"I put so much faith in you,

And you… just threw it away…

Yeah, you just threw it away…"

The song echoed in the elevator. A bat and hedgehog stood on opposing sides, neither looking at the other. An uneasy silence hung in the air, broken only by the elevator's music. "Who picks the songs for this anyways?" Rouge asked, trying to drum up a conversation. "I swear, whoever it is has the weirdest taste in music. It's all over the place."

"There's something there for everyone, I guess," Shadow grumbled.

And just like that, the conversation fizzled out as soon as it began. Rouge sighed in frustration. "Strip away all that mystery and bravado and all you've got left is a a brooding, anti-social jerk," she thought to herself. Knuckles didn't know it, but she had already been with Shadow for a while at that point. As in, while they were still together even. To put it simply, she wasn't satisfied with Knuckles anymore and wanted a change of pace. Of course, it was only now that she had been kicked out that she started to realize how all of this might have affected him.

The elevator opened up and the two walked down the hall, swapping places with the two guards that had been stationed there the night prior. They stood in silence for around half an hour, neither knowing what to say to the other. "I'm gonna go chat with him," Rouge said finally, frustrated.

"With… him?" Shadow replied, taken aback. "The doctor?"

"Yes. Got a problem with that?"

"No, I just didn't think you'd ever go in there."

Shadow reached out as his hand as he pulled out a chaos emerald. Rouge grabbed it, not bothering to look at him as a green light enveloped the two of them. In an instant, they were on the other side of the door. Rouge let go off Shadow, looking around the white room. It was her first time actually being inside of it. Her eyes rested on Robotnik, who sat on the side of his bed with a magazine in hand. He didn't seem to notice their arrival, despite the green flash of light and slight wind. He was so engrossed in whatever he was looking at in fact, he had flipped the magazine over and allowed a fold-out to drop. Rouge made a fake, loud coughing sound, which startled the doctor.

"Gah!" he yelled, quickly folding up the magazine and hiding it away in his pillowcase. Turning to his two visitors, he yelled, "Would it kill ya to knock?!"

Shadow rolled his eyes. "Bang on the door when you're done," he muttered to Rouge as he exited the room with Chaos Control.

Rouge took a seat at the table in the middle of the room and let out a long sigh. Robotnik stood up and began walking over to the table to join her. "Alright, I can take a hint," he muttered. "What's wrong?" the doctor asked, taking a seat.

"What's wrong?" Rouge asked back, annoyed. "What's wrong is my horrible decision making when it comes to men."

The doctor let out a groan. "I am the last person to go to for relationship for advice," he muttered. "You know that, right?"

"Can it, egghead," Rouge snapped. "You helped Tails just fine."

"That's different."

"How so?"

"He's… I…"

Eggman rubbed his face as he let out a long sigh. "I see a lot of myself in the guy," he explained. "It's easier for me to talk about that kind of thing with him."

"Right," Rouge remarked, rolling her eyes. "So you like to live vicariously through him? Is that it?"

"Can you blame me?" the doctor replied, crossing his arms. "I've got no where to go, he's the only person who sees me, he's perhaps even more intelligent than I am and on the right side of history, and on top of all of that the clock is ticking for me."

"…Yeah, I guess that makes sense," the bat responded softly, unsure of what else to say. An awkward silence hung in the air between them.

At last, Robotnik lowered his arms to the table and looked at the bat sitting across from him. "Well go on," he muttered. "Tell me your troubles."

"How the hell am I supposed to play this game?" the red echidna muttered into the phone, as he guided a blocky red wolf character with glasses and a flannel jacket through an urban setting, wandering around aimlessly. "There's no guns or guys in the street to punch."

"Knuckles, I told you," a guy on the phone said, "it's an RPG, that stuff isn't it this game. It's more like DragonQuest or Final Fantasy."

"Never heard of them," Knuckles muttered as he guided the wolf character to a strange, Chao character. The screen turned dark for a moment and when it came back, the character had moved to be standing next to the Chao and a text box followed by a portrait of the wolf character staring at the player. "Oh hang on, he's doing that talking thing again," Knuckles said into the phone.

"A few hundred yards outside of town I came to a junction," the wolf character said in a monologue. "Mulling over the strangeness of being back home, I stopped to notice a forest I had never explored."

"Silver, this game is boring," Knuckles groaned. "All he does is talk."

"You're not even 10 minutes in the game!" Silver whined. "I promise, you'll like this game by the end of it. Just trust me, alright?"

Knuckles rolled his eyes. "Fine, but if you're wrong you owe me for this," he said with a frown.

"Trust me, Knuckles, just give it a fair shake. And don't look up any videos on it!"

Their conversation was cut short by the pounding of feet on the stairs next to the couch. "I can't take it anymore!" Tails yelled and he ran past Knuckles and towards the door. "I don't care how early I am, the anticipation is killing me! See you later Knux!" He slammed the door on his way out before Knuckles could even respond. Knuckles stared at the door for a moment in disbelief, unsure of how to respond.

"What was that about?" Silver asked over the phone.

"Oh nothing," the echidna replied nonchalantly. "Just a guy going through a lot."

"Was that Tails? What year are you in again?"

"It's uhhhh 2022, why?"

