Chapter Six: Who We Were

5/4/06

Tails says we're less than an hour from the waystation now. Even with everyone—especially Tails and Chris—working to make repairs for days—maybe six of them—we're still just limping along. The Hyper Tornado's good to fly. I think maybe the X-Tornado too. It was getting close. But the Blue Typhoon…I guess there's only so much that can be done without the Master Emerald. And even that much was more than can be done in a few days.

Tails has hardly been sleeping. The first time I found him slumped over a control panel in the hallway, I woke him up. But he acted all guilty above it, apologizing over and over and getting right back to work. So the next time I found him passed out in the engine room, I left him. Those accidental stolen moments are pretty much the only sleep he's been getting.

I've mostly been helping Amy with the more cosmetic repairs, plus running supplies across the ship and taking shifts as a sort of lookout on the bridge since our warning sensors have been offline. It makes me actually wish I still had the Metarex knowledge downloaded to my brain, since then I might be able to take some of the weight of the technical stuff. I've got no idea how my memories can survive the time change and that download can't. Not that under normal circumstances I'd want it. But these aren't normal circumstances.

I can't shake the feeling that this is the end of something. That's why I'm writing. And I don't mean like the end of the Metarex. Or like their last stand. Though I hope it is. Cuz if we end up jumping back in time after this to have to face them again, I'm out. They want the universe? They can have it.

Not really.

If it was just that, the feeling of this being the end wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. But it's not that. What I mean iss…so when we jumped back and I was Super Sonic, I heard the Chaos Emeralds screaming. I've never heard anything like that. I've never known them to be scared. Didn't know they could be. But it's like they knew how wrong things were. And if that's the case, they can't get much worse, right? Which makes this some sort of end.

I have a hole in my chest. I think maybe in my lungs, since I feel like I can't get a full breath anymore. I try to firm up a brave face as best I can, but I can't stop my body from shaking all the time. I have to keep finding ways to hide it from everyone else. They can already tell something's wrong. But I don't want them to know how much I don't want them to know what I think about this being an ending.

I don't want them to know how little hope I've got left.

-Sonic the Hedgehog

As soon as Sonic finished writing out his thoughts, he hurried to hide them away under his bed in his shoebox of a room. None of his friends were particularly the "snooping" type, but he still didn't want anyone coming across his note, even accidentally. The reason he had written his thoughts down at all was because he needed to get them off his chest without telling his friends. With each passing day, the weight had grown heavier, strangling even. He couldn't run it off, sprinting down hallways, because the stress of it all made it harder for him to catch his breath. And if he ran into any of his friends as he gasped for air, then they would know just how scared he was. Know how bad he wanted to be done.

How much he wanted to give up.

Sonic realized he had never bested his nightmare in the war they had just left behind. He realized how much pull the fake Chaos Emeralds still had over him. And yet, his friends refused to believe he was the weakest member of their crew.

Sonic pushed himself upright enough so that while he still remained sitting on the floor, his back pressed up against the bed behind him. He took several deep breaths, despite the air escaping through the hole in his lungs. And he braced himself for the façade of bravery he had to put up for the sake of his friends.

-(-)-

When Tails finally guided the Blue Typhoon to be docked in the small repair-station among the stars, Tails wasn't the only one to breathe a sigh of relief. Sonic stood off to the side of the bridge and as the struggling, choking engines stilled, Sonic nearly collapsed against the control panels beside him. He released what felt like a long-held breath.

The waystation was nothing like Sonic had expected. When they had first spotted it on the viewscreen, he had thought that they had happened across unexpected debris. But no, this was a proper space station. It reminded him of Space Colony ARK. If ARK had also been a shopping mall.

The structure was constructed of multiple tiers, some rotating and others still, that were pierced through the center by a wide cylindrical building. The garage was on the lowest level and when Sonic tilted his head back, he could see the tiers soaring up above him. It almost enabled him to forget the reaction of the talented waystation engineer when they pulled the Blue Typhoon into the docking bay.

You would've thought she had witnessed the craft hitting a child for the horror in her eyes.

Someone nudged Sonic with the whole side of their body. Sonic turned that way to see Amy standing beside him. Rather than looking at Sonic, she too tilted her head back to observe the many tiers above them. "You should go for a run," she said.

Sonic frowned, though Amy still looked up so she couldn't see his expression. "Didn't you need help getting supplies?"

"You should go for a run," Amy repeated rather than answering his question.

Under normal circumstances, Sonic would have been long gone. If not before Amy spoke at all, if not after she gave him permission to go the first time, then certainly after her insistence. But these were not normal circumstances. He felt like he wore someone else's skin for how out of place he seemed. Constantly he squirmed. His thudding heart refused to settle.

