A Tails and Cosmo Story Series

Chapter 1: A Party, a Reunion, and Soap Opera Drama


Ah, I see you've decided to join me and hear the stories I have to tell! Well, I have decided to skip Cosmo's death, considering everyone here should already know how that went. No, no, our destination is approximately 3 years, 6 months, 2 weeks, and 1 day after Cosmos death, which brings us to November 21st, 2008, Tails' 14th birthday. Locking in the date… and LAUNCH! I'll see you in story mode!

"Thank you so much, everybody, for coming. I can always count on my friends to bring a good time!" Tails said, standing on the couch in the living room. The festivities at the small party were just about wrapping up. It had been quite an enjoyable party, beginning about 3 hours earlier at around 1. Everyone ate, had cake, danced, and was all around merry. Tails had just finished opening his gifts from his friends. Sonic got him a new red skate board, telling him they should go down to the new skate park down the road. He got a new tool set from Knuckles, real creative gift Knuckles, same thing as last year, and every year before that, tails thought. Amy gave him a new coat, brown suede with fuzzy stuff inside. "The cold weather season is starting and you don't have anything warm! You'll catch your death!" Amy always did get him practical gifts. Still, it was a nice coat. Vanilla and cream had thrown him the party, so he didn't expect them to get him anything, but Vanilla had gotten him a little robot building kit. It wasn't really Tails' kind of thing. Considering he builds machines on his own from scratch all the time, why would he need a kit? Regardless, it was a nice gift. Certainly something a well meaning adult would get a child that they see is creative, smart, and likes to build things. Cream hadn't given him anything, but again, he didn't expect anything. She did work very hard on the party. He got a few good things, but not exactly what he wanted. He had his eye on this one video game for a few months now, waiting for it to drop in price a bit. In everyone's defense, he hadn't really asked anyone for it. He didn't like being greedy and the game wasn't exactly cheap, so he didn't want to ask for it.

Everyone was getting their things together, and Vanilla was starting to clean up. The party was over, and people were starting to leave. Tails stayed to help clean up a little, but Amy made him sit down, "It's your birthday, you shouldn't have to do anything today!" she said. "But Amy," Tails interjected, "I can't just sit here, we made a mess!" Amy gave him a stern 'don't you dare' look, "Tails. Its fine," she said calmly, "You do plenty for us every other day of the year!" "Amy's right!" Cream said, "Just relax, it's your birthday!" Tails decided there was no point in arguing as long as Amy was on the other side of the argument. The cleaning was done pretty quickly with the three of them working together, and Amy soon left. Tails was about to leave as well, but cream stopped him. "Tails wait! Come here!" she said, going to the kitchen. Tails followed her in the kitchen where she was holding a small wrapped box. "I didn't get a chance to give you your gift from me Tails!" she said, handing him the small package. "You didn't have to get me anything Cream, you already threw me this great party," Tails said. Cream gave him a little smile, "Oh, stop being silly and just open it!" Tails untied the ribbon and pulled away the paper, "It... it's the game I wanted! How did you know? I didn't even tell anyone!" he said, quite surprised. "Good friends listen and know what their friends like," Cream explained, "I remembered you saying this was your favorite game franchise, so when I saw this new one was out, and you didn't have it, I figured you would want it." "This is the best gift I've gotten all day! It's exactly what I wanted!" tails exclaimed. He lunged at Cream, wrapping her in a hug, "Thank you so much Cream, you're the best!" Cream blushed a little and got a slight shiver of joy from the hug, but Tails didn't notice. Cream, now 11 this year, was surprisingly mature acting for her age. In the past three years, she had tried harder than anyone else to cheer tails up after Cosmo's death, for reasons that were probably obvious to everyone but Tails… and maybe Sonic, who didn't really pay attention to that kind of stuff. Amy though, she had definitely noticed. Cream did anything she could for Tails, anything to make him happy. She didn't usually get anything back but a smile and a hug, but that was all she really needed. Maybe she hoped for a little more one day, but for now, she was content. Tails looked at her, still with his arms around her, and gave her a smile. Cream noticed how close he was to her; their noses were almost touching. She began to blush a little as about a million different thoughts rushed through her mind in a half a second. Everything seemed to be moving slower as she looked into his soft blue eyes. It almost seemed like he was moving towards her, slowly and subtly. Was this happening? Was what she thought was about to happen really about to happen? Closer… Closer… Closer… "Cream!" Vanilla called from the living room, "Can you help me put away the vacuum?" So close… Cream pulled away from Tails quickly, "Coming mom!" Tails looked at her, he almost looked confused. "Go home and try out your new game Tails," Cream said, trying to cover whatever just happened, or almost happened, "I hope you like it!" "Erm… ok," Tails said, "I'll see you later Cream!" He said, on his way out the door. "Looking forward to it!" She replied somewhat quietly, wistfully smiling as he left. She rally was looking forward to it.


