Chapter Text
Vanilla's nails dug into the foam handles of Cream's buggy as she looked across the street again: nothing. And to the other side: nothing. And on the pavements, nothing but a tired old chao being ambled home by a tired old fox, doddering along opposite them. She braced to cross the road, but her feet wouldn't move.
"Chao chao!" Cream cried, pointing and leaning out, part into the road. Vanilla snatched the pram backwards, as though cars were fizzing past. The fox nodded to her, and kept walking.
"Chao - chao!" Cream insisted. Vanilla grimaced apologetically to the fox, who's chao had stopped to wave at Cream.
"D'you need some help, ma'am?"
Yes. No. She couldn't form words. She looked left, and right and left again, but she couldn't bring herself to push the pram. The fox crossed the invisible barrier that became of the road for her, and the Chao sleepily fluttered up to Cream to let her stroke its cheek so softly she barely ruffled its fur.
"She's got a gentle soul for such a little one." The fox hummed. Vanilla nodded, counting his teeth, checking the road, and watching the Chao and her daughters hand.
"Thank you. She's ever so fond of them. But, animals in the house with a toddler... I think it's best to wait for a pet. Thank you for letting her stroke them, they're very sweet." She chattered. The fox's eyes rested on the worried and frayed sleeves of her cardigan poking out of her coat as she flinched when Cream tickled under the Chao's chin.
"Potato's a good boy. Chao are very intelligent, you know, not like regular pets. I always had them with my kids, and their kids. They're a very calming presence."
Vanilla smiled and nodded politely. The fox took his cue and beckoned the Chao.
"Well, we've had our fun at the park. You go have yours."
Cream waved bye-bye to the Chao, and it waved to her again. And Vanilla still had to cross the road.
She tutted quietly to herself as she failed to start again, and Cream looked up at her from her seat. She smiled broadly, but inside she wailed:
Don't look baby! Don't look at silly old mum, there's nothing to be scared of!
She looked left and right again, then pushed the pram before she could think again.
Doctor's orders, over the phone, were to get out every day, come rain or shine, until it was easier. And the Leaf Forest park was only a 15 minute walk, yet she hadn't managed to get them there, instead turning back every time. Sometimes almost immediately, but sometimes when they could already see the swings.
But you must, as Doctor Whiskers said, you don't want to make her like you, do you?
◇
Cream tried to climb the wrong way up the slide again, and Vanilla swooped in to lift her out of the way before another girl went whooshing down it. She'd observed that her daughter was a very agreeable child, compared to some of the tantrumming tots around them, but even she was starting to wriggle out of Vanilla's arms each time she picked her up.
"You don't go down that bit." The girl said bossily at the bottom of the slide. Vanilla prickled, tossing her a sharp look.
"Ever so sorry. We are just learning." She said curtly. The little girl was pink all over with messy spikes, and wore no clothes, but a pair of grubby trainers. Very grubby, in fact - it wasn't so wet today that Vanilla could fathom the filth. The girl nodded seriously, and walked back over to the steps.
"Well, you have to come up this side, otherwise you'll crash into people." She started stepping up the ladder, and Cream toddled after her with a big smile.
"Oh, Cream, sweetie, those steps might be a bit too big for you -"
As Vanilla's hands went up to help her, the pink girl's grabbed Cream's paw and guided her up behind her.
"Yes, that's how you do it. Then you sit on the slide, with your skirt flat down so it doesn't go up, and you - push!" The girl mimed flattening out her skirt, then launched herself down the slide as fast as she could.
Vanilla tugged at her sleeves more as Cream sat down, tucked her skirt in poorly, and looked down the slide: her little eyes became as big as saucers. Vanilla put her hands out to grab her, but the girl was back at the top of the slide again.
"Oh, are you scared? That's okay. We'll do it together."
She sat down behind Cream, her legs either side of her hips, and firmly placed Cream's hands on her knees.
"Ready? We go down on three?"
Cream looked down intently, Vanilla's hands just inches from her, but nodded.
"One.... two..."
"Don't go fast!" Vanilla said quickly, and the little pink girl gave her a sharp look like Vanilla had given her earlier.
"Three!"
Vanilla's hands shot out, but the girls barely moved, as Amy shuffled them down the slide as slowly as she could. Vanilla sighed with relief, then smiled wide for Cream when she clapped excitedly.
"You did it! Say thank you, Cream!"
"Thank you-" she said happily to the girl who was helping her up.
