HALLA-FRICKIN-LUJAH! I am sooooooooo sorry it took so long. Do you guys hate me? I hope not, cause this chapter was well worth waiting for. It comsumed 3 straight weeks of my life, but it was worth it. This chapter is my baby, and Ihope you enjoy! Don't forget to review, and please don't hate me. You'll love it. I promise!

Warning: This is the chapter that contains the Tails/Cream-ness. Nothing X-rated. But it's cute.

Chapter 7

New Emotions

It had been about 45 minutes since Amy had called Team Sonic. She began to wonder if they would come. She couldn't do this to herself. All this worrying was unhealthy. She began to busy herself with the dishes.

Cream had awakened once since the call, only to use the bathroom. The look in her eyes was so distant and cold. It chilled Amy to the bone.

But she was asleep again.

Amy just couldn't get that look out her head. Cream looked hurt and confused and angry and scared, all in those two brown eyes. Amy wasn't used to seeing Cream like this. She was always the happy one, always looking on the bright-side, always so genuine and sweet, always so concerned and trying to make others happy. But this was a totally different Cream. It was frightening...

Then finally, after what seemed like and eternity, the doorbell rang. Amy dropped the plate she had been washing-for the past five minutes-into the warm, soapy water, and ran to the door. Upon flinging it open, she threw her arms around Sonic's neck.

"Sonic! What took you so long? I thought you forgot about me."

"Trust me, Amy," Sonic said, finally prying from her grip, "you're pretty unforgettable."

Knuckles snickered in the background. "So what's the big emergency?" He asked as all three went inside.

"Well, Cheese is missing and Cream went postal. Speaking of that, where's Tails?"

"He was parking the Tornado," Sonic said. "He'll be here in a minute."

As if on cue, the doorbell chose that exact moment to ring. Amy bounded from her place on the couch and to the door, only to meet with a tall, orange fox wearing a black backwards baseball cap with three orange bangs sticking through, a pair of black denim shorts, black sneakers,and white gloves.

"Who are you?" Amy questioned.

"It's me, Amy, Tails!" The fox said in a slightly squeaky voice.

"What! Tails! Oh my gosh! What happened to you?"

"The same thing that happened to Cream. I did the experiment on myself and low-and-behold, I picked the age where my voice was gonna change." Tails walked inside as Amy closed the door, cleared his throat, and continued. "I was about to try for 15, but then Sonic told me about Cream and I didn't worry about it. Speaking of Cream, where is she?"

"Last I saw of her, she was sound asleep after all but crying her eyes out. I'll go wake her up."

"Don't worry about it," Tails said. "I'll do it."

"Watch out, Tails," Amy warned. "Cream's emotional and on the war path."

"I'll be careful." And with that, Tails disappeared up the stairs.

He came to Cream's bedroom door and noticed there was a crack in it. He peeked in to see if she was still asleep. She wasn't. She was sitting on her bed, the robo-chao in front of her and a screwdriver in her hand. She began to fiddle with the chao.

Tails found it kind of cute how awkward she was with a screwdriver. She often dropped it, and was getting quickly frustrated. After a few more seconds, she gave up and let the chao and screwdriver fall to the floor. Her ears fell limp and Tails took this as his signal to stop staring and enter.

"What's such a long face doing on such a pretty girl?" He said as he entered the room casually. He picked the chao and screwdriver up from their place on the floor, sat down next to Cream, and began to unscrew the back panel.

"Who the heck are you!" Cream exclaimed scooting away from the stranger.

"You mean you don't recognize me?" Tails said through his work.

"Umm...no. Should I?"

"Well, that depends. How many two-tailed foxes do you know?" At that moment Tails swished his namesakes from behind him and let them fall into his lap.

Cream's eyes grew wide in shock, and some of the brightness returned.

"Tails!" She exclaimed as she threw her arms around his neck, mimicking Amy's earlier actions. This caused Tails to drop the chao and screwdriver back to their original place on the floor. "You...you did the experiment on yourself?"

