Just minutes ago, he was in an endless, dark train station, a faceless woman chasing after him. Now, however, it was the total opposite. He had closed his eyes for only a moment, and now he was in a bright and sunny flower field. The words the woman had whispered in his mind echoed in his head.

"Too logical."

"Too calculating."

"Too analytical."

"You're cold."

"You fundamentally don't understand how a relationship works."

Tails fell to his knees, unable to shake the words out of his mind. A hand rested on his head, the fingers running through his bangs. He didn't look up. The last thing he wanted was to see was someone else with a black void where a face would be. Oddly enough, however, he found himself slowly calming down. Just as he was about to finally look up, the hand on his head lifted. He stood up, looking around for whoever had helped calm him, but no one was around him.

Confused and alone, Tails began walking through the field of flowers, unsure of where he was going or what he was doing. The sudden sound of someone softly giggling in the distance sent him into a panic. He began running through the field, doing his best to avoid the temptation to look over his shoulder. As he reached the top of a hill, the temptation became too much too ignore. Nervously, he looked over his shoulder, only to stop running and full turn around in awe.

A beautiful pink hedgehog ran towards him, smiling, her eyes closed. She wore a white dress and simple white shoes. White roses wrapped around the headband in her hair. The young kitsune was so in awe of her beauty, he didn't even realize she had jumped until he felt her tackle him into the ground. She wrapped her arms around him and the two rolled down flowery hill.

When they reached the bottom, Tails was lying on his back while she rested on top of him, staring at him with her beautiful emerald eyes. He turned his head to look away from her, blushing furiously. She giggled at this and rolled off him so she could look him in the eyes again. Once again, they were staring into each other's eyes. After what felt like years, Tails smiled at the hedgehog and snuggled up against her, closing his eyes. She in turn smiled and stroked the bangs in his head. For the kitsune, everything was perfect.

"Hey, wake up," a masculine voice said.

Tails felt a nudge on his shoulder. Confused, he opened his eyes and looked up at the pink hedgehog. Except, she wasn't pink, she was blue. She was also quite obviously a guy. "Come on, bud," the blue hedgehog said, looking down at him. "Wake up."

"WHAT THE HELL?!" Tails screamed as he jumped awake, clutching onto the top of the couch. He looked around the room frantically, quickly realizing it was his living room. "Wha-? Huh? I- What?" As he calmed down, he slowly realized there were three other people in the room. A red echidna leaned on the foot of the couch, a blue hedgehog stood by where his head had rested and a pink hedgehog was walking into the room with a plate of food.

Tails blinked a few times, then sat upright fully on the couch. "Oh, hey guys," he said, trying to act casual. "What's up?"

"You ok, bro?" Knuckles asked.

"Yeah, you kinda freaked out there," Sonic added.

"Psh, yeah," Tails replied, shrugging. "I just had a nightmare is all."

"Well, maybe breakfast will make you feel better!" Amy said, handing him a plate full of pancakes, eggs and bacon.

The kitsune's eyes widened. "Woah," he said softly as he took the plate. "Thanks Amy, you didn't have to make all this."

"I just wanted to do something nice for you," the pink hedgehog said with a smile.

Tails picked up his fork and took a bite out of the eggs on his plate. It tasted great, of course, but to him that was a given. Amy had always been an excellent cook. A smile appeared on his lips as chewed his first bite. As went in for another, he asked, "So, what are you all doing here? Is there something going on?"

"Well, Amy came to visit you last night," Sonic explained, "only to find you having some kind of panic attack and passing out in her arms."

Tails slowly chewed on a bite of his eggs and stared off into the distance. After what seemed like forever, he finally swallowed and said, "Oh yeah, that happened." He scratched the back of his head in embarrassment. "Sorry about that, Amy."

Amy sat down on the couch next to him. "There's no need to apologize. I'm glad I showed up in time to help you. Knuckles was already on his way out the door."

Knuckles crossed his arms. "Hey, I came running back in when I heard you yell for me, didn't I?"

