The next morning, Rouge slept late. She had sweet, mist-filled, quasi-lucid dreams of the Master Emerald, glowing softly under a collection of blankets in the spare bedroom. Having it for her own was a dream come true in and of itself. Mmmm . . . she would polish it every day, and keep some of her other jewels around it for comparison, and she could go in and gaze at it whenever she wanted . . .
She was dragged rudely from her slumber by a knocking at the front door. Groaning, she burrowed under the blankets and covered her head with her pillow. The bed was soft and warm, hugging her close and filling her muscles with a peaceful limpness. Whoever it was could just go away . . .
The knocking persisted, without once wavering. Steady, unemotional, madly annoying. Groaning again, rubbing her eyes and mussing her ears, Rouge clambered out of bed and dragged a bathrobe over her pajamas. She realized it was inside-out, then decided against fixing it. She was just too groggy to give a fig newton.
"What'ya want, anyway?" she called irately, clumping towards the door. It couldn't be Shadow knocking—he'd have kicked out the lock and walked in by now. It couldn't be Sonic either—he'd have lost patience and run off long ago. Amy would have . . . oh, never mind, might as well just open the door and see who it was already. They certainly were very stubborn about their knocking.
Rouge perked up slightly when she saw who was standing outside.
"Knuckles!" she said, smiling. Then the smile vanished from her face just as rapidly, as she got a better look. Knuckles looked terrible. He stood as if he could barely remain upright, swaying slightly on his feet and hanging his head. His dreadlocks were matted and unkempt. And . . . he still had wounds and bruises all over his body. Some of them were oozing slightly.
"Knuckles, are you all right?" asked Rouge anxiously.
Knuckles lifted his head and opened his eyes. Rouge was again struck by a sudden desire to know how to scream—instead of the usual luxurious purple irises glimmering within the whites, his eyes were green. All green. All over. A solid, clear, crystalline green, like—like—
Like emeralds. Even as Rouge stepped back in shock, she noticed there were small flat surfaces angled in various directions in Knuckles' eyes. Facets. His eyes were honest-to-goodness emeralds!
Rouge recovered her composure.
"Sorry, I was startled," she said contritely. "Is . . . is that a side effect of being revived by the Master Emerald?"
Knuckles stood in silence, looking at her. Every now and then he blinked, his eyelids sliding down over his emerald eyes with an unnerving naturalness. He stood that way for quite a while.
"Knuckles?"
Slowly his head tilted, his ragged dreadlocks swinging with it. A moment more of silence, then:
"Why did you kill me?"
His voice was his own. And yet, not. There was a soft, plaintive note mixed in, a raspy little undertone like the croak of an old man. Rouge tried to swallow, but her throat was too tight to let her.
"I . . . it was an accident. I'm so sorry Knuckles, I really am. I didn't mean to hurt you, I thought you would be able to glide safely."
"Why did you kill me?" persisted Knuckles, his head tilting the other way, his eyelids angling down sadly over those surreal emerald eyes.
"I told you," whispered Rouge, shaking her head. "Look, Knuckles, I—I'm glad you're alive. More than anything I'm glad you're alive. But—but could we maybe talk later? It's too soon after this happened. For both of us."
A bit of silence.
"Why? Why, Rouge?"
His mittened hand reached out to her suddenly. Stiffening, she pulled back.
"Look, we'll talk later, okay?"
She shut the door with surprising haste and leaned against it, sliding to the floor.
Scritch, scritch. Scritch, scritch.
Her ears stood up stiffly, her body tense.
Scritch, scritch, scritch. Scritch-scratch.
Knuckles was running his knuckle-spikes up and down the door outside. Gently, without any anger. Just scratching plaintively away, like a puppy who wanted to come in.
Scritch-scratch, scritch-scritch-scritch.
Rouge didn't know why, but she felt terror climbing inside her. What was she so afraid of? She was never afraid of Knuckles' violent anger, of his punches. She would even have expected him to try punching down the door. And yet, he was just . . . scratching, and somehow it scared her more than any display of fury could have.
Scritch-scritch-scrabble-scritch-scritch.
"Stop it!" she called through the door. "Go away, we'll talk later, okay? Not now!"
Scritch.
Then silence. After an untold eternity, Rouge's sensitive ears picked up the sound of Knuckles' sneakers stepping off the doorstep and heading away from the house.
He was still limping.
