Chapter Fifty-Eight: Beyond Time and Space

The last thing I was aware of was gravity. The next thing I'm aware of is the lack of gravity. If the order was reversed, I'd be less concerned. But with the order being what it is, I think I might not be…

"You are actually alive, Tails. Let's not get too dramatic."

Tails's eyes flashed open. A bright light pierced them but the pain of it vanished as quickly as it began. Like his body remembered how he was supposed to feel but realized a moment later that he didn't.

"That is because you have no body here. Your mind is trying to resolve an impossible thing into something you can process."

Did Tails move? Turn his head? Or did C2 just suddenly appear in front of him? His head started to ache and then it didn't.

C2 offered a sympathetic wince. "That's my fault. For as long as I've been a Time Whisperer, I have never quite mastered the art of making these in-between spaces more solid and realistic. I would have thought my second bout with mortality would have given me better orientation to what it means to be mortal, but it appears I still have more to learn. I'll need to ask Angel for advice. She'll adore that."

C2 rolled her eyes, as if this was any other conversation in any other place in the universe. Meanwhile, Tails squeezed his eyes shut and reopened them, as if that would eliminate at least some of the disorientation. There was no ground in this white glossy space but he wasn't quite floating either. C2 was level with him, a few feet away. Her twin tails drifted behind her.

"In-between spaces?" Tails said eventually.

C2's face morphed into a gentle smile. "Certainly you didn't think I could read your thoughts under normal circumstances, did you?"

Tails frowned. "No, that's not it. It's just…" He stared down at his hands. The last time he'd been aware of his body, he had been bursting with Chaos Energy, real and fake. C2 had granted him access to her entire knowledge of possible timelines, and he'd used that to direct the Chaos Energy.

Tails's hands closed into fists. "What is an in-between space exactly? How are we here?"

C2's smile widened. "An in-between space is created by and accessible to Time Whisperers for hundreds of different purposes."

"So you placed us here. Because you're a Time Whisperer again." Tails watched C2's face to check his work. And when she just waited for him to finish the thought, he did. "Why did you place us here? Did something…happen? When I tried to fix the timeline? You said I wasn't dead, though."

C2 winced, offering him an embarrassed smile and interlacing her fingers in front of her. "Nothing happened in the way you're implying. Well, you have been in a coma for about two weeks, though that's my fault as well."

"Two weeks!" Tails exclaimed. Though, after a second's thought, that didn't sound so outlandish. His body probably needed time to recover after he wielded that much Chaos Energy. But then he picked his head up again. "Wait, what do you mean 'your fault?'"

C2 sighed, her ears falling forward. "You remember how hard I worked to not interfere with the timeline, even when I was mortal? While Angel…ah, acted more like Sonic would if anyone ever made him an ethereal being outside of time and space, it was my choice of interference rather than hers that placed you here." C2 picked her head up. "Though I don't regret it."

"Are you in trouble?" Tails asked.

C2 laughed. "Me? You're the one who's been trapped in a coma longer than strictly necessary."

Tails smiled. "I think I can handle being worried about both of us at the same time."

C2 just shook her head, eyes not leaving his face as she did so. "Only you." After a moment, she moved closer toward him. Maybe she stepped closer; it was hard to tell in this not quite real place. "As it turns out, the powers that be are not exactly pleased that I shared the knowledge of the timelines with a mortal creature, even if it was in an effort to save time itself."

Tails frowned. His stomach squirmed with discomfort but then he forgot the feeling. But he could hardly say he was surprised. C2 was right; she had been careful when and where she got involved in the tweaking of time, and her sharing of the timelines led to Tails doing a lot of tweaking.

"So what happens now?" he asked.

C2's expression softened with sadness. "That was what took two weeks of conversation, mortal time. I negotiated on your behalf, but it didn't work as well as I would have hoped. So now, I'm responsible for erasing your memories of the timelines that I shared with you."

"Oh." Tails blinked. Shook off his immediate shock. "Sure, I can see why that makes sense. It's not like I need to know about possible timelines. And I can see why it might be bad for me to know the future."

