A Broken Heart is Blind, a sonic the hedgehog fanfic

Welcome to 'A Broken Heart is Blind.'

Ya know when you stare and re-read your own work so many times it seems to get worse with every edit?

That's where I'm at with this.

Now it's your turn. :))

A Broken Heart is Blind

Chapter One

'Hello love, my invincible friend.' - I Forget Where We Were, Ben Howard.

Humans were so slow.

After years of living among them, it never ceased to amaze me. The day to day mundane activities; shopping, traveling, commuting, even breathing seemed painfully sluggish.

It was worse around the holidays, but there was something about the Christmas season that made even the worst of experiences seem that little bit more bearable. People just seemed to be in higher spirits, and the look of families reuniting at the bus depot was like watching one of those cheesy, Hallmark movies.

A young man in a military uniform was greeted by his parents, a woman ran and jumped into the arms of another woman holding an umbrella, which was soon discarded as they embraced, unashamed in the rain. An elderly man was helped off the bus and into the waiting arms of a throng of grandchildren, all clamoring for his attention.

It was a beautiful sight.

Humans may be slow, but they were warm, and Earth had become home.

I was so distracted by the heartwarming scenes around me, I failed to see a bus from Chicago pulling into the station. I wince as the brakes screech to a stop and get up from my protective seat on a nearby bench, stepping out into the elements and onto the street. My legs and fingers ache with cold, and in my excitement to leave, I had gotten the arrival time totally wrong and ended up arriving a full hour early.

My life had become pretty boring over the last few years, I couldn't be tied to a lab like Tails or take orders from higher ups like Shadow. I still needed that sense of freedom that came with not being tied down by man or beast. The wind was still my religion, but every once in awhile I'd come back down and plant my feet solidly on the ground. Today was one of those times, a much needed distraction from my daily jog around the globe.

Breath plumes around me as I exhale, the rain bouncing off my shoulders and I stretch my legs trying to see around the crowd of people pouring out of the Greyhound.

Then, I see her. A splash of pink in a sea of umbrellas and Christmas sweaters.

I jump up and down, waving my hands in the air, earning strange looks from the passers-by but I didn't care. I hadn't seen Amy in years, and when she called last week asking for a place to lay low for a while, I couldn't turn her down.

I place my gloved hands around my mouth and yell over the crowd, "Ames!"

She turns in my direction, scanning the crowd and my heart hits my stomach.

She looks like shit.

Amy had always been beautiful, you'd have to be blind not to notice, but with each step she took the more my heart sank, swelled and fractured all at once.

She was pale, gaunt, and the closer she got the more I noticed the bruises around her left eye and the split in her bottom lip. She gave a timid smile and waved, pushing through a group of college students home for the holidays. A girl turned to look at her, and stared longer than what I would've been comfortable with, but her eyes weren't on Amy's face, it was on the tiny hoglet attached to her chest. If I had to guess, it was only weeks old by the size.

I wasn't well versed in these kinds of things, but my instincts screamed that she was still bleeding heavily and smelt like the bitter tang of fear.

"Ames," I croaked, "what happened to you?"

I reached to push a quill out of her face, but she turned away, rubbing the small bundle in the sling protectively.

"Can we not?" She says, her voice hoarse, "not yet."

I run a hand down my face, this was more than a, 'I want to lay low for awhile', type of visit. She was running from something, more than likely someone, and she knew I wouldn't have the heart to turn her away after everything we'd been through.

After the final battle, the chaos emeralds were all but destroyed, and with no way of generating enough energy to get back home, we planted roots all over the United States. Last I saw her must've been six years ago, at Knux and Rouge's wedding. She was off living in Seattle, doing something with graphic design? Marketing? Journalism? I couldn't remember. She hadn't been involved with anyone, at least that I knew of, at least no one she'd get knocked up by.

I exhale slowly, "you're going to have to give me something."

"I know. Later," she pushes a quill over her shoulder that had escaped her ponytail, "it's cold."

Her eyes flash to the baby, pulling the sides of her jacket over them.

"Right." I pick up the carseat at Amy's feet, she had a backpack on and a small duffel in her hand, "this it?"

She looks to the duffel and then at the carseat, "that's it."

"Cars' this way." I push her back gently in the direction of the garage across the street.

