Tails huffed out a breath. It had been about an hour since he arrived at his parents' shop, and he was sat in front of a large table, using the holographic technology to bring up a display. He found some plans for implants that his parents had, including something about their security systems, and he kept searching until he found a file named "Restarter". Opening it up, he found the design of the gun that his parents used to mend Sonic's implant after he'd been poisoned a year and a half before, almost losing his own implant in the process.

Tails opened up the file and reached his hand in, holding the holographic gun in one hand. A holographic display of a body appeared next with a green dot in its chest. The dot slowly turned red and the displayed body started to flail until Tails brought the gun up and injected it into the red dot, causing the body to calm down and the red dot to go green again.

"Shame they had to use this while we were about to be put on the shelf," Tails said. "But maybe this'll work..." He opened up the file marked "Implants", and he was looking for a specific one in regards to the Restarter. "All right, so... it can copy the code of an implant and then restart that implant... but it can only copy one genetic code at a time due to the fact that it requires a blood sample from the person with the implant. That code must then be put on the implant that it was copied from for it to work properly again."

He skimmed through to find images of the implants, bringing up two of them and using the holographic Restarter on the left one. He then placed the gun to the right one and it appeared completely unfazed for a few seconds before starting to shake uncontrollably, breaking apart almost comically into several pieces.

"Huh... okay, so... copying the code of one implant to another makes it explode... apparently." Tails shook his head. "That's not what I want to do at all." He opened up the holographic gun to see all of its insides, and he used his hands to spread the parts around, giving an impressed nod at the design. "Wow... my parents really outdid themselves for this. I hope they're safe."

He kept feeling around, rearranging parts of the gun that would still fit the original design. Over the course of half an hour, he kept putting them together and testing them, with some working better than others but nothing fully working how he wanted it to. He shook his head and sat back, looking up at the ceiling and putting his hands over his face.

"Okay... I've got to sort it in a way that doesn't make the implants explode or dissolve or harm the user after the code is replaced..." He cleared his throat. "How the fuck am I supposed to do that?" He scratched his head. "Hmm... maybe it's not the initial design... maybe it's the method... there's got to be something that I can do about that." His phone started buzzing, so he answered it. "Hey."

"Hey, how's it going?" Sonic asked on his end.

"I almost hit a dead end, but I'm finding a way over it," Tails said.

"What is your plan, anyway?" Sonic asked.

"Well, if I can swing it, I want to use the Restarter to mess with the implants that we're going to give to Jem."

"Why's that? Also, what's the Restarter?" Sonic asked.

"That's the name of the gun that my dad used to restart your implant," Tails smiled. "And I want to mess with the implants to mostly make them useless. He obviously wants them for power, and with all of the illegal implants from before, he's going to become a very rich lizard selling that stuff on the streets because it'll give those lowlifes actual powers. But I want to make it so it doesn't give them powers."

"Ooh, that's pretty smart," Sonic said.

"I thought we established that I am both the brains and the eye candy of the group," Tails quipped. "I'm trying to figure out how to do it safely, but each test I run results in someone getting hurt. It's only a holographic human, but it wriggles in pain so realistically. It's kind of unnerving."

"Hey, at least you've made a dent," the blue hedgehog replied. "You should go see Cosmo soon, you know."

"I know," Tails said. "I think I will. I'll come back to this tomorrow... if Jem's going to be lenient enough to give us that long."

"I can only hope that he will be," Sonic said. "Anyway, we're waiting at our base. And we've saved you a piece of carrot cake. Bunnie made it for the new commander."

"Ooh... her carrot cake is delicious..." Tails smiled.

"Then hurry up and get your two-tailed ass over here before Knuckles steals it from the fridge."

"I'll be there as quickly as possible," Tails said seriously, triggering a laugh from Sonic. "Seriously, I'll figure something out and go see Cosmo after."

"Why not just copy the implants already there?" Sonic asked.

"I think Jem's got eyes in too many place for that," Tails said. "He'd catch on and see the shipments moving around. It's got to be done with the ones that are here."