After an hour or so, Rouge got up the nerve to go out and paint over the scratches on her door. She slapped on the only color of paint she had (eggshell blue), unconcerned about doing any kind of a careful job. She kept glancing over her shoulder.
When she had finished, she went inside, locked the door, and drifted towards the guest bedroom. Just stepping in through the door, she felt a soothing bubbly sort of energy wash over her. That crazy rock had some power. She drew aside one of the blankets covering the Master Emerald, then leaned back against a wall, her arms folded, and surveyed her prize.
Slowly her uneasiness crumbled away. A smile melted gradually onto her face, her large ears relaxing into a calm, less-alert position. Such a beauty, that Master Emerald. Such a beauty. Its powers were greater than she'd expected. Who knew it could bring back the dead? Or, hmmm, did that only work on official Guardians? Either way, the new eyeballs were a bit unorthodox. That'd take some getting used to.
Then again, she mused, it almost made sense. Reviving the dead was no party trick. The Master Emerald would probably want to leave some kind of sign, some marker informing the world that this person was indebted to the Emerald's power. It really could have made do with a tattoo or scar or something, but who was she to question that kind of a rock? And who knew, maybe the crystal eyeballs were only temporary. That'd be nice.
Then there was the question of what to do with Knuckles. He was evidently still ticked off. Understandably so. There was a new kind of dilemma—when you temporarily killed someone, how exactly did you make it up to them?
Rouge was still rotating this problem in her head when there came a sudden knocking at the front door. She stiffened for a moment, but as the knocking continued she realized it was different. Then there came a muffled call of "Rouge! Rouge, are ya home?" Sonic.
Rouge leaped forward and drew the blankets back over the Master Emerald, as her mind blazed into action. Okay, okay—let's see. It was more than possible to just sit tight and wait for Sonic's very short attention span to run out. Sure. But he and all the others would keep knocking, every day, and she couldn't hide forever. She knew what they were knocking for. Better to get it out of the way, quickly. Lay it to rest. Yes, that'd do.
"Com-ing!" she shouted towards the front door. Making very carefully sure that the Master Emerald was fully hidden, she shut the door of the guest bedroom and hurried towards the mudroom.
"Hi Sonic," she said to the hedgehog tapping his foot on the doorstep. "What's up, big blue?"
"Haven't you heard?" asked Sonic, his eyebrows raised. "The Master Emerald's gone, and so is Knuckles!"
"Wait, what?" Rouge blinked at him blankly.
"Disappeared! We found Angel Island lying on a mountainside, with no Master Emerald. Knuckles was gone too."
"And you're asking me because . . . ?" Rouge folded her arms and rocked back on one heel.
"Uhm," Sonic spluttered slightly, realizing the implication. "Well, uh, it's not like we thought—"
"Yeah, it's like you thought," said Rouge drily. She smirked. "When the old M.E.'s missing, I'm the first one to ask, huh?"
"Uh . . . sorry," said Sonic sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck. "But you do chase after it a lot. Amy and Blaze said you were planning to go to Angel Island last night, so we . . . uh . . . "
Rouge shrugged.
"Yeah, I know, I know. Sorry, I don't know anything about it. Better go ask someone else."
"Nothing?" said Sonic hesitantly. "Not even a hint? A clue?"
Rouge felt herself squirming internally under Sonic's honest gaze. Trusting, innocent little fools . . . how did they rip into your conscience like that? Biting her lip, she sighed and looked away.
"All . . . all right. I'll tell you everything."
"Oh?"
Rouge sighed again and flopped against the doorframe resignedly.
"Okay, so it's kind of my fault. Last night, I did go to Angel Island. I kinda got into a bit of . . . hide-and-seek with Knuckles, you know?"
"I get the picture," nodded Sonic, smiling slightly. He knew how Knuckles reacted around Rouge, and he'd witnessed a good few of their rows and chases.
"Well, yeah," shrugged Rouge. "So we were dashing around in the jungle like idiots. And I'd just managed to lose the Knucklehead, and I was . . . well, I'll admit I was kinda thinking of making a grab at the Master Emerald. I mean, I'm a treasure hunter. Can you blame a gal for being good at her job?"
"You're a real workaholic," grinned Sonic drily.
