Sonic Unveiled Chapter 3: Rooftop Reveries, a sonic the hedgehog fanfic

Chapter 3: Rooftop Reveries

It was a quick Chaos Control to Spagonia University from the windmill, though he waited until the sun came up for clarity of mind. It was, perhaps, a little too quick. As he was knocked over, he cursed his natural attraction to the false emeralds everyone seemed to have these days and his failure to prepare for the onslaught.

She put the hammer away, making it disappear into the tiny pocket of the cosmic foam every furry seemed to carry with them. He looked at her from his place on the floor and his jaw fell. He'd seen her on TV, of course, in waiting rooms and retail stores, but he wasn't prepared for the way she'd look in person. She glared down at him with bright green eyes, delicately lined in dark blue. Her hair hung, a little unkempt, around her face, much the same as it always had but without that Alice in Wonderland headband to keep it out of her eyes. She crossed her bare arms, resting white-gloved hands on her biceps, obscuring the pockets on her black vest. The old red dress she wore was no longer hoop-skirted and now grazed her hips. Her boots were laced now, a trend he was noticing in his absence. Perhaps most notable, and most embarrassing to him, was the sight of her undergarments. She was always busy flashing him upskirt shots of innocent white briefs back in the day, but from his viewpoint on the floor he could see the same pair of boxer shorts Shadow had been wearing last time he'd seen his double.

"I'll have you know I'm a married woman, Sonic, so you can stop looking up my skirt right now."

"You're the one who knocked me down!" he growled, climbing to his feet. "How am I not supposed to look at rubber duckies?"

"I didn't think you'd fall!"

He staggered, catching himself on her desk, ignoring her.

"Oh God, Sonic, I'm sorry." She ran over, sweeping him up in her arms, first in a side hug and then scooping up his knees in her other arm. "I forgot how sick you get."

He tried to resist, squirming, to stand on his own. After a while though, something in the back of his mind told him to let her: "She needs this as much as you do." So he relaxed in her arms and watched her lift up a foot to pull a door handle, watched her carry him out to a leather couch in the library in front of a great globe, putting him down on it. Was this the same couch that was here when Professor Pickle was here? Was…

"You must have tons of questions," Amy noted. "But you're also looking green, so they can wait. Here's what you need to know. I'm Dr. Rose now, not Amy. I'm here to help you with this Gaia temple and send you on your way. I know Rouge and Knuckles are probably trying to hide you from Eggman but I'm certain he knows, so you can ditch Shadow's goofy cape. But for now, you're resting. I'll bring you something to eat in a little while.

She walked away, and Chip whistled.

"You shouldn't have looked up her skirt, Sonic!"

"I didn't mean to."

"She caught you."

Sonic blinked. "You mean… you think it would have been OK if she hadn't seen me looking?"

Chip considered. "Well, not ok. But… You wouldn't have gotten in trouble?"

"Chip. For one, I think on some level she wanted that to happen. I mean, she spent her childhood stalking me. But for two… just because you didn't get caught doesn't mean it's not wrong. I screwed up the whole world, I'm not afraid of what happens to me because my eye wandered. I just hope she really did want that secretly, and that I didn't hurt her feelings with it."

"You hurt my feelings more by not telling me you were safe and going to Shadow behind my back," she growled, coming back in with a tray. She sat it on the curved-legged table in front of them and put a cup in Sonic's hands. He breathed in, taking in the scent of warm tea. He closed his eyes as he heard Chip speak.

"Ooh, what are these? They look tasty."

"Cucumber sandwiches. Old time's sake."

Sonic smiled, in spite of himself, and sipped his tea, eyes still closed.

She caught him in her arms as he fell, holding him close.

"Ugh. What… happened?"

"You already forgot what it feels like to change?" she chided, holding him.

"I forgot it screws up my chaos control!" Shadow snapped, trying to stand. His knees buckled.

"You just went to and from Apotos when you're already sick. Sit down."

"I have to agree, cousin. Have a seat," came a booming voice.

Rouge looked up at the sound, observing Dr. Robotnik—Emperor Robotnik—sitting on his gilded throne, buttons on his red cape shining in the dim light. Shining, also, were his trademark blue spectacles, though he wore no goggles on his bald head now. His moustache was nearly gray, and now joined by a similarly colored goatee. Rouge smiled at the sight of him, fighting the feeling of disgust in the pit of her stomach. Sitting there on his golden throne, in a room of green and white and gold, he looked like some kind of savior out of the old artwork….

