Sonic side blog

-

Sonic was pretty sure that whatever deities might preside over the Earth, they all hated him and his family right now.  Things seemed to be going from bad to worse to even more worse to absolutely the worst in a downward spiral with no conceivable end.

In the past few days, Sonic could count on one finger the number of good things that had happened.

The world had been saved.

Part of the moon had been blasted to pieces, which Discovery Channel-obtained knowledge told him might have some knock on consequences for tides, but the world was safe.  Which was good.

And that was the only good thing right now.

Tom was badly injured in some hospital in London, Shadow and Robotnik had sacrificed themselves to protect the Earth, Tails had almost died and wasn’t out of the woods yet courtesy of the insane number of ribs Knuckles probably broke saving his life, and now, to top it all off, they’d been captured by G.U.N.

Whatever alliance had existed between the Wachowskis and that organisation, it was definitely over.  If London hadn't been bad enough, the kidnapping them and refusing to offer any aid to the obviously injured Tails had sealed the deal.

Sonic wasn’t entirely sure how it had happened, how they'd been taken.  One moment they’d been sitting with Tails in a spare room of the farm they’d taken shelter in, the next Sonic was waking up in a cage with his head feeling like a metal band was playing a gig inside it.

The human who’d let them into her house had given them some food and drink, but she had seemed really kind.  Surely she wouldn’t drug them, and even if she had, she wouldn’t know G.U.N. existed in order to hand them over.  Unless they tracked the call Knuckles made to Wade and forced her?  Or maybe used some sort of tranquiliser dart fired by a sniper through the open windows in the room?  Gas-releasing bombs like in the movies?

There really was no point speculating.

Sonic had to focus on the here and now, on how to get him and his brothers out of this.  Or, at the very least, how to get those stone-faced G.U.N. guards to do something to help Tails.

They’d ignored the hedgehog's repeated pleas for them to get a doctor or a vet, or a supervisor who might listen to him and be willing to get some sort of medic to treat the young fox slumped in the cage beside him, struggling to breathe.

Tails hadn’t been conscious for way too long now.

He’d been conscious when Sonic first woke up.  Very obviously in a lot of pain, but conscious, and even able to reach through the bars to hold Sonic’s hand.

It had been a long time since he had slipped from his brother’s grasp, collapsing on the metal floor of the cage and drawing rasping, stuttering breaths.

Knuckles was with them too, of course.  G.U.N. hadn’t left any of them behind.  Sonic wouldn’t be that surprised if they had even kidnapped Wade if he’d arrived to collect them while G.U.N. was still there.

At first, Knuckles had spent what felt like hours trying to punch his way out of the various walls of the cage to no avail.

Now he was as still as Tails and as silent as the guards.  He sat in his cage, eyes closed, legs folded, hands on his knees.

Meditating, perhaps.  Praying, more likely, to whatever gods the echidna believed in.

Sonic knew that there was no help coming, divine or otherwise.

As much as this moment had felt like deja vu from back on Hawaii - Sonic in a cage, Tails unconscious and severely injured in another, G.U.N. agents ignoring him as he begged them to get some help for his friend - it wasn’t the same.

Maddie wasn’t going to burst in with Tails’ gadgets to rescue them this time.  She was in London with Tom, where she should be, with her husband, maybe regretting ever having adopted the three ‘aliens’ whose actions led to his injuries.

Maddie wasn’t coming.

No one was.

They were alone in this, as each had been for so much of their lives before.

Not only was help not coming, but Sonic feared Tails might be far, far more seriously injured than he had been on Hawaii.

Then, when Maddie examined him later, she found multiple burns, a concussion, and a number of fractures, but nothing life threatening.

This time?  This time, Tails’ heart had already stopped.  It hadn’t been beating after Sonic and Knuckles woke in that field, and it had been some desperate echidna medicine - Knuckles slamming his fist into Tails’ ribs - that had saved him.  But, the kit’s ribcage must look like a game of pick up sticks right now, and Sonic had no idea what other damage he might have from both the life saving and the fall to Earth before it.  His breathing sounded so wrong and so strained, and it was definitely getting worse.

Sonic had to get him some help.

He’d tried appealing to whatever sense of humanity those guards might have.

Nothing.

He’d tried threats.

Also nothing.

He’d tried bribes - offers to find them rings, even the master emerald.

Still nothing.

“I know there’s gotta be cameras in here and some higher ups listening,” he called out, kneeling near the bars closest to the door, “I wanna make a deal!  If you help our friend, if you get him medical attention, then I’ll work for you!  I’ll do literally anything!  Play lab hedgehog or soldier or spy or anything!  No complaints, no arguments!  Just, please!  Tails is just a kid and he’s hurt really bad!  Please!  He needs help!”

“What an embarrassment to hedgehog kind.”

A familiar, impossible voice.

“Grovelling,” that voice belonged to one who Sonic was certain was dead, who stepped, not in the least ghostlike, out of the shadows at the corner of the room.

“How’re you…we thought…”

Sonic would have been sure he was hallucinating, or dreaming, or something, if Shadow hadn’t promptly knocked out both the guards, demonstrating that, if he was a ghost or hallucination, he was a very solid one.

The other hedgehog searched the unmoving forms of the guards for a second before grabbing a key card from the pocket of one, sprinting back to the cages to unlock all three of them.  All the time acting like it was completely normal and they were the weird ones for being bewildered by his sudden appearance.

“Let’s move,” Shadow snapped when Sonic and Knuckles remained frozen in very justifiable shock for half a second.

No more than that.

They didn’t have the luxury of time to be surprised.  Their shock and awe would have to wait.

Shadow threw a ring to open a portal, while Sonic rushed over to grab Tails, lifting him as carefully as he could while moving quickly, and taking time to just glance at Knuckles and Shadow, making sure they would all make it through the ring, before stepping through to their unexpected freedom.

