Chapter Sixteen

Time never meant that much to me. When you can do in seconds what takes other people hours, it starts to bend your world a little bit.

But now I'm stuck here, waiting for time to… run out, I guess? I don't know what I'm waiting for. I guess I'm waiting on a miracle. That's a change. Usually I am the miracle.

I strain to do something, anything, but now that I've been forced to see the truth, the life has been completely drained out of me. I have nothing. I never thought this day would come. But I've been beaten. I admit it. You beat me, Eggman. You won.

You know what, Chaos Emeralds? Forget about me. Forget I exist, forget I ever existed. Save Tails. Look what I did to him. I led him into a terrible situation so I could play hero, I ignored all his warnings and his advice, and I screwed up, big time. Tails doesn't deserve this. Let him go. Let him live, or whatever. Just don't make him pay for what I made him do. He just did what he's always done: he supported me. Loyalty is hard to come by. He shouldn't have to suffer because I'm an idiot. I don't care if I die. Just let him go.

Looking back on the past few days, I almost can't believe it. I almost can't believe what I've done to my friends. I hurt Knuckles and Amy. I took advantage of Cream's and Charmy's innocence. I made Tails hurt his father and potentially put Rouge in a bad situation. To save Eggman. Eggman.

I can't fight off a shiver, thinking of all the things I've done. But that's not what scares me the most.

What scares me the most is that I was willing to do so much more.

But at the same time, I didn't do enough. When I think about it, I really didn't save Eggman. Tails did. Maybe Eggman doesn't need that machine at all. Maybe Tails just didn't have time to diagnose him properly.

Maybe all of this was for nothing.

I open my eyes. There's nothing to see, 'cause it's so dark, but anything's better than keeping them closed and having to keep on looking inside myself. All I'm finding is… is bad stuff. I don't do bad stuff. I look for the good in things. And as bad as this looks, there's gotta be some good somewhere. I can't give up. I'm the only one left. The only one who can save Tails is me. If that's the last thing I do, that's what has to happen.

"I'm gonna help you, buddy," I say to myself, and I manage to push myself to my knees, somehow. "I'm not gonna let you down. Just like you never let me down."

My hands find something to grab onto, and I pull myself to my feet. My knees feel all shaky, and my head is hurting like there's no tomorrow, but there really isn't gonna be a tomorrow for Tails if I don't get my act together.

It's one of the hardest things I've ever done, but I manage to stumble across the room and get myself to the panel of light switches, and I plant the heel of my hand under them and shove upwards. The sudden flash of light sends a spike of pain through my head. Guess I should've closed my eyes. I am now, but it's a bit too late. Squinting, I look around the room for Tails and the machine. I didn't quite think that through, actually. Who's to say Eggman left it in here? And with the Emeralds in it? I'm suddenly feeling less hopeful. This whole thing was stupid, but I have to try, right? I can't give up. I can't.

When I'm able to open my eyes all the way, I'm able to take in the room all at once, and I'm not liking what I see. Tails is not here.

"Buddy?" I call out, and my voice is kind of weak and scratchy. Not good. "Tails?"

"Look what I found, Amy," someone says, someone really familiar. But that doesn't make any sense. How… how would he know where we were? "A little lost hedgehog."

"Oh, be nice, Knuckles," Amy says, rolling her eyes and smacking him on the shoulder. "He's been through a lot."

"So have I. You aren't doing me any favours."

Bracing myself against the wall, I turn my head and blink a few times to make sure I'm not hallucinating. I probably am, but I don't think I'd start hallucinating this badly. They seem to be there, but I don't know why.

"Knuckles? Amy? Wh… what are you doing here?"

Knuckles shrugs and inspects the back of his left glove, his right folded into his other arm. "It looks like we're saving your worthless blue hide."

"No!" I shout at him, and I clench the hand that's not against the wall. It's shaking, badly. "Find Tails. Find Tails and – "

"Done," Knuckles interrupts. "Got his dad out of here, too. We saved you for last, of course."