C2 pressed her lips together. Tails was silent a few moments before it seemed that C2 remembered she was supposed to be nodding. Tails watched her do so, furrowing his brow. And then it occurred to him.

"You don't want me to forget, do you?"

C2 crossed her arms against her chest, looking off somewhere to the right instead of at Tails. She looked uncomfortable in her own skin. At which point, Tails also realized she was in her own skin. For so long, when C2 had appeared to them in her role as a Time Whisperer, she had changed her appearance so she looked much like a human girl, with her long hair in pigtails draped over either shoulder. That's why it had been so disorienting for all of them when they saw C2 as mortal for the first time. No one had been expecting her to be a two-tailed fox. But now that C2 was a Time Whisperer again, she had remained in her mortal form.

C2's chest jumped, as if she had swallowed her laugh. "I should never have hoped you would have been unobservant. I wish I hadn't grown so tired of lying." She squeezed her eyes closed. "I have to constantly remind myself that two things can simultaneously be true, even if they are in direct conflict. Because I do truly want to be a Time Whisperer. It…synchronizes to something in me. It gives me a purpose in a way my possible timelines wouldn't. However…"

She opened her eyes and looked back at Tails. He could see a sadness there. It made her look too vulnerable, for all her airs. "But the reminder of my potential mortality has made me wish I could have it too."

"C2…" Tails's hand drifted out between them, like he was reaching out for her.

She smiled, though that expression too matched the sadness in her eyes. "I never expected to miss my mortality. I've been a Time Whisperer so long that I'd forgotten what it meant to be mortal. And then, being with you, being with all of you, reminded me of what I'd never be, even though I still carry the memories of what my timeline might have been."

Tails's mouth widened into an 'o' shape as he final understood what C2 was trying to tell him. "You shared those memories with me, the ones of your mortal life, when I was Super Tails. And now that you have to erase them…"

She shrugged meekly. "When I gave them to you, I realized I'd made some part of you my father again. And I wish that I could at least let you keep that fragment. Someone real holding onto the memory of who I was when I was real."

"But…that's still true," Tails said. This time, he bridged the gap between them, placing his hand on hers where she had her arms stacked against her chest. "Even if I have to forget most of the memories I have of you, we'll all have the memories of you on the Blue Typhoon, when you helped us fight the Metarex. It's not the same, I know, but that happened. You were mortal then. And so we'll still remember who you were when you were real."

C2 raised her eyebrows. "It's…so a lot of it technically didn't happen because of the way you changed time. But since all of you were at the epicenter of the event, your memories will remain as if they did. What you accomplished on Greengate was…largely unprecedented so…it's a bit complicated to explain how reality adapts to it."

"C2."

She stopped. Her eyes closed and she shook her head. "No, I understand your point. I'm just feeling remarkably selfish."

Tails wasn't sure how to respond. The fact that C2 didn't want to feel isolated or alone, it didn't sound selfish to him at all. Just mortal. It was simply a part of being alive.

C2 shook off her own tension, and she looked at Tails again. When she smiled this time, she looked at peace rather than sad. "Are you ready?"

Tails took a deep breath. He let his hand fall back to his side and C2 uncrossed her arms. "Does this mean we'll never see you or Angel again? Is this good-bye?"

"Never say never," C2 told him. "But for now…yes. This is good-bye. Time Whisperers aren't exactly permitted to visit but…"

Tails finished the thought with warmth radiating from his chest. "…but Angel is Sonic's daughter."

"Not to mention a bad influence," C2 said with a laugh. It was the lightest Tails had ever seen her.

"I guess you would rather us avoid future time-space situations, even if it meant you could see us again," Tails said.

C2 shrugged. "I can't ask that of you. Your timeline thus far leads me to believe it's actually pointless to ask such things of you. Not to mention my knowledge of the possibilities for your future timelines. It's…I can hardly say inevitable considering the multitude of possibilities, but knowing you all, far too likely that this is not the last time I will have to interfere."

Maybe it shouldn't have, but Tails's chest warmed at the thought. A future? Perhaps one in danger, one that might require the involvement of the Time Whisperers once more, but a future all the same. He would have to fight for it again and again. And he relished the thought of doing just that.