We walk in silence, apart from the occasional cooing Amy whispers to the baby as she shields it from the rain, I curse myself for forgetting an umbrella. I never used one.

I wasn't a smart guy, and my brain was having a hard time keeping up with these turn of events. What was I going to tell Shadow? Tails? We all lived together, but we were never really at the compound at the same time. Tails was normally off in Houston at NASA, Shadow was constantly on missions with GUN and me, well I was rarely in one place long. There was always hero work to be done. But Amy… I glance over at her, she looked exhausted.

I'd told them in our group chat that we had an old friend visiting. Tails was excited, Shadow never responded. Which was normal, disinterested, Shadow behavior. Just how in the hell was I going to explain this?

"Thanks, Sonic." My ears flick in her direction, and I slow to match her stride.

"You know I always got your back."

She smiles, slightly, "yeah, I know."

I clear my throat, the lump I get when I want to cry starts to grow. I would always have her back, any of my friends, I was stubbornly loyal. I wasn't good at necessarily sticking around for the long haul, but if they called, I'd always answer. Being a hero was a part of my DNA, I didn't know how else to be, and Amy… She needed me, right now.

It hurt that she never called after we all split. I thought she would've. Rouge kept tabs on her, would tell me how she was doing from time to time, but she never mentioned anything like this.

"What's the name?" I ask, trying to snap myself out of my self induced spiral.

"Ignis."

"Ignis…" I repeated, rolling the name over my tongue, "cute."

Her face broke into a smile that reached her eyes, "he is."

A sliver of the old Amy surfaced, and I couldn't help but smile stupidly back.

"You look good." I lie, but I wasn't terribly great at small talk and I hated how quiet she was being. I needed to fill the space in the air.

She snorts, "liar."

I point at the black Yukon at the end of the parking garage, steering her again in it's direction.

"I mean, ya know, apart from the-" I point to her eye.

She waves me off, taking the carseat from my hand after I unlock the vehicle, and opens the door to the back seat.

"Thanks." She drones, sarcastically, "cause nothing says, 'looking good' like a busted face and an adult diaper." Amy leans in, quickly locating something called anchors, that I didn't know existed until now, and hooks the carseat into place, "hold this."

She hands me her backpack and begins unraveling the sash that held the little hoglet to her chest. He emerges, tucked into himself, white as snow, but his eyes were all Amy. He was cute. I hadn't been around babies much; Knuckles and Rouge had been trying with Tails' help for years. Interspecies procreation was a tricky thing, but not entirely impossible. Mobian biology was still very much unknown to human doctors, but we were getting there and the doctors that did make it over from Mobius were few and far between.

She buckles him in and takes the backpack from my hands, reaching in, she pulls out a small blanket and tucks it around him.

"How old is he?"

She plants a kiss on his forehead and checks the straps around his chest one more time, "almost two weeks."

"You been traveling this whole time?"

"Kinda," she throws her backpack onto the floor of the car, followed by the duffel. "I stayed at a couple motels along the way."

I slide my hands into my jacket pockets and roll back and forth on my feet, "was there no where else you could go?"

Her mouth opens and closes, eyes flashing with hurt, and I realize quickly how terrible that just sounded.

"—Not that I don't want ya here!" I say quickly, mentally slapping myself, "just figured you'd be more comfortable with Vanilla, Cream or even Rouge?"

She scratches her nose with a knuckle and sighs, "I didn't think being around Rouge with the baby would be a good idea."

"Ah."

"And Vanilla said no."

Oh.

She pulls the sleeves of her sweatshirt over her palms, "I get it. Cream is still in school. It's a lot."

I nod, sympathetically and give her a gentle smile, "I'm glad you called. Really."

She doesn't reply, just looks down at her feet, tugging at the zipper of her jacket.

"Welp," I say, slapping my hands together, "we good to go?"

"I guess."

She gently closes the door and I speed around her and open her door before racing to the drivers seat to get the car started. Texas wasn't typically cold, at least not until January, but today was one of those days where it decided to hover just above freezing and having an infant made me a little more aware of the outside temperature.

"I'm surprised you drive something like this?" Amy said, climbing in.

"I don't," I laugh, turning on the heat full blast, "it's Shadow's. Figured you wouldn't appreciate being run around at the speed of sound in this weather."

