Hello everyone! I'm sorry this is so late! School has been insane for the past couple weeks and I've been completely swamped and unable to write. But it's about time I gave this story another update! The response to this fic has been amazing, and I honestly can't thank you guys enough! I'm not going to ramble and delay the chapter anymore, however, so I'll leave that for the end! Let's get started!

Bladed Sorrows

Fading

Many months had passed since Tails had started being more open about his habits with Sonic, and things had only continued to improve since then. He'd even gotten more support from those around him, finally having built up the courage to talk about what had been happening with Knuckles and Amy.

Amy had immediately hugged him the second he'd brought it up to her. Knuckles had talked about being strong enough to fight foes within and had suggested some things the fox could do to help clear his mind.

Sonic, however, was still the one who was always there for him, that much hadn't changed.

"Yo, Mobius to Tails. Ya in there?"

Sonic's voice snapped Tails out of his thoughts, pulling him back to reality. The two of them were sat at the table, busy eating dinner.

"What ya thinking about bud? You zoned out on me there."
"Sorry, just… Thinking about the past couple of months is all…"

Sonic sat upright in his chair. "What about it?"

Tails gently placed his hand on the back of his wrist, thinking things over. "I'll… I'll tell you later…"

The hedgehog thought about asking more for a moment before he responded. "That's fine, we can talk about it later. But we'll still do your checkup before you go back to whatever it is you're working on."

Tails pulled off both of his gloves before presenting his wrists to the hedgehog, who quickly looked them over. Nothing had changed from last week, or the previous few months for that matter. What little marks remained were nothing more than faint scars.

Sonic smiled, "I'm proud of you bud, that's two and a half months without cutting yourself."

Tails smiled sheepishly as the hedgehog released his wrists.

"We should do something to celebrate," Sonic said.

"You don't need to do that…" Tails responded, obviously embarrassed by the attention.

"Yeah, I do. Besides, you deserve it."

The hedgehog playfully ruffled the bangs on the fox's head, prompting a bit of a laugh from the fox. "Don't you ever get tired of doing that?"

"Nope, especially not when it's my little bro."

Sonic soon released the fox, "Alright, I'll let you get back to whatever it is you're working on."

Tails smiled, turning to head back downstairs to his workshop. "It's just about finished, so hopefully you'll get to see it soon!"

"Sounds like a plan, I might be headed on a run it a bit so if I'm not here that's why."

The fox nodded before exiting the room. He was soon greeted by his workshop once again as he reached the bottom of the stairs. Sitting back at his workbench, his eyes immediately landed on the blueprints for the project he was working on. He had plans to create a device that allowed for even more energy to be drawn from Chaos Emeralds than usual, allowing it to give more power to anyone who wanted to use it.

As he studied back over the blueprints, his vision wandered over to his journal. He reached over and grabbed it, it was much lighter than when he'd gotten it, the result of tearing out dozens of pages from when he hated the things he'd written about himself. It'd been a while since he'd had to do that, now hating himself much less than he'd had in the past couple of months.

Flipping toward the back of the book, he soon reached the final few pages, there were only a few blank pages now, and most of the book had been filled with random sentences he'd written to get thoughts out of his head. He'd need to get a new one soon.

Idly looking over a few sentences from the past couple of times he'd used the book, he found one sentence that kept jumping out at him.

I'm starting to forget.

Quickly pushing the sentence from his head, he returned the journal where he'd gotten it. Taking a deep breath he focused back on the blueprints on the table.

After trying for a few minutes to focus, he still returned to the thought he'd been having.

He was starting to forget Cosmo.

He'd been meaning to talk with Sonic about it but hadn't dared to do so yet.

The fox's vision wandered over to the potted flower growing on his windowsill, it'd grown a bit more, having recently sprouted small petals on it.

Deep down, Tails wondered if anything would ever come of that flower. He secretly hoped that somehow it was the key to bringing Cosmo back but realistically he knew that wasn't likely. Besides, that's assuming that the plant even lasted that long… The fox occasionally had nightmares of the plant being destroyed, something he was trying very carefully to prevent.

"Knowing you it's a miracle it's lasted this long." His subconscious mind added. "I mean, you're terrible with plants."

"Shut up…"

"You know I'm right."
"Shut up."

It was then that he decided that enough was enough, the fox stood from his chair, pushing any of his subconscious thoughts from his head, and went back upstairs.

"Hey Sonic…" The fox began as he reached the top, expecting to find the hedgehog right where he'd left him. When he got no response he thought over where he might be, only to remember that the speedster had mentioned he'd be going on a run.

Thinking over what to do, Tails sat in one of the chairs at the table, he didn't want to go back to working on his project right now, quite frankly he just needed someone to talk to.

"Sonic isn't home, you could always just deal with this yourself…" His inner monologue spoke.

