Before we begin... in case you haven't noticed yet, I indeed changed the title because the original was honestly pretty lame (personally, it would have made a bad first impression on me)- I had just lazily named it after Westwood's line from Angels. Yeah, I'm SO much cleverer now. But in my defense, I pretty much always considered the original title a placeholder.

Plus, it was somewhat false advertising since the two honestly really won't be doing much GUN work in this story; it's largely a narrative framing device and this story is actually more about the characters than any proper adventure (except a spiritual one, perhaps.) In fact, these are all the random ideas I came up with that I have no hope of fitting into a conventional Sonic-adjacent story. I might have a couple action-based chapters but certainly not an overarching mission outside of a couple narrative threads. Or at least nothing I've come up with... yet- you know me. But I do have some ideas for ANOTHER actual adventure that would take place somewhere among these little episodes... if I can come up with a solid enough gameplan. I'm a sucker for a good trilogy.

I'd also like to give some thanks for the first review, and a two-fer since you also reviewed Angels... I'm glad to hear that the writing on it was found to be as funny as I like to think it was. Sure, I assume that everyone who liked the story felt the same way but it's nice to hear specifically. The snark-to-snark combat was a lot of fun to write, but I'm a little sad to see that particular dynamic go now that they're actual friends, but they'll still be snarky and busting each other's chops, just in a more good-hearted way. As a case in point, I actually had envisioned this very chapter as still being in their tense and unfriendly phase and had to adjust accordingly for the addition of the Twist in Angels, but I'll go over that in the DVD commentary.

Rouge sat upon the edge of the tallest building in the area, feet dangling freely and eyes staring at the lights of the city below. Though she was valiantly fighting it, her temptation just kept getting stronger and stronger... I could do it... But it might not end up too well for me...

She decided to just sit and think about it. And think about it some more. And continued to think about it until the sudden realization that something was coming up right behind her struck. Turning fast, she couldn't avoid letting out a startled yelp upon seeing someone was practically next to her. Her alarm went away quickly upon seeing it was only Tails, though she was nonetheless rather embarrassed about getting the crap scared out of her. The fox stepped back with hands out in apology. "Sorry! I didn't mean to surprise you."

Says the guy who just snuck up behind someone... "Well, you've sure got a funny way of NOT trying to surprise someone. And when I'm on a rooftop this time? Are you TRYING to make me fall again?" How had he gotten this close to her undetected anyway? He was a quiet kid, sure, but not a sneaky one. I must have been really distracted...

"No. Besides, you can fly," he replied humorously, returning to a more comfortable state.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, a bit of lingering annoyance making the question come out a bit harsher than intended.

He suddenly turned uncomfortable again. "I'm, uh... just... out and about."

Maybe he was intimidated by her tone, but his answer was totally suspect. "At this hour? Isn't it past your bedtime?"

"Well, not for a fox..." If that was meant to be a sly answer, being mumbled utterly ruined the effect.

"And what, you're on the prowl tonight? Looking for something? Or someone?" she asked, curiosity now becoming her dominant emotion.

"Well I..." The pause stretched. He seemed VERY uncomfortable with the question, if not outright reluctant to answer. Why? Was he out doing something he doesn't want anyone else to know? The idea that Tails would ever be doing anything wrong seemed just plain absurd to her. Was it maybe something simply embarrassing? She began to formulate some possibilities, with perhaps a little self-centeredness playing in. Or was he actually looking for me? Why? She could think of a few reasons of course, though not which ones would apply to him. But how would he even have known that I was out tonight? Is he talking to GUN? And how did he possibly find me? Before she could ask any of those questions, he beat her to the punch with one of his own. "What are you doing?"

Now it was her turn to lie, instinctively answering before thinking to call him out on obviously dodging the question she had asked first. "Just enjoying the view."

"Yeah, you really picked a nice part of town to do that. It's very high-end."

Perceptive boy. Was THAT how he guessed she'd be here? "Are you accusing me of something?" She wasn't exactly offended, largely because he was absolutely right. She'd scoped out all the local businesses. While nothing looked up to her class, there were some nice jewelry stores that seemed ripe for picking, even if just to get a taste of her old life back. Is he here because he knew what I was thinking?

"Do you want to talk?"

She didn't really want to talk at this moment, but she didn't want to just brush him off either. "Talk about what?"

"Anything. It can be like an AA meeting."