She blinks at me, "Wait… Shadow?"

I arch an eyebrow at her.

"Huh," She slumps in the seat, "and he let you borrow it?"

"Shadow's chill."

It was her turn to laugh this time, "right, 'Mr Hospital Corners' is super chill." She turns to look out the window as we pull onto the freeway, "he didn't even remember my name the last time I saw him."

I grimace inwardly. That certainly did sound like Shadow, the last time we were all together would've been at the wedding and he was barely out of therapy at that time.

"Yeah, well, he still calls me, Faker. Pretty sure he doesn't know my real name." I glance at her from my peripheral, she yawns into her fist and leans against the window.

"That's pretty much a term of endearment by now," she breathes onto the glass and draws a heart in the condensation. "Better than just staring at you blankly saying, 'Female, stop hugging me at once.' He looked like he was going to cry."

Her Shadow impression was on point.

I laugh, "he's not so bad nowadays. Tolerates a fist bump every now and then, too."

"And Tails?" She pulls a leg underneath her and faces me, snuggling into the headrest. Her eyes look heavy.

"As brilliant as ever."

She yawns again, this time closing her eyes, "figures."

"Hey Ames."

She hums in response.

"Go to sleep."

Five minutes later and she's out, I know this because I swerved to dodge some tire debris in the middle of the road and she smacked her head on the door frame. Didn't even flinch. Either that or she's concussed, I wasn't going to try to wake her up regardless. The bags under her eyes told a story I think would land me on the other end of her hammer if I tried to.

She looked so frail, it made my stomach churn. I was trying hard to keep my emotions in check but the thought of someone inflicting physical pain on Amy was making it hard to think rationally. She was strong, she could handle herself in plenty of life and death situations and she was stronger than most male Mobians. Which meant one thing; she let them hurt her. For whatever reason.

I looked at the carseat in my rearview mirror and frowned.

Poor kid. Poor Ames. Whatever mess they were in, we could fix it, that much I knew. The person that had decided to call me at this exact moment however may have a different idea in mind.

I fish my phone out of the center console and glance back at Amy, still fast asleep, "sup."

"Where are you?"

"On my way home. Why, ya miss me?" I tease, Shadow snorts on the other end.

"No. You'd like that too much." He pauses when I don't say anything back for half a beat, I always had some witty comeback, but Ignis made a strange noise. "Faker?"

"Hmm?"

He pauses again, "Nothing."

"Sorry," I whisper, "how's the mission?"

He sighs into the receiver, Shadow had been looking for an energy source comparable to the chaos emeralds for years. We'd get random hyper energy fluctuations, Tails said it had something to do with the merging of our two worlds, but there was still so much we didn't know about our current situation, and how our atmospheres interacted with each other. It all sounded foreign to me, so I didn't even try to figure it out, much to Tails' annoyance, who found it all fascinating.

"Unproductive, per usual."

"Lame. You headed back?" I look back over at Amy, still asleep huddled against the door, her sweatshirt had slipped off her shoulder and I noticed she was wearing a lot of layers. Less to pack, I guessed.

"No. I need to file my reports. Check in with HQ."

"That doesn't sound like fun." I pout.

"Yes, well, some of us like to actually work for our money."

"Ouch." I say, feigning hurt, "I'll have you know, I work plenty hard. The last time I saved an elderly woman from a burning building, she made me go in multiple times to look for a cat she didn't even have."

He grunts, "sure, whatever you say."

"Listen, Shadow there's something I should probably tell—"

I hear an alarm go off on his end, "—Shit, I need to go."

"Right, see ya, Champ. Save the world one report at a time."

"You're an infant."

"Love you too." I coo, waiting expectantly.

The line goes dead.

"Well, this is it."

Amy follows close behind me into the foyer. She whistles and drops her duffel onto the floor with a gentle thud.

"This place is incredible." She wanders further inside, to the kitchen on the right and then out into the keep which opens up onto the wrap around deck, "government really hooked you up, huh?"

There was a tinge of bitterness in her voice, but I chose to ignore it.

"It's not all great," I begin, but she's already outside, looking at the view.

She inhales deeply and closes her eyes. It's dusk, and the air is heavy with the scent of Cedar and fresh rain.

