longer than you have. Besides, we can force-feed him if we have to."

"This won't help him at all!"

"It is not your place to say that."

"Call it 'survival therapy' call it 'quarantine therapy' call it whatever the bloody hell you want, its torture! You're locking him in a cold, dark room, that's all it is and that's all it ever will be-."

"You listen to me, sir! This person was, as of two hours ago, issued into OUR care. That means I say how he is treated, I say whether or not my methods are efficient, that means I decide what's going to be done about his condition. Not you. So, with all possible respect, Mr. Phillips, back off!" The psychiatrist said, struggling not to raise his voice. Mr. Phillips stared at him for a moment, wordless, then looked down at the blue hedgehog, the owner of confused and frightful eyes. He slowly and silently pushed his glasses back onto the bridge of his nose, and looked back up at the doctor.

"In that case, god have mercy on his soul."

Mr. Phillips left.

Sonic tried to call out- tried to ask for someone to help him- but it was no use. He was quite literally dragged into the dark room, handcuffed, and drugged. The doctor's left, and the last thing Sonic saw was a square of light from the door's window amongst darkness before he drifted into a restless and terror-stricken sleep. But within the few moments of conscious thought he had, he was filled with more vitriolic and hateful emotions than he ever wanted to feel again.

He hated them all. Hated them. Even Mr. Phillips. He was helpless, he wanted Amy. He was terrified and spiteful and miserable and somewhere between the hurricane of horrid emotions, he forgot entirely that there was a world beyond his misery and that one-day he might escape back into it.

Compared to the weeks he had spent in places like this, it was absurd to even dream of such a thing. And after a while, Sonic had lost hope.

He had been buried alive in a cold, dark coffin. That's what it felt like.

Can you imagine the pain?

7 days later
Amy sat on the hospital bed, looking over her now cared-for wounds. None of them had hit the bone and most of them grazed the skin- it no longer hurt and Amy was to be released the next morning. But Amy did not care about that. Knuckles now sat before her.

"You said we'd talk about him, Knuckles."

"I know. It's just hard..."

"Tell me what happened to him!" She demanded. "NOW!"

Knuckles was taken back. But he knew what must be done.

"Amy- ...when you died... or, when Sonic thought that you died... he..." Knuckles paused. "Started acting... strange."

"Strange how?"

"He was dead, Amy. On the inside. I- ...I brought a psychiatrist over to his house- and... He was judged... unhealthy." Knuckles said. Amy flinched, tears streaming down her face for Sonic. Knuckles noticed. He shuddered at how she might react to the more recent news. "They were going to take him to an institution- ...but the night before they came, he- ...he went to the dock and-..."

Amy's entire body stiffened and she stared in terror at Knuckles. She slowly shook her head, understanding what Sonic had done.

"There was nothing any of us could have done then- he went into the water- he didn't-"

"He's dead."

"No! He's alive, Amy! He was rescued, but not after he had been underwater for a few minuets-"

"What are you saying?"

"Sonic is mentally disabled now, Amy. He didn't breathe for six minutes. He's half brain-dead. He can barely talk and barely move. He's tried to kill himself many times." Knuckles spat out.

Amy froze. She couldn't move. She really couldn't move. She wanted to hit Knuckles, yell at him for saying such horrible things. She wanted to run to Sonic, wherever he was, but no. She couldn't.

Hate pulsed through her. Sonic... her Sonic, her precious and wonderful Sonic... how could anyone let that happen to him? She exploded, took out her hammer, and struck Knuckles across the face. The echidna ended up sprawled on the ground. He would be okay, but he got the message. He stared up at the pink hedgehog, shocked at the expression in her eyes.

It's difficult to type this. There's really no easy way for me to put this down in ink. Believe me I've spent the past six lines trying, and it doesn't sum up to half of what Amy was feeling. So I'll try again.

Have you ever accidentally hurt someone? Like you were playing with your cousin or sibling, and accidentally pushed too hard, and they got hurt? It's a bad feeling, because despite what your parents said when you tearfully told them what happen, you knew it was your fault. Even if it was an accident, and was out of your control, you just can't help but think that if you were a little more careful- things could have been different.

But have you ever accidentally condemned someone to a life-long hell? When you were trying to save their life? Someone you loved more than life itself? I didn't think so.

Before Knuckles could stand up, Amy was gone, running to where Knuckles had told her the institution was.

Okay, that's what I have so far. Don't worry, blue, the plot twist will be there. The next chapter tells of the week that Sonic spends in the institution, (and man is it a horrid week.) and the chapter after that is the big finale. So.. review. please. Or I won't post next chapter. I'm not kidding.