"Sonic, it's okay," Amy tells me in a soothing voice, stepping forward and spreading her hands. "Everything's all right now."

I look away from them. It's kinda weird and more than a little disturbing, but… there's some part of me that doesn't want to be saved. I don't deserve to be. They should just leave me here, and forget about me, because I finally went too far and I can never go back.

"Don't worry about me," I mumble. "I'll be fine."

"Don't be silly," Amy says, stepping forward with a concerned look on her face.

At the same time as Knuckles snorts, "Now you're just being stupid."

"I screwed up, guys," I tell them. "Made my bed and I gotta lie in it, and all that."

"Oh no you don't," Knuckles says. "You're leaving with us and that's it. No arguing, or I break your nose."

"Come on, Sonic," Amy pleads. "Tails will want to see you."

My head snaps up. Tails.

"I guess." I turn around to face them head-on, and Knuckles extends a hand.

"I don't really want to do this, but you can lean on me if you want. I don't want you falling down and cracking your head and blaming it on me."

"Does that sound like me, Knux?" I ask, but I'm relieved to hear his offer. It was all I could do just to walk across the room and lean against this wall. Out of the fortress is probably beyond me right now.

"Sounds exactly like you," he replies, and each of them lets me put an arm around their shoulders.

Maybe I was wrong. Maybe… maybe they will forgive me, after all.

Then I don't know where I am.

Somewhere between walking out of the fortress and getting into the Tornado, everything started to go all fuzzy. I hope I didn't say anything too stupid.

I blink a few times and look around.

I'm home. I'm home, and I'm in my bed, and…

I sit up.

Tails, Amy, and Knuckles are sitting at Tails's desk, and they're talking in low voices. I hope Tails hasn't started working already. Does sound like him. Kid needs a break, though.

"Hey," I say, and my voice is still quiet and scratches the inside of my throat. Ouch. "What's goin' on over there?"

"We're waiting for you to grace us with your presence," Knuckles answers. Amy frowns at him and quickly crosses the room.

"How are you feeling?" she asks.

"Eh," I tell her, throwing the sheet off. "Been worse."

"Hey Sonic," Tails calls out cheerfully, and I am silently thankful that this whole thing hasn't sapped the life out of him like I feel it's done to me.

"Hey buddy," I call back. "What're you doing?"

"Oh, not much. Just… talking about stuff."

"Like what?"

Tails eyes the other two nervously. Hm. Discussion about me, obviously.

"Well," Knuckles says, pulling himself up onto the desk and crossing one leg over his knee, "Tails might've mentioned that you didn't want to tell us what you were doing because you thought we wouldn't go along with it."

"Yeah," I say, looking away and fingering the burn on my hand a little. "That was… what I said."

"I don't understand," Amy says, and she looks really concerned. "I mean… why wouldn't we help you?"

"It was Eggman," I tell her. "I wanted to save Eggman. The one person in the entire universe I shouldn't've been concerned about saving."

"Of course you should have been concerned. Life is life, right? No matter whose it is."

I stare at the floor. "Well… I didn't think you'd agree."

"You didn't trust them enough to ask," Knuckles says bluntly. "And while I still want to have you carted away to the loony bin, even I went along with it."

"I… yeah," I answer. Not much of an answer, I know, but I got nothin'. I did make up an awful lot of reasons not to ask, now that I think of it.

"They're our friends, Sonic," Tails says softly. "They're always ready to help us. No matter what we need help with."

I shove my foot into the floor a little. I feel kinda cornered. I sorta deserve it, but I'm not used to being ganged up on like this.

Awkward silence.

Then all of a sudden Amy plops herself down next to me and pulls me into one of her bone-crushing hugs. Ugh. I force myself not to say anything. I owe her, big time.

"We're always here when you need us, Sonic," she whispers into my ear, and then before I can stop her she's kissed me on the cheek. Okay. I owe her, but I don't think I owe her that much.