"Damn... all right, you've got your work cut out for you," Sonic smiled. "Go for it, man. We'll see you later. And I'll make sure that Knuckles keeps his hands away from your cake."

"I appreciate that. Later, dude," Tails replied, hanging up. He looked back to the display and opened up the Restarter again, and he sighed to himself. "There's got to be a way to supercharge this so that I can get out of here quickly..." His eyes slowly widened. "Or... maybe I'm thinking of it the wrong way. I... haha, I think I've got it! I just need to find a way to lower the charge to take away some of the power..."

He looked through the Restarter parts once again, finding the part that powered it up and reaching to pull that out of the gun. He opened it up and saw the energy that flowed through it, typing something into a nearby computer which recognised it as the standard energy output. He then used the Restarter on the holographic body again, and the gun was supercharged and ready to paste over the code on the implant, and he cancelled it out.

"I dare say that I'm onto something..." He closed down the display. "All right, I'll get back to work on this tomorrow. I just need to find a good energy source... which means I'll need to find out where this one came from first. More stuff I can handle tomorrow." He looked at the time on the computer. "I've been here for a bit... I'd better get a move on."

He left his parents' shop and locked it up before he left, hopping onto his hover-board and making his way to Green Hill Hospital. The roads were pretty clear as the sky was darkening, and he noticed that some snowflakes were starting to fall to the ground. He stepped on it, so to speak, and he soon made it to the hospital, parking his board and going to the front desk.

"Excuse me," he said to the receptionist, polite as he ever was, "I'm here to see Cosmo?"

"Ah, you must be Mr. Prower, yes?" the receptionist asked.

"That's more my father, but I'll take it, sure," Tails smiled.

"She's up on the second floor. We didn't have room for her down here because of the lack of implants we've been getting." The receptionist saw Tails' fallen look. "Oh, no, sweetie, we know why."

"Yeah..." Tails muttered. "Look, uh... if anything that happened hurt you or anyone here, I want you to know that I'm really sorry. That's... that's not who we are."

"I know," the receptionist nodded. "And we're all fine. We'll just get the implants when we can, right? After you save your parents, of course."

Tails bit his tongue. "You heard about that?"

"I did. And you better save them quickly. We've got people here who need all the help that they can get," the receptionist said. "We're almost out of our last reserves of implants. Some have been stolen, but not to the degree of a couple of years ago."

"Hmm... well, I'll do what I can," Tails said. "And thank you for letting me know about this."

"Of course, cutie," the receptionist said, making Tails blush. "You go on upstairs, now."

Tails thanked her and turned to leave, taking the stairs up to the second floor and looking into a couple of the rooms before seeing Cosmo laid back in bed. A doctor was just coming out of the room after checking on her and said doctor was apparently in a rush, brushing past the two-tailed fox. Tails sighed a bit and walked into the room where his girlfriend was.

"Hi, handsome," said Cosmo.

"Hey, beautiful," Tails replied. "How are you doing?"

"Besides the bullet in the arm, you mean?" Cosmo giggled. "I'm all good."

"I wanted to ask about that," Tails said. "When you were hit, did you feel any shocks or anything? Any shuddering?"

"Uh... not really," Cosmo said. "Why?"

"It's just that the gun that shot at you had stun bullets. Probably poorly made," Tails said. "It could have been a lot worse... which probably isn't making you feel better since, you know, you got shot."

Cosmo giggled at that, scoffing a bit. "I appreciate you trying to cheer me up about it. The pain's mostly gone and they took the bullet out. I'll be out of here soon."

"That's good," Tails said. "Sorry that I couldn't make it to you sooner. I do have a perfectly valid reason."

Cosmo nodded. "Whatever it is, I understand."

Tails huffed a slow breath, tapping his fingers together. "Are you sure you're okay? I mean, nothing weird has happened lately, right? You haven't seen anything out of the ordinary?"

"The last strange thing to have happened was this morning," Cosmo said. "Why?"

Tails gulped. "After the attack, the man who orchestrated it left us a message. It was Jem."