"I'm sorry for not giving you more of a heads up."

I lean against the railing next to her, "It's sure been awhile."

"Yeah," she picks at her fingernails, "sorry about that."

"Don't be, I didn't keep up with you either did I?"

She nods, staring into the distance.

The silence is heavy and I find myself at a loss of what to say, but it's comfortable. The kind of silence you have between life long friends, so we stand in it for a few minutes, soaking it in before I notice her shiver.

I reach out to rub her arm and she flinches, "let's get you inside," I say, retracting my arm, noticing the way her eyes turn into slits and her quills frazzle. "I'll show you where you're staying." She eyes me wearily, clutching Ignis close before following me off the deck.

My heart squeezes and I try to push past the hurt I feel.

We head upstairs, past the kitchen and back into the foyer to an invisible staircase. The second floor, I tell Amy, is where my room and Shadow's is, at opposite ends. The next floor is the media room and finally just off the media room and up a small flight of stairs is the loft.

It has steepled ceilings and the wall facing the lawn is exposed glass, it was supposed to be an office of sorts but, paperwork isn't really my style and Shadow says he can't get any work done at the house anyway, so it was converted to a spare bedroom for friends and family that never came.

There was a Queen sized bed, a dresser and a chaise in the corner with a small enclaved book nook. Not much, but by the look on Amy's face, it was everything. She plops down on the bed and runs her hand over the down comforter.

"Who's the mastermind behind all this?" She asks, gently bouncing in place.

"That would be Tails," I explain, "he has more of a knack for this kind of stuff."

"What can't he do?" She says, amazed.

"Cook." She snorts, "I'm serious. Don't ask him to make a thing. He gets way too technical about it, and it all ends up tasting the same, no matter what it is."

Ignis begins to squirm and Amy stands from the bed and starts to pace the room, "check this place out, Ig," she whispers, her voice thick with affection. "Just for the two of us."

She walks to the window, and tells him about what she can see; the trees, the hawk soaring over Tails' workshop, the color of the sky now that the sun has decided to fall asleep. He watches her, wide eyed, expressionless, and as she continues to speak he turns into her and falls quietly back to sleep. I don't think I've ever been more amazed with Amy than I have in this moment, she hugs the child tight to her chest and sways. I watch for a moment, like if I interrupt this moment of tranquility she won't ever get it back, but there's something that needs to be said.

"You ready to tell me what happened?"

She looks across the lawn, and then to me. Her gaze is hesitant, and I swallow the lump in my throat that starts to grow again. This isn't Amy. Amy didn't scare easily. Hell, she took on Eggman more times than I could count, traveled through time and space, fought aliens.

"My ex had some issues he couldn't work through," she starts, "I couldn't do it anymore. I tried. He—" she stops herself and runs her tongue over the split in her lip, "I just need to get back on my feet and then we'll be out of your quills."

"Did he do this to you?" I gesture to her face.

She looks away, "yes."

My blood boils, I figured as much, but to hear the words fall from her mouth made it reality.

"Does he know you've had the baby?"

"No."

"Jesus, Ames."

"I can't let him find me, Sonic." Her eyes flicker with sudden panic, and my instinctual side to protect flares. "I want Ignis and me to have a fresh start. Please, I swear it'll be a month. Tops."

"Stop it. You don't have to convince me," I say reassuringly, "your safe here."

Her head drops, and her shoulders begin to shake. I don't need to hear her to know she's crying, and before I can stop myself I pull her in for a hug, being careful not to crush the baby between us.

"I don't know what to do." She cries, pressing into my shoulder, "I thought this was what I always wanted."

"You don't need to know," I say, stroking her back. "We'll figure it out. Together. We've saved the world more times than I can count, we can save you too."

She pulls away from me, and wipes her nose with the back of her sleeve, "my hero." She says, smiling, and I feel like I just saved the world all over again.

This little guy could eat.

I had told Amy to take a shower and get settled in, so I was on baby duty for now. He was wide awake and free from his sling. His quills were a mess, but Amy said she'd sort those when she got out.