"Ha," retorted Rouge. "But yeah. I was just heading in that direction when the island started to fall. Knuckles and I both headed for the Master Emerald shrine as fast as we could, but by the time we got there the rock was stark gone. And you know how the Knucklehead is. He threw a fit and went sailing off to find it. I was going to help him, but he was in a real flailing fury, so I figured I'd better back off a little." She shrugged. "Who knows who took it, or where. Have you checked with Dr. Eggman?"
"Not yet," said Sonic. "He's . . . you know. Kinnnnnda not very much fun to interview."
"Well, I'm glad you think I'm a more amusing conversationalist than the good doctor," grinned Rouge. Sonic chuckled awkwardly.
"Uh, well, yeah. So, I guess we'll all be interrogating the old Egghead next. You want to come along?"
"Nah," said Rouge. "I'm sure Knuckie is well on track to finding that Emerald himself, since he's got that crazy connection to it and all. I figure I'll just let him find it and bring it back, then I can go back to making swipes at it."
Sonic shook his head, chuckling.
"Okay. Sorry to just come barging in and interrogate you like that, it was just, uh—"
"Nah, it's fine," Rouge waved a hand airily. "Good luck tracking down Knuckles."
"Thanks," said Sonic, turning to leave. Suddenly he turned back.
"By the way, a 'wet paint' sign would be nice," he grinned ruefully, holding up a right hand with streaks of blue paint on the knuckles. "How come you repainted your door?"
"Eh, it was starting to look dingy," said Rouge. "And I got tired of the color."
"Ah, gotcha. Well, gotta juice! See ya later."
"Later, Big Blue," called Rouge, and shut the door. For a second she leaned back against it, still clutching the doorknob, and realized her whole body was singing with tension. She stumbled to the living room, flopped down on the sofa, rolled over, covered her eyes, and began to laugh dizzily. Phew! He'd bought it like a Sunday newspaper. She was in the clear! Nobody would think of searching for the Master Emerald at her place now. They'd assume Knuckles was off looking for it somewhere, and would think nothing of his long absence. She was safe, if not permanently, at least for a long time. The suckers. Thank goodness for her quick mind and experience with . . . oh, call it skillful alteration of the truth.
Just as Rouge sat up, still a little heady from the sudden release of tension, there came a soft sound against the wall outside.
Scritch. Scritch-scritch.
Oh dear Lord, not this again.
Setting her teeth, Rouge got up and walked firmly into the mudroom. She had a mind to barricade the door with a china cabinet, although really that wouldn't help much if Knuckles decided to punch the door down. As she began to tug the china cabinet away from the wall, she heard Knuckles' footsteps circling around towards the front door. Still limping. Little half shuffle-steps.
He was fumbling up onto the doorstep. She could hear him. A bit of silence. Snuffle, snuffle. He smelled the wet paint. Snuffle-snuff. Then a little muffled grahh, a scratchy expression of annoyance from the back of the throat. The wet paint displeased him. Some more silence. Then again, scritch-scritch-scritch, but now next to the door, against the siding.
"Listen, Knucklehead!" Rouge called through the door, her fingers still clenched around the china cabinet. "If you want to talk, I'd love to listen. Really. Have a nice reasonable conversation. But cut it out with the scratching! What do you expect to achieve with that, huh?"
Scritch-scrabble-scratch. Scritch.
"I'm not gonna open the door until you start acting like a reasonable Mobian!"
Scrabble-scritch. Scrabble.
"Ugh!" Rouge abandoned the china cabinet and stormed to the kitchen. She opened the refrigerator deliberately and pulled out a bottle of soda. It was only when she saw the liquid sloshing around inside that she realized how much her hands were shaking.
The limping footsteps shuffled around to the side of the house. From behind the oven came a persistent little scritchety-scritch, scritch-scratchy.
"Shut UP!" Rouge hurled the soda bottle in the direction of the sound. It bounced off the oven and spun across the floor, spewing a frothy cream-colored jet of soda fizz. The scratching persisted.
Snarling, Rouge stormed upstairs to her room, threw herself on her bed, and pulled a pillow over her head. It didn't seem to do any good. She could still hear Knuckles circling the house with his limping step, scratching at the siding, all around, all around, scritchy-scratchy. How long did it go on? Hours? Many hours? It grew dark. She didn't exactly fall asleep, but she did drift off into a sort of numb blackness of the mind.
Eventually she jolted awake, her eyes instantly wide. There was knocking. More knocking. Then she relaxed, as again she heard a familiar voice. Shadow this time.
"Rouge?" he called, already sounding impatient. "Open up!"
