Disclaimer: Sonic the Hedgehog doesn't belong to me.

Rating: T for safety

Summary: Left on the ruins of a battlefield, the end upon them, Sonic and Amy look to each other in fear.

A/N: So this was a prompt in my tumblr inbox from an Affectionate Moments meme that was trending at the time. I wrote this before my daughter was born and somehow forgot about it! Needless to say I'm quite rusty in the writing department not having the time or inclination until recently to write at all. But I've got the bug now and I just want to write allll the time. Even if its total drivel. So apologies for any grammar/spelling mistakes. I'm uploading this before I bottle it or my toddler wakes up. Whatever comes first.

A Scared Kiss

The fine ash that was flurrying through the air and covering anything and everything around me on the battlefield made me choke and cough, my lungs burning with each breath I tried to take in. Tiny fire tipped needles pierced the inside of my neck and chest, my weak body heaving for oxygen. My eyes watered from the toxic embers dusting my eyes as I clumsily tried to wipe it free from my face. It was no good though, there was just too much of it. Too much destruction, too much taken away from us . . . Too much death surrounding me now.

Too much . . .

"Ames," Sonic coughed near me, his normally strong, confident voice now sounding as weak and fragile as I felt.

I closed my eyes against the new onslaught of tears that had nothing to do with the ash in my eyes. If Sonic the Hedgehog, hero of Mobius, nemesis to Eggman could sound that weak then I knew it really was the end of everything. The end of Mobius, the end of foiling all of his half-hearted, hair-brained ploys of world domination. The end of us - the team that always saves the day, even in the nick of time with just seconds on the doomsday clock daring us to defy it. Because this time that clock had ticked past the final hour and had already started ticking into a different time. A time that would no longer include me, Knuckles, Tails, even Sonic.

Where did it all go so wrong? What didn't we do to prevent this? We always win, we're the good guys! It's the way it's always been . . .

Until Eggman went from a little bit loony to full on crazy and the Chaos Emeralds fed that insanity to the point of where we are now. Scattered around a battlefield too painful to stare upon with the hedgehog I have loved for so long - too long - somewhere near me sounding as though even he, the strongest one of us all, had finally given up. Because if the blue blur has stopped believing, stopped fighting, then I have to. It's not as though Eggman really gave us much choice in the matter I guess. Most, if not all of the people I cared about and fought alongside have either scattered to the far reaches of Mobius to hide - what little good that will do them long-term - or they're somewhere on this battlefield, breathing their last.

And here I am, burying my head in my dirty, cut and bloody arms because I couldn't bear to look in Sonic's direction and see the end.

Even if part of me wanted to go to sleep forever with the last image being of staring into his clear green eyes.

I coughed again, my whole body wracking with painful sobs because it just hurt so goddamn much to breath. My torn hands clawed at the black dirt, the substance coarse and brittle in my fingers. Eggman did this, destroyed the world so he could build his Eggman empire on the ashes of the dead, of the fallen heroes. But who is he going to rule now with the worlds population so dangerously low that you could only say extinction is on the near horizon? If I thought I had the energy I would have stood up and told Eggman just what I thought of him, one last time. Maybe even thrown a hammer at him for old times sake. But as another cough ended with blood splattering in droplets across the ground I knew that would never happen.

When did I become so tired? When did it become so hard to keep my eyes open?

"Amy," I heard my name whispered again, stirring me from the light daze I slipped in to. "Ames, come back."

Cracking my eyes open, the grit coating my lashes making them feel so heavy, I painfully turned my head to the side to make out the blurry, dishevelled figure of Sonic crawling on his hands and knees towards me. What was he doing, I wondered? Where was he finding the strength? The closer he got the more the blur morphed into a single figure and I could see him better. I winced, seeing the partly dried blood down one side of his face from a gash on his head. Surely he has some kind of concussion, the nurse in me queried. I stupidly thought how he shouldn't be moving with a head injury that bad.