At his order, Rouge lightened her grip, and Shadow let himself drop to the floor on his behind, grunting as the shock of impact ran up his spine. She rolled her eyes, not expecting him to go down quite so hard. She glanced at Shadow sitting there, looking like his old self, and fought tears.

Eggman snapped his fingers. "Can we get these two some chairs?"

A pair of young women in long green gowns skittered out of the shadows, each carrying a high-backed chair. They sat them down, and one lifted Shadow into a chair with surprising strength.

"Thank you, ladies. Could you get them some tea? And maybe something for Shadow, what would you like?"

He thought for a moment. "Maybe some toast?"

They curtsied and disappeared through the door at the far end of the throne room. Rouge sat and crossed her legs.

"If at any point you need to leave and lie down, Shadow, please tell me, and I shall have someone take you to your quarters."

Shadow nodded, but smiled. "I've been through this before. I was ready this time. Just not for that much chaos control at once right after. I'll be fine."

"Very well. Thank you for bringing Rouge here so quickly. Knuckles has already arrived, and is in treatment. But… tell me about Apotos."

"I met Knuckles at the bridge and he handed me the tablet piece. I pickpocketed an old man to get the other one. I made my way through the ruins to the Gaia Shrine and deposited the emerald, and then everything went back into place. "

Eggman brushed his moustache with a thumb and forefinger. "How did you open the door?"

"The door?"

"A little sprite that had been following Knuckles helped me." Rouge added, carefully.

"What did he look like?" He leaned forward.

"Uh, blue-violet, with horns and…"

Eggman simply noded. "And he was alone?"

"Just with Knuckles."

Eggman frowned. "I was hoping Sonic might have returned with him." He choked, suddenly. "I… I owe him such an apology. This is all so much my fault. If I could take it all back…" The emperor let out a sob, and Rouge felt herself wavering. Was it possible that Eggman was really sorry?

Shadow started to say something, and Rouge reached over and grabbed his hand, squeezing tight, as if to stop him. But he continued, anyway.

"Save your tears for when the world is safe, Doctor." Shadow spat coldly. "If you really want to honor his memory, save the world." Then Shadow looked up, and took a step further than Rouge ever would have. "Then abdicate, and turn the throne over to Cream. And shoot yourself."

The handmaidens arrived with the tea, delivering it with nervous frowns and shaking hands, and Eggman quickly wiped his eyes as his sobs grew even more intense. Shadow dug the remnants of a claw into Rouge's fingers, chiding, forcing her to lighten her grip. Then he brushed the back of her hand with a thumb. Guards emerged from the shadows.

"Shadow," she hissed. "How could you? Is it Dark Gaia?"

"It's noon," he snapped. "That was all me."

It was still daytime when he woke, but he wondered why he was so hungry. His stomach churned with the upcoming change and with emptiness, or so he thought. Far off he could smell something frying, but it seemed so distant compared to his hunger and his grogginess.

It wasn't pain, exactly, nor was it unpleasant. It was the haziness of a pleasant sleep, the afterglow of good dreams. He dreamed of Amy and Shadow, of dresses and tuxedos… Only now as he began to wake did the absurdity of marrying them both seem apparent. He chuckled to himself, flashing back to old tabloid headlines he'd laughed at back then, headlines that now seemed so insignificant and so pedantic. But where but a dream could he see Tails dancing with Cream among rubber chickens, and Chip bursting out of a wedding cake with chili dogs?

Ten years ago dreams of a wedding would have nightmares, unless in the dream he was the best man or the DJ.

He groggily tried to sit, finding it a bit more difficult than usual. It wasn't fatigue, it was… focus. It seemed so much more difficult to keep his mind on one thing, to contract this muscle and relax another, when he could be thinking about the dream he had before the wedding, in which he and Tails were looking for Espio in Holoska. Sonic's snowboard kept snapping, so finally he spun like a buzz saw to cut one out of a tree.

As he sat up, watching the sunlight pour in the East window, he smiled, glad to finally feel rested for the first time in years…

East?