-

‘Wrong’ was something the fox was aware existed.  They’d heard it said as a word, knew the reasons why people said it, and from that, they had concluded that 'wrong' is what they were.

Wrong in all the ways.

They looked wrong.  ‘Freak’ was what many said, and they knew it was not a name.  It was a word that described what they were, and it meant wrong.

They were wrong too.  Wrong inside.  Wrong in not just what people saw.  Wrong in a way they felt.

The ones who lived in buildings in the town made the wrong worse.  The people wanted them to be wrong, more wrong.  The fox tried to hide, but they could never hide.

Then the wrong was sometimes everywhere.  Sometimes their fur was wrong then too.  The wrong colour.  Red.  Red, not yellow.  They were yellow and white.  The fox was yellow and white, except when there was red there too.

They knew there were more colours.  They liked blue.

They didn't like red or yellow or white.

Bread and water made some types of wrong better, but they often could not go to find any.  It was only when that wrong was very bad that they could go.

Sometimes they found bread.  Often they found water.

Always they found people, and that was bad.

When the sun had been big before, they had tried and they had not found bread.  They had found water.  It had been brown, not like the good water that came from the sky.  It made them feel less wrong but now they felt wrong again.

There were many people, and now they could not go to find bread or water.

Stay here.

Here with no people.

The fox found a part of here where the sun could not find it and hid there.  When the sun was gone, they would go and look for bread and water.

They hid, the sun could not find them.

But there were people.

A people.

A person.

A human.  The fox knew it was human.

Noise, getting bigger.  Feet moving.

The fox tried to hide more, but then here the human was.  Close. Very close.

This was when more wrong came.

It didn’t.

The human was here.  Making noise.

Making words.

The fox knew they should try to know the words.

“Hello child.”

‘Hello’ they did know.  It was used when people saw other people.

They did not know ‘child’.

“Don’t you have a family?  Are you out here all alone?”

Some of the words they knew, but only ‘a’, ‘you’, ‘here’...the words had no meaning.

“I’m so terribly sorry.  It must be difficult.”

The fox felt more wrong.  A new wrong.  They did not know many of the words and they felt wrong.  This human made them feel wrong.

“Come with me,” they came closer, the fox tried to hide, “You need not fear.  I can make it all better.”

More words they did not know.

Fear?

Better?

They tried more to hide.

“Ah, you do not understand, do you.  No matter.”

The human moved towards the fox.

Close. Too close.

The fox tried to get away. They tried to run or hide or make the human go, but the human did not.

They moved away from where the fox hid, and the fox tried to hide still but they moved with the human.

The wrong was worse.

More wrong than before.

The human went out to the sun, out from any place to hide. The fox could not run, could not move away from the human, they could not hide.

This was ‘better’?

The fox cried to have ‘wrong’ again.

No one did anything to stop the human who carried a small fox out from a side alley. Few would have seen them struggling, dwarfed by the human’s hand, tightly grasping them by the body. Even if they had, none would have helped.

None would have cared.

The fox was a pest, as far as most were concerned. Even for those without such prejudices, none would have intervened.

It wasn’t their business.

It wasn’t their place.

Witnesses, complicit by their inaction in every horror that was yet to come.

-

It took precisely one slight loss of control of the car for Amy to become worried, her attention shifting instantly from the glowing colours of the peaceful sunset, to the driver.  Tails was way, way too good a driver to lose control of a vehicle for even a second, unless it had been hit with a missile or something, and even then it was rare.

Tails was also far more responsible than his age, and upbringing by Sonic, would lead anyone to expect, and almost immediately after briefly losing control, he pulled over and stopped the car, stifling a cough as the engine shut off.

"Tails?" Amy leaned forward in her seat, trying to get a look at the kit's face, “Are you okay?"

“Yeah,” another cough, “Just kinda tired.”

“You don’t sound okay,” Blaze caught Amy's eye, a serious expression on her features, “You’ve been coughing for the last few miles.  At least since we passed that tree with the red leaves.”

Amy hadn’t noticed that.  She hadn't noticed Tails coughing at all until the car swerved, but her mind had been elsewhere.  Specifically, comparing Surge, who they’d run into back on Turtleshell Island, with Sonic, just as she had for Sonic and Shadow after first meeting the other hedgehog.

Superficial similarities in this case too, and nothing more.

Tails half-laughed, half-coughed, rubbing the back of his head, “Yeah.  Must’ve swallowed a bug or something.  I’ll be okay in a minute.”

Amy wasn’t buying it.  She’d known the young fox long enough to recognise a lie when she saw one.  Not that long acquaintance was necessary.  Tails wasn't a good liar.  He had never been good at lying, and probably never would be, and Blaze was very obviously as unconvinced as Amy, her concerned expression unchanged.

“Here,” Amy fished her flash of water from her bag and handed it forward, “Why don’t I take over driving for a bit?  You’ve driven us everywhere on this investigation.  I’m not surprised you’re tired.”

“Thanks...maybe if you wouldn't mind, just for a little while...” Tails replied, shakily bringing the water to his lips.

He managed barely more than two sips before he suddenly thrust the flask back to Amy and stumbled out of the car, collapsing onto his knees after a couple of steps and starting to throw up violently.  Coughs crept in on his desperate breaths, and Amy went instantly from a bit worried to a lot scared.

She knelt beside him, rubbing a hand over his back while the kit continued to throw up, helping to support him when his balance faltered.

“Okay, I’m definitely driving,” she said as Tails was finally left breathless, obviously exhausted, but with nothing more to heave up, “We’re going straight to the hospital or medical centre in the next town.  Is that one closer than where we came from?”