"Ugh... I hate that guy..." Cosmo said. "And you know me, I'm not one for hate."

"I know. You're an all-loving adorable plant lady," Tails blushed.

"And I love you the most," Cosmo said, smiling cutely.

Tails' posture noticeably relaxed. "How do you do it? You always calm me down..." He reached over and took her hand. "But back to Jem... that attack this morning was a threat. He's going to hit us more. And we don't know who else will be caught up in it. And what makes it worse is that... you weren't being targeted on purpose. We have reason to believe that you getting shot was accidental."

"Hmm... that makes a weird amount of sense..." Cosmo said. "After all, if they wanted to put fear in you, they would have done it on purpose."

"No, they would have made it worse if they actually did hit you," Tails said. "And not in the shoulder. My... my parents were kidnapped. Jem's holding them ransom until I give him all of the implants we've been sitting on for the past almost two years."

"What?" Cosmo asked. "Tails... wow... you can't just give them to him."

"Actually... that's what I plan on doing," Tails smiled. "That's why I was late. I was trying to find a way to mess with how the implants work, thereby making them completely useless."

Cosmo's eyes widened. "Wow... that's pretty clever..."

Tails blushed a bit at that. "Thank you... and I was coming to a close on it before I came over to see you, actually."

Cosmo grinned. "Sorry if I interrupted your work."

"Oh, no, you didn't," Tails smiled. "I just wonder if he'll fall for it. If he was smart enough to plan that attack on us, then he could notice."

"Then you'll just have to hope that he doesn't," Cosmo replied, stroking her boyfriend's hand with her thumb. "But I have faith in you."

"I appreciate that," Tails smiled. "I could use some faith right now. I know, I'm a man of science, but I won't lie, the faith does help."

"Well, I help you however I can," Cosmo smiled. "I am also on so much morphine right now."

Tails chuckled at that, bowing his head as he laughed. "I promise we'll get through this, together. I love you... so much."

"I love you too..." Cosmo said. "Come here and kiss me before you leave."

Tails smiled, leaning over to kiss his girlfriend gently before breaking the kiss. "Bunnie made carrot cake for the new commander of the G.H.P.D today. You want me to save you some?"

"Bring it over tomorrow if you can," Cosmo giggled. "Or take it to my place since you have a spare key."

"How about your room at the department building? You've got a fridge there, after all."

"Indeed I do," Cosmo said. "See, you're the smart one for a reason."

"I'll do that tomorrow after I'm back from Spring Yard..." Tails said, clearing his throat as he saw his girlfriend's tender look at him. "We're just going up there to check something out really quick. It won't take long, and I promise that I'll be okay."

"I know..." Cosmo said. "Ugh... here I am, recovering from a gunshot wound and worrying about you."

"Take care of yourself," Tails smiled. "And I'll try and remember the carrot cake when I get back."

"You better!" Cosmo called.

The two-tailed fox laughed at that before finally leaving, going down to the first floor and soon arriving in the car park outside. He was about to grab his board when he heard some snickering nearby. He turned to see some figures whose faces he could barely make out as the sky darkened, only about three men, and they all surrounded him, making him sigh.

"Who are you and what do you want?" Tails asked. "I'm assuming this is Jem's next message?"

"Oh, we don't work for that guy," said the lead thug. "We're just here to steal that piece of hardware you rode in on."

"Uh-huh..." Tails said. "You do know who I am, right? Who I work with? Who I've worked alongside?"

"We know, that's why we're doing this," said another thug, a slight drunken drawl to his voice. "Imagine... fuck, imagine the... the mint we'll make... killing you! We could sell your tails on the internet for tons of money!"

Tails sighed, turning to the third thug. "Seriously? Three Drunk Muggers Kill Local Hero... that'll be a hell of a headline to read."

"I thought you'd be more afraid of us," said the third thug, giggling through his words. "Y-Y-You're the smallest one... you're the easiest to kill... and besides, you know that you won't kill us."

"No, that is true," Tails said. "I try not to. I have had to do it before in dire situations, though. And fortunately for you three, I don't see this as a dire situation."