"That's alright! Lots of kids need a bit of help, that's why I go to the playground." The girl nodded sagely, and offered cream a mucky-gloved hand to shake.
"I like your name. I'm Amy-Rose."
She said the last with a sing-song, as though she were announcing a superstar singer. Vanilla could have rolled her eyes at the bolshiness of an eight-year-old in a little-kids park, but she smiled politely.
"Thank you, Miss Amy."
◇
Cream followed Miss Amy around the park, holding on to her glove and hiding between her legs, so Vanilla followed them both. She pushed her pram, checked over her shoulders, watched them intently, checked again. She noticed she was the only parent staying within about two metres of her child. Really, what were they thinking? Just chatting on the park benches - they'd never be able to catch them if they fell! And wherever Amy's parents had gotten to, she couldn't tell. Perhaps she had come with a friend, because she couldn't see any grown-up watching her.
Despite her bossiness, and insistence that Cream learn to properly use all the apparatus, Amy Rose was turning their first park trip alone into quite the success. And, because Cream wasn't looking at her, Vanilla could worry and fret as much as she needed to. There were many angles from which someone could approach the park - her long ears pricked up and twitched about trying to hear from all of them. She'd mapped out each child and which probably belonged to who, as well as which ones were playing rough. She was watching the sky for anything - anything at all, really. And then she was back to watching the girls.
And, somewhere in Amy's thorough explanation of how a see-saw was played with, Vanilla started to check more slowly, and breathe just a bit more deeply. She noticed smaller details: how the sky was turning a little grey, perhaps they'd finally go home soon; Amy's shoes were untied, maybe she needed some help still too; the other parents were watching her from time to time, with a few furrowed brows and pitying looks as she traipsed around so close after her daughter.
Well, excuse me for caring.
She watched the dark clouds again, supposing she was probably imagining those looks. More likely, they were like her and had waning eyesight so they had to squint; she found herself straining to see far in the sky right now, trying to figure out what that buzzing noise was. It was growing louder. Something with lights dipped out of the clouds.
"Cream, sweetie, it's time to go." She said sharply. Cream protested a bit as she was lifted off the see-saw, and Amy bumped down.
"Oh, but we haven't done the wobbly bridge!"
"Miss Amy, go find your parents." Vanilla said firmly, buckling Cream into her pram. Amy looked confused at her, then spotted the sky behind her.
"It's the buzzer'ds!" She shouted, pointing up at a stream of badniks carrying out patrol.
Chaos erupted in the playground as children screamed and parents grabbed them. Vanilla's ears thumped with all the sound, and she made a beeline for the gate like everyone else, ducking into the shade of trees to spy their path and decide which way to run.
As everyone scattered, one little figure remained; she climbed to the top of the slide, holding on with one hand.
"Clear off! Leave us alone!" She shouted, and with her other hand she threw a rock as far as she could when a bee badnik reached her range. She hit its wing, not enough to damage it alone, but enough to knock it slightly off course.
Vanilla watched in horror as the buzz-bomber crashed into its platoon-mates and started an explosion chain, sending shrapnel everywhere. Cream shrieked, but Vanilla covered her mouth and pushed the buggy into a bush so she couldn't see. She cast around again, but there wasn't an adult in sight - let alone a pink spiky one.
Oh god. There's no-one.
Amy launched another rock at the remaining bees, which were swirling around her angrily now.
"Amy! Amy get down!" Vanilla barked, ducking back into the bushes as the buzzers twizzled around. Amy didn't listen, lobbing the rest of the rocks and then skidding down the slide for some more.
One buzz-bomber had Amy's mark, and crashed into her as she staggered off the metal flat. Then she started to run, but tripped on her shoe lace and yelped as she fell on her knees, scrambling to get back up.
"Amy-Row!" Cream wailed, having jostled her chair out the verge. Vanilla's rubber band nerves snapped. She shoved Cream back into the bush so hard the pram tipped over and trapped her, then ran back to playground.
She vaulted the fence and smashed an elbow into the cheap nasty drone, which burst almost immediately and singed her coat. Amy squeaked and covered her head from the metal and fire; she'd taken refuge - and picked up more projectiles - under the climbing frame. Vanilla yanked her out roughly, and threw her over her shoulder. Her heart drummed, and yet she still launched herself into the air and flapped as hard as she could with her ears. Amy screeched, and held on tight, but in just a moment more she laughed. Vanilla felt her shift and twist, freeing one arm to throw her rocks an debris at the drones. Vanilla could find no words to scold or even ask if she was alright; she landed in the trees she'd stowed Cream in, scuttled down, and tugged the buggy back. Cream was sobbing, and the strain on Vanilla's heart multiplied tenfold: in her haste to get her out of trouble and not able to move again, she'd shunted her into the darkness and she had scratches on her ears that covered her in her fall.