“Y-Yeah, but I-” a coughing fit cut him off, “I’m fine, I-”

“You’re definitely not,” Blaze said firmly as she helped him up, “Perhaps you caught an illness in one of the places we visited?”

“It’s possible…” Amy agreed, pausing as she got in the driver's seat and stared at the dashboard of the car.  Tails’ car, so of course it was super high-tech and a seriously long way off anything Amy had encountered before.

“P-Press the…the blue button,” Tails rasped between coughs, “Built in two m-modes so…so Sonic can…too.”

Thank Gaia for Sonic and Tails sharing everything.  Whilst Tails might like super complicated stuff, Sonic at least used standard car controls.

“B-Be careful…it’s got a…”

Amy let out a yelp as the car suddenly sped off at the lightest touch on the accelerator.

Standard controls, but ridiculous speed.

Of course.

She heard Tails quietly apologise between coughs and Blaze try to urge him not to try talking, to just focus on breathing, and knew that, right now, fast was good.

After having seemed fine enough for Amy to not notice anything was wrong for, if Blaze was right, a good fraction of an hour, Tails was getting very bad very quickly.  Whatever this was, whatever possible infection, they needed to get him to a hospital as soon as possible.

And pray it wasn’t another nightmare contagion like the metal virus.  That was the last thing anyone needed right now.

Or ever.

Amy shuddered at the mere memory of that time, of how close they’d come to losing everything, to losing Sonic.  After those moments of silence, waiting for him to come back down to join them and realising he wasn't going to, only Tails had believed he’d come back.  No one else had that same faith in Sonic, no one else believed he'd survived right up until the moment the blue hedgehog did finally return.

The two of them had something special.  Something that went beyond any friendship Amy had seen before, and something that she would have envied if she didn’t like them both so much.  And, if she didn’t see it for the potential weakness it could be.

If anything happened to Tails, Sonic would lose it.

It was for both of them that she ignored her natural reluctance to drive a curving road at Sonic-approved speeds, and got them to the nearest town literally as quickly as that car could get them there.  The moment she saw the lights of the town appear through a thick band of trees ahead, she could have shouted for joy.  Even concentrating on driving, even focusing on not letting them crash, she could hear Tails getting worse, belied by the growing anxiety in Blaze’s voice.

By the time they’d found the hospital and were parked outside it, the kit was barely conscious at all.  He was audibly and visibly struggling to breathe.  The coughing had faded to hoarse choking sounds, and when he tried to stand to get out of the car, he dropped before even getting fully upright.

Amy had to pray they weren’t too late, watching as Blaze lifted Tails up and rushed him inside the building.

Blaze would get Tails seen by a doctor.  Amy needed to find somewhere to leave Tails' car in this unfamiliar town, something which took far longer than she'd have liked.

Any time was longer than she'd have liked, and then to make things worse, she was delayed further by being accosted by a couple of the town’s law enforcement for speeding through their roads.

“I’m so sorry,” she said earnestly, “My friend is really ill, and we had to get him to hospital as soon as possible.  If you need me to pay a fine or anything like that, I’ll do it, but please, let me go see my friend first.”

“You’re new to town?  How many of you?” one asked suspiciously, “We’ve had some trouble with thieves from out of town lately.”

“We’re not thieves.  We’re members of the restoration,” she replied sharply, irritated at being waylaid, irritated at being insulted, “The friend who I was bringing to hospital?  Tails.  Sonic the Hedgehog’s best friend and sidekick.”

She hated name-dropping Sonic.  It felt cheap, pathetic, but it almost always had the same effect.

Awe.

Amazement.

And a sudden conviviality.  Sonic was the hero of Mobius, had been almost since Eggman rose to power, and so everyone knew his name.  That also meant most people knew Tails’ name too, and so she got the acquiescence she needed.

“We’re just being cautious, you see?” the obviously higher ranking one said after the amazement and initial flurry of apologies had passed, “Things are still dangerous out here.”

Amy put on the most polite smile she could muster in the moment, “I get it.  Don’t worry about it, and I am sorry for speeding.  I can come by your station and-”

“No, no, we can let you off with a warning this time.  Extenuating circumstances, and all that.”

“Thank you so much,” she kept that smile going for a bit longer despite it straining her cheeks, “Well, I have to get going.  I need to make sure Tails is okay.”

Farewells, well wishes for Tails, requests to say hi to Sonic, and Amy was off, sprinting back towards the hospital.

Not far.

A couple of minutes at most, but it felt like it took an age.  Sonic could have made it there in much less than a second, but, then, he’d have never left Tails’ side in the first place.

Amy shouldn’t have either.  Blaze had been with him, but Tails didn’t know Blaze as well as he did Amy.  What if he needed the comfort of a close friend?  What if he was afraid?  He was still just a kid after all, in spite of all his courage and heroic deeds.

“Amy!” Blaze’s voice came from a short way off, drawing Amy’s attention to her companion, hurrying over to meet her from somewhere near the reception desk, “The doctors took him immediately.  They’ll come get us as soon as they know something.  They said it could be any of a number of things based on the symptoms alone.”

Amy nodded, resting a hand on Blaze’s shoulder, unsure if she was attempting to calm her friend or herself with the gesture and small smile, “Guess we’ll just have to wait it out.  But at least he’s in good hands now.”

Blaze nodded, returning the smile, “I’m sure he’ll be alright.”

“Yeah.  He’s too stubborn not to be,” Amy laughed weakly, starting towards a set of seats to collapse down into, “A trait he inherited from Sonic for sure.”

“Should we contact him?  Sonic?”

“Probably not until we know what we’re dealing with.  It might be nothing serious,” Amy prayed it wasn’t, “No point panicking him unnecessarily.”