Tails walked home, all his gifts in his backpack. All but one, one he thought special enough to hold in hand, his game from Cream. It was incredibly nice of her to get him that. He hadn't even considered when she gave it to him how much she had to have spent on it. He almost felt bad. Then he thought about what happened in the kitchen. What had happened? He thought. He really wasn't sure. He felt something… a feeling he almost didn't recognize. A feeling he hadn't felt in so long he wasn't even sure if it was the same feeling. He thought about the last time he remembered feeling that feeling, and that brought on bad feelings. He thought of Cosmo, looking into her eyes on numerous occasions. Over the course of a few years Tails had cheered up a little. Not much, but enough to learn how to put on a convincing smile and stop worrying friends. They were all pretty sure he was fine at this point, but, in reality, no one knew how much he still hurt inside. It's like there was a deep and powerful magic binding him to love Cosmo forever. Actually, there supposedly really was. Tails had never truly believed in any of the spells or charms on that planet they went to, but he didn't know how powerful they were. That spell Amy had set up for Sonic and herself, but ended up getting used on Tails and Cosmo, really worked. Their souls were bound for eternity, and even though Cosmo died and her soul supposedly moved on, Tails' soul was somehow still bound, cursed to love someone he could never have for eternity. Even by the rules of the spell it didn't make sense. Once Cosmo died it should have worn off, but it somehow stuck with Tails and made a recovery of happiness, which could have only taken a couple of years, completely unattainable.

Tails reached his house, now quite saddened from his own thoughts on the walk home. He remembered the game Cream gave him, and thinking of playing it made him a little happier again. He went to his room and sat his stuff on the desk. He was going to play the game, but he had something he had to do first. He walked across his room to a small monitor in the wall. The words at the bottom of the screen labeled the location of the video feed; "GREENHOUSE 1". On screen a small rose plant could be seen with one small rose bud just beginning to form. Tails walked out of his room and out the back door to the greenhouse, picking up a small watering can on the way there. Greenhouse 1 was the smallest of his greenhouses. It was the first he built in a series when he started studying botanical life, a year or so before he met Cosmo. Inside there were a few ferns and small flowers, but in the very middle of all of it was the rose plant. As you have probably guessed by now, this is all Tails had left of Cosmo. This is what came from the seed she gave him, as well as the most well taken care of plant in all the green houses. It started in a small pot on the windowsill in his bedroom. He wasn't sure what it would grow into, but once it started to outgrow the pot, he planted it in Greenhouse 1. As it grew, he slowly cleared the other plants from around it to give it room. It was now almost the only plant remaining in the small greenhouse. Greenhouse 1 didn't' have an irrigation system, so he watered the rose plant by hand every day, which is what he was doing now. After three and a half years of growth and care, the plant had just formed its first rose bud several days ago. It looked almost ready to bloom. Tails thought November was a strange time of year for a rose to bloom, but he figured the constant warmth in the greenhouse just had it confused. He watered the plant, tenderly felt the new rose bud, and left for his room. When he turned his back to leave, the little rose bud began to release a slight glow, but he didn't notice.

