A/N: Tails assimilates into the rebel base, with varying levels of success.

A/N #2 (2023.04.12) THIS CHAPTER IS NO LONGER CANON!

The "rewrite"/"true" version of this chapter sequis spread out throughout the first 5 chapters of the sequel, A Fork In The Road. I wrote this original chapter before I decided to write the sequel and there's some plot holes in this chapter- I explain in the notes of chapter 1 of AFITR!

Please disregard this chapter in terms of "canon" for the story! I'm keeping this chapter up because I don't want to lose all of your lovely comments!

The first day a note attached to a bot arrived, offering supplies that would last them months in exchange for the return of Miles. In their shoes, Tails wouldn't have hesitated.

After a few days passed and he wasn't traded in, he was almost disappointed.

When he first arrived, an injured Sonic in tow, they immediately locked Tails in a small cell for observation. They doubted Sonic and told him he had a sentimental heart, and cast aside his sympathetic story of the boy as a symptom of the Phantom Ruby's hallucinations.

But he was never lonely.

A red creature, with spikes similar to Sonic's, walks in. Tails almost snorts. Primary colors. As if the world was nudging them to be a trio. He recognized him from muffled conversations he eavesdropped through the walls, where younger voices stuttered over their words to get clearance for missions and travel outside of their safehold.

"How old are you, boy?" He spoke with an authority that, in another time, may have fit his tongue. Tails looked up from his spot in the corner of the concrete room.

"I just turned 8," Tails answered. The red one stammered and quickly walked away.

Sonic visited him once he was released from the medbay. He yelled at the rebels who stood guard at the door, before Tails felt sympathy and grabbed his hand through the bars and asked him to tell him about his friends. Sonic held his hand far more often than he would like to admit, but it was a constant that he needed. It reminded him of home, when it ever was one. It only felt fair to hold his hand in return.

"Who was that red guy?"

"Red guy… Oh! That's Knuckles," he smiled. Tails leaned his side against the bars and let Sonic trace shapes on the fabric of his glove. "He's their commander." He said so with reluctance, and Tails wondered how much had changed within Sonic's group of friends in the few days Sonic was kept with his father.

Another time, there was another hedgehog- one with black and red streaks instead of an ocean blue- that entered the hallway.

He gave him a look up and down before sadly speaking, "You remind me of someone I once knew". He dropped off a small stuffed bear. Tails decided he was his favorite.

Sonic was no longer injured and there was nothing stopping him from nagging the commander until Tails was granted leniency. He was tracing faces onto the walls with his gloved fingers when the bars slid open and Sonic grasped his forearm and tugged him into the open. Knuckles looked at him with arms crossed; before all this, there was a chance he would've been scared.

Sonic mumbled under his breath throughout their whole trek to his room. Their blue hero was given a whole room to himself, while the other rebels had to sleep in a boarding room. Sonic assured him that he wouldn't sleep there with everyone else. Tails was uncomfortable with feeling special; being different was a negative, special was a gift.

Practically spun to the bed, Sonic began his own check-up. "I told them to leave you out of this, but after our fight, I was out for two days, apparently," he said whilst poking and prodding. He looked into the boy's eyes. "You aren't hurt anywhere, are you?"

Tails wondered what the right thing to say was. "It doesn't matter" is what he decided on. Based on Sonic's heartbroken expression, it was the wrong choice.

Despite being the first time he'd slept in a true bed in days, he woke up with a start from a nightmare. Knuckles is who he finds standing guard in his room. His fingers scramble for something to grab onto and only finds the comforter he is nestled into.

The panic must've shown on his face, because the elder stands up and grabs something from the floor.

"Here, let me get that." He walks over and tucks him into bed. In the mild light of the moon, he spots the teddy bear he'd been gifted in the echidna's hands. He must've kicked it when he woke up, and felt a tinge of guilt at his recklessness. Something gentle shines in the echidna's eyes and he carefully places the bear into the fox's arms.

"Where's Sonic?" He murmured sleepily.

"Training," he responded. His eyes were piercing in a way Tails hadn't noticed before. "He seems to do that a lot more now that you're here, so I guess I should thank you. Now Needlemouse can focus, for once." Tails lightly giggled at that, and the echidna seemed pleased- but he seemed to catch himself and squared his shoulders.

"Don't think I'm staying here for your emotional wellbeing or anything," he said. The moonlight floated down onto Tails' comforter. "You're still a threat, in my book, Sonic vouching for you or not."

He returned to his seat across the room. Tails felt cold, but not in the way he felt in the chill of winter. He held the bear snug to his chest and flipped so he could hide behind his back that now faced the echidna. He feigned sleep for long enough that his body fell for it, and he dreamed of being trapped behind a locked door that night.