He stared up at me with Amy's eyes and my heart swelled. I'd never seen myself as a family man, kids seemed more like an hindrance than anything else, but the way this little guy looked at me—well, I guess I could see the appeal. Amy always had a maternal side from what I could remember, and If I was being really honest with myself the way she behaved around Ignis was stirring something in me that had remained dormant for years. I pushed the itchy feeling that seemed to crawl it's way out of my gut aside and focused on the rain racing down the window.

My attention was soon caught by the soft opening and closing of the front door, the distant sound of keys dropping onto the entry table and heavy boots against the wooden floor echoed throughout the downstairs. I slid into the hall, just in time to see Shadow cross into the kitchen. He held my gaze and his eyes flashed to the bottle in my hand and then to the bundle in my arms.

Shit.

"Sonic," Shadow groans, "what the fuck is that?"

I cock a hip, shifting Ignis over my shoulder, "a baby."

"I know what a baby is," he says, pinching the bridge of his nose, "why is it here? There's places for things like that."

"Sonic?" Amy calls from the stairs.

Shit.

Shadow's nostrils flare, his head whipping to the staircase

"Shadow, lemme explain."

He ignores me, and starts out of the kitchen, almost colliding directly into Amy.

His pupils dilate, my own throat goes dry. She's in a pair of bike shirts and a baggy t-shirt that's slowly turning see through with her dripping quills. She's wearing a sports bra underneath, but that still leaves little to the imagination.

"Uhh, surprise?" I say, sheepishly, "remember that friend I told you that was coming in to town?"

Shadow continues to stare at Amy and I see a faint blush creep into her cheeks.

"What friend?" His eyes slice over to me, releasing Amy from his gaze.

"You remember Am—"

"—It's fine." She cuts between us, gently taking Ignis out of my arms, "he doesn't have to remember."

Shadow arches an eyebrow, his eyes following her movements curiously.

She turns and moves back towards the stairs, wishing us both a goodnight. We watch her go, and I waste no time before landing a swift punch to Shadow's arm.

"Could you be less of a dick for five seconds?"

"Are you genuinely asking me that?"

I roll my eyes, "I thought you weren't coming back tonight?"

"I wasn't," he says, shrugging his jacket off and throwing it on the back of kitchen barstool, "but Rouge had already handled most of the paperwork and General Simms was out of office until next week. I didn't mean to interrupt."

"You weren't interrupting."

"It's not abnormal for our kind to need that kind of… company."

"Are you stupid?" I deadpan, "you seriously don't know who that is?"

He pushes past me and opens the fridge, looking idly at its contents, "should I?"

"Amy. Amy Rose. Knocked sense into you on the ARK." He grabs a beer and rolls it from hand to hand, "seriously, Shadow?"

He shrugs, then pauses as he pulls a bottle opener out of a drawer, "wait," he points at me, and then to the stairs over his shoulder, "the fangirl?"

I run a hand through my quills, "yeah, I guess. Not anymore."

"And the kid?"

"Well he's not mine," I say, holding my hands up in defense.

"We're not a daycare, Sonic."

"I know that."

He takes a sip, and leans against the counter, "so? Why are you two playing house?"

I place my elbow on the island and lean into my palm, "We're not playing house. She's got problems with her ex. Bad ones." I sigh, looking out the window, "she's not telling me everything."

Shadow stares at the bottle in his hand, "last thing we need is a territorial male showing up at our front door."

I rub the back of my neck, Shadow was right, the guy obviously didn't have his shit together and if he did find out she was here, it would spell nothing but trouble for all of us.

"We'll take care of it."

Shadow glances at me in confusion, "we?"

"You're not that heartless."

"You know very well that's not true," his eyes show no signs of compassion.

I frown, "she's a friend. Last I remember you were a friend that needed help not that long ago too."

Our eyes meet, red versus green. Two complimentary sides of the color wheel.

"Tch," Shadow growls, "fine."

He shoves himself away from the counter and turns towards the stairs.

"And Shadow?"

"What?" He hisses.

"Be nice."

You did it! Look at you reading almost 5k in one sitting. If no one has told you today, I'm proud of you.

I've been in a bit of a writing slump recently so I decided to make another account, dive back into my roots here on FF, and write about a world I know like the back of my hand.

And listen, I know everyone uses AO3 now, but it feels like home on this silly little site, and I never want to leave.

Happy holidays y'all,

Sachi.