Wow, sorry guys! I didn't mean for this chapter to take so long but here I am. Unfortunately, the main reason this fell by the wayside was that I got an idea to fix up a story that I had already written and it just became so, so important that I do that. It happens to me quite a bit - I just get an idea in my head for one of my other stories (or a new story) and it just becomes so important I can't not do it right then and there. But here, I have returned and I fear the monster I have created. Now I have to somehow get back to cute domestic fluff with Gadget and Infinite-geez, isn't this just what happens when you charge into something with no plan whatsoever? Although, I did get to write out a funny scene that's been in my head for ages. Please let me know how this turned out.

"YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!" Vector roared and for the first time Gadget took note of how big and full of sharp white teeth his jaws were and privately prayed the crocodile wasn't going to come any closer.

"He's just been loose in the city?!" Amy squealed. "This whole time?!"

"I-in your apartment?!" Tails added at an equally high pitch. Gadget had expected him to be one of the furious ones so it threw him for a loop when Tails instead trembled so hard he looked like he might wet himself and his fingers twitched uselessly for all the horror written on his face. "I-I-I was just th-there this morning!"

"You have some explaining to do!" Knuckles snapped. He jabbed the wolf in the chest, lightly by his own standards but it was difficult to control his strength while he was this worked up, causing Gadget to fly off his feet and land on his behind.

"What's your game?" Vector interrogated, swooping in to lean snout-to-snout with Gadget. His tail thumped heavily, making Gadget gulp nervously. "Have you been secretly plotting against us?! I'll bet you were just biding your time with us, waiting until we were tired out from the war to snatch the remains of Dr Eggman's weaponry to use in your own dastardly world-domination plot! I said from the start that you couldn't be trusted, didn't I?"

Rouge snorted ungracefully as she burst into snickers. Espio sighed. "You said nothing of the sort," he corrected.

"Yeah, I don't remember that either," Charmy added.

"Don't say things like that!" Amy cried, voice high strained. "I'm sure there's a reasonable explanation for this!" She turned to Gadget with intensely imploring eyes. "Sonic wouldn't trust anybody shady, would he? So you're not a bad person, right?"

"Maybe we shouldn't put things in 'bad people' and 'good people' categories," Gadget muttered. "It's probably more of a grey area."

Vector's fist slammed on the central console. "You think we have the luxury to be talking about grey areas right now?"

"Oh, come on, you're overreacting," Rouge sighed loudly. "You think I would have let this go on if anyone was really in danger? You've got to give me more credit."

"Your job was to keep us informed!" Knuckles rounded on her.

"And I did."

"Badly!"

"This is my fault," muttered Tails in a wobbly voice. Amy leaped to start giving him fawning assurances that it wasn't his fault at all even as he continued: "I should have realised after the previous meeting that the containment was urgent but I was complacent. And now Omega is…"

"A victim of his own hubris," Shadow piped up, once again having the effect of making anybody who was still hissing or seething simmer down. "As usual. And as far as I can see this situation is straightforward so you're all bitching and shouting at each other for no reason, as usual. Infinite is powerless right now."

"But in the future he might—" Tails blurted.

"We're making a containment plan so it stays that way," Shadow interrupted him with a growl. "The dismal failures in leadership around here are pi—"

"It's not failure!" Knuckles protested. "We're just running a collaborative effort."

"That has resulted in no action against one of our key concerns so far." Shadow got off the wall, striding towards the middle of the room. "Tails, leave Omega be for the time being and get on with your specialised cell or it's my plan. Rouge, lay off the espionage and just do as you are. Espio, leave the footwork to your dumber colleagues and work on compiling records so Amy can do her damn duties."

Espio grumbled while Vector and Charmy whined in offense. Amy giggled and stuck her tongue at them but retracted it quickly when Shadow barked at her for being so childish.

"Who suddenly made you leader around here?" Knuckles fumed.

"If you'd rather a trial by fists I'd be happy to oblige," Shadow retorted, raising a fist to illustrate how serious he was. Knuckles raised both of his in response and shouted back, challenging him to take it outside. "Gladly, just make sure you know when you ought to quit because your strength in an asset in clearing out stray robots and clearing debris. And as for you…"

Gadget's tail tucked involuntarily. He tried to smile innocently but it was strained as Shadow stood nose to nose with him. He suddenly felt too hot to be wearing his own fur and his throat closed up under the bladed glare of Shadow's intimidating red eyes. "You're treading a thin line on my patience," Shadow threatened. "The only reason I haven't blasted your face off for what would basically be treason is because the worst didn't come to pass but don't get so cocky in the future."