The pink hedgehog glanced up and scratched the side of her face as a smirk formed on her lips. "Hmm… is that what happened? I could've sworn you went back inside because you forgot your wallet, only to panic when you saw me carrying our fox friend here into the living room."

Knuckles turned away and muttered something under his breath. Amy giggled at the sight of this. Sonic took a seat on the couch next to Amy and Knuckles sat next to Tails. The blue hedgehog looked over at his little brother with a smile. "We're gonna hang out with you today, alright little bro?" he said.

"Are you sure?" Tails asked as he cut into his pancakes with his fork. "Don't you like to patrol dusting the week? Oh, and Amy works weekdays, right?"

"Oh, I called in sick," Amy replied. "One of the perks of being a C.E.O. is that people are more lenient on you taking sick days." She winked at the two-tailed fox.

"Yeah, and all the big crooks are locked up right now," Sonic shrugged. "Unless something comes up overnight, I think the city will be fine."

Tails held his fork to his mouth, a bit of pancake on the end of it. Before he took the bite, he said, "Oh, alright then," with a shrug.

Sonic, Amy and Knuckles waited for Tails to finish his breakfast before continuing the conversation. Tails was just about to get up and take care of his plate, but Sonic held up his hand. "Let me get for you," he insisted.

With a smile, Tails handed his plate to his older brother. "Thanks, Sonic," he said. "I appreciate it."

"No problem, little bro," the blue Hedgehog replied as he took the plate and headed towards the kitchen.

Tails turned to Amy. "And thank you for cooking that." He looked away from her, trying his best not to blush. "You really didn't have to…"

"Nonsense!" Amy replied. "I may not have had to, but I wanted to. I'm glad you enjoyed it."

Tails couldn't stopped himself from blushing, so he turned away from her to face Knuckles, only to see the red echidna looking down at him with a smirk, his head resting against a pillow that lay on top of the couch. The kitsune shot him a quick glare before turning to face Amy again. "Hey, why did you come over last night anyways? Not that I don't want you here or anything, no, nothing like that! I'm just curious."

The pink hedgehog's eyes lit up with surprise. "Oh, that's right!" she yelled, facepalming a bit. "I left them in the hangar last night! I'll be right back!" She got up off the couch and ran towards the hangar, leaving Tails and Knuckles alone in the living room. A silence swept over the room as neither knew what to say.

"So, you know she slept down here last night, right?" the echidna asked.

Tails looked at him, confused. "She did?" he asked. "Where?"

Knuckles looked at his kitsune friend and glanced at the pillow behind his head. Now Tails was even more confused. A malicious grin formed on the echidna's face as he mimed rubbing something in his lap. Thinking for a minute, Tails soon realized what he was trying to say, the memory of his dream rushing back into the forefront of his head. His eyes widened and he buried his hands in his face. Knuckles cracked up at the sight of his friend's embarrassment.

"What's so funny?" Sonic said, walking back to the couch, taking a seat next to Tails. He couldn't help but notice Tails' face was red and Knuckles seemed to be doing his best to calm down unusually quickly.

"Nothing," muttered Tails.

"Yeah, it's nothing, man," Knuckles added, trying to act casual. "Just doing some light teasing is all."

Before Sonic could say anything, Amy came rushing back in from the hangar, bags slung over her shoulders. "Yo Ames, need help with that?" Sonic asked her.

"No, I got it!" she replied.

"Ames…" Tails thought. "When did you start calling her that, huh?" A grimace started to form on the kitsune's face as eyes fixated on his blue friend.

This didn't go unnoticed by Knuckles, who quickly asked, "What's all that stuff for, Amy?"

The pink hedgehog set the bags down on the floor and started looking through them. "I'm glad you asked! This is something I pitched to Tails last week. I was gonna tell you guys about it as well, but both of you were busy. Plus, I kinda had some artist's block." She laughed nervously.

"Artist's block?" Sonic asked, raising his eyebrow a bit. "On what?"