"In that case, you better not turn around," said the second thug. "Do it! Now!"

Tails turned to see a fourth thief picking up Tails' board and running away, and before Tails could give chase, he felt his tails being grabbed at. He turned and swiped his tails, knocking the thug who grabbed it away as he turned to get into a fighting stance. He moved his body back to avoid a punch, and he jumped up and swiped his tails again, knocking the thug to the ground and quickly bringing up his nano-tech suit.

"Whoa... that'll mean more cash for us..." said a thug behind Tails.

The two-tailed fox grunted and snapped around quickly, flying up as the thug behind him tried to grab him. He dropped behind the mugger and tripped him up from behind, getting him to the ground and landing a quick kick to his jaw to knock him out. Tails avoided a swipe from a knife, and he quickly grabbed the thug's wrist from the second one, turning to spin him around before kicking him right into the third thief. He stopped to look over the two, and they both sprung up and grabbed at his shoulders, running to push him against a nearby car.

Tails grunted and pushed back against them, using his tails as a counterweight before pushing them both forwards with a force of effort, sending them both rolling backwards. They both hit a wall hard, grunting in pain and huffing out a breath before they both got up to run away, grabbing their third friend and trying to move as quickly as possible.

Tails pulled out his phone, typing in a number. "Hello, Green Hill Police Department? I'd like to report an attempted robbery. Four thieves outside of Green Hill Hospital. I don't mind waiting. All right... thank you." He hung up and brought his left arm across his chest, seeing the tracking system he'd installed and where his board was. He opened up a display, with a menu appearing, and he pressed a few more buttons before hearing a panicked scream in the distance. "Ah... and there it is."

Down the street, Tails' hover-board was essentially driving itself over to him, the fourth thief clinging onto it and whimpering a little as the board slid to a stop. Tails flipped the board up, sending the thug flying and landing in the pile of other thugs, looking over his board quickly.

"Sorry for the unexpected joyride," the fox smiled, wiping his board of some dust. He walked over to the thugs, wiping his hands. "Still think I'm the easiest one to kill?"

"H-How the hell... did you do that... with your board..." a thug asked.

"Nanotechnology," Tails smiled, lifting his left arm up. "That plus tracking equals personalised boards. Anyone with authorisation can take it for a ride. And sadly, you didn't have authorisation." He leaned down. "Now, tell me... did Jem send you?"

"We already said no!" said the more giggly thug. "He didn't send us. Like we'd be caught dead in Westopolis anyway."

"Well, if you went up there, you definitely would be caught dead," Tails said, looking up as he heard sirens. "Luckily for you, you'll be conscious enough to regret your actions."

Tails turned and placed his hover-board down, hopping onto it and giving a casual wave to the thugs as he rode off. He took to the board lane and eventually made it back to the freelancers' base, a bit surprised to see that some lights were still on given how much darker that it was getting. He felt a couple of snowflakes drop onto his head before he parked his board and walked to the front door. He placed his thumb over a scanner, doing the same with his eye, and the door was unlocked, finally letting him in.

In the year and a half since they were forced out of their freelance agent work, their headquarters had undergone some refurbishing as they had more free time to do it. The paint had been redone, mostly being black with shapes and shades of red, blue, orange, and white here and there, similar to how the four appeared with their nano-suits activated. The main living area was now more open, with more furniture spread out and a bigger operations table in the middle, and the kitchen was made a bit more accessible as well, even having been pushed out a bit.

One change that Tails in particular was proud of was in the gymnasium. The technology room had been more built into it, allowing Tails or any of the others to observe more easily if need be. The armoury was also made larger, adding more space for weapons as well as a big training simulation setup for weapon testing, combat training, and hover-board combat as well, not to mention the training for their implants being improved and reworked, being more personalised for each of the freelancers as they saw fit.

The upper floor's paint was the same as that on the lower floor, and the rooms themselves weren't too different. They were a bit bigger than they were before, making it easier for guests to stay over. The usual things were still all attached as well, with each room having a shower and even a kitchenette and a TV in each one, with some gaming consoles to boot as well.

