I had hoped to get this done by last weekend and I almost did. I wrote pretty much the whole chapter longhand while on holiday so that I'd have something to put up by Sunday but then I was sick and had work and sick + work = I don't have the energy to type up the draft. But today was a public holiday, so I rested a bit and then got it done. Not my best chapter, I don't think, but I'm inching towards a scene I'm looking forwards to writing, either in the next chapter or the one right after.

The hospital beds and wards were crowded but the waiting rooms were not. Since the morning's disaster the hospital had stopped admitting new patients for the time being. Sonic was the only person sitting in the waiting room on a plastic chair at the end of a row, elbows on his knees and deep in thought as he stared at the floor between his feet. Gadget slowly approached him, wishing the thick soles of his boots didn't thud so loudly against the linoleum floor with every step but Sonic didn't look up.

"How's things?" he asked with a damp tone that did no justice whatsoever to the casual inquiry. Gadget's ear twitched and he cocked his head to the side. It didn't escape him that Sonic seemed to be avoiding acknowledging Infinite.

"Technically, I think he's fine," Gadget replied. "I mean, at least with the physical healing. Mentally, he's not doing so good…"

Gadget stood while Sonic sat. Neither of them spoke until Gadget elaborated: "he thinks he's dead."

Sonic finally looked up, raising an eyebrow in a silent question for him to go on.

"He thinks he's in the afterlife or something. He was asking me to cut out his heart and judge his sins and all that." Sonic stifled a chuckle. "Does that sound familiar to you?"

"Yeah," Sonic said, smiling in spite of himself. "Sounds similar to something I heard in the past on another continent. So, he's from far away then," he said with a tone of wistful observation.

Gadget frowned. "What's funny about that?"

Sonic's smile fell. The two of them were in silence again for several minutes – Gadget was surprised Sonic could last that long without talking, running, or breaking something. As the lengthy silence began to feel awkward for him he pressed his fingertips together, starting to think that maybe he should bring up his own confession but then Sonic piped up:

"I shouldn't have come here."

Gadget blinked. "Then why did you?"

"I was scared," Sonic answered quickly, as if worried that any delay would dry up his courage. "I wasn't sure what I'd see here. I didn't believe that Omega would do what he did without a good reason since he's one of us now and he was so badly damaged I was convinced there had been a fight between him and Infinite. Guess I should have put more faith in Silver's abilities. I thought that, maybe, it had been a mistake to leave Infinite behind when taking Omega back because that put everyone else here in danger. I was prepared to fight here. I didn't have any inkling of a thought that someone so strong could ever be rendered so weak."

Gadget swallowed. It tingled going down his throat and it felt raw. Once again, he considered opening his mouth to speak. He got that far before Sonic interrupted: "Infinite is your guest, isn't he?"

Gadget lost control of his jaw and it hung open in disbelief. His eyes went wide and fearful.

"When were you planning to tell us?"

"Um… just now?"

Sonic snorted with restrained laughter. "Really, kid?"

"I honestly did intend to come clean a while ago but it just got away from me and… I'm just making excuses now." Gadget lowered his head, ears drooping. "I didn't say sooner because… I don't know, I guess I was scared too. I thought that maybe you would try to attack him and I didn't want you to imprison him because I thought that would mean that I didn't get to look after him. He's really sick."

"You know, you're part of the resistance," Sonic reminded him. "If you asked we might've just put you in charge of him."

"Would you? Because it didn't feel that way."

"Whaddya mean?"

"It sounded like everyone was in favour of a more 'hands off' option."

Sonic nodded understandingly. "Still, though, you could have said something to me and Tails."

"Well… you two were the hardest hit among us. You don't have to pretend that it would be easy to accept, I know that what I'm trying to do here is dangerous and Infinite was probably one of the greatest enemies you ever had to face. I think that's why I refused to let you all know. I wanted to act on my own conscience by myself without people telling me what I should be thinking about him."

"And 'cause he's kinda cute?"

Gadget threw his hands up and waved them defensively as he stuttered and spluttered, making Sonic laugh out loud. "No! It's not like that! No, no, no!"

"I'm kidding, Rookie! Chill!" Sonic giggled. "Seriously, though, I get where you're coming from. Sometimes you just wanna show people what you're really made of but you've gotta have the right opportunity. Like, it's great and all to fight in a war and be a badass at kicking ro-butts but if that's not what you want people to think about you then you've gotta find something else."