"On this!" Amy said cheerfully, unfolding and holding up a small poster she had sketched up.

The poster had a big, bold font reading "CELEBRATING 10 YEARS OF PEACE" at the top and "THE HEROES COLLECTION FROM AMY ROSE'' at the bottom. In the middle, the four of them were drawn in certain outfits. On the far left, Knuckles stood, flexing his muscles. He wore aviator shades, gym shorts and a tank top with a stylized design of his face and steel-toed boots. Next to him stood Tails, slinging a large wrench over his shoulder and wearing the same outfit Amy had drawn him in prior. At his side was Sonic, giving a thumbs up and wearing a pair of goggles, a jacket with patches on the arms, ripped denim jeans and a pair of soap shoes. Last in the row was Amy, leaning up against her hammer and wearing skater dress, thigh-high stockings and knee high boots. Instead of having a headband in her hair, her hair was free flowing and a rose rested in it by her ear.

"Ta-dah!" Amy yelled excitedly. "What do you guys think?"

"I don't get it," Knuckles replied.

"It's her concept for a new fashion line," Tails explained. "She wants to work with us to make outfits based on what we'd actually wear to celebrate the ten year anniversary of Eggman's defeat. All the proceeds would go to charities that help people affected by Eggman."

"Yeah, what he said!" Amy added. "I can always design new clothes if you don't like the ones here. Here, I have some pages with details for you guys to look over!"

Amy took out two stacks of papers from her bags and handed them to Sonic and Knuckles. The two men flipped through them, scanning over each page carefully. "Wow," Sonic said, taken aback. "When did you get so good at drawing, Amy?"

"She's always had a knack for drawing," Tails replied, a hint of bitterness in his voice.

"If you ever paid attention to her for once in your life, you'd probably know that," he thought.

"Hey, look!" Knuckles yelled, pointing to something on his page. "She made this little sketch of me lifting weights!" The echidna let out a hearty laugh.

Amy pushed her pointer fingers together, embarrassed. "Yeah, I envisioned a sort-of 'at the gym' type outfit for you, Knuckles. You know, workout clothes. So I drew you working out to get a better idea of how the clothes would look when someone's working out."

"Oh, so that's why you drew this," Sonic said as he pointed to a sketch of him kicking Knack the Weasel in the face.

Amy nodded. "Yep! I wanted to draw you fighting off some bad guys since you're still doing all that hero stuff, just on a much smaller scale than before."

"Ok, that makes sense," Sonic said with a nod. "This one doesn't though." The blue hedgehog held up a fully colored drawing of himself. He wore the outfit Amy had designed, but his pose was very different. In this picture, Sonic was facing forward with a bouquet of red roses in his hand, a soft smirk on his face. Cherry blossom petals filled the air and a clear blue sky illuminated the background. A speech bubble on the side of the paper read, "All of these roses, and I'm still not holding the most beautiful one of all in my arms…" Amy snatched the drawing away from Sonic, blushing furiously. "How'd that get in there?" she said, laughing nervously. She quickly crumpled up the paper and shoved it in her pocket. "A-anyways, what do you guys think of the idea?"

"Well, I like it a whole lot, personally," Tails replied, eager to change the subject. "Oh, but you already knew that."

"Yeah, I think this could be cool," Knuckles agreed. "I could think of some more stuff to add to this, too."

"Well, no need to go against the grain," Sonic said with a shrug. "I'm sure this could be fun. I don't know the first thing about designing clothes, though."

"You leave the design to me!" Amy said cheerfully. "All I need from you guys is your input. What you like about the design, if it's something you'd actually wanna wear, etcetera. I'll do all the hard parts."

"You'll need one on one time with us for the specifics of each outfit, right?" Tails asked. "Are you still gonna be free tomorrow for that, or will we need to reschedule?"

"I'm sure it will be fine. I'll have to work out a time for you guys, though." She glanced over at Knuckles and Sonic. "I'll let you guys know when I'm free."