"I'm so sorry, Mummy's so sorry, shh-shh-shh - we have to be quiet now, we have to go..."
She frantically swiped at Cream's little cuts, and her own large ears heard another tiny little sniffing. She held her breath to stop panting, quiet lest the last of the dim platoon of robots heard them, and spied in the corner of her eyes at Amy. She wasn't looking directly at Vanilla, but she was watching out the corner of her eyes, and rubbing her bloody knee with a bit of spit on her thumb, as she'd just seen Vanilla do.
Vanilla dragged the buggy over delicately, and squatted down to look at Amy's knee.
"I'm so sorry I was a bit rough with you there, Miss Amy. Would you like to come with me? I can put a plaster on that." She whispered. Amy looked out at the buzz-bombers, and sniffed again, rubbing her face hard.
"I nearly got 'em all." She grumbled. Vanilla shushed her gently.
"You did." She whispered; "You're our hero, isn't she Cream?"
Cream was busy gringing over her scuffs, but Amy beamed with shiny tears drying in her eyes. As soon as they were clear of the park, Amy retold them their adventure in enormous epic detail. Vanilla had never walked home so fast; she only looked each way for traffic once.
◇
"Yes, about two foot, I'd guess older than 7 but not 10. Could be a hedgehog, porcupine, something like that. No, she said she came alone." Vanilla burbled softly down the phone to the junior detective. In the room across the small hallway, she could see through the open door that Amy Rose was sitting on the carpet playing with Cream's wooden trainset. She liked to make complicated and inefficient routes, and then tell the trains off for being bad trains and crashing into eachother. Vanilla didn't think those were useful details for the investigation.
"Yes, of course I can feed her. But what if her parents were just around the corner, and now I'm a kidnapper! I don't know what I was thinking: you can't just take kids into your home. No, you definitely can't. I - can you just get that on some kind of record, okay? I'm sheltering her, I didn't abduct her. Can you put on the poster I'm a first-aider, maybe that makes it more understandable? No, I'm not worrying too much. Just-" She took a deep breath, and expelled it;
"Thank you so much for your help, sir. Please do let me know if there's anything I can do."
She put the phone down, and her eyes flicked to the doors again. She peaked in on Cream, who was asleep long past when she should have woken from her nap: she'd be awake tonight, no doubt, but Vanilla knew she would be too, so she didn't care. She crept back out, and joined Amy in the cottage's one social room. Amy looked up from her game and put the trains down, trying to look as though she hadn't even noticed they were there.
"Thank you for letting me stay for dinner, Miss Vanilla." She said in her loud, singsong voice. Vanilla rubber her temple discreetly.
"That's quite alright, Miss Amy. I only fear that somebody might not be able to find you when you're here. Did you have someplace to meet with someone, maybe they might be looking for you to take you home, and we ought to tell them?"
Amy looked blankly at her again.
"I already told you, I don't. I like going to the playground, and when it's cold I go to my treehouse-on-the-ground."
"Right, you showed us on the way home. But who..." she looked around her home for a new idea on how to explain guardianship for Amy.
"Who do you normally eat with? What's your favourite food?"
"I eat in my house. I'm good at picking fruit. Sometimes I go and ask for food from the market, and they say 'yes since you asked nicely'."
Vanilla waited for anything else, but Amy had gone blank again. She was such a chatty thing until you asked her about home. Not emotional, not frightened as though she'd run away; just blank, like she had nothing to say on the topic. Vanilla didn't know what to do; so she worried, and looked around for a purpose.
"I'm going to cook some food for us. Do you like cooking?"
"I can help!" Amy cried, jumping up from the carpet.
Vanilla watched Cream carefully. Baby-led weaning; meant to be best for their jaws, so the magazine said. But it involved the toddler coughing and spluttering while they worked it out. Cream was late in eating and talking, according to the books, and Vanilla blamed herself in a thousand ways - too attached to wean her, then lacking conviction with the transition and kept going back. Then, too much of a mess to feed Cream anything new for a while, and they'd both eaten just blended veggies and vitamin yoghurts until Vanilla found the Doctor who could talk over the phone. So, now Cream was forced to figure it out, and Vanilla kept itching to stop her and do it for her, but she gripped her own fork tight instead.
