Speedy's note: Posting the last chapter to a long-running story is always a peculiar feeling. I'll keep it short here; a great thank you to all of you would read the entirety of this story, long as it took to publish and everything. An even greater Thank You goes out to all reviewers. It wouldn't be anywhere near the same without you guys (and girls). Thanks for bearing with me and this fic. I hope you had a good time, and maybe I'll see you around for future fics. Take care! :)
Epilogue
Sonic leaned forwards to catch a look into the pod. There was still about a plateful of noodles left. The hedgehog glanced up at his friends. "Anyone still want something?"
Tails grinned and shook his head, leaned back against the sofa, a flat hand over his stomach. "I'm full. Can't eat another piece."
"You can have the rest. I'm all served." Knuckles was grinning too, slouched into an armchair to Sonic's right. He looked an unfamiliar sort of relaxed now, and Sonic idly noted the rarity of seeing him thus, in particular off his island. Maybe, and just maybe, he was getting used to the company and to Tails' workshop. Sonic smiled to himself even as Knuckles continued: "And knowing you didn't have anything for a week, I guess it's only fair you have the rest."
Sonic chuckled, happily loading the remains of their hasty and simple dinner onto his plate. "I think you have a great point there." He maneuvered an overloaded spoon of noodles into his mouth, through a mere miracle loosing none on the way.
Tails thoughtfully watched him. "I still wonder where you were all that time. A week is really long, you know..."
Knuckles shrugged. "Inside the Master Emerald?"
"In a Special Zone?", Sonic added a second option through a mouthful of food.
"Yeah, but…" Tails looked between them. "What if that's the same? What if Special Zones are inside the Master Emerald? Or inside the Chaos Emeralds? Or if… The Emeralds are, theoretically speaking, objects from a hyperspace, or a higher dimension if you want. That's why they can easily ignore laws of nature and manipulate time and space. But what if the Emeralds are not just objects, but… gates to this hyperspace? Like portals! And everytime we entered a Special Zone, we entered a new area in this dimension? And that's why when you collect an Emerald inside a Special Zone, the entire zone kind of disappears, because you, literally, took the gate?"
Sonic swallowed his noodles, averting his gaze to Knuckles, but the echidna just shrugged lightly. Apparently his understanding of Tails' words went just as far as Sonic's own. Not very far.
Tails didn't seem to care he didn't get any proper replies. "Or there is just one Special Zone and it just keeps changing?"
"Chaos always changes. That's, if you want to call it that, the most reliable thing about it," Knuckles noticed.
Eyebrows raised, Sonic stared at the echidna, a silent 'don't tell me you understand a thing of what Tails says'. The guardian shrugged to it, settling to lean his right elbow onto the armrest and resting his head against his large palm.
Fine, then. "You're saying I was in the same place all the time, no matter how different everything looked?", the hedgehog wondered.
"Maybe. Maybe you weren't anywhere at all, maybe you simply didn't exist during the time you were inside the Master."
Sonic was still staring at his red friend. "And what's with what I did and saw there?"
"Hallucinations maybe. You gotta admit you were quite heavily drugged when I got you out of it…"
A frown formed on Sonic's face. "You don't really believe that."
"No," Knuckles admitted. "I think… I think I want to believe that there's a whole world inside the Master Emerald. 'Cause a part of me has always believed that. Maybe… maybe a part of me actually belongs there…"
"If you plan on taking a trip, you better tell us how to get someone out of your shiny rock again," Sonic remarked. "It'd really suck if you got yourself into the Emerald without a return ticket."
Knuckles flashed another rare if weary grin. "No worries. No trips planned anytime soon."
Tails laughed. "Let me know if you change your mind, I'd be very interested in proving my theories on all these things."
Sonic lightly shook his head. "Trust me, a few minutes inside a Special Zone are really enough. On the long run, the place drives you nuts."
"What do you think, Tails?" Knuckles turned to the fox. "Maybe we should send Sonic in there again then? There's nothing to ruin…"
"Oh, you –" Sonic threw his spoon at the echidna, scoring a hit right between the eyes.
"Hey!" Knuckles sat upright with a jolt, picked up the spoon and had already lifted it to hurtle it back at Sonic when Tails cut in.
"Guys!"
Knuckles and Sonic turned to the two-tailed fox, chorusing a "Huh?"
"Peace." Tails smiled. "We're not sending anyone anywhere. It's way better being together again, right?"
Knuckles' face melted into a mellow smile in spite of whatever temper Sonic would have expected for comeback. Instead, the echidna just settled back in his relaxed position. "Hmm…"
Sonic grinned at his friends. Tails was right, there was one thing that, above all others, made being here hundreds of times better than being inside giant magic gemstones or anywhere else.
He wasn't alone here.
The evening hours ticked by quietly and peacefully, with the topics of conversation going from one to another at random while the three friends slouched on the sofa. It was still relatively early in the evening when Tails fell asleep sitting, almost landing face first in the dishes on the low table in front of him if Sonic hadn't reacted quickly and caught him. Somehow, as he watched from his chair, Knuckles was sure this sort of thing had not happened the first time.
Sonic stood from his seat with Tails in his arms, the green eyes softly resting on the little fox. "I suppose he didn't get to sleep much with Metal Sonic around," he said quietly.
Knuckles nodded, also standing up. "Yeah. Poor kid." He walked out in front of Sonic without the hedgehog having to ask for it and held the doors open.