Knuckles folded his arms. "Sounds like a plan, Amy. Say, since we're all in the living room, why don't we watch a movie?"

"Hey, good idea, Knux!" Sonic said. "The new Fast and Furious movie is on Netflix."

"Eh, I'm kinda in the mood for an old detective movie."

"What about that aviation documentary that just came out?" Tails chimes in. "I wanna know how they built those old biplanes I used to fix up."

"How about we just watch all of them?" Amy suggested. "We do have all day, after all."

"Hey, good idea Amy!" Knuckles said with a smile.

"Yeah, not a bad idea, Ames!" Sonic added.

"I was just about to suggest that!" Tails said quickly. "Wow, what a coincidence!" The kitsune let out a nervous chuckle.

Amy smiled and sat down on the couch next to Sonic. "Awesome!" she beamed. "After all those, we can watch a romcom!"

Knuckles and Sonic immediately let out a groan. As the two of them realized Tails didn't join them, they both looked at him with a raised eyebrow. Tails glanced between his friends, beginning to blush from embarrassment. "N-no!" he yelled, waving his arms around dramatically. "Not that! Anything but that!" The other three couldn't help but laugh at his overacting.

Knuckles picked up the remote and opened Netflix. As he searched around for the first movie, he couldn't help but notice Amy scooting closer to Sonic out of the corner of his eye. Sonic just ignored her, but Tails on the other hand, was clearly a little jealous. Knuckles hit play on the movie and pulled out his phone to send a text. Shortly after that, Tails felt a vibration in his pocket. He pulled out his phone and after noting it was at five percent battery, he read the notification.

"You haven't told her huh"

It was a text from the red echidna sitting next to him. He looked at Knuckles, who was already looking at him, and lightly shook his head before turning back to the movie. Before he turned his own attention to the movie, he took note of the solemn look on the two-tailed fox's face. "Poor kid," he thought.

"He hasn't responded."

"He will, trust me."

"What makes you think so?"

"I've got a feeling."

"That's not reassuring at all," Cream sighed.

Charmy scratched the back of his head. "Sorry, babe. I'm just doing my best to help you feel better."

"It's ok, you're doing great. I'm just so stressed out right now…"

Charmy scooted over on the bed and wrapped his arm around Cream, bringing her in close. "I know," he said softly. "I don't blame you for being stressed." He ran his hand through her hair to try and cheer her up. Cream cuddled up against her boyfriend, trying her best to calm down. After a few minutes, there was a knock on the door to Cream's room. Before either of them spoke, Vanilla opened the door, a plate of cookies in hand.

"I hope I'm not interrupting anything," she said as she walked into the room with a smile on her face.

"We've been dating for a week and she's scared of us being alone together," Charmy thought. "Something tells me Tails never had this issue."

"No, we were just talking," Cream said to her mother.

Charmy nodded. "Yeah, I'm just trying to cheer her up."

"I thought you were sad about something," Vanilla said to Cream. "I made you some of your favorite cookies. If you need anything, just tell me."

Cream smiled as she took the plate from her mother. "Thanks, mom."

"No problem, sweetie. I'll give you two some space. Call me if you need me!"

Vanilla left the room, closing the door behind her. Charmy listened for her footsteps. Once he couldn't hear them anymore, he turned to scream and asked, "So… does your mom not like me, or something?"

Cream picked up a cookie and shoved it in his mouth. "Don't be silly. She's just worried about me is all. She doesn't want me to have another relationship that goes south after a while."

The bee chomped down on the cookie that was shoved into his jaw. After swallowing his bite, he said, "Oh, right. Yeah, that makes sense."

"Don't worry, she'll warm up to you. You're Vector's friend, after all."

Charmy scratched his chin. "Honestly, sometimes I think of him more as a dad. Is that weird?"

The young rabbit giggled a little as she grabbed a cookie for herself. "I mean, he and Espio pretty much raised you. I wouldn't be surprised if you saw both of them as your dads."