"I'm not trying—" Gadget whimpered.

Shadow cut him off: "If you ever hide anything like that from me or make such egregious presumptions again, consider yourself a dead man walking."

He didn't wait for a response from Gadget before barking: "Everyone, get moving! Knuckles, with me!"

"What? Why?" Knuckles questioned, confused. First, he had been thrown for a loop by a sudden compliment and now this. Shadow's thoughts were obtuse at even the best of times.

Shadow glared at him disappointedly. "Is your memory that short? I'm going to show you who's boss!"

The meeting broke up immediately after that, Gadget could tell even though nobody had left immediately. Knuckles' roar of offense as he and Shadow left went ignored as the others turned to smaller groups to at least make a show of talking seriously about things. Gadget couldn't fault them. Shadow's frightening leadership made him anxious to be useful and refrain from messing up despite having no idea what he could possibly be messing up. The sudden release of the stress with the black hedgehog's departure made him feel ill but the fear of him didn't leave. He felt stuck now; Shadow was an ally but at the same time he was someone Gadget thought he needed to protect himself from. No, not himself, he realised belatedly, he needed to protect Infinite.

The next time Infinite awoke he felt sick like he'd stepped off a boat but the world was still swaying. Though the sheets were light his fur had become mussed and sweaty in his sleep, making him feel like he'd been wrapped in thick cotton. He tried to move but his limbs felt too heavy to lift and nausea churned in his gut. He groaned.

Someone to his right squeaked. There was a clatter of metal chair legs being pushed aside as they skittered further away from him. He opened his eyes and turned his head slowly. It took a while for his vision to clear completely and for several seconds all he could pick out was a large pink and red shape among the hospital whites and greens. The shape became a female hedgehog, one he didn't recognise but he assumed she must have been part of the resistance since she was here and Gadget wasn't. He swallowed hard, pretending that sad ache in his chest was just another wave of nausea. The female hedgehog peeked around the baby blue notebook she held up in front of her face like a shield and Infinite assumed sense must have finally caught up with her and she realised that there was no way he was going to move from his spot anytime soon. She let the notebook drop down to her chest but kept holding it protectively, taking one tentative step at a time back to her chair as she spoke to him:

"Are you… how are you feeling?"

She forced herself to smile and Infinite was somewhat impressed. It didn't look overly insincere but the panicky look in her wide-eyes made her overall expression seem like it had been moulded from plastic. He wanted to enjoy it but his entire brain felt like it was pulsing.

"Like shit," he croaked ineloquently.

"Yeah, Dr Hai said you might feel that way. Do you wanna throw up?"

He did but he didn't want to tell her that, so he just stared at the ceiling staying deliberately silent. The pink hedgehog made an offensive noise and he heard the chair creak as she sat down in it again.

"Fine, be like that," she said in a huffy voice. "There's a bucket beside your bed on your right if you feel like being sick, just so you know, it's not like I'm gonna help you since you don't want it."

Her cold words sounded desperate and pleading, like she wanted him to let her help him. Infinite fought the urge to look at her to let his incredulity be known but his brows and lips still twisted into the expression. Was she dumb?

She didn't press the issue further and the room quietened down to nothing but mechanical whirs from machines and air-conditioning and the scratch of her pen writing across the notebook pages. Occasionally she let out a thoughtful hum.

"They sure are taking a long time," she murmured softly. His ears twitched but he maintained the resolve. He'd stared at the ceiling for so long now he was beginning to see patterns in the white, or maybe that was just the fluorescent lights causing those blotches. He wouldn't take the bait, he wouldn't take the bait, he wouldn't take the bait—

"The nurses, by the way," the hedgehog snapped and he could tell by her voice alone that she was annoyed. Success. "I already pressed the button because they told me to do that if you woke up during my shift but they've all been really, really busy since Omega's attack. I mean, we don't blame you for it – at least, not anymore – so don't worry about that."

They had blamed him for it. Of course they did. That's what he was like, after all, wasn't it? He was a monster who didn't care about other people, a tyrannical beast so full of hubris that even at his weakest he would dare to provoke a highly advanced war robot outfitted with all the latest upgrades in death and destruction. It sounded just like him. Clever guys, that resistance crew. Infinite's lips twisted in fury and self-disgust but he maintained his silence.

