Before any of you freak out and say, "The holidays were months ago," let me explain: I wanted to be at this point at Christmas, but… well, Halo and I couldn't type fast enough. Sorry. So this is our very, very, very late Holiday chapter(s).

And it is Sonic this time!

Oh this will be fun…

Just for reference this takes place about two months after Sonia and Manic have left town. Quick comments, then we'll just swing into this. Which I, Halo, shall be doing! Hooray!

Wafflesbelike-NYANCAT: How have you lived without experiencing a wheelie? Had you no childhood? (granted, I almost died when I tried to do a wheelie that one time, but in retrospect, adding in the ramp was a bad idea anyway.)

Autumn: List of ways we could still update this story-

We could send you guys copies through the mail!

…

I can't really think of any other way.

So we won't be tearing up the computer anytime soon. To save on postage, if nothing else.

MeowthKitty: Me too. On the outside, she's a smoking hot ice queen, but on the inside, she's a fluffy cinnamon roll who will kill you in a second if you look at her the wrong way. Manic's just lucky that she didn't outright hunt him down and make him pay.

ultimateCCC: Of all the zones in the wide Sonic multiverse, the Friend Zone is by far the worst.

KyubiMaster9: Eh, Sonic's an idiot, but even he can see that Amy has the hots for him.

StarlightSparks: Sonia and Manic have a general plan…? But they're still pretty clueless at this point. Sonic (or Maurice, take your pick) still won't be found for quite a while.

Onward!

Sonic's POV:

It was cold outside, snow was falling, and Knuckles was the only one who we were waiting on.

Usually, I'm the late one, but not this time. Part of the reason might have been that it was at my house, but who's paying attention?

I was sitting on the couch, chatting with Amy on my left. To the right was Miss Vanilla at the table, finishing up the last few touches on the feast. Cream was helping her mother, and Tails was watching the last batch of rolls to make sure they didn't burn (he still wouldn't let me in the kitchen). Shadow was brooding in the corner, having been dragged along by Rogue. But I didn't blame him for not fighting her. For an unknown reason that she refused to explain, Rogue had been fuming over something for the past month. One wrong word and you'd be kicked in the head (I made the mistake of mentioning the Stephanie's robbery and had been rewarded with a headache and lump on my forehead.)

The holidays were an interesting time of year for us. Thanksgiving was celebrated at Miss Vanilla's house while the Winter Holiday was usually at Tails' and my house. One year we went to Angel Island, but I think all of people on the island made Knuckles nervous so it didn't go... well. And when I say Winter Holiday, I don't mean your ordinary Christmas, Hanukkah, and whatever else there is.

To sum it all up: We all have separate 'religions'. I was born and raised in the Church of Chaos, but haven't really had a thing to do with it since… ya know. Tails is technically also Chaotic, but isn't really picky. Knuckles is an Orthodox Chaotic… very old version of the modern day type (I guess the religion on the island was never really tarnished). He's the diehard member of the team. Amy… I don't know what Amy is. She isn't an Atheist, or a Neoist, but I've never really asked her about her childhood religion. Come to think of it… I haven't asked her about her childhood. I need to fix that… What was I talking about again? Rouge is an Atheist... that believes in Chaos...and the Neo Walkers. And Solaris. Actually, she changes her religion every time someone asks so I'm not sure what she is. Shadow is 'Agnostic'. For those of you don't know what that is (I had to look it up before I knew) it basically means that you believe that something's out there, but you're not in one religion. Of course, he probably has the belief that 'she-who-must-not-be-named' is in Heaven. That's the only reason he's not an Atheist. Miss Vanilla and Cream are Neoist... and the only ones. So when it comes to the Winter Holidays, we decided to NOT have clashes on beliefs, and we just call it our 'Winter Holiday'. Traditions included a giant feast, gift exchanging, and sharing happy memories, one of my favorite times of year.

And Knuckles was twenty minutes late.

Amy kept glancing at the clock throughout our small talk, the worry on her face getting more prominent each passing minute.