Sonic jumped to his feet, staggering as the back of his brain struggled to catch up with the front. When he'd arrived the sun had been filtering in the other window, and had been much lower besides. His cloak sat folded, neat and clean, on the table nearby, as did a pair of fresh socks and a new pair of gloves. His boots also sat there, shined and cleaned noticeably free of the rotten dairy smell they'd acquired over the years. No, Sonic decided, they were most certainly not the old ones.

He looked over at a majestic grandfather clock, its golden hands making right angles, shorter leg pointing toward the window. The pendulum inside, shaped like a golden buzzsaw with two red gems embedded near one side, swung back and forth. He laughed in spite himself, surprised to see some evidence that someone still considered him a hero. Amy's lab. Of course.

But then he looked at the face of the clock and the realization hit him. "I slept 18 hours." He blurted.

Sonic looked around the room for evidence of what it is that could have put him out through his change back and forth into the werehog, and ultimately found it on his own arm—a strange, gooey residue on his bicep. He finally glanced at the note on the table, and growled.

"Dear Sonic,

"You were looking a little pale and tired, so I put a mild sedative in your tea. I remember how sick you were last time, and I think that might have been part of why things went wrong, so I decided to take things into my own hands and ensure your health. I used a heavier sedative, being so near sunset, and when you were still out soundly when the sun was about to rise, I used another sedative with a shorter half-life so you wouldn't have the pain of changing. The one I used causes crazy vivid dreams, so have fun! I'm sorry to deceive you, but I owe you your health, all the chasing I used to do to you.

"Here are your clothes—they were looking ratty, so I raided Shadow's drawer in my bedroom here. If you want something different I can take you up there and show you his clothes, he won't mind. When you wake, please take a bath or shower—I don't care which one but you STINK—and come downstairs for breakfast.

"Chip watched you most of the night before falling asleep himself. It was so strange, seeing him like that, so very… how do I say this. He reminds me so much of Shadow before we stopped the ARK from falling."

Sonic's eyes bugged out of his head. What a strange comparison to make!

"We'll talk about what to do over breakfast," the letter continued. "Just you and me and Chip. Yvon Fulbert—my assistant and formerly Professor Pickles'—will be stopping by later, and it will be up to you whether you want to include him.

"For what it's worth, I'm so glad to have you back. I've missed you so much, and I still love you, though not the same way. I hope that doesn't hurt you too much, but given the way you ran away from me, I don't think it'll be any spines off your back. You are my hero, my inspiration, and I never doubted for a second that what's happened is not your fault. But together, maybe we can finally make it all right.

"See you at breakfast.

"-Dr. Amy Rose"

Sonic smiled, grabbing the clothes she'd lain out with the hand in which he wasn't holding the letter. He wandered around until he found a bathroom, a lovely old-fashioned Spagonian wash closet with supplies set out. He spotted a blue towel, soap and shampoo, and a bottle of oil on the counter. He sat the clothes down next to the sink and opened the bottle, sniffing it, sighing at the familiar scent of orange blossom. Only another hedgehog could possibly understand the need to anoint. He capped the bottle and started the water in the bathtub. He hoped he had time for a nice, hot, long bath.

She flipped the pancakes into the air artfully, humming a sweet tune, occasionally muttering to follow her. Chip was just happy to hear someone singing. Music was special to him, so old and yet so new. He didn't recognize a single song, and yet everything seemed to touch him on a deep level, far away. He danced in the air as she hummed, unable to focus on setting the table as she asked.

She was beautiful, standing there, pink spines glimmering in the harsh morning light. She was wearing pants today, which means there wouldn't be any confusion about whether it was ok to look up her skirt, but the pants hugged every curve of her legs with a tight gentleness. She still wore the dress over it, this one with a slightly different white lace pattern on the neck than the one the day before, and her black pocketed vest was now dark blue. He could see why Sonic kind of liked her, and why Sonic had muttered her name as he slept, even as Chip lay on his chest.

The doorbell rang, and she mouthed to Chip, "Hide," her flat, white teeth flashing. She motioned to her table, lifting the long cloth carefully. Chip flew under and peeked toward the door through the thin lace lining.

When she answered the door, there were footsteps and shouts, mostly Amy shouting, "Get out of my house!" A pair of green robes came into view, and after, her boots.

