Bunnie's ear was throbbing, her limbs felt oddly stiff, and her body was shivering with the memory of recent pain and fear . The rabbit frowned at the ceiling, lying perfectly still as she tried to organize events in her mind. She and Antoine had been attacked by a patrol, which she had attempted to lead off after the coyote was injured trying to shield her. And then….
"How are you feeling, dear?"
She tilted her good ear toward the nanny, frowning a bit. Rosie's voice sounded unusually tremulous, the question holding a fearful hesitation that Bunnie had never heard from her.
"Kinda sick an' achy, Rosie," she whispered after a moment, noting that her own voice sounded strangely hoarse.
"That's not surprising," Cat noted drily from somewhere nearby. Bunnie's frown deepened after a moment; why were neither of them near her? It was unlike either of them to hang back when a child of Knothole was ill or injured. After a moment, however, Rosie's worried face appeared in her line of vision, the nanny pressing a glass of water into the rabbit's hand.
"Here, dear. Drink this; you'll feel better, I hope."
"Are you sure that's a good idea? It might do her harm." Cat came up beside Rosie as Bunnie sipped at the water. The old puma looked strangely grim as he studied Bunnie, who blinked bemusedly back at him. "How is, ah, your head?" He rubbed his own head, looking embarrassed. Bunnie screwed up her face in mild consternation as she studied them both, absently reaching up to touch her aching ear.
The motion produced a strange mechanical whirr, and she froze with her arm in midair. All three were very still for a long moment before Bunnie turned her head, slowly flexing newly robotic fingers.
"I got caught," she said faintly, strangely entranced by her hazy reflection in the metal limb. Rosie and Cat exchanged a long look before nodding reluctantly. "I was tryin' t'get those mean ol' 'bots away from Antoine, 'cuz he fell from the pile."
"We know, Bunnie," Rosie said slowly, settling on the edge of the bed and laying a trembling hand on her natural arm. Rosie, Bunnie realized with growing horror, was afraid, and even steady Cat seemed nervous.
Afraid of her.
"Rosie!" Sally's voice rang shrilly outside before Bunnie could think any further on that, startling her away from the lop-eared reflection. "Let me in! It's been a whole day, I want my room back and I want to see Bunnie!"
"Let 'er," Cat said after a moment. "It'll be all right, I think. There's no point in isolating her." Rosie nodded and opened the door to admit not just Sally but most of the children of Knothole, the little group surging in to cluster at Bunnie's bedside.
"Whoa," Sonic breathed, reaching gingerly for her metal arm but jerking his hand back before touching. "What can you do with that?"
"That's rude, Sonic Hedgehog! You leave her alone!" Sally glared imperiously at him a moment before turning to Bunnie, expression growing concerned. "Are you okay? Does everything feel okay? How's your ear?"
"Well, Sally-girl, I can still hear." Bunnie raised a hand—the flesh hand this time—to touch her bandaged ear; in light of her other troubles, she'd nearly forgotten it. "Not too much harm done there." She smiled a little as she gazed at her friends, but it faded after a moment as she noticed a missing face. "Where's Antoine? Didn't he come back?"
"Well, yeah," Rotor said, frowning as he picked at the flowers he'd brought. "Antoine was the one who brought you back, but the thing is—"
"Ant's even weirder than usual," Sonic interrupted with a grimace. "I mean, he'll be okay, I guess, but he's just been really, really weird."
**
Antoine plopped in the middle of the hut he'd occupied since delivering Bunnie to Cat and Rosie the day before, shoulders slumping. He had been unable to endure the rapid questions and breathless chatter of Sonic—his roommate for five years, despite their enormous differences—and in fact felt little inclined to speak to anyone else, however they pleaded. Instead, he'd applied himself to scrubbing every surface of the disused hut; it gave him something to dwell on aside from Bunnie's fate, and the dirt at least was something he could drive out and control.
Now the dirt was gone and Antoine, still not ready to face his friends and certainly not Bunnie, was alone with his thoughts.
If he'd gone home when Bunnie suggested it—when they realized how thick the patrols actually were—this wouldn't have happened.