She registered dimly that Amy was watching her as she absentmindedly shoveled her own gnocchi into her mouth and wiped her lips with a napkin.
Vanilla glanced at her plate: she hadn't eaten much, but not for lack of trying. Amy's fork clattered messily as she twisted it around in her fingers that were covered in sauce.
"Do you want some help, Amy?"
Amy jumped from her concentration on Vanilla's fork, and shook her head.
"I'm okay."
Vanilla took her eyes off Cream for a moment to take a very slow, intentional mouthful that Amy could copy. She failed to pierce the food properly, and Vanila chewed the cooling dinner as she thought.
"Miss Amy, go and wash your hands in the sink, please." She said sincerely, wiping her own on her napkin; "Thank you; there is another way."
She took off her gloves, and picked up the dumplings with her fingers with as much dignity as she could. Amy copied her, and looked pleased, especially when Vanilla winked at her, sliding her a spoon for the sauce.
"You should have been following Cream's example, not mine." She pointed with her eyes, as Cream mushed potato pasta in her fingers.
◇
Cream had her bath, and Vanilla put her to bed in the cot in the master bedroom with her; she didn't even need to redress her toddler bed, as Cream had slept in the room with Vanilla every night since last they were changed. For who's benefit that was, Vanilla didn't like to say.
With no phone call from the detectives, Vanilla eyed Amy's dirty legs subtly.
"Would you like me to run you a bath too, Miss Amy - as you are our guest?"
So, Vanilla sat outside the bathroom door, pretending to read a book, as Amy splashed herself ineffectively, it seemed - because you really couldn't bathe someone else's child, could you? She came out wet, at least, and accepted a night shirt that draped to her toes.
Perhaps this was what a tired older child was like, but she had fallen quiet after dinner, and looked quite perplexed at the toddler bed she was lead to.
"It'll be a bit small for you, I'm afraid." Vanilla explained. Amy cocked her head as she found her words.
"Miss Vanilla; why am I here? This is your home."
"Yes, it is." Vanilla began, and she patted the bed, so Amy could sit on that while she took the reading chair beside it. She tried to begin, but she failed to start again; looking left, and right, but her mouth wouldn't move.
"I did enjoy the food, and it is kind of you to invite me into your home. Thank you." Amy volunteered as Vanilla fumbled.
"Yes. No, you're welcome. I am glad you liked it. I'm... I'm hoping that you will stay because I was quite worried about you out there on your own, with all those monsters. I have phoned some good people, and they are looking for someone who knows you. Because... little girls don't just come from trees. And they shouldn't be out on their own."
Amy frowned at her without anger, as though she were speaking in a code.
"But that's where I live. And that's why I go to the playground - it's on their flight path, so I go to protect it."
"That's very kind of you. But you're only young. It should be up to us to protect you."
Amy shrugged nonchalantly.
"Well, I can go back to the park tomorrow. It might need some fixing up, too."
Vanilla had no idea what to say, or even what foundation of understanding Amy was building on. She did another check of the room for danger or ideas.
"You should bring Cream back to the park. She needs to get better at it." Amy said, fiddling with the sheets. Vanilla delicately pulled them back underneath her, and gestured laying down as she chuckled.
"Maybe someday. It is quite frightening... I mean, today certainly was."
"Yes, you were scared." Amy nodded seriously at her. "That's why I had to protect you both."
"Hmmm. Thank you ever so much, Miss Amy."
Vanilla gently and delicately laid the blanket over Amy. She tossed a bit as she checked she could still move in this strange nest.
"That's okay. Thank you for helping me too. Maybe when I'm bigger my ears will fly."
"Perhaps..." Vanilla smiled; "I'm going to sleep now, but I am just over there - you can see by the nightlights. Just come and ask if you need anything at all."
Amy mumbled something, and curled up very small.
Vanilla didn't sleep a wink. She got up to check Cream was sleeping, peaked around the door at Amy curled up in a ball several times, left whispered messages on the answering machine of the Chaotix' place, and tried to knit her thoughts away. Every little noise in the house had her jump out of her skin, even more so than usual. Her wool basket sat on the other side of the big bed. She looked at the chao-egg blue cardigan panel she was making, and wondered if she ought to take some advice sometime soon: were pets really good for anxiety?