A small word of agreement, and they lapsed into silence.  A tense, anxious silence that blended seamlessly into the purgatory of the waiting room.  People sitting or standing, everyone looking to the doors each time they opened and returning to their private worries when their names weren’t those announced.

A group of three young men - intoxicated, one with a bloody head - entered at some point, their voices and conversation with the receptionist briefly breaking the quiet until the injured party was taken through those doors, and his friends settled down to become one with the scene as well.

“What’s taking so long?” Amy whispered in exasperation after yet another door opening that culminated in no fresh news of their friend, “They must know what’s wrong with him by now.”

“Perhaps they do, and the treatment is taking some time?”

“Wouldn’t they have come to tell us if they knew though?  Or just let us know he’s okay?” Amy shook her head, internally chastising her own impatience, “No, sorry.  I have to be patient.  This is Tails.  He’s definitely-”

“Amy Rose?”

Amy shot up from her seat, entirely unsurprised that Blaze had given Amy’s name and not her own, and ready to respond to that in a heartbeat.  The two of them rushed over to the doors where the doctor stood, only to be led back to some chairs to talk.

That wasn’t good.

The doctor didn’t look grave, but they were trained not to.  Maybe…

“Is Tails, uh, Miles…is he okay?  What was wrong with him?  Will he recover?”

“Miles is in a stable condition,” the doctor replied calmly, looking briefly down at the tablet in her hands, “I have to ask, has he been submerged in a body of water at any point in the past day or two?”

Amy and Blaze looked at each other, Amy answering for them both, “No?  Not that we know of, and we’ve been together pretty much the whole time for longer than that.  We’d have known if he had.”

The doctor gave them a look that said she didn’t believe them, “It’s not clear cut because a lot of his symptoms can be caused by other things such as certain types of infections, but combined with fluid found in his lungs on X-ray, the most likely cause is secondary drowning.  It’s a condition characterised by inflammation of lung tissue following inhalation of water, and is consistent with all his symptoms.”

“I can’t think of when he’d have been underwater though,” Amy shook her head, “I mean, we were…could it have been back at Turtleshell Island? There was a lot of water, and the locals had an emergency, but I didn’t think Tails went under at all.”

“Perhaps he did, and simply chose not to tell us?  He seemed fine at the time.”

“Maybe…”

It did make sense.  There was other stuff going on.  Falling in some water was a non-event in the middle of a major rescue, and the awkward encounters with Surge and Kit.

“So, what now?” Amy asked, figuring she had to trust the doctor about that diagnosis and could ask Tails if it seemed right when he woke up, “How long will it take for him to recover?”

“That’s hard to say at this stage.  We’re treating the inflammation with a course of anti-inflammatories, delivered intravenously, and administering supplemental oxygen to help reduce the hypoxia.  We’ll need to monitor him for the next few days, just to be sure that there’s no complicating infection, that the fluid is gone for his lungs, and his blood oxygen levels are back up to normal.”

“Okay.  Thank you,” Amy forced a smile, “Can we see him?”

The doctor nodded, “Just for a few minutes, but, if he shows good progress tonight, we may move him to a recovery ward tomorrow, and you’ll be able to visit for longer.”

Honestly, Amy wasn’t sure they should have followed that doctor to the intensive care ward at all.  Seeing Tails unconscious with all sorts of machines and wires sticking out of him, a tube shoved down his throat…it made her think of robots, of Eggman, of when she’d once seen Metal Sonic strung up from the ceiling with wires attached, part way through a repair, eyes a lifeless black.

It creeped her out, and echoed the nightmares that had haunted her since Eggman first began to threaten their world - the horrific possibility of watching the people she loved turned into killing machines, flesh becoming metal, eyes becoming LEDs, soft fur turning to cold, steel armour.

Even that short visit left her feeling sick, afraid, and guilty for feeling those emotions at all when she should feel only worry for Tails.

On top of that, she didn’t know whether or not to tell Sonic.

She and Blaze found a small hotel to stay in for the next few nights, guessing it would be at least that long before Tails was discharged, and after a near-silent dinner, went straight to bed.  Despite expecting a fitful night filled with haunting dreams and inescapable anxiety, Amy found she was so exhausted that she didn’t wake until long after dawn.

Guilt, again, because those hours she slept were hours she should have been with Tails, offering him support and reassurance.  As they walked back to the hospital under the bright morning sunlight, she imagined her friend sitting alone on a big hospital bed in a cold, sterilised room, looking around, looking for his friends.  She also imagined him detaching himself from machines and trying to leave, hurting himself as he did, maybe even attempting to fly out the window and falling…

In reality, he was awake, and the hospital bed was massive compared to him, but the room wasn’t cold, and he wasn’t alone when Amy and Blaze were led by the doctor to where he was.  There was a nurse taking a blood sample, talking kindly to him, and he didn’t show any sign of being in a hurry to escape.

That might in part have been because, as the doctor told them on the way, his blood oxygen was still very low and there was still fluid in his lungs, so he couldn’t have been feeling too well.

He’d been moved to an oxygen mask instead of the tube.  Other than that, all the machines he’d been attached to before were still there, but, with the bright blue eyes open and alert, and his ruffled fur lit up by the golden sun coming through the window, Amy felt none of that sense of fear she had the day before.

He looked like Tails, not some lifeless machine strung up in a cold, grey workshop.

A small smile appeared on his features as he saw them walking in, and he gave them a wave of one hand.

“Hey guys,” his voice was hoarse and muffled by the oxygen mask, but audible enough, “Sor…sorry about this.”

“It’s not your fault, Tails.  We’re just glad you’re okay.”

“You can…go on without me…I-I’ll catch up later.”

“We are not leaving you while you are hurt,” Blaze said seriously, “Our investigation is finished regardless, so we're in no rush to move on.”