If he'd been a little more clever in driving off the patrol and escaping, instead of knocking himself unconscious and leaving Bunnie alone, this wouldn't have happened.
If he'd been faster in recovering, in realizing what had happened, in getting to the base and locating the roboticizer, in shutting it down, this wouldn't have happened.
No, he certainly couldn't face Bunnie, not yet. He was too nervous to even venture out for food at the moment. Instead, he got to his feet and paced around the unfurnished hut, pausing to scrub vigorously at a spot on the floor before realizing it was a knothole and leaving it. Even after the realization it was strangely irritating, and he found himself stripping off his shirt to cover it; he'd always been fastidious, one of the many sources of argument with Sonic, but now he found himself growing downright obsessive.
This, he decided, could not possibly be healthy. He glanced out the window, noting the moon just rising over the trees, and nodded slightly. Everyone would be indoors by now, and he could walk about and take a bit of fresh air without having to answer anymore questions.
Antoine crossed the village slowly, frowning at his own unaccustomed nervousness in their haven. Unsurprisingly, his sleep the night before had been plagued with nightmares, and now every sound and shadow seemed a dire threat until he was nearly as anxious in the darkened village as he had been in the glaring halls of Robotnik's fortress.
"Zis iz being too ridludicris," he grumbled, straightening to force himself to identify familiar landmarks. Was he a soldier, or some silly little cub?
"Twan!" squealed a voice just behind him, hands grabbing at his tail. Antoine leaped with a shriek—he was later sure he jumped nearly his own height—whirling in midair to face his assailant.
A pair of large turquoise eyes blinked up at him as Miles, a tiny fox kit Cat had recently found alone outside the city, tilted his head and then offered small hands and a baffled smile, strange double tails swishing.
"Twan?"
Antoine chuckled weakly and gathered the toddler up. "Mais oui, mah leetle friend. For what are you out so late?"
"Whee!" the fox squeaked in response to the foreign words, happily wrapping his thin arms and plush tails about the coyote. Miles, at least, didn't seem angry with him—but what did a four-year-old know? "Went walkin'."
"Zat I am seeing." Antoine started for Cat's hut; the kit had to be returned before anyone worried, after all. "And iz anyone else knowing zis?"
"Didn't tell."
As they approached Cat's dwelling, Sonic's voice rang from beyond the building.
"Ow! Hey! Cat, lay off! What're you doing?"
"I think you oughtta tell me that, boy," the puma replied. Both Cat and Sonic were hidden from Antoine and Miles' view; the fox and coyote exchanged a look and then Antoine moved closer, frowning. It sounded as if Sonic had been caught on one of his mysterious outings. "Where did you think you were going?"
"Out," Sonic grumbled.
"Out where?" Sonic was silent after that, and the frustration was evident in Cat's voice. "Answer me! You weren't going where you might be seen?"
"I was looking for Uncle Chuck," Sonic replied in a tiny, quavering voice after a moment. "I want to find Uncle Chuck."
Antoine tightened his grip on Miles, murmuring an apology when the kit squeaked in protest. Sonic had been going into the city! Suppose he was the 'rodent' Robotnik mentioned? He could have been the one that triggered the patrols that had caught Bunnie, and as much to blame as Antoine himself!
No, not as much to blame, Antoine decided after a moment. Bunnie had been his responsibility, after all, and he'd failed her. Still, the hedgehog had a lot to answer for.
"Do you have any idea how dangerous that is?" Cat was saying as he came around the hut, tugging Sonic along with him. "I don't care how many 'SWATbutts' you trashed out there, young hedgehog, this is a serious—" He cut off as he saw Antoine and Miles; Sonic froze as well, blinking, and then waved weakly.
"Hey Tails. Up late, big guy? Um, nice to see you out, Antoine."
Miles squirmed happily at the nickname, patting Antoine's arm to indicate he wanted down. The coyote obliged without a word, nodding silently at Cat's thanks for finding the kit before hurrying back to the empty hut, ignoring Sonic's questioning shout.