"I'm sure he's just stuck in traffic," I smiled and looked over at Tails, who was pulling out the rolls to cool, "Right, buddy?"

"But he doesn't drive a car!" Tails put the pan on the counter and took off the oven mitts. "He uses extreme gear to fly."

I rolled my eyes, "Yes. Traffic in the air."

"What traffic? All I see is clouds."

I paused for a moment, "Maybe he ran into the Babylon Rogues."

Tails shook his head, "Sonic, this is way out of their territory. They're probably off on the other side of the world, you know that."

"They've come out before!"

"For a race. Set up by Robotnik. For a Floating Garden and a Chaos Emerald."

Throwing my hands into the air, I gave up, "For crying out loud, I was trying to be positive. I'm sure he's fine!"

Amy glanced at the clock again, "He's not usually late. When did you see him last?"

I frowned slightly, "Uh… I think when I was recovering in the GUN med bay, he dropped by once. But after that…"

Surprisingly, Rouge was the last one to have seen him, "He came by GUN about a week ago to get a new Extreme Gear board."

Tails frowned, "What happened to his old board? I can fix it up if he crashed."

"Apparently, Red lost it. Or got it stolen. He was a little distant when I spoke with him." Rouge shrugged. "None of my business."

Miss Vanilla gave a sweet smile, "Perhaps we should start without him. I'm sure he'll join us eventually."

Well, the food was getting cold and since we had no idea when Knux would get here, we decided to start.

Most of the dinner was prepared by Vanilla and Cream. Generally, Knuckles prepared the ham (he can BARBEQUE), but this year he called Shadow a week ago and asked him to make it. That sentence sounds very strange, I know but very long story short: After one of my 'incidents' in the kitchen, Shadow insulted my cooking, to which I replied, "And you can do better?"

He simply replied, "Anything you can do, I can do better." He was a little confused on why I started singing after that, but- whatever.

The next day, Shadow had prepared, cooked, and set up a four-course meal, complete with steak, homemade mashed potatoes, and baked Alaska for dessert. Show off. Although, I did get blackmail out of it (Shadow in a pink apron was the best part of the night, and probably the closest I've ever been to death after he found the camera).

After that, Shadow was put in charge of the Thanksgiving Turkey (much to Knuckles's disappointment. We promised he could keep the Winter Ham).

Anyway, we all sat down and began to dig into the food. The entire meal took an hour. A wonderful hour filled with great food, great friends, and great memories. Miss Vanilla sat at the head of the table, like the Mother of the family. To her sides were Cream and Amy. I was in between Tails and Amy, with Shadow across from me (Cream insisted that he sat next to her). Rouge was next to Shadow and an empty seat for Knuckles was to her other side. And at the other end of the table sat-

"Frank, I swear to Chaos! Eat your salad!"

Frank grinned at his wife and grabbed another roll, "Now Berny, you know how I feel about lettuce."

"Well it is good for you, so eat up!" Bernice grabbed the salad dressing and poured some on her husband's plate.

Tails and I attempted to hide our snickers behind our napkins as the two continued their argument.

Frank and Bernice Roberts, old… family friends? Team acquaintances? Uncle and Aunt who are in no way related to you?

What do you call two people who kinda took care of your future-adopted younger brother after you decided to be an idiot and abandon him in an attempt to keep him safe?

I'm going to go with "family friends".

Anyway!

"Miles, dear, could you pass the mashed potatoes?" Bernice smiled at Tails, who quickly straightened his face.

"Sure, Bernice."

Amy grabbed another slice of ham, "Shadow, this is the best ham I have ever had."

Faker grunted in reply and returned to his meal.

Rouge was very quiet- which was very unlike her. Nobody made a comment.

One hour and a clear table later, Knuckles was still not there. Now we were all starting to worry.

When the clock finally hit the two hour mark, Amy put her foot down, "I'm going to look for him and no one is going to stop me!" She stood up and marched towards the door.

"I'll grab The Tornado!" Tails hopped to his feet and headed to the back door, "Frank, can you help me get the barn open?"

"Sure, sonny."