“But, after…honestly, I’ll be okay…”

“Forget it!”  Amy crossed her arms and shook her head to emphasise the point, “We’re gonna stay here until you’re safe to leave hospital - and that’s when the doctor decides you can leave, not when you decide it.  Then, we’re going straight back home.”

“You didn’t need to…I’m fine.”

“You’re just lucky I haven’t told Sonic yet.  We both know he’d sit right here and make sure you don’t move from this bed until a doctor says you can.”

It was a joking half-threat, an attempt to lighten the mood, but Tails looked genuinely alarmed at her words.

“Please…” he winced as he coughed, “Please, d-don’t tell Sonic.”

The unexpected words from Tails stilled Amy for a second as she tried to parse what he meant and why.

That wasn't right.

It was very rare that Sonic and Tails kept anything from each other, and there was never a good reason for it.

“I’m going to go see how this town’s doing since the virus,” Blaze whispered after a moment, quietly excusing herself with that usual mix of politeness and shyness that came whenever she felt out of place.

That was more than fair enough.  Whatever was going on here, it sounded like it was about to become a confession, and Amy knew from occasional moments with Tangle and Whisper that being caught in the middle of serious talks between close friends was seriously uncomfortable.

“Okay.  I’ll catch up with you back at the hotel?” Amy replied as casually as she could.

Blaze smiled and turned to Tails, “Rest well, Tails.  Do not worry about us.  Just focus on healing.”

“Thanks Blaze,” he murmured, watching her leave and then looking away from the door, and away from Amy.

“So?" she asked since he was obviously not going to volunteer the explanation on his own, "Why don’t you want me to tell Sonic?  If it’s because you don’t want to worry him, then I can make sure to tell him from the start that you’re going to be okay.  Try to ease his mind before he freaks out.”

“It…it’s not that,” Tails shut his eyes, “It’s just…if he knows, I’m worried he’ll do something reckless and get himself hurt.”

“Why?  What exactly happened to cause this?  You know, don’t you?”

The kit offered a small nod before looking back at her, “Promise not to tell Sonic?”

She sighed heavily, “Okay.  I trust you, Tails, and I know that, if it’s something Sonic needs to know, you will tell him when the time is right.  But, if your condition gets any worse, you know I’m going to have to tell him, right?”

“Yeah.  Thanks,” he smiled weakly, before letting his eyes fall shut again, “It was Kit.  Back in the…back in T-Turtleshell...Island.  There were civilians trapped on a roof…it was after…after Blaze and Kit had saved the town, but…they musta got stuck up there before in panic…I-I dunno b-but you were with th-the town resto…restorat-”

He broke off, coughing violently, his eyes screwed tight as he endured the pain it caused him, but continuing as soon as the coughs began to subside, even though his voice was left more hoarse and each words seemed painful in itself.

“The civilians…one of them slipped, was…was gonna fall.  I started to fly up to help, but Kit used his water to…to stop me…when I could move again, I was under the water…”

“Why are you only telling me this now?!  He could’ve killed you!” Amy cried, knowing she shouldn’t interrupt when Tails was finding it hard enough to talk, but unable to hold back, “Tails, this is serious!”

He shook his head quickly, wincing through a short coughing fit, “I-It’s not like that.  Kit was…Kit was just making sure Surge…was the hero, not…not me.  Wasn’t trying to…”

“That does not make this okay!  Whether or not Kit was trying to seriously harm you, that’s exactly what happened, and it could’ve been worse!  If we hadn’t got you here in time, if he’d held you down there longer…Tails…”

“R-Remember Shadow?  And Knuckles?” Tails rasped in a pause between her outraged words, “They b-bo-”

Another coughing fit, worse this time.

Tails was pushing himself way too much to explain.  Amy had to calm down and let him save his breath.

She took a deep breath and counted back from ten in her head, only speaking when she'd reached zero, and keeping her voice as calm as she could, “I know they both tried to kill you and Sonic, right?  When you first met.  Is that what you mean?”

He nodded tiredly.

“Now Knuckles is one of your closest friends and a reliable ally to us all.  And Shadow’s…well, Shadow.  But he’s not trying to kill any of us now.”

“Not as much,” Tails offered with a small smile.  Playful, trying to joke.

Amy didn't have the emotional space to be amused.  To even smile.

“I get what you mean," she replied after another pause to keep herself calm, "I do, but, that was before they were our allies at all.  Surge and Kit are supposed to be on the same side as us.  We were all trying to save that town and its residents, and Kit intentionally endangered you just so Surge could get more of a chance to be a hero.  It doesn’t matter who rescues people, being a hero doesn’t matter - it’s the lives we save that matter, whoever does the saving.”

“I know, but…’s not their fault,” Tails’ eyes fell shut.  He blinked them open again, but not for very long.

"Tails?"

His eyes didn't open again, “If Sonic…”

The words fell off even as he spoke, his consciousness slipping entirely before he could get even three words into the sentence.

Amy fell back into the seat beside the bed, dropping her head into her hands.

She’d promised not to tell Sonic, and she would keep that promise, for now, but there was no doubt in her mind that something had to be done to make sure nothing like this ever happened again.

Not that she had the least whisper of an idea what that something would be.

-

Tails had messed up badly.  Sonic had trusted him to pilot The Tornado.  Not just on a serene flight from one island to the next, but in a battle.  An actual battle against one of Eggman's flying supply ships, which needed to be destroyed to hinder the tyrant building his robot army, which needed to be stopped to save Mobius, and Tails had messed it all up!

He hadn't dodged the missiles being fired from the massive mounted guns well enough.  Technically, the one that hit the starboard rear thruster, he hadn't dodged at all.