"Yeah. How do you like it?"

"I love it! I mean..." Cream blushed a light red, and so did Tails. Neither knew what to say next. "Um, I meant it's nice. Do you feel any different?"

"Other than the fact that my voice changes every two sentences, no, I feel basically the same." (A/N: His voice doesn't literally change like that. Just an expression.)

"Yeah, me too. Say, what's with the clothes?"

"I could ask you the same question."

"I got hot earlier. What's your excuse?" Cream said in a teasing tone. Tails was happy to see her like this again. After what Sonic had told him, he was scared that she'd be sad forever.

"I didn't look right without 'em." Tails said placing his hands on his hips and copying Cream's earlier tone. Both chuckled softly. Then there was silence. Both sat quietly. Cream played with her fingers and Tails smoothed and brushed his tails.

But Tails found his voice first. "So...I heard about Cheese."

This statement apparently brought back a lot of unwanted emotions. Cream's eyes went a shade darker, herears flattened, and seeing her reaction, Tails' followed suit.

"Geez, I'm sorry Cream," Tails said as he saw tears well up in Creams eyes. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

Silence.

Cream wiped the tears from her face and tried to return to being happy. It didn't work. Tears started to fall freely as Cream's breathing became jagged. Tails felt terrible. He slid closer to the sobbing Cream and pulled her into an embrace. She rested her head on his shoulder as he stroked her back.

'It's so hard to cry in his arms,' She found herself thinking.

They stayed like that for a good five minutes. ThenCream sniffled and sat up.

"Thank you," She said to Tails.

"For what, making you cry?"

"No. For being there when I did cry." Cream then placed a swift kiss on Tails' check, before she or Tails knew it. They both began to blush furiously.

"Um...well...um...thanks. I...um..." Tails began with good intentions, but the words never came out right. Cream giggled at his attempt, still slightly flustered herself. He decided to give it one more shot.

He cleared his throat. "Cream, you need to try to relax. All this worrying is unhealthy."

"How can I Tails? When I don't know where Cheese is or if he's alright."

"I can think of one good way." Tails then placed his hands on Cream's shoulders, and began to massage them. Cream let out a soft moan, half from surprise, and half from how good it felt. This didn't really help her flusteredness.

Yeah, she was tense alright. Who could blame her? But Tails was definitely working on it. His hands moved expertly over her tight shoulder muscles, gently forcing them to loosen under his touch.

Tails mentally smiled. He hadn't done this in such a long time; he thought he had lost his touch. But apparently, he was doing just fine.

He continued to massage her as long as she would let him. When he finally felt that she was loose enough-and when his hands started to cramp-he stopped. Cream looked a little disappointed, but still very pleased and relaxed.

"Wow," was the first thing that came out of her mouth. "Where'd you learn to do that?"

"Well, when you live with 2 super stressed, super heroes, you gotta learn these things."

"That was wonderful. I feel a lot better. Thanks Tails."

"No problem."

"Any way I can repay you?"

"None that I can think of at the minute." Tails got up as if to leave.

"I can think of one good way," Cream said under her breath. She got up and made her way in front of him. She then gathered all her courage, and kissed Tails, right on the lips. And since he was a few inches taller that her, she had to stand on her tip-toes to do so, but she did it. Tails' eyes grew aswide as dinner plates. Both blushed magnificently.

It was only supposed to last a couple of seconds, but when Cream tried to pull away, Tails wasn't having it. He wrapped his tails around her, and gently pushed her against his body. Both blushed redder than Knuckles as Cream cast her gaze downwards, a slight smile on her face.

She had never been this close to a boy; at least not on purpose. Cream looked up in time to see that Tails was leaning closer to her. Her heart immediately skipped a beat as she realized where this was going.

As if being pushed by some unseen force, she began to inch closer to meet him. Closer...and closer they inched until...