"You have no right to just storm into my house! Get back out and knock and ask to be let in like a civilized person!"

"We can't be seen at the door," answered a nasal voice. "It would endanger you, Dr. Rose, for Dark Gaia to know we came to you."

"Then maybe you ought to have shown up in common clothes! What's the matter, afraid Spagonians might tell Dark Gaia, 'oh yeah, I saw this guy with two different color eyes go into Dr. Rose's house?'"

The one figure took a step back. "You recognized me?"

"Of course I recognized you and your perpetual sinus infection," Amy hissed. "This green cloak crap is a load of bull. You're all so transparent. So what on earth do you want in my house that couldn't have been e-mailed me by your lackey on my staff?" She added coldly, "Did Maria tell you something?"

"Don't make fun of me!" the man answered, stepping closer to the table. "We're here to tell you that there are simultaneous reports of someone seeing Shadow in Apotos and Mazuri with his check-ins for the guard in Eggmanland. It's possible he teleported back and forth, but more likely—"

"I'm looking for Sonic," Amy noted, "And if I find him I can't exactly hide him, can I?"

"So why do you have two table settings?" Chip could see a hand going toward the table.

"Yvon's supposed to come for breakfast," Amy excused, "if Dark Gaia doesn't have him hung over again."

"Amy." The one cloaked figure approached her, taking a hand. "You know how much it would mean to Ivo to know Sonic is alive. You—"

She slapped his hand away. "Listen, you old coot, I'm Dr. Rose to you. If Sonic really is alive, it's up to him who knows. If he appears on my doorstep I won't betray his trust, not even to the Emperor. "

"That's treason."

"Says the GUN Commander of the United Federation."

Chip saw the man raise a hand to slap her, but then he stopped, wavering.

"That'd better be a high five, boat eyes," came Sonic's voice at the other side of the room.

"Sonic!" The stuffy voice gasped.

"That's right! And you guys are dressed all green and stuff, like you're cult of Light Gaia. That right?"

Chip couldn't see, but he figured they nodded. "Legion of Light," another voice corrected.

"Which means you're dressed up like my best friend threatening a lady. No one knows Chip like I do, and I can tell you that he'd never threaten anyone, not even someone who ran their mouth too much." He saw Sonic's bare feet appear near the tablecloth, going toe to toe with the robed figures boots. "If you don't want me to pop in and pay your portly little leader in the green robes a visit to tell him what you were doing… If you don't want me to let, maybe, I don't know, the guy you worship have at him for giving this mission to an impulsive jerk who almost killed a good guy before… Then I suggest you turn around and go about your business."

"Yes, sir, Chosen, sir." The green figures turned and left.

"So… now you're unveiled." Amy said, trailing off. Chip flew out from under the table to find Sonic standing there, naked save a blue towel around his waist.

"I guess so. You wouldn't have a pair of my old shoes lying around, would you, Amy?"

She grinned. "Help yourself to pancakes, I'll find a pair."

The old man hovered over the phone, hand shaking. Should he call his Emperor, do his duty to the cult? But Light Gaia's own natural emissary had attacked his very presence there. It was true that Sonic was known to be infected by Dark Gaia, and yet he never once gave into it, and yet he was followed at every turn by the being ultimately revealed to be their savior, their creator. And wasn't Eggman the one who had caused all of this trouble in the first place? The one who had cracked open the world, launched Sonic from orbit, tried to exploit the energy of Dark Gaia for his own ends? The former Commander felt a tear welling up in his brown eye at the conflict he felt he betrayal. None of the heroes had ever lived up to themselves. Not Maria, not the people on the ARK, and not even Sonic, or Chip, or Ivo.

So now he asked himself: why is it that Ivo is so focused on knowing if Sonic's alive? He had known Ivo since they were both boys, on a supervised visit with the remains of Maria's family. He knew Ivo was one for spectacle and symbolism… but over the years he had learned that those always took second place to tactics in a crisis not of his own making. He had a reason to want to know.

Remembering the news, remembering the site of impact he'd seen in Apotos, remembering her face the last time he saw her, remembering Shadow's contrition about the terrible things that happened, he realized something. He thought of that young soldier who'd told him where to find Shadow. What would that young man had felt if the Commander had put a bullet in Shadow's brain, and no one had been there to destroy the comet?