So now, he still hesitated. Amy rolled her eyes and then she reached out and shoved him forward. He stumbled and, once he got his feet beneath him again, looked back at her. "Don't turn chivalrous on me now, Sonic the Hedgehog," she snapped.

His eyes widened for a heartbeat before he managed to wrangle them back into a normal expression. Despite the weight pressing against his chest, he painted the smirk Amy expected across his face.

Caught between reality and expectation.

Caught between pain and confidence.

One of these days, his playacting would confuse him enough that he would lose himself among the lies of what his friends hoped for him to be.

Thankfully, today was not that day.

He looked back at Amy. Amy with the emerald-green eyes. Amy with the no-nonsense. The girl who kept him running, even if it required her chasing after him back when they were children. The girl he loved for her wildness, her confidence, her tenacity. And he used that joy the sight of her built in his chest to manufacture a smirk and an expression in his eyes to match. But creating the expression took all the energy he had, leaving nothing for words.

So without so much as a thank you, he raced off to explore the waystation with little hope that he would find the part of himself he had lost along the way.

-X-X-X-

Tails's View

In no period of time in which he had existed had Tails been old enough to drink alcohol. Even adding the time together, he still fell short of the years required, at least as far as he recalled from the rules learned when he'd been living with Chris back on Earth. But if the feeling of being drunk was anything like the exhaustion he felt, then he failed to see the appeal.

He stood with the waystation's repair group as they discussed the state of the Blue Typhoon. His legs shivered beneath him not with nerves but with downright exhaustion, like the muscles in his legs could rebel at any moment, if that's what it took to get Tails to close his eyes.

Chris beside him certainly wasn't in any better shape. Dark circles like bruises rung the bottoms of his eyes. He swayed ever so slightly on his feet, like the briefest breeze would shove him to the floor.

Good thing both of them stood with the crew that would be repairing the Blue Typhoon so one could understand what the other didn't in the midst of his exhaustion. Though they didn't really have a back-up plan for when the both of them fell asleep on their feet.

Not that the crew's assessment of the Blue Typhoon had resulted in any detail that Tails didn't already know.

No stable power source.

No shields.

No weapons.

A barely sustainable simulated atmosphere and artificial gravity.

Damage.

Damage.

How had they even made it this far with so much damage?

Tails sighed, shoulders rolling forward. He could feel his heart beating in his head, like it was bashing itself against his skull. But despite it, Tails and Chris worked with the team to prepare a project plan for repair.

Of course, then came the matter of payment.

Tails rubbed his hand against his forehead; maybe he could massage out some of the tension there. Before they had landed, Cream had approached Tails on the bridge, where Tails fought to keep his eyes open as he guided the ship.

"I don't have time to eat right now Cream," he had said after little more than a glance back over his shoulder.

"Tails."

The way she said his name, her voice high-pitched as the six-year-old her body said she should be, was eerily solemn, reflecting the age and experience Cream truly had, even if her body refused to reflect it. Cheese drifted at her side, quiet except for the fluttering of his wings, but it was enough for Tails to know he was there even without looking.

But Tails finally did look. His focus shook and blurred when he changed it and took a moment to settle again. He pressed his hands against his eyes to rub the tiredness away.

In that moment between, Cream bridged the gap between them. But what bridged the last foot between them was her holding out a tiny red coin purse. "This is everything we have," she explained.

Tails's shoulders fell, not having to look inside the coin purse to know the message Cream wished to deliver. Before Tails could say a thing, however, Cream said, "I've already considered how much of the repairs it should cover. Plus I asked Vector for a contribution, and I considered that too."

Tails blinked. His sleep-deprived brain struggled to keep up.

She continued, "We'll still fall short, but I've got a plan for that too. I looked up the regulations on the waystation for opening a small business, and as long as I have Vector front it to get around the age restrictions, I should be able to start a short-term baking business. We're not low on baking supplies, so it shouldn't hurt our inventory. Thing is, it might take a few days so we'll have to talk to the engineers for a payment plan rather than paying for all the repairs up front."

Tails blinked again. Took a moment to catch up on Cream's words as she looked up at him expectantly. An old expression on her young face. Tails was technically something like seventeen so that made Cream…fifteen? Sixteen? Even trying to piece the simple logic together sent his head spinning. "Okay…do you need—"

"Just tell the engineers you can't pay more than what we already have up front, and you tell me what we're short, and I'll make it happen," she said with a firm nod.

So when the matter of payment came up, Tails negotiated as Cream had directed, feeling the whole time like he was having an out-of-body experience. Because…how could this be real life? How could Cream be growing up as he just crumbled to pieces?