The sudden jolt as the missile hit threw Sonic from the top of the upper wing.  Tails was a half second away from leaping out to fly and catch him, but the hedgehog landed safely on the airship.  Not just that, but he was able to use his momentum from being thrown off the biplane to deliver a powerful spin dash against the dome that protected the main engine of one of the mounted guns, destroying it in one go.

Somehow Sonic always managed to do that sort of thing.

Any emergency, any sudden disaster, the hero of Mobius could pivot it to an advantage.

Suddenly thrown from The Tornado, something that would be terrifying and disastrous for anyone else, and Sonic manages to use that to weaken Eggman's arsenal as seamlessly as if he'd planned it all along.

Sonic didn't need Tails to win this battle.  Or any battle for that matter.  Sonic could definitely do this alone, probably a lot faster than with his tagalong, but he'd let Tails help.  He'd brought Tails along with him when he wasn't needed to give him a chance to help.

And Tails had failed.

He'd been manoeuvring Sonic into positions to attack from and distracting the sensors of the guns.  That was Tails' job in this battle.  But with The Tornado going down, losing control, what little help the kit had been was no more.

Not that he was ever any real help to the the hero, nor could he hope to be.

Sonic only let him stick around out of pity.  Tails knew that.  The only valuable things he ever did were to fly and repair the Tornado.

He'd failed the first already, but if he tried hard enough, he might manage to succeed at the second.

Refusing to heed Sonic yelling at him to bail from The Tornado, Tails grabbed his multitool and clambered from the cockpit back to where the damage was, struggling to hold on against the buffeting wind and dizzying motion as the biplane rapidly fell.  It took him barely a second to assess the damage.  The thruster was definitely beyond repair.  It would need to be rebuilt from scratch, but that was a lot less of an issue right now than the rapidly rising temperature as the energy that was usually directed to generating thrust was spent heating the surrounding metal instead.

Metal, and the fuel cells that happened to be located very close to the damage.

If Tails didn’t do something, the whole thing would explode.

He got to work immediately, wedging himself in a gap where part of the fuselage had been blown off, and letting his intuition take over as he jury rigged a heat siphon away from the fuel cells, and away from the main body of the biplane.  It wouldn’t hold for long, but it would be long enough for him to make a landing.

As soon as the heat siphon was in place, Tails hurried back to the cockpit and steered the biplane as best he could towards a nearby field, the nearest expanse of open ground he could see.  The altitude was falling too rapidly for there to be any hope of smooth landing, but Tails had hoped he might manage to slow the descent enough to not damage The Tornado even more.

No such luck.

The landing gear crumpled on impact with the ground, the force of which knocked Tails out of his seat, his head crashing against the screen in front of him, be he had held on to the controls as tightly as he could, trying to slow the motion without overheating the brakes.

Mud and grass sprayed up around The Tornado as it skidded along the dirt, erratically slowing until it at last came to a halt, leaving Tails trembling and breathless in the sudden deafening silence.

His hands were numb.  He’d been holding the tiller so tightly that he couldn’t even move them.  Couldn’t really remember how to move them.

Open his hands.

Breathe slowly.

Focus.

Tails needed to assess the damage.

No.

He needed to get back up to Sonic.

He couldn’t.  He couldn’t fly that high.  Could he?  How high had it been?

Too high.

Let go of the tiller.

Assess the damage.

His knees buckled as he jumped from the cockpit, and he struggled to force himself back to his feet.  His legs hurt.  He could smell burnt fur.  It had been really hot where he’d wedged himself in so he could work on the heat siphon.  But he was okay.

The Tornado wasn’t.

Sonic’s beloved, magnificent biplane lay motionless, half covered in mud and grass, smashed up from the landing and the missile, crackling quietly as pieces of broken metal cooled and settled.

Tails didn’t know what to do.

The Tornado was probably the only reason Sonic hadn’t ditched Tails at the nearest town with an orphanage, or maybe just the nearest town whether or not it was equipped to deal with unwanted kids.  Now the biplane was destroyed, and destroyed because of Tails, Sonic would no doubt abandon him.

And Tails couldn’t be upset about it because he deserved it after letting Sonic down so badly.

Maybe it would’ve been better if the Tornado had just blown up with Tails in it.  Then he wouldn’t have to face what he knew was coming as he saw Sonic riding down towards him on the back of a commandeered bug-like robot, which he smashed into the ground, destroying it at the same time as leaping off and rushing towards Tails.

Sonic was angry.  Furious.

Tails could sense it, sense his anger, and he readied himself for whatever yelling, whatever violence, whatever painful words were about to come.

He wasn’t ready for the hug he suddenly found himself grabbed up into.

Strong arms.  Safe arms.  Holding him tightly, but not for long, and Tails instantly missed the contact as Sonic let go.

He was speaking.  Sonic was speaking.  Quickly, loudly, in a tone unlike any Tails was used to.

“What happened?  Are you hurt?  Why didn’t you bail?!”

Tails swallowed, struggling to find his breath, let alone his voice.  Thoughts raced through his mind to an indecipherable conclusion, and he only barely made sense of Sonic’s words at all.

“I-I had to…” he tried, voice cracking and forcing him to try again, “The Tornado…I-I…had to save it.”

“Had to…” Sonic stared back at him as if the kit had suddenly declared he supported Eggman, “It’s a plane, Tails!  A hunk of metal!  It’s not worth your life!”

“Yes it is!” Tails cried, surprising himself with the words that suddenly poured from him in his desperation after just a moment ago none seemed to form at all, “It is!  If the Tornado…if the Tornado’s gone then you won’t…then you won’t have any reason to keep me a-and…and I…”

“Woah!  Hold up there, little buddy,” Sonic’s hands came to rest on his shoulders very gently, “You think the only reason I let you stick with me is ‘cus of The Tornado?”

