-Sonic-

Everybody's here, waiting for Blaze and Crossfire. I pace up and down the length of the little room, waiting. Up and down. Up and down. Despite my words to Amy, I can't still the worry that they really are dead, that we really are losing just as Crossfire said, defeated before we have even begun. Tails' voice cuts into my thoughts, surprise and happiness and hope intermingled.

"It's Blaze! He's on the radio! He says they're okay, and they're coming back!"

Chess yells, grabs Tails, and spins him around in a circle. Trick and Gaze break into a brilliant smile, and so does Amy. I glance across at Shadow, who looks relieved, and happy, as Amy walks up to me. Her voice is soft, as though she wants no-one else to hear what she has to say.

"Thank you, Sonic… you've brought our hopes back to life. I think… we'd all got so used to losing… that we couldn't remember what it was like to win." She still has to look slightly up at me, though not so much as before. Her eyes are softer than they were, not like her old self, though, still tempered by sorrow, and more mature. What does she see when she looks at me? Surely not the hero she used to. I was never who she made me out to be. I - well, nobody can be perfect, I guess...

Time has changed them all, except me. As though I've been thrown forward in time several years, and in effect that's exactly what has happened. What would have happened had I been able to stay with them? Would I have been able to help, or would I have died needlessly? Could Shadow have defeated Robotnik if I had been by his side, or would we both have failed?

There's no answering those questions now, but they persist in my mind, as though my coma was my own doing. I want to scream, 'It wasn't my fault!', but that wouldn't be true, and it would be stupid, a childish way of trying to reject the reality I'm facing. Because I could have done something different, anything but what I did. If I had only hesitated just a few seconds before dashing into that room, as Tails did, I might not have ended up the way I did. I might have… might have stayed with them, might have… Never mind. I can't change it; best just to carry on as best I can.

It seems forever before we hear the door opening, though I suppose it must have only been a few minutes. A few minutes of wondering whether or not they'd make it after all, a few minutes of trying not to think about what I could have done if only I'd not been in that room in that building… with the explosive, and the icy knowledge closing in on me in that last second that it had all been a trap…

And then Blaze and Crossfire walk in, slowly, tired, Crossfire injured, marks of new laser burns crossing through his fur, but Blaze has an air of triumph and even Crossfire doesn't seem totally able to look only on the bad side of things. As soon as the others see them, they launch into a second celebration, some shouting for joy, others just looking so very relieved. And then there's me, alone in the midst of it. I'm glad they made it back, but the fact remains that if it hadn't been for me, this might never have had to happen.

Amy looks Crossfire up and down like she's assessing his injuries, then glances across to Blaze. Despite the fact that Crossfire seems to have been in a hard fight, Blaze is completely uninjured, but that seems quite unimportant to her, like she's used to it. He said to me, earlier, that he knows where things will be, that he's never in the same place as any kind of danger, but still… it's odd. He puts one hand behind his back, keeping it hidden as he turns slightly to face all of us - no, to face me. Why face me? Slowly, playing a game with us, teasing, he draws his hand out, whatever he's holding still hidden within it, the palm of his hand and its contents turned away from us. And then, in a sudden motion, he turns his hand over and holds out his prize at arm's length, displaying it in all its glory. A Chaos Emerald. Everyone breaks out in a babble of questions, of realisations, of sudden understanding.

We're one step, one large step, closer to our goal. Could they have done this without me, all this time? They must have been able to, surely. So why didn't they? What I said to Amy… was it more true than I'd thought? Have they been giving up too easily, too long? And then I remember Shadow, remember the state he was in when I saw him, remember what he said to me. No… they've not been able to fight back, partly, they've been so tired for so long, fighting the same old fight over and over. If I hadn't awoken when I did, if I'd been with them from the start, I might even now be trapped in the same cycle. Maybe some little good has come out of that, after all. And from what Shadow told me, it was pure chance they managed to stay ahead of Robotnik after all. If he hadn't run off…

And if I'd slowed down somewhere, anywhere, for just a few seconds, I'd have recovered and followed up on the trap that tried to kill me. Then I'd have found Robotnik. But if I'd slowed, I'd never have known whether or not some innocent person had died because of it. We all do the best we can, and that was one choice I had to make the way I did. Now… now is another day, and I'm going to have to do better than I ever have before. This time, it will turn out better. It has to.