Homecoming

As Tails' tears subsided after what seemed like hours, Sonic finally found the words he thought might help his friend.

"I understand what you're going through, buddy. If I ever lost you or Amy I don't know what I'd do…"

Tails looked up at him sharply at those words. "What did you just say?" he asked, and for a moment, Sonic thought Tails was angry with him.

"I…uh…"

Tails started to smile, and it grew until it turned into a wide, sly, almost evil grin.

"What was that about Amy?"

Sonic's eyes went wide as he suddenly realized the magnitude of the mistake he'd just made. He had just admitted, both to himself and to Tails, that he had developed feelings for Amy. Tails laughed out loud as the thought washed over the poor Hedgehog. Sonic looked blankly at Tails for a moment, looking for some way to take back what he had just said. The damage had been done though, and Sonic eventually just sighed and decided to come clean, "I guess after that last fight with Dark Oak I've finally realized how lucky I am to have someone who cares about me the way she does. She may be a pain sometimes, but she's always there for me in a pinch. Kinda like you!"

"Are you saying I'm a pain?" asked Tails.

"What? NO! I meant… aaaawwwwwggghh!" Sonic realized that Tails was just having fun with him when the fox burst out laughing. He had to laugh, too. It was amazing how flustered this topic had made the usually cool hedgehog.

"So you finally admit that you like her!" Tails laughed, "Have you told her that yet?"

"N-NO WAY! I mean, I'm going to eventually, but I kinda wanna work up to it slowly, y'know?" Sonic looked at Tails as if he was a trap ready to spring, "You're not gonna to tell her are ya?"

Tails just laughed, "Relax Sonic, I won't tell"

"Good!" Sonic sighed, relieved. "If she found out I was even thinking that, she'd be trying to set up a wedding before we even got home!"

They both had a good laugh about that. Sonic was just happy to see that Tails had cheered up a little, though he could tell there was still a lot of hurt left in the kid.

Suddenly, Chris's voice came over the speaker in the room, "Attention, all crew members, please come to the bridge. Mobius is in sight, and we will be landing within the hour."

"I guess that's our cue", Sonic said as he hopped off the bed. Tails simply nodded and followed Sonic to the one room he had not been able to force himself to enter since that horrible day.

As Amy and Cream walked the path that would lead them to Tails' house, they talked about all of the foods they had made for the occasion. Amy had baked a pie, and Cream had baked some cake.

"With all this food," Cream joked, "he's going to gain some weight!"

They continued walking and talking until a gust of wind accompanied by a blue blur interrupted their musings. Amy knew exactly what it meant, and waited for Sonic to come back and greet them. Sure enough, the blur turned around and stopped just a few feet in front of the girls.

"Hey there!" Sonic greeted them, "What's up?"

"We're heading over to Tails' house for a picnic," Cream replied.

Sonic seemed excited that prospect, "Awesome! Mind if I tag along?"

The two girls looked at each other. Amy seemed torn, while Cream just looked kind of sad. Amy finally turned back to Sonic and spoke, "Uuumm, weellll… we were kind of planning on it just being the three of us, if you don't mind." Amy could hardly believe what she was saying. Sonic was offering to spend time with her, and she was turning him down? Well, she would have other opportunities to spend time with her favorite hedgehog, and this was important.

"Eh, no problem! I understand," Sonic told them. He actually understood completely, and was just going to check on Tails, himself. His little bro hadn't come out of his workshop at all in the days since they had returned home, and while Sonic didn't think Tails would do anything stupid, he had made it his duty to check in now and again to make sure that depression didn't get the better of the fox. If the girls had something they wanted to do alone with Tails, he trusted them enough to let him know if there was a problem. "Well, I've gotta run! See ya later!" and with that he was off like a flash.