C2 held her hands out in front of her, palms up. Tails placed his hands in hers. "Thank you," C2 whispered, her voice shivery even at such a low volume, "for all you've done. For all you will do. For all you might have done as my dad."

Her grip on his hands tightened. Her eyes locked on his so firmly that Tails couldn't look away if he tried.

And then all that was left was light.

-X-X-X-

Sonic's View

When Sonic saw Tails's unconscious body begin to illuminate, Sonic thought his exhausted eyes had finally decided to give into hallucination. At least until Amy beside him stiffened in her seat. "What's that?" she exclaimed.

Sonic just stared. He didn't have an answer. He couldn't interpret any of the monitors surrounding Tails to figure out what was happening that way either. Chaos Energy, maybe? Sonic closed his eyes, though his eyelids twitched in resistance of his choice. It hurt to take his eyes off Tails for even a moment. But he dove down into the warmth of the Chaos Energy within himself and used it to guide him to Tails's Chaos Energy. Which was there, flickering gently within Tails but not unsteady. And also not awake.

"It's not his Chaos Energy," Sonic said, his eyes snapping open.

Amy was on her feet now. Her gaze jumped from monitor to monitor where she stood next to Tails's head, blocking him slightly from Sonic's view. Sonic pushed himself to his feet and leaned over the end of Tails's bed. Tails's body didn't so much as twitch in response to whatever was flowing through it.

Was there not enough of Tails left to feel anything?

"Could it be the aftermath of all the fake Chaos Energy he took on?" Amy wondered aloud. "Like when it backfired after we took down Rusted Maple with the seven Chaos Emeralds and it knocked us out?"

Sonic shook his head even though Amy wasn't looking in his direction. But the gesture wasn't a 'no;' it was more of an 'I don't know.' The one Sonic would normally ask such questions was, of course, Tails.

Tails's body continued to glow with impossible bioluminescence. Sonic reached for Tails's arm, stopping a few inches short so his hand hovered just above Tails. Tails's body radiated neither warm nor cold. Neither real Chaos Energy nor fake.

Sonic furrowed his brow.

"Time Stuff."

As one, at the sound of the small voice, Sonic's and Amy's eyes snapped to Tails's glowing face in an instant. To see Tails's eyes open just a slit and a wan smile on his face.

"Tails!" Amy exclaimed.

Sonic meanwhile stayed silent. He couldn't get his thoughts in enough order to even say Tails's name. Everything felt less than real between his heart pounding in his ears loud enough that he could hardly hear around it and the fact that Tails was literally glowing.

That glowing was starting to fade now and after a few more seconds, it melted away into nothing, until all that was left was Tails.

Tails's eyes unfocused for a moment. Sonic's hand clamped down on Tails's arm in panic. Tails squeezed his eyes shut, only to open them a second later to reveal them looking clear again. They found Sonic's almost immediately. "I'm okay. Promise," he said. His voice was a touch smaller than usual after so much disuse.

Sonic's shoulders fell with relief.

"Says the guy who was in a coma for two weeks," Amy muttered out of the side of her mouth.

"I'm still here, aren't I?" Tails replied.

Sonic coughed on his laugh. The words were so familiar as something he himself might have said, he could hardly believe the words hadn't come out of his own mouth.

"Though, to be fair, it still feels like I got hit by a truck," Tails added with a wince. "Especially now that the Time Stuff C2 used is wearing off."

Sonic furrowed his brow. Amy said, "C2?"

"I'll explain later. When my brain feels a little more solid," Tails said. He winced again, and Sonic's grip on Tails's forearm only tightened. When Tails's eyes focused again, they focused on Sonic's. "I really am okay. Or I will be. You and I both know it had to be me back on Greengate. You couldn't have protected me from this."

Sonic smirked. "You know me too well, bud."

Tails's tired expression brightened. "You say that like the reverse isn't also true."

The aching of Sonic's heart eased ever so slightly in his chest. Amy reached for the hand of Sonic's that wasn't wrapped around Tails's arm and interlaced her fingers with his. His heart quieted a little more. And while Sonic could still hear the whisper of the Metarex in the back of his mind, he felt like, for the first time in a long time, wrapped in this love, he was wholly himself.