"Oh, hey, there he is," Sonic said from the living area. "How'd it go?"

"Which part?" Tails asked. "The shop part or the hospital part which had a bonus at the end?"

"I'm curious as to what that entails," Sonic said. "Let's start at the shop. Also, your head's got some flakes on it. Snowflakes, I mean. Not dandruff."

Tails wiped some of the snow from his head, feeling said snow melt quickly in his hand before he sat next to Sonic. "I think I've got a way to get my parents back. And it involves giving Jem the implants."

"Right," said Knuckles from the kitchen, "but wasn't that the original plan?" He walked over with a small plate and fork, giving Tails some carrot cake.

"Aw, thanks, big man," Tails smiled. "And yes, it was. But I've decided to add a wrinkle to it."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I looked into the Restarter, that device that reset Sonic's implant after he almost lost his legs due to being poisoned," Tails said.

"And I was doing so well at forgetting about the poisoning bit. Thanks." Sonic chuckled. "Go on."

"Well, the way that the weapon works is that it copies the code of an implant and puts it back in, basically resetting it to its original point of usage. I was trying to find a way to exploit that with the implants that well be delivering to Jem."

"Huh," Knuckles said, his eyebrows raised. "That's pretty smart. What did you find out?"

"Pretty far, actually," Tails said. "I figured that here's got to be a way to get the code into the Restarter, lower the power that it gives back, and then paste the code back onto the implant."

"But that wouldn't work unless that implant was used in the first place, right?" Knuckles asked. "That's how it went for Sonic. His implant saw plenty of use, even through it being infected."

"Indeed, that is true," Tails said. "But not all implants give powers. They're mostly used to help people's lives, right? Like to help with certain conditions, illnesses, injuries, you name it."

"So... is the plan to just make them all work the same way?" Knuckles asked.

"The plan is to make them not work at all," Tails said. "No repairing someone, no cool powers, just a piece of metal inside a body that does nothing to help the person it's in."

"And where are you with that?" Knuckles asked.

"Almost done. I just need to find a way to finish it, so as soon as we get back from Spring Yard tomorrow, I'll go back to the shop and see what I can do. I thought about lowering the charge when copying the code, but that wouldn't negate the effect completely."

"Plus we wouldn't have time to do all of that," said Sonic. "Jem could strike again at any time."

"I'll find a way to rework it tomorrow," Tails said. "Damn... feels like I'm back at square one now."

"No, you got pretty far," said Sonic. "You just need to focus on how to use the Restarter to make the implants... well, nonstarters."

"Fair point."

"How's Cosmo?" the blue hedgehog asked.

"Oh, she's all right," Tails said. "Although that does remind me that they haven't had implants delivered in a while. There's a lot more patients there than usual because of deliveries basically being forced to stop."

"That's a weird thing as well," said Sonic. "Your parents only had three months off, as opposed to the rest of us who had more time away."

"Yeah, but my parents couldn't deliver anything for three months," Tails said. "They were working themselves to the bone to get implants back out when they were allowed to do so again. They were actually enjoying a vacation about a month before we got reinstated."

"Yeah, but still... a three month gap of them not working, all of those penitentiary rioters that broke out... that must have hit the supply hard," Sonic said. "Especially when delivering to cities outside of Green Hill."

"And there's a chance that a lot of those weren't even working for the Black Market or Jem," said Knuckles. "That's not power in the wrong hands. That's power in unknowing hands. That's a lot worse."

"Wow... then that makes what happened earlier worse..." Tails said.

"What happened earlier?" Sonic questioned.

"I... after I visited Cosmo, I got jumped by four thugs," Tails replied. "I took them out, and they didn't use implants. Hopefully they didn't actually have any. It was easy to beat them, so maybe they didn't. Or they did and they just really sucked at fighting."

"Were they working for Jem?" Sonic asked.

"They said that they weren't," Tails replied. "I trust them. There's no way that Jem would send low-level guys like that after just one of us. I called the cops after I beat them up, so they're probably in the department's holding cells right now."