I zipped over in front of Amy. "We'll look together okay? Bernice and Miss Vanilla, can you stay here in case he shows up?"

"Of course, dear," Miss Vanilla scooped up the dirty dishes with Cream right behind her. "Bernice and I will get the desert ready, just in case."

Rouge was pulling on a coat and grinned at Shadow, "We'll check Angel Island."

Simultaneously, everyone cried, "NO STEALING THE MASTER EMERALD!"

The bat actually almost fell over from the shout and gave everyone an annoyed look, "I wasn't going to!"

No one believed her.

Of course while we were all scrambling about, trying to get organized, Knuckles finally showed up. I literally ran into him on my way out, knocking the several wrapped boxes out of his hands. Then came the pouring questions from everyone. Amy started with, "WHERE IN CHAOS WERE YOU?"

Cream simply asked if he needed help carrying the presents inside.

XXX

Knuckles placed the final gift under the tree and slumped down on the couch without a word. Amy had finally calmed down enough so that she wasn't screaming. "Knuckles, where were you?"

"...I had to do some last minute shopping."

Somewhere behind me, I heard Tails choke on his drink. As soon as he was able to breathe, he demanded, "Who are you and what have you done with Knuckles?"

Remember how I mentioned that Knuckles was the best gift-giver? Well, generally, he planned on what to get you a year in advance and bought it a month before the holiday. So the fact that he was "last-minute-shopping" was a bit of a shock.

"Look, I've had a long month and I… haven't been thinking straight. Sorry." He crossed his arms and refused to say more so we dropped the conversation.

Without any signal, everyone made their way to their claimed gift-exchange seat. I plopped down on the far right side of the couch with Amy to my left. On her other side was a very quiet Knuckles (what was his problem?). On one of the spare couches that Tails had pulled out from the garage sat Bernice and Frank having one of their old couple arguments. Vanilla sat in a rocking chair I carried over from her house. Shadow refused to sit down (It's Shadow, don't question it) and Rouge sat on one of the dining room chairs (she never complained so we never changed it). Cream and Tails had the honor of sitting on the floor/ beanbags.

It was an honor, despite what you think. They got to hand out the presents to everyone! Thus commenced the gift exchange. We started with Cream and went by age, youngest to oldest. (The first time we did this, it took about ten minutes to figure out who was older: Frank or Shadow. We assume Shadow).

If I listed everyone's presents, it would take forever, so I'll just say that all the best ones were given by Knuckles, as usual (even when he's not trying, he still gives the best stuff. Show off). But even though he got some pretty great stuff too (who can resist smiling when you get the Montana Badger movie boxed set?), but he seemed really bummed out. Like, all night. Knuckles just kind of stood in the corner and tried to disappear or something.

This was disturbing to me.

You know what else was sort of disturbing to me? About halfway through the gift-giving ceremony procedure process, I started thinking about Sonia and Manic. Like, really vividly.

I had to step out of the room and try to calm down.

I felt confused and anxious at the same time. Did something trigger me, or…? I don't know. But I didn't want to be thinking about them. Not here. Not now.

Usually, when I think about Sonia or Manic or my parents, the image is always a little… blurry. I don't remember much of them, just the basics- Manic was green, Sonia was pink, Mom was purple, Dad looked like me and was fast. Most of the time, I had to rack my brain just to remind myself of anything beyond colors and ages.

I tried to steady my breathing, but the memories flooded my brain like a tidal wave. Manic loveded cherry suckers and would eat them all the time. Sonia's favorite game was to pretend she was a princess and we were her knights. We played hide-and-go-seek in the woods near our house. Mom baked bread. Dad used to read to us with the funny voices.

I punched myself in the forehead. What was wrong with me? Why was I thinking about all this now, of all times?

Out of nowhere, the rush of recollection just stopped.

I thought I had wanted to get rid of the memories, but now I scrambled to bring them back. They were fading fast, though; soon, it was back to only making out their colors again. This didn't make sense- how could I remember and forget something so quickly?