Amy jumps off of me and waves a hand at Knuckles. "C'mon, Knuckles," she says. "I think he can take care of himself."

"You sure about that?" he says drily, but gets off the desk and follows her to the doorway.

"Thanks a lot, guys," I tell them. "You proved me wrong. Woulda been a lot easier if I hadn't taken all that on by myself."

"Don't kid yourself," Knuckles says, folding his arms. "You didn't."

I laugh a little. He's right. In the end, I got a lot of help, even when I didn't think I was getting it.

After they leave, I turn to Tails. "I'm sorry, Tails," I tell him. "I screwed everything up."

He shrugs. "Well, you gotta be the best at everything, right? So I guess you gotta be the best screw-up too."

I laugh and open my arms. "C'mere, kiddo."

Tails almost runs across the room. When I wrap him in a hug, he starts crying. I wish he wouldn't. He's making me feel bad. Yeah, I kinda deserve it, but I really hate it when he cries.

"I was so worried, Sonic," he tells me. "You were asleep for so long, I thought… maybe we couldn't help you."

"You know me," I answer. "I sleep 'til the last possible second."

"I'm so happy this all worked out okay," he says. "It could've been so much worse."

"What about your dad?" I ask, not really wanting to, but knowing I should.

"He's… he'll come around," Tails says, pulling off me and sitting to my left.

"Blame it on me," I suggest. "If that helps."

Tails shakes his head. "No. I have to take responsibility for what I did. I can't take the easy way out, no matter how tempting it is. Right?"

"It does usually come back to bite ya later," I admit.

I guess he doesn't want to think about this anymore, because he starts talking about something else, and I try to listen. I really do. But something's nagging at me.

How did Knuckles and Amy know where we were?

"I don't appreciate being told to act as your errand boy, faker."

I shrug. "I'm not quite up to it, and I did tell Rouge I was only borrowing the thing." I press the Emerald into Shad's hand. "And you're going there anyway, so… here ya go."

His fingers close around it, and he steps back, turning to leave.

"Shad."

"What?" he growls in annoyance. "You have something else for me to bring back? I'm not a messenger service."

"It was you, wasn't it?" I'm not really asking, though. I know it was him.

"I don't have time for riddles. Spit it out."

"That told Knuckles and Amy where I was." I step forward. I've had a lot of time to think about this, and I'm sure it was him. "You work for G.U.N.. It's pretty likely they'd know where Eggman was, and that you'd know about it."

"I might have."

"Why?" I ask quietly. "Why would you do that?"

He turns to face me. "I'm not going to explain my reasoning to you. Let's just say he's of political significance."

I nod. "Makes sense, I guess."

He shakes his head and turns away again. "Idiot."

"Thanks, Shad," I tell him. "You saved my life."

"Unfortunately," he says, but he's looking over his shoulder at me and I can see the stirrings of a smile on his face.

Oh, Shadow. Always the competitive one. Well, I'm pretty good at the competition thing, myself.

"By the way, Sonic," he calls back to me, "you owe me one."

With that he disappears, leaving me standing there, feeling kind of stunned.

I owe him one?

Uh oh.

I turn to go back into the house, then decide to just sit on the doorstep. It's nice out.

I guess… I guess what happened, it wasn't so bad. I mean, it was pretty bad while it was going on, yeah, but… it all worked out, didn't it? I thought I'd lose my friends, but things've only improved between us. And now I know for sure I can count on them for anything, even saving homicidal evil geniuses.

And said homicidal evil genius is on the loose at the moment…

I glance over my shoulder. I wonder what Tails would say if I asked him to track Eggman down…

Author's note

Finally finished it! Uh… I hope it was worth the wait? Probably wasn't. Anyway, this is dedicated to flamewarflipsides , who was really taken with the story and was even editing it for me for a while there. She was who I was writing this for, in the end, and I hope you like it, Tyra! (Don't pretend you like it).