When the girls finally got to Tails' home in the Mystic Ruins they found him hard at work repairing the Hyper Tornado. It was one of the few things he had not bothered repairing while he was on the Blue Typhoon. He had spent most of his time since he got back trying to figure out what could be salvaged from the larger ship, and now that Tails had catalogued every salvageable item he could find he decided to work on something a bit more mundane before taking on the monumental task of disassembling the Typhoon. He would eventually build a new ship from the parts he salvaged, and its design would likely be very similar to the first. Maybe he would call it the Green Typhoon this time, in Cosmo's memory… maybe he shouldn't think about that so much.

Tails' thoughts were interrupted by Amy's shouting, "Hiiiiii Taaaaiiiillls!" He looked up to see Amy, Cream and Cheese walking towards him with baskets of food in their hands. He smiled at them, though he wasn't really sure if he felt like having company over at the moment.

"Hi there," Tails said, returning their greeting.

"How are you feeling?" Cream asked him in a slightly worried tone.

Tails sighed. Sonic and the others had been stopping by a lot lately to make sure he was okay, and while he appreciated his friends' efforts, Tails really just wanted to be alone for a while. He didn't want to be rude, but he decided just to go straight to the point. "You know you guys don't have to check up on me. I'm fine, really."

"Tails," Amy sighed, "We know you're still depressed about Cosmo. We just wanna help."

"Yeah!" Cream added, "She was our friend, too, and I know she wouldn't want us to leave you alone right now!"

"She really liked you, yknow!" Amy finished

"Chow, Chow." Cheese squeaked, nodding his head.

"I know," Tails said quietly. He was pretty sure they didn't know how much he and Cosmo had really meant to each other, but the three girls did hang out together a lot when she was alive. Maybe they understood more than he thought.

"We brought you some snacks," Cream told him.

"Hope you're hungry!" Amy added.

Truth be told he was hungry. Tails had forgotten to eat breakfast this morning, and in fact he had been skipping lots of meals lately. Some days he had found himself not eating until he became light-headed. It wasn't that he was doing it on purpose, it was just that after another fitful night's sleep filled with dreams he didn't want to remember he often wasn't hungry in the mornings. Tails would tell himself he'd eat later, but later would often end up being at 1 or 2 o'clock when his stomach started hurting. The fox decided that maybe he was glad to have company after all.

Tails hopped off of his perch on the Hyper Tornado to talk to the girls. "Sorry I was so rude," he apologized "I've just been a little tense lately. Let's go!"

They sat down on a little bench outside of Tails' workshop and laid out the food. As they ate, the three talked about what they had been doing since they gotten back home. Tails, obviously, had been working the whole time, and more than once he had to stop himself from rambling on about the technicalities of rebuilding a jet engine. Cream had been helping her mother bake cakes and other treats, which she suspected were for Vector and the Chaotix. Amy had just been cleaning her house and tending her garden, which had become over grown while they were away. Of course, she had also been shopping. "Oh, and Cream, I was just in that new store they opened up a little while ago. They have the cutest dresses!"

"Which store was that?" Cream asked.

"You know, the one I wanted to take you and Cos…" Amy cut herself off before she finished, and mentally berated herself for saying something so stupid. Cream gave a little sniffle and looked like she was about to cry. The three girls had enjoyed shopping together, and had really been looking forward to looking for something Cosmo could wear to really impress Tails when they got back. Oddly enough, it was Tails who turned to comfort the bunny.

"Don't be sad, Cream, " he said, "I had a lot of places I wanted to show her, too." He smiled at her as he continued, "Cosmo's seed is growing really well. I think that means she would have really liked it here!" Tails was surprised that he could talk about her without crying for once; maybe because he knew that he wasn't alone, that Cosmo's other friends missed her, too.

Cream looked at Tails and smiled, and they resumed their conversation as they normally would have. It seemed that things had finally started to get back to normal for the Mobians. Of course, normal around here meant that things never quite stayed the same for long, which was how they liked it. It was good to be home.

Author's Note: See, I told ya things would start looking up for the little fox! This chapter sort of serves as the end of the first part of my story, which primarily fills the gaps of episode 78 in. Tune in tomorrow when we leave the Sonic X canon and start with what happened in the time after the final episode.