Days have a routine to them. Sonic has a constant hand around his elbow, gently guiding him through the halls of their sanctuary. Rebels warily glance at him as he shuffles behind his brother's shadow, but, occasionally, there's a friendly wave.

He isn't grateful. He wished people's actions towards him aligned with the version of himself he has in his head.

He wasn't trusted, not by a long shot, but it was more than he anticipated, and somehow their tentative hospitality scared him more than when he was locked up.

It took close to one second before Knuckles noticed what Sonic was doing. "No, take him back."

Sonic feigned an innocent expression, lifting a hand up to the sky while the other held the fox's hand. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"I'm not going to allow him here."

"Well, tough luck," Sonic said. "Because you either get me with him or I'm walking." There was a lighthearted manner to his tone, like some part of him had missed this riffing between friends, but Tails' fingers began to twitch with how Sonic tightened his grasp.

Amy nudged Knuckles' shoulder, whispering something into the air next to them, and Knuckles took a deep breath before walking towards the table. That was enough permission as any.

They were gathered around a planning table, a makeshift representation of the Robotnik base carefully placed on top. He nudged Sonic's shoulder with a stifled laugh when he saw how squads of soldiers were being represented with coins ("Are those pennies?"), but Sonic hoisted him up quickly when Knuckles cleared his throat at them.

Tails, now sat on a crate, felt himself mimicking Shadow's brooding figure in the opposite corner. No matter who, he always felt it was his specialty to imitate. Sonic leaned next to him, casually resting his back against the wood; he made a commitment to never let him feel alone.

If he was being honest with himself, he wasn't paying even half-attention. Murmured words blended into each other.

But something caught his eye.

"You can't go through this door," Tails said. Everyone looked up at him. "It- There was a renovation last summer. That part's blocked off now."

Knuckles swallowed and nodded reluctantly. Sonic almost looked proud.

But Sonic knew this kid. Known him since he was a 5 year old trotting in the shadow of his father, hiding behind the man's lab coat as he watched the hedgehog fight. And he knew that look, the one he made right before he talked- he was deciding whether or not he should lie.

"There's no way, hedgehog." Knuckles crossed his arms. "This kid is dangerous-"

"That's just it, he's a kid," Sonic snapped, the uncomfortable, shifting figures of Shadow and others in his peripheral. "You told him to stay in line, and he hasn't made a peep." Sonic let out a heavy sigh. "He deserves some credit."

It took multiple screaming matches, Sonic v. everyone, until Knuckles relented under the fact that Tails may be useful enough to add to their team- under the promise that Sonic would never leave his side. Tails laughed under his breath. That isn't going to be a problem.

"Hey, kiddo," Sonic smiled, ruffling his bangs. Tails batted at him from his spot at the workbench. "What're you working on?"

"Looking for a way to counteract the effects of the crystal Infinite has," Tails sighs, more heavy than Sonic wished he had the right to feel.

Some rebels would come home, stumbling under their own feet, sobbing at the sight of the resistance. They'd speak of illusions where the resistance died out, where they were left alone. Tails wished he did not know what the feeling was like.

Sonic softly smiled and pivoted to lean his back against his table, and Tails silently noticed the closed box in his brother's arms.

"That's good 'n' all, little dude, but," Sonic knelt to place the box on the floor. "I want you to go to bed at a decent hour tonight, for once."

Tails paused to give him a sharp look, before returning to typing at his keyboard and scanning his textbooks. "We are in a war. Sleep can wait."

He mourned the boy he met years ago, who was shy and hid behind his father's legs and his eyes smiled with his teeth. Somewhere in these past weeks, he left, and Sonic had a suspicion that he wasn't even there to see it go.

"I got a question for you, though," he started, treading delicately. He must've paused for too long, and Tails looked up from his screen inquisitively.

"What?"

"Nothing, bud, it's just," Sonic clambered to find his words. He took his time to scan Tails face and his shoulders slowly sunk in despair as he saw the kit's open-wide face. "You really miss your old man, don't you?"

Something hardened behind Tails' eyes. He went back to his studies. "I think you should go, Sonic."

"We had a reconnaissance mission last night," Sonic blurted. Tails' fingers stilled on top of his keyboard. "I found your old room."

It wasn't easy. He couldn't forget the parts of his father that loved him, true and down to the bone, and reconcile them with the destruction around them. He pictured two Ivos in his head, because the two couldn't live together as one.

He would sometimes sneak over the valley to the Robotnik Empire capital and try to spot him. When he did, he wished he didn't. The man looked like death.

Tails swallowed. "And?" Sonic grimaced.

He knelt down and picked up the box. Gently placing it in the middle of them, he opened the lid. There were assorted items, haphazardly thrown inside, and Sonic purposefully shuffled through until he grabbed a frame. He handed him a picture and Tails knew it well. Sonic knelt down to wrap his arm around the younger's shoulders. "If it's anything, he's left it untouched."

On some days, that's enough.