I concentrated hard; I couldn't lose that image of them again. Let's see… Sonia had… purple eyes. Or were they blue? No, Manic had the blue eyes… or green. Or brown. I couldn't remember.

I guess my imagination was going haywire or something, because for some reason I began envisioning them, but way older than six. In fact, they looked around my age. Manic had shaggy green bangs that fell over his eyes and wore a red pullover hoodie; Sonia was shivering, even though she was wrapped in a heavy purple coat. Snow was falling outside, and they looked like they were… driving? Okay, whatever. Was this heaven or something? Did it snow there?

They were laughing; I couldn't hear what they were saying, but it sounded… happy. Good. I hope they're happy up there. But where were Mom and Dad?

"Sonic?"

I turned around. Tails stood watching me, looking concerned.

"Are you okay?" he asked tentatively.

I pulled myself together as quickly as possible, "Yeah… Sorry, I was just… thinking."

Ugh! This was a happy day, not a time to think about… that stuff! Quick, think of something more recent. Um… first time Tails was captured by Robotnik! Wait, that wasn't happy- okay, first Christmas with Tails! We went to the Robert's and the Tornado almost completely broke on us… and then were basically forced to join GUN, and-

Okay, there had to be better memories than that in my life.

Tails was still looking very concerned at me and I decided to have this conversation with myself later. I forced a smile and scooped him up, "Come on, we'll be late for dessert!"

"Sonic! Put me down!"

I knew how much he hated it when I carried him. I smiled and slung the fox over my shoulder, carrying him into the next room. Tails was not pleased.

"Let go of me, Sonic! I'm not a little kid anymore!"

"Hey, ten's still pretty young."

"Eleven! I'm eleven!"

I smirked. "Whatever, bro."

I plopped him on the couch, while Frank and Bernice laughed at the sight. Tails glared at me, but his face eventually broke into a smile. Amy, Cream, and Vanilla must have been grabbing the dessert because they weren't in the living room at the moment.

And… Knuckles was still quiet.

And I was done with it. "Yo! Knucklehead!" I snapped my fingers in front of his face to get his attention.

Knuckles glanced up, very annoyed, "What, hedgehog?"

"There you go again- whenever you're mad, you call me hedgehog. What did I do this time?" I grinned at the old joke, but to my surprise (and concern) the echidna didn't respond with more than a grunt. He didn't even look that mad, either. Just… saddish. Weird.

I thought of something that might cheer him up. "So, how's Sofi doing?"

Knuckles stiffened, then grimaced, saying nothing. Okay. Something was wrong.

"Come on, Knucklehead, what's wrong with you? Usually you can't shut up about her. What's up?"

"Go away, Sonic."

Okay… something was very, very, wrong. Amy arrived with the dessert at that exact moment, saving me from a response, but I kept my eyes on him.

I guess everyone else was worried about Knuckles too, because I wasn't the only who tried to cheer him up. Telling him jokes didn't help. Neither did funny stories from recent missions.

"Come on, Knucklehead, lighten up! You wouldn't want to be frowning when your girlfriend shows up," I said.

Knuckles, who had been lying with his face on the table, suddenly jerked up. "What?"

"Yeah, didn't you invite Sofi to come? We all wanted to meet her!"

Knuckles groaned and started banging his head against the table. Everyone stared at him confused. It was Rouge, though, who put it together.

"Holy Chaos. You two broke up, didn't you?" she asked. Knuckles groaned loudly, still face-down.

"Oh, Knuckles…" said Amy sympathetically. "Is that true?"

He didn't answer but groaned again. Wow. I had never seen him this bad before, not even when the Master Emerald was stolen. Actually, then he was more furious than anything. Now he just seemed depressed.

"Is this why you've been cooped up on Angel Island for the last two months?" asked Tails. Knux seemed to be trying to disappear into the table.

"Obviously, he needed some time to be alone," said Shadow from the corner.

"To brood, you mean." I said. Shadow glared at me. 'But you know all about that subject, don't you, faker?"

"Sonic, you're not helping!" said Amy.