"Fuck, that ain't good," Sonic said. "They attacked you in the dark after you just went to visit your girlfriend at the hospital. They probably wanted to steal something from there."

"It wouldn't have been implants," Knuckles said. "Like Tails said, the hospital's in short supply of those at the moment."

"It'll be worth looking into for tomorrow," Sonic said.

Tails nodded, looking around. "Where's Shadow?"

"He left," Knuckles answered. "I think he went back to Anti-Light."

"Well, we'll have to let him know about this tomorrow," Tails said.

"I've already let Alec know that we're going over to Spring Yard, so we're getting hooked up with weapons and backup if we need it," Sonic said. "Shadow got the details before he left too."

"We're just going around to ask questions, right?" Knuckles asked.

"Pretty much," Sonic nodded. "But that's for tomorrow. We should sleep."

"I will too," Tails said. "But I want to eat this cake first..."

"After the night that you've had, you've earned it," Sonic smiled. "Still... all of that in just one day. I swear, it's like we never left."

With Shadow at Midnight Oil...

The black and red hedgehog sat in a booth on his own, a beer bottle in his hand as he looked across to the empty seat on the other side of the table. He cleared his throat as he drank, and he saw Rosy walk over to him with some food, a steak sandwich which she put on the table in front of him, even adding some fries.

"You know it's a bit late for this kind of meal, right?" Rosy asked.

"You're the only one open this late to do it," Shadow replied. "I appreciate that."

Rosy sat across from him. "You know, you've come here every night after Maria's death. You sit alone, you have a couple of drinks, you order some food... don't you have any plans?"

"Not really," Shadow said. "I'm going to Spring Yard tomorrow, so I probably shouldn't be doing this."

"Then why are you?"

Shadow shrugged, taking a pull of his beer. He drank it down with an exhale of breath and spoke. "I don't know."

"You do know," Rosy said. "I'm a bartender, not your therapist."

"Therapy hasn't helped," Shadow said. "I tried it. The only person who could help me isn't around any more..." He closed his eyes, shuddering. "It's because of me... I let her down... I'm the... I-I'm the reason that she's gone..." He sniffled and let out a couple of tears. "And, you know... it's only going to get worse. I'm guessing that you saw what happened this morning on the news?"

"I did," Rosy nodded. "And I'm sorry for what happened."

"It won't be the last time," Shadow said. "The son of a bitch that did it will hit again. He might even hit you next."

"Wow, aren't you just a cheery picture," Rosy muttered.

Shadow cleared his throat at that, shaking his head. "I'm... I don't... I don't fucking know what to do."

"Well, you won't find the answer doing the same thing that everyone else does when they come here," Rosy said. "Although you do it with significantly less ogling of me, which I appreciate."

Shadow raised his beer up at that, giving her a nod before wiping his eyes. "I'm sorry... I... I really haven't been dealing with what happened in the best way."

"No, but you could be handling it much worse," Rosy replied. "I'd rather have you sad and drinking here than in some back alley snorting or injecting something, picking a fight with a random stranger... this isn't healthy, but it's the least destructive thing that you could do right now."

Shadow nodded, gulping. "If... if anything happens to you, or anyone you're close to... I want you to know that I'm sorry that I couldn't prevent it. And if you notice anything weird, call me up."

"You'll just have to be around in case something does happen," Rosy said. "Do your friends even know you're here?"

Shadow shook his head. "You know that they don't. You said it yourself, I've been coming here for a while. Alone."

"Next time," Rosy said, reaching to touch Shadow's hand, "bring your friends around."

Shadow nodded, and as Rosy left, Maria took her place briefly, giving Shadow a smile and reaching to take his hand. Her lips then slowly leaked out blood as her blue shirt was stained red with an ever-growing wound, and Shadow screwed his eyes shut, shaking his head and looking up to see nobody there again. He gulped down the rest of his beer and ordered one last beer for the night.