"I won't destroy the world," he decided, "Because one man needs a shrink." The GUN Commander put down the phone and walked out the door, shedding his green cloak on the way. There was a café on the corner and he'd never had Spagonian coffee.

He still didn't feel like eating, but he found what was in front of him much easier to stomach than anything offered him in a long time.

Sonic picked up his fork and knife and cut into his eggs, trying to focus on the woman in front of him instead of the food on his plate. It would get easier to eat in a few weeks… though it would get harder first. He shoveled the yellow, fluffy scrambled yolk into his mouth as Amy talked, words issuing from her painted pink lips.

"So you're sure you're comfortable with being out?" She asked, leaning forward as she nibbled on a muffin, pink spines falling in her face.

Sonic nodded. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Chip trying to hide the fact that he was eating hashbrowns with his hands instead of a fork. Sonic took a bite of bacon.

"Ok. So I'm going to tell you what the plan is." Amy cut into her pancake and took in a bite, sweeping it to the side of her flat, pearly teeth to speak. "What's happening. Eggman dispatched us out to various Shrine locations in the hopes of meeting you. Our departure orders and locations are based on where he and I thought you would go. I saw little reason to mislead him here; he's gotten the best of us before and I figured we could distract him with the truth. Your next stop after me is to Holoska, then Chun-nan, Shamar, Adabat, and finally Eggmanland. I know Cream is supposed to be the next link in the chain."

"What if I weren't here?" He sampled some toast, and, enjoying its relative lightness in his mouth, began nibbling on the piece in earnest. He thought he would enjoy watching her eyes narrow at the thought, but instead he found it breaking his heart. Was that a glimmer of a tear forming? He decided not to remind her of that possibility in the future.

Amy sighed. "Then we would have to take care of the emerald ourselves." She pulled an emerald from her blouse, not the activated false emerald Sonic had homed in on, but a dead one, probably violet, by the look. It glistened in the morning sun, casting a pink glow on her white gloves. "Find Chip, get his help, and then send him on the next stop."

"And after? When Dark Gaia and Light Gaia fight inside the Earth?"

Amy pondered, resting her chin on her fist, her elbow on the table. "So… what exactly happened down there? That would determine the plan."

"We fell… and fell, forever. Dark Gaia sucked all the Gaia Force out of me, and turned me back into this. Chip… he summoned all the temples around him, like a GUN mech, and fought Dark Gaia until I recovered." Sonic grinned. "Knuckles told me you'd guessed that. I'm real impressed, Amy." He watched her eyes light up, her smile finally reach her ears. "I always knew you were really clever, and creative, but I never knew you'd put it together like that. Anyway… I used the temples to attack Dark Gaia's eyes, but I screwed up a chaos control and fell. I was a couple rings short of going super…"

Amy thought, pursing her lips. "So you'd need all of us down there."

"Only the ones who can chaos control or fly. Or send me rings."

Amy poured some milk in a glass from the pitcher. He watched her bare bicep twitch, as if the weight and the angle were just a little too much for her. "I'll take a crash course in mech piloting once you move on."

Sonic choked on a crust, coughed, and swallowed. "You're not following me?"

Amy frowned, looking away, green eyes downcast on tile. "Sonic, Shadow needs me right now. He needs me a lot more than you do. He told Eggman he should abdicate and kill himself."

"He… he really said that?" Sonic put his head in his hands, trying not to see her, or him.

"And no, it wasn't Dark Gaia. It was apparently said of his own… free will. Broad daylight. I'm not sure what Eggman's going to do with him, but he's assured me he doesn't blame me one bit."

Sonic laughed, suddenly trying to imagine Shadow acting like Pickle's old assistant, looking up. "But… Amy, that sounds just like him!"

She threw a strawberry at Sonic's head and squealed, "No, no it doesn't! Shadow would never tell someone to kill himself! He'd pull out a gun and do it for them, or keep it to himself!" Amy crossed her arms in indignation, insulted.

Sonic resumed his toast, considering. "So… so he would. Yeah, you've got a point there. Huh."

It went too easily, too well.