Tails nodded, not daring to look up.

“Man…Mighty was right.  I’m no good at these things…” the hedgehog muttered before speaking more clearly again, speaking to Tails, “Look, yeah, I like you to fly The Tornado and definitely appreciate you flying it, and repairing and upgrading it.  It helps a load.  But, I want you to do those things because I know you enjoy them!  Least, I think you do…and…okay, how to put this?”

He paused, thinking, and Tails dared to look up for just a moment.

Sonic’s expression didn’t make sense.  Tails didn’t recognise it, didn’t know what it meant.

“Okay, I’m gonna put this real simple, Tails,” Sonic said at last, “I think you’re awesome.  You’re smart, funny, got the same love of going fast and doing stupid reckless things that I do, and you just, you seem to get me like no one else ever has.  I keep you around ‘cus I want you around.  Not ‘cus you’re a mechanical genius or a great pilot, which you are, but because you’re my best friend.  The best friend I’ve ever had, and I don’t wanna lose that.  The Tornado could be trashed for good, it could suddenly become obsolete ‘cus Eggman’s retired and we’ve settled by the beach somewhere…wouldn’t matter.  I’d still want you around.  Do you understand?”

“N-Not really…I don’t understand why you would…why you even like me.”

“But, do you believe that I do?”

It was impossible not to.  Tails trusted Sonic too much not to believe him, even if the fact it made no sense hurt his head.

"Tails?  Do you believe me when I say that you're my best friend, and I want you to stick around no matter what?  Tornado totally irrelevant."

"Yeah," Tails nodded, "I believe you.  I don't understand, but, I believe you and I...and you're my best friend too!"

"That's more like it!" Sonic grinned, holding his hand out for a high-five, "Best buds forever, little bro.  That's a promise."

Tails had no idea how to express the amount of joy he had, or how to respond, but Sonic offered a high-five and a grin, so Tails copied that, and Sonic seemed to think that was right.

"Now, serious stuff," Sonic was still smiling, but more softly, and he'd placed his hands back on Tails' shoulders, somehow comforting and grounding against the confusion of thoughts in the kit's mind, "What you did today was way too dangerous.  I get why you did it.  I understand now, but, dude, please don't ever risk your life like that again.  I can't lose you, Tails.  So, promise me, you'll not do anything like that again."

"I promise."

“Thanks,” Sonic leaned in to give him another hug, lingering and comforting, before he stepped back again, hands folding over his chest, “Now, you got some pretty nasty looking cuts and burns there.  Let’s find a medic in the town over there, maybe somewhere with a roof that we can stay the night for a change, and tomorrow, we’ll come back and see what we can do about the Tornado.  Sound good?”

Tails quickly wiped the tears that had formed unbidden in his eyes, “Y-Yeah.  Thanks, Sonic.”

The grin Sonic offered in return was a comforting warmth that spread through Tails’ mind, soothing all the spiky edges and clearing the fuzzy haze that had been swirling in it since The Tornado was hit.  He found himself smiling back, and then even laughing, as Sonic scooped him up in his arms and set off in a sprint towards the tiled roofs just visible on the horizon, leaving The Tornado motionless in their wake.

-

It wasn’t until after the exhilaration of Sonic’s victory over Robotnik had worn off, and the buzz of excitement at the prospect of having not one, but two, possible friends had faded, that Tails became fully aware of his injuries.  He’d obviously known that his chest and head had been hurting a lot since he woke up on that island, and he had found himself unable to fly after Robotnik hit him with a blast of energy inside the giant robot, but he hadn’t given any of it much thought at all because there were far more urgent things going on.

Like having to help Sonic, the battle with Robotnik, Sonic gaining the power of the master emerald but letting it go again, getting invited into the group hug with Tom and Maddie and Sonic, and, to just to add to the impossible things that had happened that day, forming a new 'tribe’ with his first ever friends, Sonic and Knuckles.

Now, however, sitting on a comfortable seat in the house of Tom and Maddie, with Sonic talking rapidly beside him, Tails could barely focus on his new, but familiar, surroundings for the pain of his injuries.

The base of his tail and some of his ribs were probably fractured, which wasn’t too bad.  Those things, which he’d sort of noted earlier, would just heal on their own without anything needing to be done.  So would the possible concussion, which Tails had, at first, figured to be responsible for how exhausted he felt.

But it wasn’t to blame.  At least, it wasn't only to blame.

That exhaustion, added to the sharp stabbing pain with each inhalation and the cough he kept trying to suppress so as to not draw attention to himself, told him that at some point, probably when he hit the side of a metal platform inside the robot, the injuries to his chest had caused a lung to collapse.  The right one, specifically.  That’s why it was hard to breathe, not nervousness as he’d first thought and quickly claimed when Sonic asked him about it.

In that moment, realising that Sonic had noticed him starting to give in to his injuries, Tails had been trying as hard as he could to hide all of his symptoms from the others.  He’d told them he was fine, not badly hurt at all, and lied when Maddie examined his injuries, not revealing any of the tell-tale signs of the most severe of his injuries, which she'd surely have diagnosed immediately had he been honest.

Tails knew Maddie wouldn’t mind treating any of his injuries.  He knew that she was kind and caring - Tom, Maddie, Sonic…they all were - but Tails couldn’t help but lie.  He didn’t want to cause problems.  He didn’t want to add to their stress or do anything that might make them regret allowing him to stay with them.

Tails wasn’t part of this family.  He might be Sonic’s friend now, he might have formed a pact with Sonic and Knuckles to protect the master emerald and each other, but that didn’t mean he belonged here, nor that he was wanted or had any right to stay.  If he caused trouble or inconvenience, his tentative place here could be gone almost as soon as he'd been gifted it.