It was enough to force me to pull my shaking arms and legs up underneath me until I was sitting up properly, breathing heavy as if I'd just run with all my strength to keep up with the fastest thing alive. I didn't have the energy to wipe the grimy clammy sweat off my forehead, let alone question just how badly I looked as Sonic stopped in front of me, his chest heaving heavier than mine. Like moving through syrup I reached out a hand and laid it over Sonic's, squeezing once with what little power I had for that one small movement.

But I was rewarded with the ghost of a smile I used to see a long time ago, before the war began. Even now, with so much annihilation around me it made my heart thrum in my chest, a small, answering smile accompanying his.

When it seemed he had enough breath to move, he collapsed into a sitting position beside me and I was able to look at him a little closer. His eyes were too glazed, I realised; his pallor too pale. So Eggman really had managed it at last; he'd finally gotten his ultimate goal, the destruction of Sonic - slow and painful as it was. As tired and tormented as I felt, tears fell from my eyes anyway. Dropping into my lap with big fat plops, darkening into splotches that blended in with the rest of the torn, dirty patches on me. I didn't care anymore, I didn't care if Sonic saw me cry, saw me giving up. Me, Amy Rose. The most optimistic one of us all.

What else did I have to hide from him? We've literally seen each other at our best and now, at our very worst, lowest points in our lives. Pride was long gone. That disappeared the moment we lost our first friend to Eggmans insanity.

"Aw, Ames," Sonic rasped, his brow furrowing causing more blood to ooze from his wound. He didn't seem to care, or maybe he just didn't feel it trickling down his face. I was still waiting for that numbness to take me over - I welcomed it.

Before today I would have looked away from the knowing look in his eyes as he gazed at me. A girl has to keep some secrets, right? But yesterday was a different day and today is the last so I didn't. I stayed there, gazing right back the tears still running down my sooty face and dropping to my lap where the hand that wasn't holding on to Sonics rested limply. I didn't hide anything from him, I let him see right through me.

"I'm so scared, Sonic," I croaked, struggling to not cough with each word. Everything was starting to become severe effort - trying to find the right words, bracing myself with each indrawn breath of contaminated air. But as I spoke I realised how true they were, how scared I was.

But not for myself. I was scared for him, for whoever is left to run from Eggman, for what comes next.

I'm scared because for once, we weren't enough.

Sonic bowed his head a little acknowledging what I was saying and what I wasn't. His glazed eyes darkened slightly with anger and sorrow. The mirrored emotions flitting across his face one after another as he gripped my hand a little bit tighter. Over time he's learnt to read me as easily as I have him without the need for words. I'm going to miss that, I'm going to miss him and that terrifies me more than anything Eggman has done to us now.

"Me too," Sonic whispered and his words didn't surprise me one bit.

I could feel it, I could feel our time slipping away from us and my heart rate sped up even more in fear. We couldn't look away from each other, we both felt it, we knew it as though the flames of destruction were warming our backs already, the end roaring closer and closer demeaning our heartbeats and our words if we spoke any. Our unconnected hands found the space between us without breaking eye contact, our bodies moving closer to each other as the fear overtook the pain riddling my body and replaced it with shadows that had me seeking out my hero one last time for safety.

Our lips came together in a slightly clumsy rush, the taste of copper from my blood or his filling my mouth but I ignored it as I sought out what I was looking for in Sonic. Protection from my fear, reassurance that it's going to be OK even as I kissed him in a way that told him the same way. Our lips moved in a dance that has never been practiced, my first and last kiss with Sonic the Hedgehog on the ashes of a battlefield as our ends were getting closer and closer to us. I sighed at the feel of his lips pressed against mine, the magic of feeling my fear subside a tiny bit as a strong hand cupped my face.

We bared our souls to one another in that one last act, even as my hands clutched on to the soft fur of his arms to steady myself as his kiss swept away the last vestiges of pain and allowed me to lose myself to my hero. Our kiss subsided enough to stay as a prolonged meeting of lips as tears ran freely from my closed eyes. Sonic's thumb lazily stroked across my cheek as he held me and we saw with our eyes closed that blinding flash of light that meant our time was finally up.

But I felt no fear. Only the comforting press of Sonic's lips pressed against mine, carrying me away...