The hedgehog girl let out another frustrated moan. Her pen scribbled furiously for a short time afterwards. A nurse came in, took his vitals and tried to get him to answer routine questions. Despite hearing them clearly, he did his best to let them wash over him and never responded. The nurse predictably gave up and turned to the hedgehog for a short conversation that he tuned out until the nurse hurried out of the room to stick to a busy schedule. It went back to semi-silence for a while after that, just the same as before – machines, air-conditioning, thoughtful hums. Then, out of the blue, the pink hedgehog popped a question:

"What do you think about Maurice as a name for a first-born son?"

This time Infinite did turn his head look at her with his incredulous expression. How was he supposed to answer such a random question? What was she even talking about?

However, she didn't require his input to continue talking, his body taking the role of a sounding board for her words to bounce straight back to her. She wasn't even looking at him, her eyes were tilted up to stare vacantly at a random corner of the room. "Hmm, maybe not. It doesn't have a very strong sound to it. It might suit the third-born at best."

She looked down into the pages of her book and continued to write. "What about Olgilvie?"

"No heckin' way."

Her gaze whipped to him in surprise as though she'd forgotten he was there. Silence broken, he had no choice but to keep on. Well, technically he did have a choice but here he had his first chance to prove that maybe he wasn't a monster after all.

"Any kid with that name is going to grow up thinking he's been cursed."

She huffed, glaring at him. "Oh, so you can hear me, huh?"

"I can. And I can also hear that 'Olgilvie' is the worst name idea ever."

"I'm just trying to think of a unique name!"

"There's a fine line between unique and asinine."

The pink hedgehog crossed her arms. "Well, then, what do you suggest would be a good name for a first-born son? It has to be something special, so I won't settle for something like 'Tom' or 'James'."

He snorted in amusement but decided he would humour her. "What about 'Finn'?"

"'Finn', huh…" she muttered, putting a finger to her cheek. "That might not be so bad—hey! Did you only suggest that because it's a part of your name? In-FINN-ite?"

"No," he replied, and the quietness of his voice gave her pause.

Infinite looked up at the ceiling again. He'd run his mouth a bit too quickly just then and without realising it he'd referred back to his past that he never wanted to think about. Finn was a boy he once knew back in his hometown, a fair-furred child who Infinite remembered having always been small for his age. The other town children used to call him Finn the Finder for his keen senses of smell and sight and his natural aptitude for logic that made him the best at finding things.

"Is it your real name?" the pink hedgehog asked because apparently, she could never just leave well enough alone.

He didn't choke back the laugh that barked from his throat. "As if you would be so privileged."

It would have been just what she was looking for though – something thoughtful and unique. From a family that had only produced daughters until he came along, it was expected that his parents had a name planned out for him for years. And they let him have it, even though he had been a disappointment from day one.

Someone opened the door and knocked on the side of the doorframe, mostly as a way of announcing themselves since they'd clearly already let themselves in. The sound felt like relief to the jackal. It interrupted the flow of this conversation, effectively ending it right when he was keen to drop it. He wondered who had arrived, thinking at first of all the resistance members he knew the faces of on the assumption that the arrival was here to relieve the hedgehog of the aforementioned 'shift' duty.

"Okay, let's see what we've got here…" they said. Infinite's ears pricked. He knew that voice.

"I didn't expect you to be available so soon, Dr Hai," the pink hedgehog remarked, confirming his suspicion. Then she gasped. "It's not because Shadow's bullying you, is it? He's been really mean ever since he took charge."

The human doctor chuckled. "No, you just caught me with the news at a good time, is all."

She suddenly appeared standing over Infinite and looking down at him, tucking her hair behind her ears so it wouldn't fall in front of her vision. "You look very alert; it's good to see. But I'm still going to need to do a few tests and ask a few questions, if you don't mind."

Infinite shot a pointed glare at the pink hedgehog. Simone followed his gaze to her and smiled apologetically. "Would you mind stepping outside, Miss Rose? Even if you are here as security, it's not appropriate to have a third person listen in to medical conversations without the patient's consent."

"Oh, okay then," Miss Rose the Hedgehog said, "I'll just be right outside that door. Yell out if you want me back for anything."

She left the room, looking back in and giving Infinite a meaningful look before she shut the door. Infinite jerked his chin back in affront at her expression – another dual emotional state that indicated both that she meant harm if it was required of her but that she pitied him for being the target of that harm. She had looked at him like he was weak… well, he supposed he was.

Simone sighed and turned back to him. "Well, let's get started."

At her deflated tone Infinite wanted to sink into his sheets and he hated it. Every second of her disappointment made him feel like shit and he hated it. He hated it.

Please review, give me strength for what's to come.