She sighed. "I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about half of the time, remember?"

"I sometimes forget." He stepped up to the edge and sat down alongside her. He picked a surprisingly close spot for someone as bashful as him, but it was probably meant as a show of friendship. "We can just talk until the urge goes away."

"Yeah... I doubt THAT'S ever gonna happen."

"Well, if not for me, then at least don't do it because you'll get into trouble."

Oof- he probably didn't intend it, but that kind of hurt somewhere within. If she stole something, she'd want to be certain that he would never find out. "Somehow, I don't think GUN would really care."

"They definitely would care if one of their agents is going around stealing in their spare time. It's a liability they'd rather not have."

She sighed again. "Smaller words, Tails."

"Uh, risk?" he asked aloud before answering himself a moment later. "Yeah. It would be pretty lame for them to spend all this time training you to become an agent if you just get caught by someone else. Plus, going around stealing for your own sake really does not inspire the best of confidence in your job in the field of... uh..." The fox stumbled a bit. "...law and order."

She didn't even bother addressing any of that. "Would you tell on me if I did?"

He couldn't look her in the eye while answering. "I'm supposed to... but they'd know even if I didn't." That was probably as dishonest as he was willing to go for her.

Right now she was far more interested in whether or not he had just alluded to whatever sneaky little trick that she was sure GUN had up their sleeve was. "How did you even find me anyway?" The question caused another shift in Tails' face. "You're not stalking me, are you?" she teased.

"No! I just followed you." He had recoiled but otherwise delivered a seemingly straight answer.

"And that's NOT stalking?"

"No," he stated matter-of-factly with an upward pointed finger that indicated an explanation was coming. "Following is a one-off. It's not legally stalking until there's a second occurrence. And besides, I didn't even really follow you anyway. I just simply knew where you were."

There was no better opening for a direct answer than now. "How could you possibly have known where I was?"

"Nobody has told you?"

She performed a charade of deep thinking before answering, "No, I don't believe so."

He smirked back faintly but otherwise looked serious. "Well, I might not be supposed to tell you this then, but they've got a tracker on you so that they can know where you are at all times."

"What? Where?" She immediately began to look herself over in hopes of finding whatever technological wizardry they'd somehow secretly put on her but had no success.

"Have they given you any new collars or bracelets or anything to wear?"

That would have been her very first guess. "No."

"What about any shots or injections?"

"Yeah." Raising an arm, she looked at where they had stuck her with a needle sometime before and ran her other hand across the area. Nothing looked or felt different about the body part. Could it actually be...

"It's probably subdermal then."

"What?"

"It's probably inside you," he clarified.

"INSIDE ME?" The idea that such a thing was even possible was crazy to her. And a little scary. "Can they slip bombs into people too?"

"Uh... maybe they can... but they probably didn't..." For all the miracles he could perform, Tails was absolutely terrible at being reassuring, though she at least somehow believed his judgement.

Once the shock of this revelation wore off, her mood switched back over to agitated. "I knew it! I figured GUN had SOMETHING up their sleeve." So THAT'S why they're letting me run around so freely... They'd be able to find me anywhere I go... Lines began to run between the various dots in her head. "So then... is that how you found me? Why would you be tracking..." Her voice fell off before finishing the sentence, the answer seemingly obvious at this point.

In answer, he pulled back the fur on an arm to reveal a device on the wrist similar to the one worn on their mission, though much smaller. "GUN gave me this. I guess you could say that I'm sort of your parole officer now." She just blankly stared at him. Understanding the look, he rephrased his last sentence. "Basically... they asked me to keep an eye on you to make sure you're staying out of trouble."

She tried to let that fact sink in, but it just crashed hard instead. "So... what, then? You mean you really ARE spying on me?" Her mind was aswirl, her emotions following suit. "Is that why you hang out with me?" she asked with betrayal in her voice. Thinking on it more, she realized that this was their first encounter where HE had actually come to HER; their previous times were because SHE had visited HIM. You too, Tails? Did even the sweet little boy from long ago grow up to become just another man with a motive?

"What? No! That's not it at all!" One look at his horrified face ALMOST convinced her right away that she had jumped to the wrong conclusion. "They only asked a few days ago..." A few days ago: that would be about the beginning of her extended freedom. Previously she'd only been given a day here and there. Tails wouldn't have known when she was free. It all seemed to line up with what he claimed. "I mean... it's complicated... I'm going to be watching you, but that doesn't mean we can't still be friends. I'm sure GUN would probably rather we weren't, but..." He stopped talking, looking downward; she didn't speak. "I'm sorry... I just thought it was a good idea, but I should have said no."