"Yeah, something like that…"

"So then what's your end goal? You gotta have something to show so the rest of us can see the fruits of all your good work and the part of you that you're most proud of instead of what you're forced to be by circumstances. And if a bad guy goes good in the process then that's only a good thing, yeah?"

"Yeah," Gadget said with a melting kind of voice. He blinked and immediately tried to swallow it back, realising how adoring it sounded. More silence followed, which became awkward even quicker than the last. Gadget fidgeted but Sonic didn't react to his utterance or the tone of it. When he did finally speak it was for a slight change of subject.

"Why did you think there was some good in him deep down?"

Gadget's hands froze where they had been wringing. For the time being he didn't have any sort of answer to this. The question blew his mind a little bit, even if it was only because of a small implication about the blue hero. "You didn't?"

"I tried to, but it's so hard with him." Sonic shook his head. "He doesn't give anything away. I mean, with Eggman sometimes I imagine that if he ever gave up being a supervillain he'd just be a funny old man who made toys and fun park rides and would just generally do things that made other people smile. He always comes up with these rollercoaster bases and funny personalities for his robots even though he doesn't have to and it's really hard to totally hate a guy who has that much childish creativity with no qualms about what anyone thinks about his ideas. But with Infinite I couldn't ever see anything other than pleasure in destruction and amusement in killing and no matter how hard I try I can't make any other idea stick. So, what gave you the idea?"

Gadget spent a while ruminating on that. When he finally began to answer he still wasn't sure that he was quite ready to. "I, well… it just seemed so empty, you know. Like, that's how a monster acts, not a man. And he was just so… hurt. It's totally sad seeing someone like that and… if he can't hurt anyone anymore then he has to learn to live without hurt and pain, like, learning to live peacefully."

For a long time afterwards Sonic just stared at him hard, hands clasped between his knees and his brow furrowed. It caused Gadget to squirm and return to fidgeting for a while. Then Sonic smiled brightly without warning.

"You really are something else, Rookie." He bounced to his feet. "Glad we had this talk and I'm glad you could be here. It means a lot to me, y'know, that somebody can pick up the slack on being the good guy when I can't."

Gadget blushed, touched yet caught out by the praise. He rubbed the fur at the back of his head coyly. "It's, er, no biggie."

As a matter of fact, he knew it was actually a huge biggie. Sonic – the people's hero all the world over – was thanking him for being a hero. The height of the honour made him dizzy.

"W-well," he began, trying not to melt into a squirming goo, "we should probably get back to base."

"Yeah, it'll be a good idea for you to get some proper rest," Sonic said, stretching as though he was about to run. "Better yet, you should just go home and avoid the Knuckles-storm with Vector-force winds all whirling under a Shadow-pressure system at all costs. At least until it dies down. They're pretty mad about this turn of events."

"That's tempting but I ought to come clean to them too. At the very least it'll get this off my conscience."

"I'm proud to have fought side-by-side with a brave man like you," Sonic performed dramatically like they were in a wartime melodrama. He gave Gadget a two-fingered salute before the two began to walk. Gadget's ears pricked in surprise when he noticed that while he was walking to the exit, Sonic was going in the opposite direction, back to the ward.

"Um, aren't you coming?"

Sonic paused and then turned to look at him. Then he snapped his fingers. "Right! You were still kinda preoccupied when this happened. Basically, this strict human vet wouldn't let us move Infinite no matter how hysterically we cried 'don't you know who we are?!' so Knuckles has us rostered to take turns watching over him at his bed. You got the first shift by default and—you know what? Maybe you should stop by the base and set the record straight with everyone else. There are a couple of so-called good guys who need some encouragement to not strangle a black jackal in his sleep."

Gadget's stomach dropped. That was not what he wanted to hear. Gulping nervously, he turned to jog out of the hospital and once outside he fired his grappling hook to shoot off quickly across the street. Infinite was in safe hands for now but he had to make sure things stayed that way.

"GADGET!" Knuckles roared. He was so quick that Gadget wasn't sure how he knew it was him coming through the door. However, that was a minor concern to the big issue. Knuckles must have been inconsolably furious since this was the first time Gadget had ever heard the leader say his real name.

It was another whole team meeting. Everyone was present sans Sonic and all with a heightened level of agitation. Silver was still having difficulty seeing straight while he sat on a crate chewing the ends of his gloves. Rouge and Espio were deceptively calm, holding a pose with their arms folded that they barely moved from. Everyone gave Vector a wide berth since his tail was whipping back and forth and Amy paced backwards and forwards, sighing and moaning. Tails and Charmy were both on the ground – surprisingly, in Charmy's case – with their flying appendages twitching while Shadow stood in the darkest shadow near the back as usual. He didn't appear any different but Gadget could swear there was some gloomy aura spilling off him in waves that made the black in his fur seem darker and the red have a brightly demonic glow to it while his eyes burned.