Honestly? She didn't feel like moving. She hugged her pillow under her chin and listened with dispassionate indifference as the knocking continued. Hmm, he'd probably kick out the lock soon. Cheesecake, she'd have to replace it fast, or Knuckles might try to come in. Might be a good idea to answer the door so Shadow wouldn't kick out the lock . . . ah, forget it.
Surprisingly, there was only a faint k-chk! sound, and the door slammed open. Shadow had finally picked up the delicate art of lock-picking, and apparently had respect enough for Rouge's freshly-painted door to bother with that less forceful method.
"Rouge?" His voice circled around downstairs. "Rouge, are you in here?"
He rummaged around for a while, exclaiming irately in the kitchen (probably got stuck to that spilled soda), then clumped upstairs. Poking his head into Rouge's room, he appeared visibly startled when he saw Rouge still tangled in the bedcovers, fully dressed, her chin propped up on her half-folded pillow. She eyed him languidly, her eyelids half-closed. Shadow opened the door fully and stood in the doorway. He was blunt as usual.
"Rouge, what the hell?"
"What?" asked Rouge flatly.
"Seriously? You've been here all the time? We're supposed to be on a mission! G.U.N. has been blowing up your phone, as the saying goes, for more than an hour now. I came to find you before they started screeching AWOL."
Rouge turned her head and fumbled for her pager, which was lying on her bedside table. She always turned it on in the evening, so G.U.N. could contact her with missions. Today she'd forgotten, though. Squinting at the device, she saw it was very much off.
"Oh," she muttered, plunking the pager back down on the bed and letting it slide to the floor. For some reason she was so bloody exhausted . . . utterly drained. Shadow tilted his head dubiously.
"Are you ill?" he asked. It was a form question, please answer true or false, but there was still a note of genuine solicitude buried deep in the back there.
"No, no, I'm just—ahh, I'm just a little under the weather."
"Oh?" Shadow seemed to be considering a few possibilities and settling on one. Rouge chuckled in spite of herself and heaved herself up on her elbows.
"Ohhh, I know what you're thinking." She swung her weight onto one arm and leveled the other in an accusatory point. "And that's not it."
"If you say so." Shadow shook his head. "Well then, should I tell HQ that you can't work today?"
"Nahhhh." Rouge toppled into a sitting position and massaged her eyelids with the heels of her hands. "I'll be fine, once I get on my feet and get moving."
"If you're sure."
"Yeah, I'm sure." Rouge shook out her head and looked up. "You know, buster, you've got a lot of nerve, just barging into a lady's room like that."
Shadow said nothing, but glanced around the perimeter of the room searchingly. Rouge knew him well enough to pick up the silent question. Lady, what lady? Hiding a grin, she snatched up her pillow and hurled it in his direction.
"Aw, wise guy! Getoutta here!"
Shadow half-closed the door to deflect the shot, smirking slightly. Fully opening it again, he silently held up one hand and flashed all five fingers outwards twice, then jerked his thumb over his shoulder. I'll give you ten minutes to get the heck out there.
"Ooh, such a gentleman. I was expecting only five," retorted Rouge.
"You looked like you needed ten," said Shadow with a straight face. He was gone before Rouge could find anything else to throw at him. Sinking back on the bed for a moment, she chuckled fondly. Shadow wasn't the most openly sympathetic fellow, but Rouge didn't care for open sympathy anyway. His mixture of gruff chivalry and sly teasing always made her feel better.
Sure enough, as Team Dark plowed through their mission that night, both Shadow and Omega seemed to take particular pains to get under her skin. It might seem unkind, but it was just what Rouge needed. It was just Team Dark's way; their equivalent of a hug was a none-too-gentle knock between the ears. Soon, between all the action and arguing and backbiting, Rouge was back to her old self.
Well, almost.
At one point, she heard a limping step coming up behind her. Everything inside her tensed up, and her breath shot into her lungs violently. She whirled to find Shadow, keeping his weight off one foot.
"You all right?" he asked, eyeing her strangely.
"Are you?" asked Rouge, trying to look natural.
"Eh. Damned piece of shrapnel from an exploding 'bot hit my ankle. It'll heal up in an hour," said Shadow.
"Clumsy," said Rouge, forcing a smirk. Shadow shrugged one shoulder and rolled his eyes, but when Rouge turned back to her work, he quietly watched her breathing slowly, slowly returning to normal.