Back in his room he set up his game system, ready to play his new game. The game started and reached the start screen. Tails left it there and went to the kitchen to get some snacks for the long night of game play he had planned. He grabbed a lot of junk food; chips, cookies, crackers, sodas, candy, etc. Junk food made up about 85 percent of Tails' pantry. Not surprising that a young teenager living by himself and usually grieving would buy more potato chips than apples. He took his gathering of sugar and junk in a plastic bag back to his bedroom and sat then on his desk. He opened his closet and pulled out a bean bag chair, setting it on the floor in front of his TV, and then he grabbed a little table from beside his bed and sat it next to the bean bag, covering it in the snacks he pillaged from the kitchen. He looked over his set up, "Bean bag, snack table, and video game up and ready. Perfect, I'm ready to not leave this room until tomorrow morning!" he grabbed a controller, plopped down in the bean bag chair, set a bag of chips in his lap, and pressed start. About seven hours later, around 2 am, after a couple hours of drifting in and out and fighting sleep, it finally took him. Just as he was nodding off, there was an odd occurrence. There was a light from the monitor on his wall. It started just after he passed out, so he didn't notice, but it got brighter and brighter until it was almost like daylight in his room and the monitor was left blank white. Then, suddenly, it got dark again, and Tails was none the wiser.


The next morning, around 11 am, he finally crept awake and, after some tossing and turning and not wanting to, he finally got up. He was covered in chip crumbs and his character in the game had gotten killed. He stood up slowly, dusted himself off, turned off the game console, and went to the bathroom to brush the candy fuzz off of his teeth and shower off some stickiness and crumbs. Once he was clean and comfortable with the taste in his mouth once more, he went to get dressed. He had recently taken a liking to wearing jeans and button up shirts. He grabbed a clean pear of dark blue jeans and a black button up shirt from his closet and put them on. He had one more morning routine before he could get breakfast; check the Greenhouse 1 monitor. He went to the monitor, at first glance he noticed the view wasn't as clear as usual, "strange," he said to himself, "it seems that this monitor is starting to white out... I didn't think it was that old." He adjusted the settings to darken it a little, then he finally took a good look at the screen, and what he saw gave him the worst feeling he'd felt in years, like he'd been stabbed twice in the throat and heart. The plant was dead. What was just yesterday evening a small green rose bush with one flower bud was now brown and sickly looking. Tails felt his world start to shatter around him a little. He rushed out of his room, threw open the back door, and rushed out to the greenhouse. It was true. The plant was brown and its leaves were all dry on the ground, as were the dry red rose petals of the one rose bud the plant had. Tails fell to his knees with tears in his eyes. He couldn't believe it. In all his botanical studies never had there been an occurrence in which a plant died completely over night, especially not one this well taken care of! Suddenly he was startled out of his sorrows. He heard a noise near by, like something moving through leaves. It wasn't in Greenhouse 1, so he went out side and started listening for more noise. Did somebody do something to my plant? Tails thought, If somebody did something to kill my plant, they definitely don't want me to find them, he thought angrily. He heard some rustling again; it came from Greenhouse 3. Tails rushed towards it. He reached the door and peeked inside. Greenhouse 3 was about three times the size of Greenhouse 1, making it somewhat vast inside. It was certainly a good place for someone to hide; it was almost like a jungle inside. He stepped inside and just as he did, the rustling got louder, like something heard him come in and was trying to hide better. He ran toward the sound, following it all the way to the back of the huge greenhouse and cornering it. "I've got you now!" he said, "There's nowhere left to run!" he pulled some of the ferns apart to reveal what he had been chasing. To his disdain, a colorful little flicky flew out of the bush. That's what I was chasing this whole time? He thought, disappointed. He had forgotten that he kept flickies in this greenhouse to make the environment more natural. He was about to turn around and leave, but, just then, he heard a noise; a soft vocalization… another bird? No… this almost sounded like despair, like very quiet sobbing. It had to be a person. He pulled apart more of the shrubbery until he found a small huddled mass. It was a humanoid person, naked, in fetal position, shivering and crying. They had greenish hued skin and green hair with red… hair clips? It appeared to be female by its sobbing voice, but it could have very well been a young child. "Hey, what are you doing in here?" Tails said, unsure of how to feel about this. Her response, or any response from her at all, would change Tails' life forever. She looked up, tears in her big blue eyes, "Leave me alone," she shouted, "I didn't mean to do anything wrong!" Tails was stunned, "C… Co… Cu…" He couldn't bring himself to say it. "What's wrong with you?" The girl said, but it was too late, Tails hit the ground unconscious.