She already had the tablet—she'd gathered it after last time. Both halves neatly tucked away in her lab for years, dusty. She set Yvon, who looked much worse than he did a decade before, with sagging eyes and a mean grimace, to caring for the lab and they departed, through the new Gaia temple toward the old shrine. She spent the sunlit trip telling Sonic of the private exploits of his former friends, her life with Shadow, their arguments about whether to try and conceive. He told her beneath the crumbling aqueduct of all the wonderful people he'd met and things he'd seen, the lives he'd saved. Chip had nothing to share but listened quietly, sitting in the grass, patiently, eager to know more. They picnicked near a fountain beneath a pair of lovely towers, they napped in a patch of trees in a corner of the street. When he changed, she held his claws in her delicate hands, telling him it'd be over soon. When she awoke and realized she'd lost track of the date, he punched her in just the right part of her back to dull the pain—though only after her repeated reassurance that no, he wouldn't hurt her if he hit the muscles just right. It was when Chip fell asleep in the sunlight on the second day of their journey, the shrine just in view beyond the cottage roofs, that they finally had a chance to speak their minds.

"He's different this time," Amy noted, pursing her lips and watching the sprite sleep.

"Well, aren't we all?" Sonic shrugged, crossing his arms and sitting down beneath a tree, eyes on her.

"He's not as nice. And he stays up later." She sounded like her old self there, he thought, without sophistication, without that coldness she'd built up. A reminder of how far she'd come. He was proud of her. He was…

"The balance has shifted. I think before, Light was in control and Dark was the challenger. Now it's the other way.

"And it's fairly clear," Amy noted, sitting next to him and adjusting her slightly longer skirt, "that Light is linked to daylight and Dark, to night."

"Right. He told me that, last time."

Amy looked over at Chip, saying nothing, brow furrowed, but Sonic understood what she said.

"I'm not going to decide who he is and what he's worth based on ten years ago and a couple psychedelic spectral enemies. It hurts enough, people doing that to me."

"I think this is more complicated than we ever knew, Sonic."

"What did we do that wasn't, Amy?" He leaned over a moment, his face close to hers, eyes shining in the afternoon sun, before pulling away. "The only difference is, this time, we see how screwed up things have gotten going in."

The Earth was still shaking, Spagonia still settling down to join with Mazuri on its Southern border, when they returned to Amy's house. Night had long since come, and Sonic's claws were shaking even after the trail mix she'd given him—or what little he would eat of it.

"You aren't leaving for Holoska until morning, Mister," she scolded. "I don't know what's wrong but you don't look very well at all."

He was hobbling after her on all fours, tripping occasionally from the tremors in his front and back legs. His black cloak was folded neatly inside Amy's pack, so much a tripping hazard it was in his current state. He was staring off ahead of him, barely listening.

Amy walked up to the door and began searching her bag for her key. "When did you start feeling sick?" She asked.

"Right before the change." He sat down on her doorstep with a thud.

As Amy reached to insert the key into the lock, however, the door opened, revealing a tall human with brown hair, picking up a reddish hue from years of Dark Gaia exposure. His face was contorted into a frown, his pale eyes glazed with the night. Sonic and Amy both were sure they could smell wine on his breath.

"Yvon," Amy snarled. "I've asked you not to come to my house at night. You know what you're like."

Yvon sneered at her. "The men in the cloaks made me. They wanted me to give you a message."

Amy took a step back. "And what was that?"

"They left some clothes for Sonic, nice to see you again, by the way, jackass," Yvon spat. "And they wanted me to tell you that Sonic's identity is in his control. They said that they are at his service. Don't see why a guy who failed the world would get so mu-"

Yvon bent forward in his taunting, and his face plowed into the oncoming hammer with a satisfying squeak. He fell.

"We've had this conversation before, Yvon. There will be no Sonic-bashing in this zone unless you want to fight me. Now go clean yourself up. I'm about done with you here, and you're coming with me to Eggmanland tomorrow."

He got up and scrambled out of the house, running past Sonic. Amy lead him into the house. "He's getting worse, but he's indispensible as an assistant. I see why Pickle, Gaia rest his soul, was so reliant on him. In fact, if it weren't for the distraction of Dark Gaia, he'd be the Doctor of Gaia Studies, not me."

She dropped her pack at the door and lead Sonic off, up the stairs, to a little bedroom. It was blue and white; royal blue sheets with a white and blue quilt in gold trim; white walls and a blue picture. The bed was small, but more than wide enough for two furries. Was that her goal? Was she…?