SLAM!

"Hey, Big Guy, Amy sent me up here to see if Cream's... al...right...," Sonic said slowly. He was staring slightly open-mouthed at Tails who now stood a good 3 feet from Cream.

At the sound of the door slamming, the two had instantly parted, but Sonic had caught a glimpse of them together. He knew what was going on, and he couldn't wait to rub it in. It's not that Sonic wanted to hurt Tails; he just thought that he would have to wait another 5 years to tease his little brother about girls.

Cream was now twiddling her fingers, and Tails was deeply fascinated with imaginary specks of dust on his immaculate gloves. Sonic took another step in, thinking of the best way to play with their heads.

"Soooo..." He said casually, "everything ok?"

"Oh yeah, sure!" Both answered simultaneously without looking up from their various tasks.

"Good, good." The three stood silently in the room for a minute. Tails and Cream exchanged a quick glance and immediately faced back to their hands, a light blush grazing their faces. Sonic was loving every second of this.

'This is a Kodak moment,' He thought. He was getting bored after another minute of standing around, and decided to blurt out something random, just to arouse the tension.

"So...," Sonic began with adevilish smirk, "I see you'd like a little more cream with your coffee," gesturing the dumbstruck Tails.

"No, I...uh...I mean, there's noth..ing, that is...we weren't..."

"Oh, I saw what you weren't. You weren't standing in the middle of Cream's room with your tails wrapped around her, and you weren't moving in for the kiss!"

Cream stood wordless by the nightstand, still blushing as she watched the two argue. At this point, Sonic's vocabulary was a little more advanced than Tails'.

"And you young lady!" Sonic said, suddenly turning an accusing finger on her. She jumped slightly. "You weren't moving in sync with him, and you weren't going in for the lip-lock of your life!"

Cream cast her gaze downwards feeling guilty, but not knowing the reason.

"See...I...that is...that we...," She began, fruitlessly trying to shape a sentence.

Sonic was trying his best to look stern, but the looks on their faces were priceless. Tails stood by the door, still dumbstruck and blushing; thanks to Sonic'slittle coffee/cream comment. Cream still twiddled her fingers standing by the nightstand. It was as if neither could move. Sonic couldn't take it anymore. He burst into an abrupt wave of hysterical laughter.

"W-What's so funny?" Cream asked.

"Y-Y-You!" Sonic said from his new position on the floor. "You should've seen your faces when I started accusing you. One word: priceless!" Sonic continued his laughter as everything started to come together for Cream and Tails. He had seen them together and done all that stuff to mess with their heads. Both breathed a sigh of relief. They thought Sonic had really been angry, but he was only kidding.

"Well look," Sonic said, making his way from the floor, "I see you've got things under control, Big Guy, so I'll go tell Amy everything's fine."

"Ok," Tails said, and Sonic was gone.

As soon as he left, Tails and Cream both plopped down on Cream's bed; both then burst into their own wave of laughter.

"I-It must be a constant adventure living with Sonic," Cream said as she turned onto her side to face Tails.

"Yeah. M-More fun than a barrel of monkeys," Tails said also turning to face Cream. Both continued to laugh, but as the laughter died down, things got a little ill at ease. Tails stared at Cream, and Cream returned the stare.

"Y'know," Tails said suddenly, "you have really beautiful eyes..."

The sudden statement shocked Cream slightly. She once more began to lightly blush.

"Um...thanks."

Both stayed silent for another minute or so, before Tails remembered the entire reason that he had come over.

"Oh, snap!" He said upon this realization. "We completely forgot about Cheese!"

"Oh, my goodness, you're right!" Cream said as she leapt to her feet. She dashed out of her room and down the stairs. Tails grabbed the robot chao off the floor and proceeded to follow Cream. Cream slipped on a pair of red flip-flops at the door, and darted for the Tornado, managing a "Hi guys. Bye guys!" before leaving. Tails soon followed, robo-chao in hand, copying Cream's exact words.