"No, I'm not hurting myself ever again, we've been over this."

"It'd make you feel better."

The fox shook his head. "I said no."

"It'd help you remember her…"

He took another deep breath and cleared his thoughts while he considered his options. Sonic wouldn't be home for a bit given his run had just started… Nobody else was around either…

The fox pulled out his communicator, thinking about calling Sonic for a minute before stopping. He didn't want to bother Sonic. This wasn't a big deal.

He was going to be fine.

So he soon called Amy, thinking she'd at least be able to help him get this out of his head. The device rang a few times before the hedgehog answered.

"Hey Tails! What's up?"

"Hey Amy… Uh… Can we talk for a second?"

The hedgehog immediately noticed the concern in the fox's voice. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing… I just… Need to talk…"

"Well, I'm right here, what do you want to talk about?"

"It's about…" The fox began, his voice tapering off for a moment. He could feel his own emotions bubbling up to the surface.

He felt like he was going to explode.

"It's about Cosmo…"

"You've been thinking about her lately?"

"Yeah… That's the whole problem…"

"It's perfectly normal for you to-"
"I'm starting to forget her."

Amy was quiet for a minute after Tails interrupted her, and although she couldn't see him, she could tell from his voice that the fox was trying his best not to cry.

"Tails it's been a while, so that's normal."

"I just can't remember exactly what she looks like… Some of the stuff we did together is a bit fuzzy and…" The fox's voice once again trailed off, as his emotions started to get the better of him. "I don't want to forget… I promised myself I wouldn't forget…"

"Tails… It's okay. I know it hurts, but… This is normal. When you're not around someone for a while you start to forget what they're like. That's just the way things are."

Amy didn't get a response, but she could hear faint sniffles from the fox.

"Do you want me to call Sonic? He could probably help."

"Yes…"

"Okay, I'm going to hang up and call him, don't beat yourself up too much about this Tails. You've been doing great and I know things have been tough for you. Everything is going to be okay."

The hedgehog hung up and quickly dialed Sonic, she wasn't sure if what she'd said had helped, but she certainly hoped at the very least, Sonic could help Tails feel better again.

-X-

After Amy explained the situation to him, Sonic turned around and rushed back home. Stepping back inside he found the fox sitting at the table, he'd obviously been crying judging by the bloodshot eyes that turned to look at him.

Sonic thought about what he was going to say but instead decided to silently sit next to the fox, causing the kit to immediately burst into tears again as he cried into the hedgehog's shoulder.

"You want to talk about it now?" Sonic asked, gently stroking the fur on the fox's back. He already knew what the fox was upset about, but he wanted the fox to talk about it himself. If Tails didn't want to talk, he wasn't going to make him.

"Y-Yeah…" Tails sniffled, "I… I'm starting to… Forget Cosmo… I promised myself I wouldn't but…"

"Bud, that's perfectly normal. It's been a while, and…"

"You don't understand… I… I associate the pain from… From cutting myself with her… It helps me remember."

"Tails… You haven't been cutting yourself have you?"

"No, I haven't… But… I want to… I really do… I keep telling myself not to but I just…"

The fox couldn't finish his sentence before he broke down into tears again, all of his emotions completely overwhelming him.

Sonic held the fox in a hug for a while, just letting him get everything out of his system. Eventually, the fox started to calm back down, prompting the hedgehog to speak again.

"Tails, I know you probably don't feel great right now, but… I want to say I'm proud of ya bud, don't forget that. You've been doing amazing, and, I'm gonna say it, you're the strongest mobian I know. Not sure if I know of anyone else who could go through what you have. I look up to you a lot. You're a tough kid."

After the two sat in silence for a bit, Tails was obviously still upset by everything judging by his overall demeanor. It wasn't long before Sonic once again spoke.

"Bud, do you remember what I promised you when we first met?"

"Like I could ever forget…"

"What'd I say then?"

The events of the day he'd first met Sonic were forever etched into his memory, it was the day he'd stopped being Miles Prower and became Tails after all.

"You… Said everything was going to be alright."

"That promise is still there bud. Everything is gonna be alright." Sonic said pushing the fox up and placing both hands on the kit's shoulders, "I love ya bud, we'll get through this."

The hedgehog's words seemed to finally pull the fox out of his slump, a slight smile crossing his face.

"Love you too Sonic…" The fox responded, still thinking about what the hedgehog had said.

Maybe things would be alright.

He did have all of his friends after all, they all loved him, and in the end, that's what really mattered.

Alright everyone, that's all for this chapter. Again I'm really sorry for how long this took, this chapter had multiple revisions before reaching this point and I'm happy with it. Hopefully you enjoyed it as well. Let me know if you did in a review, and I'll be getting the final chapter out much sooner. I'll see you all next time.