"You'll sleep here tonight. I would have put you here the first night, but then you might have realized I what I was doing. I'll be down the hall if you need anything, but unless it's an emergency, give me an hour to call Shadow and Eggman." Amy knelt down and gave Sonic a hug. "I'm so worried, Sonic. I… I can't get you back after all this time only to lose you again. You need to rest." Then she frowned. "Are your eyes watering?"

"They've been itching since we started back."

"Maybe you're catching a cold. I'll get you some food, and you can take a bath if you want, and then I'll call Shadow, ok?"

She headed downstairs, and Sonic sighed, slinking off toward the bathroom. Chip tried to follow, only to have the door shut softly in his face.

Sonic stripped away his shoes, his socks, his cloak, and walked over to the bathtub, turning the hot water on. He reached up to the wall and pressed a few buttons on the insect-like clock radio ("Made in Eggmanland") until music started to play. It was a song he recognized, a song Shadow used to listen to, one he always said was about Sonic. It wasn't then, but it was now.

He turned the volume up as high as it would go, and then settled into the water, letting it seem to sear at his scarred flesh. Then he stuck his arm in his mouth, bit down hard, and screamed, unheard.

He hoped.

Normally when he dreamed, and it wasn't a replay of his failings, she was there. She would ask him for her help, and he would help her as they worked through every story ever told. She'd pout and she'd plead and she'd chide and she'd joke, and she would just look so sad standing there, so in need of help. And then she betrayed him, every time, wind in her violet hair, a flower or a ring in hand. He'd told Shadow about her, and his opinion was that she was his mother, or perhaps a symbol of the world and what it had done to him. Sonic was inclined to go with the latter; he was pretty sure he wasn't half human.

But this time it was Amy in his dreams, asking for help, begging and pleading, and when the time came to betray, she stood by his side. Then she was drying him off, leading him out of the tub to bed, where a tray of chili dogs was waiting. He ate them in a daze, unsure if he were awake or asleep, unwilling to decide. She sat by his side, a worried gleam in her eyes, hands wringing in her lap, helpless. He wanted to help her. He wanted to help her help him. He wanted to help her with that…

And then something beeped in her pocket, and a tinny song played, of Shadow singing, an old sad song. "Excuse me," she apologized, pulling out a phone and flipping it open. "Shadow, honey? Are you ok—" She dashed out of the room.

He reached to scream into his fist again, only to find a bandage around his arm. He lay awake instead, trying not to admit to himself, trying to think of Merlina or Shahra or Miss Utterson instead, trying to ignore the distant shouting.

"What were you thinking?"

She flipped on the video screen instead, sitting down at her desk.

"I don't know what came over me," Shadow pleaded, looking like his old self, neat, round fingers and flat teeth, pounding the table with clawless fists.

"The truth, huh?" She frowned. She of course, knew that was the truth, it was how they all felt, but who would dare say it with how effectively he'd culled all rebellion? There had only been one execution at first, but coupled with the suppressors, with Shadow and Rouge and Knuckles getting sick, there was only one needed.

He looked at her, pleading, and she adjusted the set, trying to make the colors right, so he'd look as if he were there.

"Shadow, I can't help you now. I don't know where this crazy resentment of Dr. Robotnik has come from after all he's done for us," she lied. "I'm going to plead on your behalf, of course, you're under a lot of stress and you've been sick since the changes started again." Finally she stopped turning the dial. "Shadow, what color is the light there? You look funny."

He blinked. "Amy, this is our bedroom. It's the same color as always?"

She peered at him closely before finally announcing her finding: "Shadow, your eyes are brown!"

"Are they?" He ran over to a mirror. "They are. They weren't last night…"

She cried when he left, tears flowing down her pale cheeks, green eyes gleaming. He cried too. "I'm so glad we can finally really be friends, Amy," he told her. "When this is over, we'll find time. You and Shad and me, long as we make it out alive."

She reached up and adjusted the blue cloak he now wore. "We will. And I won't be too mad at Shadow for keeping you from me. I understand why you wanted privacy. But hurry. Cream is waiting."

He stepped into the teleporter and took one last look at her, wide mouth grinning through shining tears. Always finding the best in life. Did that make Shadow the best?