So he stayed silent, forced himself to hide his shortness of breath and the searing pain each time he inhaled, and pretended to be engaged and listening to what was being said.

He just needed to hide it from them until a pause, a break when he could go find somewhere to hide for just long enough to deal with this collapsed lung on his own.  It wasn’t serious.  He had at least a few more hours, probably a day or so, before it risked becoming life-threatening.

Which was really lucky, because the chance to escape didn’t come until long after nightfall.  Tails had lamented he’d felt too nauseous to eat any of the pizza they ordered for dinner, which had been handed over through the massive hole in the lounge wall by a bemused human.  The kid had never tried pizza, but he’d seen Sonic have it a lot, and he said it tasted amazing.  But the mere thought of consuming anything made him feel so ill he might have thrown up right there had he tried.

Maddie and Sonic and Tom had all been concerned when he didn’t eat, but he claimed it was probably just the concussion or because he was tired, and they didn’t question it.  At least, they didn't push further on the matter, other than to suggest an early night.  Going to bed straight after dinner, which was great, because that would be Tails' chance to take care of his injury.

Except, Knuckles didn't come upstairs to go to sleep with Sonic and Tails.  The echidna warrior seemed to think he needed to guard the hole in the wall, despite Sonic insisting that Green Hills wasn’t dangerous and no one was going to attack them during the night.

Luckily Tails knew his way around the Wachowski house as perfectly as if it was his own den, so he was able to sneak out and into the garage without Knuckles noticing.  The garage was definitely the best place to do this.  Quiet, isolated, no chance of being walked in on at this time of night with almost everyone else asleep.  Tails could deal with his lung and take some time to rest where he was after, and still get back upstairs before Sonic woke up the following morning.

It would be fine.  In the moment he didn't feel like it would be fine, struggling just to open and shut the garage door, but he knew it would be fine.  He could do this.  He'd had worse injuries and dealt with them himself.  This was a straightforward operation.

Tails grabbed the multi-gadget from his backpack and a bottle of disinfectant from the first-aid kit he already knew was kept on the wall of the garage.  Back in his den, he had a medical kit with exactly what he needed for this, most importantly a syringe he could use to remove the air he knew was compressing his lung, but he hadn't seen anything like that in the first-aid kit or anywhere else in the house, and he didn’t have the time or energy to search.

The fatigue and pain were getting worse.

His hands were trembling, his vision blurring.

A rapid acceleration of the condition, or perhaps he was giving into it now he was alone and didn't have to hide anything.

Either way, Tails knew he had to hurry up and get this done.  All that was needed was an incision, going through the ribs and into the space around his right lung.  Make a hole for the excess air to escape through, and his lung could reinflate, and he’d be fine.  Able to hide the cut beneath his thick fur after he’d stapled it up again.

There was a blade on his gadget.  Not long, but very sharp.  It should do the trick.

Quickly pouring the disinfectant over it and trying to rub some over the skin where he’d need to stab, Tails leaned back against the nearest wall and braced himself.

It wouldn’t hurt that much.

His mind told him it would, made him hesitate, but it wouldn’t.

This had to be done if he wanted to cling to the potential bright future that hung before him.

Friends and a home and a purpose.  Things he never thought he'd have, and they were all right in front of him now.

“C’mon, Tails,” he whispered to himself, his hand trembling and his vision so blurred now he could barely see.

He felt for his ribs, for a gap between two of them near the centre of his chest, and pressed the tip of the knife against it.

Just a bit of pressure.

He flinched at the first sensation of that point piercing his skin.

A bit more.  Get through the layers of tissue…

“Tails?!”

Sonic’s voice shattering the silence made Tails yelp, drop the knife, stumble back, away from the hedgehog until his pain in his chest brought him to his knees.  It was getting worse.  He definitely didn’t have long, and now he had to…he had to explain this…

“What the hell are you doing?!”

The hedgehog was beside him now.  Judging.  Disapproving.

Tails had let him down.

“Dude, seriously?!  Please tell me you weren’t about to stab yourself!” Sonic was still talking, on his knees, his hands gripping Tails’ arms tightly, “What were you thinking?  What’s going on?  Talk to me, buddy!”

Was he angry?  Worried?  Confused?

Tails didn’t know.  He couldn’t tell.

But he deserved an answer.

“I…my lung collapsed.”

Tails could barely hear his own voice, but he wasn’t sure why.  It was just…murky.  Faded.  Not really there.

“Your…o-okay…hold on,” Sonic didn’t sound angry now.  He sounded quiet.  He didn’t sound much like Sonic at all, really.

Then the hedgehog suddenly vanished, and without his hands on Tails’ arms, the fox found himself slipping down to the floor.

It was blissfully cold.  Very welcome.  Breathing in hurt more when he was lying on the concrete, but the pain was starting to blur.  One breath bled into the next, and that made it more bearable.  Constant was easier than coming and going.

Then he was up again.  Sitting up, sitting against something warm.

“It’s gonna be okay, buddy,” Sonic’s voice was back, “Maddie’s on her way.  She’ll know what to do.”

Tails’ chest somehow tightened even more.

He had caused trouble after all.  And now it was even worse.  Maddie, and probably Tom, had been woken up in the middle of the night because of him.  He’d made Sonic angry and worried, and probably them too now.  And, since he could see a blurred red form approaching quickly, Knuckles was bound to be following suit soon enough.

He didn’t sound happy as he spoke to Sonic, but the words washed over Tails without meaning.

Just sound.

No.

Sound had meaning.  It carried information.

Noise.

He heard only noise.

Yet, the noise was strangely welcome.

Maybe Tails wouldn’t get to live the life he longed for, that had been within his grasp, but he’d die listening to the voices of the first two, the only two, friends he’d ever had.