"I wonder where those two are off to in such a hurry," Amy questioned, turning to Sonic.

"Probably going to the Point," Sonic said with a chuckle.

"What!" Amy and Knuckles said simultaneously.

"Calm down. Nothing serious. Those two just look like they have a slight crush on each other."

"How can you tell?" Amy asked.

"Well Amy, usually when two people are about to kiss, it gives off that general message." Sonic lay back and put his hands behind his head.

"THEY DID WHAT! THEY KISSED? REALLY!"

"Well, almost. I just so happened to walk in. You should have seen it, Knux, you would've loved it. Their faces were priceless."

Knuckles just remained in his same laid back position, a narrow grin on his face.

"Personally, I think both of them are too young for such things. The only thing love does is leave both of you hurt in the end."

"Sounds like Knuckles has had his fair share of heart-aches in the day," Amy said. Knuckles just sat with his grin fading, as if he had just remembered something he was trying hard to forget.

"Sorry, Knuckles. Was it something I said?"

"...No. I'm fine." Knuckles rose from his seat. "I gotta go. I'll see you at home Sonic." And he was gone. Sonic knew he wasn't going straight home, but had other things on his mind right now.

"What's his problem?" Amy said.

"Good question. Better one: Wanna go follow Tails and Cream?" That sly grin that Amy loved was back.

"Sonic, no! Leave those two alone. They're just going to do some research on who took Cheese. I trust them and I..." Suddenly Amy was cut off by a loud boom and a large gust of wind. She looked out the door and could barely make out a retreating blue figure engulfed in a cloud of dust. "How rude, Sonic Hedgehog!"

Tails and Cream entered Team Sonic's house and made their way to the basement. Tails was still clutching the chao, and Cream was unusually close to him as they decended the dark stairs.

"Now," Tails began as he flipped on a light, "I've got this invention that'll run the chao through an analyzing process. It's gonna scan it and identify all the fingerprints on it. This'll take about 3 hours, but..." Tails was suddenly cut off by a high-pitched shriek and a thud. He immediately turned to see that Cream had slipped and fallen in an oil-spill.

He rushed to her side and began to bombard her with questions. "Are you ok? Are you hurt? Is anything broken?" He asked as he knelt by her side.

"Aside from a sore tail and ruined shorts, I'm fine."

"Good. Let me help you up." Tails then stood and grabbed Cream's hand. He pulled her arm, and not realizing his own strength, forcefully yanked her to her feet; so forceful in fact, that Cream fell forward and collided with Tails.

Not ready for such an impact, Tails stumbled backwards and fell onto a table, with Cream landing on top of him. (A/N: Good thing it was Cream. If it had been Big... O.O) Tails got a little wind knocked out of him, but quickly recovered, at least enough to notice the fact that there was a girl lying on top of him. Both immediately became very, veryflustered.

Only then did Tails notice how truly beautiful her eyes were, and how soft her fur was. Same goes for Cream.

They both lay there like that for awhile, oblivious to the fact that a certain blue hedgehog had snuck in on them a few minutes prior. He had been watching silently from the staircase.

'Aww...Isn't that cute...' He thought. Upon closer study, he noticed that the two seemed to be moving closer...closer...closer... Would they really kiss this time, or would they come to their senses and jump away from each other like before? The suspense was murder! Now Sonic remembered why he hated waiting.

But finally all questions were answered as their lips met in a shy, but powerful kiss and a blush washed both of their cheeks. This one kiss seemed to say everything that they had been too shy to say themselves. Sonic could even swear he saw a spark.

He got more interested after a while, when it didn't look like they were going to stop. As far as he could tell from the stairs, it was a closed-mouth kiss, but as Tails began to wrap his tails around Cream's slender waist, Sonic became wary.