"2022… that's that year that…"

Knuckles waited as he heard the clacking of keys on a keyboard coming from Silver's end of the call. "Ohhhh," Silver said finally. "Ok yeah, no, that makes sense."

"Silver," the echidna asked cautiously, "did you just look a summary of the events of Tails' life in 2022?"

"Well, yeah. It's kinda something I had to start doing as a way of keeping track of people's lives since I'm always time hopping. Trying to avoid causing a paradox here. Last thing we need is another Time Eater or Eggman Nega or something like that."

"What year does Shadow die? Is it soon?"

"…Excuse me?"

"Please tell me it's soon."

The distant clacking of keys was the only response he got from Silver's end of the call. He sat patiently waiting for his friend from the future to respond, only to be met with a groan a few minutes later. "Dude," Silver said, clearly a little irritated, "this is not a healthy way to handle a break-up."

"What do you know about relationships?!" Knuckles snapped. "You're a manchild from the future who's had a crush on his best friend for as long as we've known you but never had the guts to ask her out. What could you possibly know about relationships?!"

There was a silence, before the hedgehog on the other line silently uttered, "…Manchild?"

Another silence. "I'm sorry," the echidna said finally, "that was uncalled for."

The silence continued, and eventually the line went dead as Silver hung up. Knuckles sighed as he put away his phone. "For a guy who apparently comes from a ruined future, he sure is sensitive," he muttered.

"So yeah," Rouge sighed, crossing her arms. "That's my current situation."

"Let me get this straight," Robotnik muttered, nursing an intense headache, "you cheated on him and expect me to pity you?"

"Well, that's not how I'd phrase it-"

"I always knew you were a piece of work, but I didn't know you were such a bitch as well."

The bat frowned at the old man across from her. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me," the doctor said coldly. "The only person at fault here is you, and you're well aware of that. I don't know what you expected from this conversation, but sympathy is far from what you'll be getting out of me."

An awkward silence fell over the two of them. "You're right," Rouge said, lowering her head in shame. "There's not really a good excuse for what I did, huh?"

Eggman shook his head. "The least you could've done is tell him you wanted to separate for a little while, but instead you broke his trust and left him for a walking, talking razor blade."

"He's not that bad, he's just…"

"In desperate need of help that you have no way of providing and that he refuses to get?"

Rouge didn't say anything, instead just nodding slowly.

Another awkward silence. This time, it was the doctor to break it. "I should've become a therapist, or something. Done something with my life instead of wasting all on machines and destruction."

The bat looked up at him, puzzled. "What?" she asked, confusion in her voice.

The doctor gave a faded smile and waved his hand away, dismissing her question. "Just the thoughts of an old fool who's realized the errors of his ways far too late for it to be of any importance."

"You're still taking the medicine that's been given to you, right?" Rouge asked, a hint of concern in her voice.

The doctor gave a half-hearted smile. "Yes, though I don't know why. The only thing keeping me going these days is getting to see my arch nemesis' little brother." He gave an equally half-hearted chuckle. "I'm truly a pathetic excuse of a man, aren't I?"

And yet again, another silence as Rouge failed to find the words. "He's coming to visit you Friday," she said finally. The doctor looked up and smiled, though clearly wasn't sure how long that would be. "Today's Wednesday," she added. "He'll be here in two days."

The doctor smiled. "Thank you," was all he said.

"Don't mention it."

After a little while, Rouge got up and banged on the door, signaling she was ready to leave.

"This was a stupid idea," Tails said as he walked towards the office building for the Rose Fashion company. In his hand he held a bouquet of roses. Orange and pink roses, to be specific. "This isn't even a date, why did I buy these?" He looked at the flowers in his hands. Truth be told, he was only just now realizing the color choices he made. His face flushed. "This… might send the wrong idea," he muttered.

As he walked into the office, he realized he was half an hour early. "I have a meeting with Amy Rose," he said to the receptionist doing his best to keep his cool. "I'm Miles Prower." He thought for a moment, then added, "I might be listed as 'Tails' as well."

"She's in a meeting right now," the receptionist said, not looking away from her computer screen. "I'll call you over when she's done if you want to sit in the lobby."

"Alright, I'll do that."

Tails took a seat in a chair by the door, still regretting his choice of flowers- right down to the fact he even bought them to begin with. After around an hour, he checked the time. 4:30 PM. They were supposed to meet half an hour ago. Had she forgotten?

"No," he thought, "I'm sure the meeting is just going on far longer than it was meant to."

Despite his self-reassurances, hid nerves still racked him. Eventually, as the time ticked by and boredom set in, his eyes just grew heavier and heavier. Before he knew it, he was dozing off in the lobby chair, clutching the roses to his chest.

Author's Note: I'm sorry to make you all wait so long for such a short chapter. I think it will be easier for me if I do a few chapters dedicated solely to one aspect of the story, so the next chapter will be entirely Tails and Amy. These next few chapters will be a bit plot heavy, so look forward to that. No idea when they'll be up, but hopefully not as big of a wait. Thank you all for the support I've gotten so far. You're all awesome. Big thanks to KeroFlakes, WhosAnonymous and TheShamanMaster especially for reviewing multiple chapters. I appreciate it a lot, hope you all have a good day and I hope the wait isn't too long this time.