Tails woke up in his bed. Damn, he thought, it was just a dream. It was weird though, the comforter was gone from his bed so he was only under the sheet. Suddenly he realized, I fell asleep on my bean bag last night. He sat up quickly and threw off the sheets, he was in his clothes! He looked at the clock, "Holy crap," he shouted, "3 pm?!" With that last shout something jumped. Tails scanned the room and quickly found the blanket from his bed; it was laying over his bean bag, as well as something on the bean bag shivering. Tails got out of bed and walked over to the bean bag. He slowly grabbed the top of the blanket then quickly yanked it downwards, revealing the head of the all too familiar girl. The girl screamed, "I'M SORRY DON'T HURT ME!" Tails was still somewhat shocked. "I… you… I'm not going to hurt you." He said, at a loss for words with any worth. "Oh thank goodness," she said with a sigh, "I was afraid you were mad at me for intruding in your house." "N… no… not at all," Tails said. "I'm glad you're okay," The girl stated, "I was almost afraid I had killed you somehow. When you passed out I couldn't wake you up, so I had to drag you in here to get you to your bed." Tails stared at her for a moment with a blank look on his face. His mind was almost broken. He didn't even know what to do… he just didn't even know. For the first time ever he was at a loss for any kind of useful brain function. He just stared at her. After about five minutes she broke the awkward silence, "Umm… yeah… I hope you don't mind if I stay under the blanket," she said nervously, "I'm kind of… naked..." Tails, still hardly thinking clearly, asked, "Why's that?" "I really don't know," she responded, "In fact, I'm not sure of anything that happened… I just woke up in your green house last night… my mind is almost completely blank besides that." "Why did I find you in Greenhouse 3 then?" Tails asked, barely piecing two and two together but still not quite making it that far. "Well," she started, "I woke up in the greenhouse and kind of freaked out. I ran out of the greenhouse and tried to get in the back door, but it was locked. I sat down by the door for a while, but the cold air started to make me feel sick and weak, so I made my way into the other greenhouse where it was nice and warm, and I fell asleep there." "Oh…" Tails said, still drawing a blank on anything at all. It's like his brain was so overwhelmed by what was in front of him that it shut down all reaction functions. He was like a dull brick wall, standing there staring at her. Another few minutes went by before she broke the silence again, "Are… you okay?" "Oh, uh," Tails stuttered, "would you like some clothes? I have some that might fit you," he offered. "That would be nice actually," she accepted. Tails rummaged through his closet for a minute, then finally pulled out a sweater and some light colored jeans. "These don't fit me anymore," he said, handing them to her, "but you're about as small as I was a couple years ago, so they might fit you okay." She took the clothes from him and after he blankly stared at her some more, he realized he needed to go, so he left the room so she could get dressed. A few minutes later she came out, "How do I look?" she asked. Tails looked her over head to toe and blushed a little. It appeared that this familiar girl had actually aged the past 3 years in her absence. If memory served, she was a little… bigger… in certain areas than she was the last time he'd seen her, and the sweater he gave her emphasized that fact. Maybe she's not as small as I thought, he considered. The jeans looked a little tight too. "Umm… you look great," he said, trying not to sound as creepy as he thought he was. "Wonderful!" she exclaimed, throwing her arms around him for a quick hug. Tails' brain almost shut down further at this embrace. There was no denying her existence now, the soft, pleasant warmth was all too real for him to be imagining this. "If you don't mind," she said, letting him go, "I think I might keep these clothes after I get my own. I kind of like how they look on me." "Yeah… that's fine," he said, sort of spacing out. Why is she acting so normal? He thought to himself. His brain was finally starting to kick back in and he was beginning to fully realize the reality of the situation. "Cuh… cuh… Cosmo?" he asked hesitant, "Why would I be mad at you for coming into my house?" She gave him a puzzled look, "Well, usually people get mad when random people walk into their house without permission," she said, "do people here not?" Then she gave him a more puzzled look, "Wait…" she said confused, "how did you know my name? I never told you…"

Tails' fear was confirmed as his mind and heart fell apart completely.