Okay, firstly I need to apologise for how long it took me to get this chapter up. I planned to do it weeks ago but I had to go on a school camp, which was immediately followed by a family holiday – and then there's the fact that I've never been very good at time management. But, here it is! Hopefully, updates should come much faster now :)

Disclaimer: I own nothing…except for the many random and worthless objects that are stashed around my room.

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Gift

After 'Come Out Wherever You Are'

Sonia sat with her chin resting in the palm of her hand and a dreamy smile on her face. Her other hand lay open on the old table of her sibling's current hideout, and in it rested a finely crafted, heart-shaped silver locket.

I wore this at my debutant ball. I'm so proud of you. Love, Mother…

The pink hedgehog felt the familiar burning sensation of tears welling up in her eyes, but held them in – if she did any more crying today, Sonic and Manic were never going to let her live it down. Still, the thought of her brothers was enough to make her want to cry even more.

Sonia knew that they cared about her – after all, they were family, but she had never imagined that they would go to such lengths just to make her happy. Her own debutant ball had been like a fantasy for Sonia, ever since Lady Windimere had explained it to her all those years ago. It was not something that she had expected her brothers to understand, but somehow, by some miracle, they had.

And if that wasn't enough, they had also organised a way for her to go, despite all the trouble it must have caused them. After all, Sonic had to arrange a meeting with Bartleby – and Sonia knew how excruciatingly painful that must have been for her older brother. Not to mention, if Manic hadn't stolen the invitation, her brothers would never have even known…wait a minute, Manic stole from her! And Sonic had let him!

In less than a second, any trace of happiness and appreciation that she had been feeling disappeared entirely. Sonia's eyes narrowed dangerously and sent a burning glare towards the doorway of the next room, through which she could hear two hedgehogs laughing and joking.

In a few moments, the hedgehogs in question were going to be facing a wrath even greater than that of Robotnik…

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Trust

After 'Dunes Day'

After the whole experience with Ifucan and his desert tribe, Sonic decided on two things:

The first was that Manic has some serious trust issues. After all, he and Sonia hadn't even been the least bit suspicious about the leader of the Nomads, which was enough to make Sonic want to think twice before trusting any more of their new 'friends'.

And secondly, the next time his little brother mentioned that someone seemed 'creepy', it was time to do some investigating. Because Sonic wasn't about to let something like that happen to one of his siblings ever again.

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Road Trip

Anytime

Sonic removed one hand from the van's steering wheel and unsuccessfully attempted to stifle a large yawn. The temptation to risk a glance at the glowing digital clock in front of him was strong, but he refused to give in. Knowing exactly what ungodly hour of the morning it was certainly wasn't going to make him feel any better.

The van lurched suddenly and Sonic hurried to grab the wheel again, finally managing to straighten out the vehicle before any damage was done. He let out a sigh of relief and glared at the offending section of road through the rear-view mirror. If he didn't know any better, he would have sworn that Robotnik had changed tactics and was now intent on murdering he and his siblings with 'killer potholes'.

At that thought, Sonic turned his gaze toward his brother and sister. From what he could tell, neither Sonia nor Manic had even noticed his little rumble with the road. In fact, Sonic was fairly certain that they hadn't noticed anything in last hour that he had been driving.

To his right, Manic was staring blankly out the window. Every so often, his eyes would close and his head would droop until it was almost resting on his chest, before he would jerk back to consciousness and repeat the whole process again. And Sonia wasn't much better. She just sat perfectly still, a dazed look on her face as she absentmindedly ran a gloved hand through her hair. Sleep deprivation had turned his siblings into hedgehog zombies.

If that wasn't bad enough, Sonic soon felt his own eyes beginning to feel heavy. He shook his head from side to side, desperately trying to stay awake. He needed a distraction, and one came when he noticed something previously forgotten on the dashboard.

A chuckle escaped his lips as he silently berated himself for not thinking of the idea before. This action also caught the attention of Sonia and Manic, who snapped out of their trance and fixed their brother with identical looks of curiosity.

Flashing his siblings a trademark grin, he reached out a hand and flicked one of the many switches laid out before him. And suddenly, the previous silence was broken by the sound of a radio crackling to life. Sonic had no idea which station they were listening to – or even the song, for that matter – but his grin widened as he turned up the volume.

Sonic caught Manic's eye and saw a playful spark there before the green hedgehog whipped out his drumsticks, twirling them in his hands and beginning to drum on the dashboard. It only took him a few moments to tap into the beat.

Sonia rolled her eyes at this, but couldn't manage to keep a straight face. She listened carefully, and after picking up some of the lyrics, she started to sing. It didn't take long for her brothers to join in, and soon the van was alive with noise.

They were so caught up in the moment that even an army of SWAT bots would have struggled to get their attention – that is, until Sonic attempted an air guitar solo and nearly crashed the van into a tree…

The shocked silence lasted for all of five seconds, in which all three hedgehogs sat rigidly in their seats with their eyes staring blankly out of the front windscreen. Then the sheer silliness of the whole situation became apparent, and the siblings found themselves laughing uncontrollably – not at all helped by the fact that Manic had fallen off his chair and was now rolling around on the floor in hysterics.

They might be the royal children of Queen Aleena, destined to save the world from Robotnik's tyranny, but at times like this, their life just seemed to feel like one big road trip…

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Awww… I really like that last one :) After all, they go everywhere in that van, and it's nice to think about a time when the siblings can just hang out together. Anyway, I had a bit of trouble trying to get the character's names right in this chapter (seriously, I saw about four different ways of spelling Lady Windimere), but apart from that, I think my writing's improving :) Reviews are always welcome