Cream wrapped her arms around Tails' neck and Tails slipped his arms under Cream's. It was pretty clear that each had forgotten their reason for coming here, and that all shyness had been thrown out of the window, at least for now.

'As soon as they realize what they're doing, it'll be all walking on pins and needles around each other again.'

And Sonic was right. Both broke the kiss for air, and upon doing so, they realized what they had been doing. Cream untwined herself quickly. Sheleapt from atop Tails' body and turned to face in the opposite direction. She cupped her face in her hands and could feel the heat the kiss had brought to it.

Tails got up, and after recovering from his own shock, walked around in front of her. He put a finger under her chin and lifted it so that they were looking into each other's eyes again.

'Way to go, Big Guy,' Sonic thought at Tails' initiative.

"What's wrong?" He said staring into Cream's eyes.

"I don't know." Cream cast her eyes to the floor, trying to think of a way to explain these feelings she was having. "It's just... When I'm with you it just feels so right. And... I don't know what I want anymore.

"When you come around I get happy, and shy, and I just always feel good. But when you leave it's kind of a relief 'cause the shyness is gone, but I'm also kinda sad because you're gone with it. I just... I don't know."

"Well, how did you feel when we...um...y'know?"

"I felt... complete. I mean, all week I've been feeling all these different emotions, and when we...kissed, it felt like the world stop and along with it, so did the emotional roller-coaster."

Tails suddenly looked over his shoulder. "You ever get the feeling that you're being watched?" Sonic jumped slightly.

"At times... but that's not the point right now," Cream said. He breathed a sigh of relief. "The point is I need closure."

"On what?"

"Well, usually, when a boy and girl kiss," a blush instantly washed both of their faces at the word, "they become...well..."

"B-Boyfriend and girlfriend?"

"Yeah. So, what are we?"

"Well, I wouldn't mind having a... girlfriend."

"And I wouldn't mind having a... boyfriend."

"So... would you like to be my girlfriend?"

Cream's heart missed a beat and she began to blush deeper. And it wasn't helping that Tails was putting his arms around her.

Poor Sonic was doing all he could not to laugh out loud. For some reason, he found this awkwardness too funny.

Cream looked up and Tails' eyes were shining, waiting for the answer. There was not doubt in her mind that she liked Tails...a lot...a whole lot, but was she ready for a boyfriend? Well...what would it hurt to have one?

"Um... I... I'd l-love to be your g-girlfriend." And that was that. Tails bent down and kissed Cream's lips lightly.

"Well... um... I kinda need a shower." Cream stated remembering the impromptu meeting with Mr. Oil-slick.

"Oh, sure. The bathroom's upstairs, down the first hall, second door on the left."

"Ok. But, I need some clothes."

"I'll get you some. I'm sure Sonic and Knuckles won't mind if you borrow a couple of things from them. After all, they don't wear them. At least not to my knowledge..."

"Ok. Thanks."

"No prob. I'll sit them in my room on the bed. You can get dressed in there and come back downstairs when you finish."

"Alright." Cream then proceeded to make her way up the stairs.

Sonic had long-since vanished, and was now sitting on the couch flipping through channels. Cream jumped slightly when she saw him.

"Oh! Mr. Sonic, you scared me."

"Well, it's just me, good ole Sonic. You seen Tails?"

"Yeah, he's downstairs in his lab."

"Thanks. Hey, where're you going?"

"To take a shower. I had a little accident in the lab."

"Well, do you have some clothes?"

"Tails said he would find me some."

"Oh, alright. Have a nice shower."

"I will. Thanks Mr. Sonic." Cream then went up the stairs and, following Tails' directions, found the bathroom with no trouble.

Walking in the first thing she noticed was the size. It was a relatively large bathroom and it wasn't bad looking either. So Cream walked over to the shower and turned the water on. As steam filled the room, she began to undress. After completely stripping she stepped into the hot water and let it all run through her fur.