Later, he had finished his last beer as well as the food that he was given, paying Rosy in kind before he took his leave. He hopped onto his hover-board and made his way to the Anti-Light headquarters. He got inside and put his board up, wasting little time in going to his room. As he opened his door to go in, he felt a pull on his arm and he turned to see Rouge.

"You're late," the white bat said. "Again."

"I was out drinking," Shadow said. "Alone. Again."

"Shadow, I know that what happened was-"

"You don't know," Shadow spat. "You don't fucking know. You didn't see it. You picked up the body and buried it and I barely made the funeral. I couldn't even grieve properly until everyone else was gone."

Rouge slapped his face quickly. "You have no right to talk to me like that. I promised you that, after Maria died, I'd check up on you. And I have been. I'd be doing it more if you'd let me or anyone else come with you to get drinks."

"For what reason? To celebrate?" Shadow scoffed. "We got our old jobs back today, and within one swoop, a good friend got hurt, a crime boss made a big statement, Tails' parents got kidnapped, and to get them back, he has to give away something that's been saving the lives of so many for the past couple of years. So you'll excuse me if I'm not in a hurry to get wasted with friends at a bar."

"No, but you're comfortable enough to do it yourself," Rouge huffed. "Do you know who I just got off of the phone to?"

"Calvin?" Shadow asked.

"Tails," Rouge replied. "He got attacked by muggers on his way out of the hospital after seeing Cosmo."

The black and red hedgehog gulped. "Shit..."

"He's been busy most of the night working on a way to screw over Jem with the implants, and you couldn't even be bothered to help him at the hospital?" Rouge asked. "Did he even know that you were at the bar?"

Shadow shook his head. "N-No... I lied... told them that I was here."

Rouge nodded. "Fine. I'll... I'll leave you be to sleep."

"Don't." Shadow said quickly. "I'd... I'd really like you to sleep with me. I mean, not have sex..."

"Good, because I don't want to do that with you," Rouge said. "Especially when you're acting like this."

Shadow coughed out a laugh. "We... haven't done that in a while. Not since the night before Maria's funeral."

"Well, we were busy," Rouge reminded him. "We were trying to put a stop to the escaped criminals that broke out of the penitentiary."

"Yeah, but only the ones here in Green Hill," Shadow said. "If I got caught dead outside of the city, that was that. No more freelance work."

"True, but you helped us out when you could," Rouge said. "You just had to do it from here."

Shadow smiled. "We're going to Spring Yard tomorrow. We could use some guidance out there as well. You were up there not long ago, right?"

"Indeed I was," Rouge said. "I'll go talk to Calvin in the morning to see about backup. We've probably got people over there anyway."

"There might not be a point," said Shadow. "We're only going out there to ask questions about how Jem escaped from prison there."

"A little bit of backup couldn't hurt, though," Rouge replied. "I'll put in a good word for you, even though I shouldn't."

Shadow nodded. "I suppose you staying the night's out of the question."

"It is," Rouge replied. She leaned to kiss Shadow's cheek. "Get some sleep. And if you go out drinking again tomorrow night, for fuck's sake, take someone with you."

"I'll try to keep that in mind," Shadow said. "See you tomorrow."

"Sure. Oh, and we're going to try and get you some stuff for Beau's interrogation," Rouge said. "I can't say more until I know more, but we'll get something sorted for you."

"Then let me know when you can," Shadow said. "Goodnight."

"Goodnight," Rouge replied.

Shadow sighed as the white bat left, going to her room, and he followed her to her room, stopping her from closing her bedroom door. "What are the chances of me staying the night with you?" Shadow asked.

"Also not great," Rouge said. "Maybe with less alcohol on your breath."

Shadow nodded. "It was worth a shot... see you tomorrow."

As he turned around and left, Rouge peeked her head out to see him leaving and going to his own room. He closed and locked his door, and she sighed and receded into her own room, getting ready for bed before getting under the sheets and going to sleep.

And that's another one of these done. I really am getting a good flow going with them, but I'll be honest, I'm partially winging it and partially planning things ahead. Next will be another one-shot request and then possibly more of this, as well as other stuff to come soon. Until then, take care, and stay tuned.