"Woah, woah, woah," Charmy said, waving his hands about. "Let's not go that far! They'd kill me if I started talking like that. Besides, Espio's not really a dad-type, he's more like an older brother. A cool, distant, borderline anti-social at times older brother who doesn't let you in his room because you accidentally broke something of his when you were kids."

Cream raised an eyebrow. "What did you break?"

Instead of answering the question, Charmy took another bite of his cookie and looked away. Cream crossed her arms, waiting for an answer. The two sat in silence while Charmy slowly chewed his bite of the cookie. "I don't wanna talk about it," the bee finally whispered.

"That bad, huh?" Cream sighed.

The bee slowly nodded his head. An awkward silence fell over the two for a bit, before Charmy spoke up again. "So… you wanna watch a movie?"

Cream nodded. "Sure, that sounds like fun. Let me find the remote."

Charmy held up his hand to stop her. "I think your mom would prefer if we go to the living room before opening up Netflix."

The young rabbit blushed. "Uh, yeah… you're probably right."

She picked up the plate of cookies and led the bee to the living room, hoping the redness on her face vanished before her mom saw.

Noise echoed throughout the warehouse. The banging of hammers, the sudden stop and start of blow torches and the occasional jolt of electricity could be heard constantly. People worked tirelessly on various machines and set designs. A light blue, cat-like person wearing a hard hat walked past them, followed by a human, a bear and a dog, all wearing hard hats as well. "Can me and the boys get a status report?" the cat-like man yelled cheerfully.

A man dressed like a construction worker walked up to the group. "Good to see ya, Jimmy!" he said to the man.

"There's my lead set designer!" Jimmy said with a big grin. "Here, let me introduce you to these guys." He put his arm around the set designer and turned to face his friends. "This is Chris," he said, pointing at the dog. He pointed at the bear. "That's Chandler." Finally, he pointed at the human. "And that's Karl."

"Nice to keep you all," the set designer said with a smile.

"This guy is Adrian, he's our lead set designer for this project," Jimmy explained. "Our biggest project yet! The Chaotix crossover spectacular! Tell us what's going on here, my good man!"

Adrian cleared his throat. "Well, you'll be happy to know that we've got the final battle stage pretty much all set, we're just waiting on the mechanics department to finish up their work before we can continue."

"Good, good," Jimmy said eagerly. "That's what I like to hear. What about the other locations? Have we secured building permits?"

"We're getting there. Most of them have been approved, but the mayor of Station Square wants to meet with you in person. He says it's because he wants to go over all the details with you and make sure you know what you're doing, but just between you and me, I've heard his daughter is a fan."

"If an impromptu fan meet-up is the only thing stopping this project from going forward, I'll just prepare a box of free Feastables-brand chocolate bars and some merchandise and practice posing for selfies!"

"Good to hear your enthusiasm, boss! Say, I think the mechanics crew is getting ready to give that old egg-mobile a test run. You should check it out."

"We'll head over right away! Thanks for all you do, Adrian. Keep up the good work!"

Jimmy and his friends walked off towards where the mechanics team were fixing up the egg-mobile. They arrived just in time to see one of the engineers climb into the cockpit. "Alright, let's see if this thing kills me," he muttered. The group watched as he flicked some switches on the control panel and grabbed the steering stick. Slowly but surely, the machine crackled to life and lifted up off the ground. The engineers cheered and clapped as it rose up off the ground. "Oh my god," the engineer in the cockpit yelled. "It didn't explode! It works! Imagine that."

"You know," Chandler muttered, "if I was them, I would've made sure it wasn't gonna explode before firing that thing up."

"Yeah, same," Karl agreed.

"Eh, they probably know what they're doing," Chris shrugged.

Jimmy didn't pay any attention to his friends' conversation. His eyes were fixed on the flying machine that had lifted off the ground. "This is gonna be good," he muttered, a grin on his face.

Author's Note: Apologies for the delay, had a busy weekend. Hopefully this longer chapter makes up for it. Remember to review and thanks for reading!