Soon enough, she was clean and ready to get out. She turned off the water and grabbed a towel from the rack. This was really unnecessary, because she just ended up shaking herself dry. She immediately turned into a huge orange and yellow puffball.

She wiped the steam from a small spot in the mirror and got a good look at herself. Horrified at the image staring back at her, she grabbed a brush that was sitting on the counter. Noticing small orange pieces of fur, she guessed it was Tails' brush. She used it to smooth down her fur, and when she was once again smooth and soft, she wrapped the towel around her body and left the bathroom.

Tails made his way upstairs after just starting the analyzing process. He was surprised to see Sonic because he had not heard him come in.

"Hey Sonic," he greeted plopping down on the couch next to his friend.

"Hey Tails. How you been?"

"Fine." Tails arched an eyebrow. The last time Sonic had started a conversation like this, he had made his little coffee/cream joke. Tails would have to play this one safe.

" Good, good... Tails, we're good friends right?"

"Right."

"And we can tell each other anything, right?"

"Right."

"And you'd tell me if there was something going on with you and Cream, right?"

"What are you getting at?"

"Nothing. Can't a hedgehog just ask a simple question without being suspected of getting at something?"

"Look, Sonic, I'm fine. Are you ok?"

"I'm fine. It's just a lot has happened this week. I just wanna make sure you're feeling ok."

At that, Cream began to descend the stairs. To Tails everything was now in slow motion, and there was no one there but her and him. She was wearing the outfit he had put out for her: a pair of blue jeans and a red t-shirt. Being that these were boys' clothes, the pants fit loose and baggy, but they gave her a cute, messy kind of look, while the shirt fit almost flawlessly and helped to reveal her feminine shape. Her bangs were combed down over her left eye, and her fur was very shiny and smooth-looking.

Tails suddenly had this incredible urge to touch her, and started to blush at the thought. Sonic noticed this and arched an eyebrow in his general direction. Seeing the far-off look in his friend's eyes, he snapped a finger in front of his face.

"I said how do I look?" Cream repeated, clearly for Tails' benefit.

"Oh. It... um looks great."

All Sonic could do was look upon the scene and shudder. Hadn't any of his cool demeanor rubbed off on Tails? Oh, well. He couldn't take the awkward silence and shy glances anymore. Cream stood at her place at the bottom of the stairs, and Tails still sat on the couch next to Sonic. Both were once again twiddling their fingers.

'Gosh, this is boring.' He thought as the two 14-year-olds shifted around him.

"Well," He said finally breaking the killing silence, "I got stuff to do. I'll see you guys later," he said as he walked away from the door.

"Ok. Bye." Was the unison, monotoneresponse he received, neither ever looking away from their hands.

Sonic looked at them one last time and shook his head slowly in shame. Both breathed a slight sigh of relief as the pressure left with Sonic. Cream made her way to the couch and sat next to Tails. Tails seemed to find his voice first among the two.

"Y-You look nice in those clothes," He stated, still looking at his hands.

"Thanks. I'm surprised they fit so well... y'know since Sonic and Knuckles are both bigger than me."

"Yeah..." Both of them chuckled nervously.

"Y'know," Tails began, "that process isn't gonna be over for a good 3 hours. You wanna go do something?"

"Like what?"

"I don't know; go to the mall, the park, something."

"Ooh, the mall!" Cream squealed. She then felt instantly embarrassed and flushed red. "Sorry. That must have sounded so dorky."

"No, no. It was cute."

Silence...again...

"So, um...you ready to go?" Tails said.

"Yeah, sure." And both got up and left, headed for the mall, and more fun.

YAY! Another chapter done! Wow that was long. Hope you enjoted all the awkward teenage goodness!And is it me, or does it seem like Tails and Cream have kinda sorta forgotten about Cheese? Oh well. Next chapter will be up later...much later. I need a break. But send those reviews in and I might write faster. Like I said, this chapter comsumed a full 3 weeks of my life. Anyway, send those reviews!