"Give us the low-down," Knuckles demanded, stomping up to Gadget with a steel-eyed glare. "What's the current scoop with Infinite? I want to hear anything of significance, no matter how insignificant!"

Gadget stared back at him, sweating bullets. "Wh-why me?"

"Because you were just there in the hospital room with him!"

"Oh…" Gadget sighed. Then he gulped and straightened up rigidly, realising he was still technically in hot water. "Well, he's not that great…"

"Is he dying?" Vector blurted out a bit too eagerly.

"No! He's not dying, he just thinks he is. He's still receiving blood transfusions and drugs to keep him sedate while he heals but otherwise it looks like he's going to recover."

Vector growled in frustration. Knuckles folded his arms, looking down at the floor while he considered what to do but the others weren't going to let that happen quietly.

"What do we do now?" Charmy asked. His wings buzzed anxiously.

"If we are as complacent as we have been it's possible more conflicts like this recent one will break out," Espio pointed out. "Our containment plan needs to be properly outlined now so it can be finalised by the time he's discharged."

"Tails' plan from the last meeting was pretty good," Amy suggested.

"You shot it down back then," Tails recalled.

"But I thought about it since then and it's not like Dr Eggman has ever pulled a trick or trap that we couldn't overcome, especially not with Sonic on our side."

"Until Infinite," Rouge muttered.

Amy pouted at her, placing her fists on her hips. "And who was supposed to be keeping any eye out to make sure stuff like this didn't happen?"

"I can't be on a communications mission and keep a 24/7 eye on the Masked Grimdark!" Rouge snapped. "So many people are stuck in communication blind spots and you are supposedly our communications officer."

"People don't tally themselves! I'm swamped trying to keep track of who's been identified and who's not! Which really should have been others' responsibility." Amy turned a stink-eye towards the Chaotix.

"We're far too busy doing all the legwork!" Vector protested. "And besides, record-keeping is Espio's role in the agency."

Espio sighed and pinched the base of his horn. "Let's stop blaming others for the current shortfalls. We're all in over out heads with the work we need to do." He also muttered under his breath, "but for the record, no one in Chaotix is specifically in charge of record-keeping."

"True," Knuckles nodded, "but I still expected better intel instead of the 'unsecure, undisclosed' location Rouge came up with."

"I told you, I had it supervised by another member of the resistance," Rouge growled. "And he was weak. There was nothing urgent we needed to do. Don't involve yourself in the petty blame game too – it's unbecoming of a leader."

Gadget's ears flickered in interest. Throughout this discussion and for the past day he'd been wondering something and now he had a hook to bring it up. "What exactly did Infinite do to Omega?"

The others all stared at him. He adjusted his glasses as he shrank under their gazes. "I mean… you said he was weak and Omega is crazy powerful, so how did he cause so much damage?"

The eyes turned to Silver. He pulled his glove out of his mouth and his expression went from worried to annoyed. "I told you all, I defeated Omega, not Infinite. Come to think of it, I didn't even see the guy when I was fighting. I only responded to the emergency call that came up on the computer. I had no idea he was even there or that we were expecting him to be based on Rouge's intel until after I'd confronted Omega."

"So… does that mean he's not a threat anymore?" Charmy asked hopefully.

"For now…" Knuckles answered cautiously. He glanced around and his eyes fell on Gadget. He raised an eyebrow. "What are you so happy about?"

Gadget started and covered his mouth. He hadn't realised the smile had crept up on his face. His eyes darted back and forth to all of the faces staring at him again with a questioning look, save for Rouge, who snickered delicately behind her fingers and Shadow whose angry expression may have become permanent by now.

"Um, I'm just glad nobody died, is all," Gadget chuckled nervously. The eyes were still on him his various degrees of disbelieving him. He gulped and then took a deep breath. "And I'm glad Infinite is okay because I've been the one taking care of him for the past two weeks."

The eyes all went wide and jaws dropped. Even Shadow's eyes bugged out but the hard set of his jaw, teeth visibly clenching, and his fingers digging into his arms betrayed how much angrier he was to hear this. Gadget rubbed his own arm, tail ducking between his legs and ears folding back.

"That 'unsecure, undisclosed' location is my apartment… where he's living… with me."

And then the shouting erupted.