Well, what was I supposed to do? I'm good at bashing robots and running fast, not comforting friends who have crushing depression. Awkwardly, I tried patting him on the head, but got my hand swatted away.

"Please, not now…" Knuckles mumbled. "Just leave me alone."

Amy and I exchanged looks. This appeared to be worse than we thought.

"Oh, Knuckles…" began Amy slowly. "I'm sure it isn't that bad!"

Knuckles looked up, his eyes shooting daggers. Amy backed away slightly.

"Yeah, let's hear you say that if you found that Sonic was two-timing you, then told you he was leaving town and you'd never see him again." he said, gritting his teeth.

Say what? "Wait… Sofi was cheating on you?" I asked.

"There was another guy in her apartment who she didn't want me to see. Someone named Matt. They left town together back in October. Ninety percent sure they're dating. She won't answer any of my texts…" Knuckles trailed off, staring at nothing.

By now, everyone was paying attention, even Shadow. Knuckles either didn't notice or didn't care. After about nine or ten minutes of straight silence (and everyone being too chicken to try and pat him on the head again), everyone cleared out of the kitchen except for Cream and Rouge. Eventually, though, Rouge left too. As in, she left. Went out the door with barely a "Merry Christmas".

I popped my head back in the kitchen again and was promptly shocked to see that Knuckles was… letting Cream hug him. She was speaking softly to him, and I strained my ears to pick up on their conversation.

"-Mister Knuckles. You'll be okay, I promise," she assured him, squeezing him in a tight embrace. Knuckles didn't answer, but he didn't push her away either. Dang, that kid might only be ten, but she could talk down Metal Sonic if she wanted to.

Definitely one of our stranger Winter Holidays.

Knuckles left a short time later. Shadow sort of vanished without a goodbye, and the Roberts left for home when the sun started to disappear.

Everyone else stayed after to clean up the mess (wrapping paper is the worst… especially those tiny pieces that no one can pick up. After five minutes Tails left the room. He came back five minutes later with a machine to pick up the pieces for us… after we had finished cleaning up. I may have chased him around the house for fifteen minutes and given him the king of all noogies because I wish he had told us what he was doing and I'm rambling again).

I've always liked the holidays. Heck, I even used to joke that my birthday was on Christmas (and when nobody bought it, I said it was the day after). With the wrapping paper cleaned up and the party dying down, most everyone had already cleared out- it was just me and Tails now, and he had already gone to bed, leaving me alone in the living room next to the glowing tree.

My thoughts began to wander back to the flash of memory I had received earlier that night, but I quickly shoved that out of my head. Nope. I wanted tonight to end on a happy note. I had a new family now.

Happy Holidays, guys.

Hey, y'all! Remember how I said I'd tell you how long this story is in 4 chapters? Well… Halo decided to combine some chapters so now I get to tell you this chapter.

So I have good news, and I have bad news.

Good news: WE HAVE REACHED A MILESTONE IN THE STORY. Everyone pat themselves on the back and give me three cheers. Go buy a smoothie and dance a little jig. Now that that is done, sit back down and get ready for the bad news.

Bad news: The Milestone is sort of… kind of… the, um… halfway… point.

This chapter is the half-way milestone. For our mathematicians out there, this is chapter 35. Double it and you have 70 chapters. So...yay.

More good news! Those 35 more chapters are not completely revolved around Sonia and Manic trying to find Maurice. In fact they 'find' him in chapter… I don't remember… let's just say it's somewhere in the high 40's low 50's. If you thought that was a spoiler, it really wasn't. We also have some excitement with Sonic and Robotnik, adding in some Sonia and Manic and a LOT of headcanon/crazy writer inspirations. What about the other chapters following all that? Well… *nervously laughs* you'll just get to see when we get there, won't you?

Even more good news! Halo and I have a goal to finish this by the end of this upcoming summer! Whether or not we hit that goal… let's just cross our fingers and pray for the best.

Final bit of good news: This story was originally… *stops to check outline* 105 chapters. So we actually cut it down! You are welcome! *hides in a bunker and throws up a white flag* DON'T KILL US!