Sonic smiled a thanks to him as he carried Tails into his bedroom. The little fox didn't stir to being gently placed on the bed, nor to Sonic tucking his shoes off his feet and pulling the blankets over him. Before he left, Sonic stroked over Tails' bangs and flicked on a tiny lamp near the bedside that hardly gave out any light at all. Knuckles silently watched from the doorway. While it was always obvious that Sonic and Tails were close, it seemed strinkingly on display now, this family bond they shared.
Sonic looked up and caught Knuckles' gaze. "He gets scared of the dark sometimes," the blue hedgehog explained in a whisper, pointing at the lamp, utterly unaware that the lamp wasn't anywhere near the remarkable thing to see here.
Knuckles nodded back at the hedgehog anyway, then his gaze returned to the sleeping fox. "Sleep tight, Tails," he whispered and followed Sonic outside, switching off the lights to leave just the bedside lamp to softly send its warm glow through the dark room.
Sonic yawned even as he closed the door. "Mind you, little guy isn't the only one who really needs to hit the hay," he said in a normal level of voice again.
Knuckles nodded. "No, he's not," he admitted. "I can still feel trying to draw on those freaky fake Emeralds and..." He faltered again over a proper explanation.
Sonic held his head tilted to the side and one ear had flicked backwards as he studied Knuckles. "I know what you mean. That fake Chaos Emerald I had on the Ark and caused Chaos Control with kinda sucked energy outta me I didn't know belonged there." He underlined what he thought of that with a grimace.
Knuckles shrugged tiredly. "That's about it. A fake isn't as powerful. And no matter how much they looked like Master Emeralds, they weren't… stable. They weren't mastering anything." The echidna shook his head. "Gah."
A grin flashed over Sonic's face. "Agreed." He chuckled as they strolled back into the living room. "Will you be good on the couch? After I kept you outta your bed on your island, maybe it'd be fair I lend you mine now…"
Knuckles responded with a shake of his head. "Nah, I'll be good on the couch." His eyes roamed the table with the messy remains of their dinner. "If someone removes this battlefield before."
Sonic laughed. "I'll be right at it, have to at least try to make a not totally bad host for once," he assured and began to gather the dishes. "You know," he said with a sideways glance at Knuckles, "you really scared me back there."
The echidna dropped into the couch heavily. "Trust me, I scared myself way too often this past week. Just… be so kind not to give me any heart attacks for a while, okay, Sonic?"
A pair of green eyes shot up from the table to fix on Knuckles. "I don't give you heart attacks for a while? You totally gave me one!"
"If I do that a few more hundred times, we'll maybe get even one day." Knuckles thought he managed to pull of the mock tone of voice, but he couldn't quite conceal the heaviness underneath it. Chaos, he was tired.
Sonic frowned at him. "I'm sorry," he apparently felt urged to say when the echidna remained silent.
Knuckles just shrugged at it. He wasn't interested in starting another argument right now. Now that he was dry, warm and fed, he found he lacked any and all motivation for any confrontation that wasn't absolutely necessary. "I suppose it's who you are and we'll have to put up with it."
Sonic grinned, making a pile of the plates. "Like with the fact Eggman's eggshaped and that there's too much H2O out there?", he joked.
Knuckles grinned back briefly. "Yeah, like that."
For a minute the guardian sat in silence, just watching Sonic placing the forks and spoons on top of the pile of plates and carrying everything outside, heading for the kitchen. A second trip had the pots travel the same way and the hedgehog returned to point out the battlefield had been cleaned up and offered to find Knuckles a proper blanket somewhere, but the echidna had something else on his mind.
"Sonic? Can I talk to you about something?"
The blue hedgehog blinked at the sudden air of seriousness again. "Yeah, sure? What's it? I promise I won't joke about it if it's about your weird shiny rock and that you had to break it. I told you I'm really thankful and stuff…"
"It's not about that." Knuckles shuffled a little on the couch. "I was just wondering… if you could tell me a few more things about what you saw when you were…. away? The last time you weren't exactly fit and happy to talk to me…"
Sonic grinned suddenly. "I shoulda known you wouldn't be happy until I'd described every parcel of ground I saw in there." He sat back down, and promptly elbowed him. "But fine. I kind of owe you. I'll make your story teller again. But just this once, okay? Then we're even?"
Knuckles nodded, trying to conceal how much that meant to him. He knew he would never ask again, and he thought Sonic knew that, too.
The two sat on the couch for another hour as Sonic retold everything he remembered, attempting to make sense of it as he went. The red echidna listened closely, trying his best to file it all to memory, trying to remember enough to check it against the old writings or to keep it in mind should anything of it ever come up again, even if he was at times struggling to keep his eyes open. He suspected that Sonic had him all figured out at the end there, because he came to a finish rather quickly and suddenly. By that point, even Knuckles couldn't bring himself to mind anymore, though.
After Sonic had finally gotten Knuckles a blanket to sleep under, they wished each other good night and Sonic departed to his bedroom, leaving Knuckles very tired but strangely content as well. He really hoped he could remember what Sonic told him until the morning...
The blanket Sonic had produced for him to use was bright blue and pretty soft and fluffy, but it wasn't before he'd turned off the lights and crawled under it, just to get poked by something spiky and pulled a single quill out of the blanket's fabric that he realized Sonic had given him his own blanket.
Knuckles shrugged and settled comfortably under it. Well, probably they really were even now.
The End
