The More Things Change…

On Earth they say that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Perhaps the reverse could be said to be true as well. In the weeks after Chris left for his home world, Mobius seemed like the same place it had always been to the casual observer, but it seemed to Sonic and the others that somehow things had changed, and still were changing. For Tails, the world felt a little lonelier. He tried hard to go back to the way things were before, and though he still fought with feelings of bitterness and guilt and occasionally found himself crying in his sleep, he found that he was slowly able to return to a somewhat normal version of himself. Knuckles, having lots of free time while the Master Emerald was in pieces, had started going on treasure hunting expeditions with Rouge. To his surprise, he was starting to find that he really enjoyed her company (or maybe he had simply stopped pretending that he didn't), though he would never admit it. Vector, on the other hand, was happy to admit his feelings for Vanilla, who had helped him and the other Chaotix rebuild their agency, and Cream was happy to have Charmy and Espio around when Vector and her mother went off alone together.

Sonic thought of all of these changes just as he was about to make one of his own. He had finally decided he was ready to stop running from Amy. Tails had been teasing him about it since they had gotten back home, asking him when he was finally going to tell her. He had been avoiding it for a little over a month now, not sure how he should begin, until Tails said something to him that finally gave him the resolve to do it.

The two had been up on the roof of Tails' workshop gazing up at the stars. Tails had once again teased Sonic about how he was too chicken to talk to Amy about how he felt, and Sonic had once again told his little bro he'd get to it when he was good and ready. Tails had laughed at that, like he always did, but then he suddenly became very serious.

"I mean it, Sonic", he said as he looked into the sky. "You should talk to her. You think you've got plenty of time, but you never know. She could disappear tomorrow, and then what would you do"?

Sonic sat bolt upright and looked at Tails, who was now gazing at the sky with a faraway look in his eyes. Sonic knew that he was thinking about the one who had disappeared from his life. One who had been taken from him, from all of them, very suddenly. Could that really happen to Amy? Could he wake up one day and find that she wasn't there anymore? The thought scared him more than he wanted to admit, and he resolved to talk to her the very next day.

This is the reason he found himself running up to Amy's door and knocking that day. When Amy answered, she was pleasantly surprised to see Sonic standing at the door.

"Sonic! What are you doing here"?

Sonic leaned back and gave her his usual cocky smile "I just dropped by to see how you were doin', Ames".

Now she was really surprised. Sonic never just dropped by for no reason, but she really didn't care why he was here, so long as he was here with her. She motioned for him to enter and said, "Come on in!"

Sonic stepped into the house a little nervously. He sat down on her couch while she grabbed something for them to drink, and then sat down next to him. "So how've things been around here?" he asked the pink hedgehog. It didn't surprise him that this was the start of a very long conversation. What did surprise him was that he was enjoying it. They talked about a lot of things; their hope that Chris had gotten back home safely, the events of the past few weeks, and the things they had been thinking about recently. Amy even let Sonic in on the fact that she really missed Cosmo far more than she had let on. Apparently, she and Cream had officially taken Cosmo in as 'one of the girls', and had really been looking forward to taking her shopping and hanging out under more peaceful circumstances when they got home. The picnic that she and Cream had taken Tails on to make him feel better was as much to help themselves as it was to help him. This lead to their thoughts to Tails himself. Amy was still a little worried about Tails, and even though Sonic assured her that he was doing okay, he secretly was still a little worried himself. Another thing he was worried about, but that he didn't bother to hide, was Eggman. The doctor hadn't caused any trouble since they had gotten back, and while Sonic would like to think that Eggman might have turned over a new leaf after all they'd been through, he sincerely doubted it.

Almost as if on cue, an explosion boomed in the distance. Sonic and Amy rushed out of the house to see one of Eggman's battleships attacking Angel Island in the distance. They really should have known this was coming. Things never stayed slow around here for long.

Just as he was about to leave, Sonic stopped and turned to Amy. "Hey Ames? When I get through with this, how 'bout I take you out to dinner or somethin'"?

Amy was completely speechless for a moment. "You're asking me for a date?"

"Well… yeah." Sonic responded nervously. He hated feeling like this. He was never nervous about anything, and he would never show it if he was. Why was this any different? Especially since he knew what her answer would be. As expected, she threw her arms around him in one of her trademark death-grip hugs. "Yes Sonic the Hedgehog, of course I'll go out with you"!

"Great!" he said, pulling out of the hug with some effort "I'll see you later, then"! And with that, he sped off towards the fight. Amy just stared after him as he left her in the dust, as usual. She sighed somewhat contentedly. The more things changed around here, the more they stayed the same.

Author's Note: What's this? Action? In this story? Couldn't be, could it? Well, I had to live up to the 'Adventure' part of the description at some point.