Emerald eyes, void of emotions flickered towards an object far from his place on the couch. Ever so slightly did they widen with fear and recognition. His grey spiral notebook which had been forgotten and discarded across the floor from the chaos caused by Amy earlier. He needed to get to his notebook before the others noticed it.

Sonic threw his legs over the couch kicking off the blankets he was using. Standing up he proved it was too much for him at first when his head became a swimming dizzy mess and he stumbled over his feet, he would've fell down if it wasn't for Shadow coming to his rescue using his arms to support him.

"Thanks Shads, just got dizzy there. All is well." Another false smile lifted up the corners of his mouth as he looked towards Shadow, however he didn't look him in the eyes. He couldn't, he had caused enough problems here. Sonic raised enough hell and if he continued to stay here he would only burden the G.U.N. agents and his echidna friend more.

Guilt rose up inside of the blue hedgehog when Shadow stared at him blankly, like he knew he was lying through his teeth like he did before with his mask so Sonic pushed the feeling back as much as he could, Sonic gave a thumbs up and gently shrugged the ultimate lifeform's hand. Shadow looked as if he was going to call out Sonic until Knuckles beat him to it.

"Are you sure? You aren't feeling sick are you?" Knuckles queried, the guardian stepped closer to the two hedgehogs looking at Sonic concernedly, amethyst purple hues scanned Sonic. Sonic shook his head, "I'm fine Knux..." The blue blur suspected his friend wouldn't let this drop so he figured why not make him forget it.

"So how are you and Rouge? You two were gone an awful long time." Sonic questioned quietly, his voice turning sly and suggestive in the end. Knuckles turned visibly redder than his color, he was too embarrassed to notice Sonic changing the subject. But Shadow noticed, he observed silently watching Sonic with his ruby red trying to look through Sonic and see what was wrong.

"We went to G.U.N. Headquarters and we just talked afterwards, that's all we did so no thinking other things." The echidna rubbed the back of his neck, Sonic grinned and laughed jokingly, though his heart filled with sharp pangs of pain. He was glad Knuckles and Rouge were hitting it off, it made him happy but he felt sick. He shouldn't be here, if he never came Amy wouldn't have tried hurting them and she wouldn't have found his notebook.

Things would be the same still...but things weren't now. And he got the close friendship, the intimacy with Shadow and Rouge that he hadn't before. He wants the pressure to be the hero to go away, he wants to be free and be his own self but he's so scared...so afraid of what the future will bring as he reaches out for his friends. Which of his friends are his friends, who sees him as reliable ally only?

"On a more serious note...I want to head back to my house. Tails is probably worried about me." Sonic mused aloud, he missed the quick flicker of sadness in Shadow's face as he said this.

"If we're going to be talking about Tails then you might want to wait a while cause we have some things about Tails that's been really troubling." Knuckles interjected, "I hate to say this to you buddy, but with the way Tails has been acting I doubt he'll really be thinking not just about you but any of us. He seems to think he's all knowing." Knuckles said truthfully, his expression softened when Sonic's head drooped down. Letting his mask slip off just a little Sonic glumly sighed.

"I know Tails changed quite a lot... and not for the better, but what am I supposed to do? He's my little brother Knux..."

"Hey..." Knuckles said softly, he placed a hand comfortingly on Sonic's shoulder. "I've considered you and Tails close friends for a long time now, you two are like my own brothers. I hate being away because I can't be here to help you with things like this until it gets worse. But I'm here now, and we'll get to the bottom of this and things can only get better alright."

Sonic's emotions became twisted up like a twister, he trusted Knuckles completely but he...he couldn't tell him what else had been messed up lately. Like he didn't feel like it was the right time, if there even was a right time, to bring up what he really thinks about his expectations and how tired he really is like he mostly did with Shadow. Speaking of the ebony hedgehog, Shadow picked up on Sonic's behaviors or characteristics fairly fast enough to know just when Sonic was hiding something like earlier.

"Faker." Shadow said, both the echidna guardian and the blue speed demon brought their focus onto the G.U.N. agent, "Do you remember what you said you would do in the forest?"

"Of course I do Shads...how could I forget."

"Then say it again." Shadow urged whilst Sonic gave Shadow a wide eyed look. "Say it Faker."

"I said I would let you help me..." Sonic answered quietly, his eyes glanced down to the ground avoiding Shadow's gaze.

"Then let me help you, quit trying to use a mask. I can see right through it and I know you aren't feeling fine right now. So don't act like I'm an idiot who won't notice when something's wrong." Sonic bit his lip and crossed his arms over his chest giving Shadow a downcast expression.

"I- I don't think you're an idiot Shadow it's just...-" Sonic trailed off so Shadow continued, "You must think I'm one if you're pretending to be okay."

"How about this." Said Knuckles, "We start off with where everything started, and I mean everything. We take things slowly step by step." Sonic looked up then his attention was fixed onto his notebook and he had an idea.

"I know where I can start things...it's not a lot but it can give you a general idea I guess..." Sonic made his way to his notebook, picking it up, turning back around to barely meet the gazes of his friends as he gripped his notebook tightly in his hands.

Okay so I'm thinking of editing the first chapters to make them more better and fit the story more. I want your opinion do you think I should edit them? I'm making a poll in my profile for this and I'll leave it up for about three days.

To the reviewers who told me to relax and take my time, or just wondered if I'm okay, or just left a review about anything, thank you guys for telling me this. I've said it before and I'll say it again, this means so much to me and words can't describe how thankful I am. I'm thankful for all of your continuing support and I mean this from the bottom of my heart y'all.

Sorry to leave you wonderful readers on a cliff hanger but it's for a good reason.

Thanks again for reading, hope this was okay. Please leave a review if you have questions, comments, concerns, or ideas about this chapter and the upcoming one. See y'all soon and have a great week!