God, that sad face- she had to look away as well. She should have been able to simply trust him. He had saved her life at the risk of his own and stood up for her against GUN. What more could she have asked for as proof that he was not selfishly motivated? But it was simply a long-standing personal rule that she never trusted anyone. Despite that, Tails was someone she could never imagine betraying her. Or at least, not as long as she was being emotionally stable. Still not looking back up, she reached out to put a hand on his shoulder. "No, Tails... I'm sorry. I'm just being stupid. I'M the one who has trouble seeing any reason for being with others unless I somehow stand to benefit from it. What would I know about being a friend?"

"Rouge... It's okay. I understand." It might have just been nothing more than a well-meaning reassurance of forgiveness, but maybe a fellow outcast like him really did understand.

"You're a good kid. I know you had a pure and sweet reason. You were thinking about how this might have been able to let you help me out." Although she couldn't know for sure, she suspected that he had taken the job not so much to make sure that she wasn't doing anything wrong, but more so to keep her from getting into any more trouble with GUN. While she genuinely liked Tails, she was well aware that- as admitted- her mind was still very much selfishly thinking about the benefits of this arrangement. Finally looking back up, she tried to compose a more heartfelt expression of thanks. "And you were absolutely right too- it was a good idea. If someone has to be watching over me, I wouldn't want it to be anybody but you."

"Really?"

"Really. You're already like my own little guardian angel." He was completely at a loss for words, clearly touched by the sentiment but too humble (or just too bashful) to comment on it. She was all out of words for the moment as well. Maybe it was better not to use any more. She let herself lean backwards to rest upon her elbows, though she immediately began to reconsider when they ached in protest from contact with the rough surface. Tails leaned back as well, one of his namesakes swinging out towards her in a familiar invitation. This time she immediately accepted the offering and put it behind her head as she laid down fully instead. The fox copied the bat's actions using his other tail. They didn't speak, simply lying still and gazing skyward to the stars. It felt good. It felt nostalgic. It felt like she no longer had an urge to do anything else for the time being.

DVD Commentary:

Disclaimer: While I have taken some criminal justice courses, no part of this chapter should be used as legal advice.

This story's chapters will be told from either Rouge's or Tails' POV like in Angels, though not in an alternating fashion, just whichever works better. They'll also be shorter than that story, which ran rather long at times because they had to cover certain events before switching characters. I'm guessing they'll probably all be under 5000 words (give or take author notes) but we'll see.

I have a small confession to make: I'm actually not that great at coming up with dialog overall (hell, I wouldn't even say I'm a good writer- I'm just very creative.) I can make some snappy banter, but the last thing I finish before releasing a chapter is almost always filling in all my gaps in conversations. And I'm almost always not satisfied with what I come up with. At least it kinda works with these two somewhat maladjusted characters. You may now start guessing how much of Tails is the author writing what he knows.

Speaking of dialog, I did consider having Tails' response to Rouge's bit about friendship be "Stick with me, and I'll show you," in an echo of the talk Sonic gave him in the second movie, but I decided, "eh." That opens a whole can of worms as to what exactly is canon across all media. And yes, obviously canon dictates Rouge still hasn't fully given up her personal thieving just yet... But that's the fun part of a story: seeing how much you can work within canon, bending it as much possible without outright breaking it.

This chapter underwent some radical changes from conception. While I hadn't worked out the exact timeline of my drabble series, this chapter may have originally preceded the equivalent events of Angels (which you DID already read, right? I'm already spoiling things...) and I definitely hadn't conceived the Twist yet. As a result, when I first thought up this scene, Tails and Rouge were NOT friends yet- obviously Tails was willing, but Rouge was at best reluctantly accepting his company out of boredom and loneliness. Now that Angels put them on good terms, the scene lost that edge since Rouge is at worst simply in a bad mood about giving up her old life. Fortunately, I was able to see a new angle to bring some of that spark of conflict back into it because otherwise this would have been a dull chapter. So yeah, this story will be more serious than Angels and delve more into the darker backstory I only broached in that story, though it still will have plenty of fun stuff too. It just gets heavier at times.