Archive of Our Own

A light passed over Tails' vision, and if he could squint any more than he already was he probably would have. Gaia Below, it was painful. It was only there for a quarter of a second, disappearing just as quickly as it had slipped into his vision, but it made his brain hurt like he was being hit in the head with a mallet.

Another light flashed over him, and he groaned weakly, only to be met by an explosion of noise he wanted to shy away from. He couldn't, of course, shy away from it. He was being held down at a couple different points, gentle but firm weights at his shoulders and legs, so he couldn't roll to his side even though he had a number of reasons to. The loud, garbled noise in all directions, firstly, then the lights that keep passing through his tiny line of sight. Third and final, he was lying on his back. Tails couldn't lay on his back for very long, with how doing so tended to crush his tails under him. It would get uncomfortable if he stayed like that too long. Sonic knew that, he should have told that to whoever had him right now.

Where was Sonic? It was a childish want, especially after the last year where he'd been trying to train his independence from the hero, but it was a childish want that Tails was fine to have. Sonic should have been here. Tails felt sick and weak and sleepy and his head was aching, and all he needed to make it better was to know that Sonic was close, but the fox couldn't see his big brother through the blurry, squinting slit that was his field of view.

There was a movement of something blue in the corner of Tails' vision, and he willed his failing eyes to lock on to it. At first he thought... but no. It was a human. Tall — though most humans were tall to a mobian — clothed in light blue fabric. Definitely not a hedgehog, and so Tails didn't really care.

Where was he going? That would have been a good question to ask. He probably would have asked it by now, if his brain wasn't so strangely addled by exhaustion. There were more humans around him, all in the same blue scrubs as that first one he saw, all looking determined, moving with purpose. Like something bad had happened. Had something bad happened?

If something was wrong, Tails should have been out there. Fighting alongside Sonic, stopping the bad guys and fixing whatever had gone wrong instead of lazing in a bed, being rolled down a hallway. Then the humans could stop looking so focused and troubled.

Speaking of Sonic, where was he? It was a little immature to want his big brother there, like that would make it all better, but it totally would. That was backed by data, or reasoning, or whatever else he would have relied on if he was more awake.

Had he asked himself that already? His head hurt. The powerful, aching throb in his head was getting heavier. It was harder to breathe. It felt like when he was flying, and pulled a manoeuvre that was just one too many Gs for even him. Like he was passing out, every drop of blood throughout his entire body suddenly being greedily stolen by his feet. He tried to force down a breath, and then flinched as he felt something be placed over his mouth. He tried to raise his arms to bat it away, but they surged with pain. They were still being held down anyway.

Then he tried kicking his legs. Those also couldn't move, and treated him to pain along his entire lower body, including an explosion of searing hurt in his abdomen and ribs. It made Tails cry out, but he could tell the sound was muffled from whatever was around his mouth. Was it a gag? No, he could still breathe through his mouth. It was more like a dome fitted loosely over his muzzle, like a shield or something.

The air he did manage to breathe, through the intense discomfort of doing so with his throat as dry as it was, felt weird. He was getting sleepier. Unnaturally sleepier. Was that a... whatever it was called? The gas that made people sleep? An... ast... Tails knew he knew the word, but his brain was already using all its effort just trying to stay awake. Even though... he was tired... he wouldn't felt tired and sick if he went to sleep. He could just let his eyes roll back in his head and stop seeing all the flashing lights or all the not-Sonic humans. Maybe when he woke up, his brother would be around. They hadn't gotten to see each other in a couple of months, so... it would be good to just... catch up.

Tails' head thumped heavily back against the gurney.

One year. A whole year, or actually one year and two days, out of Sonic's shadow. A year where Miles "Tails" Prower, two-tailed fox genius, prodigy of piloting and a handful of applied sciences, ventured out to discover if he could make an impression on the world that wasn't far outweighed by Sonic's assistance on the matter. Repairing villages after killer robot attacks wasn't nearly as impressive when you were standing side-by-side with the one that prevented most of the damage, defeated most of the bad guys, and unwillingly got his picture taken by most of the news crews.

Out of that whole year, it had been three months and nine days since seeing Sonic the Hedgehog in person. They'd run across one another in the United Federation, just before Tails sent himself west one more time, going for another half-circle around the globe. It had been accidental... well. "Accidental", specifically in air quotes. The secret that Sonic really, really, really, really hated being away from his best friend, for once of the friend's volition instead of his own, didn't hold up for long after the fox was actually gone. It was kind of nice, even, though it did admittedly make Tails debate with himself over cutting his trip short a few times, if only so he stopped getting calls from his friends over how clingy Sonic was getting in his absence.

Tails was self-aware — or, as Sonic called it, 'too hard on himself' — enough to know he got lonely whenever Sonic was gone a little too long, but somehow he'd never anticipated that his big brother would be the same way when their roles were reversed. It only made the impending payoff that much sweeter.

Tails was already halfway back to the United Federation's southeast coast, and more importantly, South Island. He'd planned his return exactly 365 days after he left, just to be nice and orderly, but he'd begrudgingly stayed grounded when a thunderstorm swept overhead at the perfectly wrong time. At this rate he'd touch down just at the dawn of the 367th day away, which was significantly less satisfying to his symmetry-demanding brain, but also... heh. Six-seven.

Gaia forgive him, being a genius didn't save him from being thirteen...

Most kids that age would still have bedtimes, right? A bedtime certainly sounded nice right about now. Unless Sonic was waiting at the workshop, and there was absolutely zero reason why he would be, Tails was going to have to hold off on seeing everyone until later that day. At the end of this final, five hour stretch across the Atlantic, Tails was going to crash hard.

Crash as in sleep, obviously. His chances of having a bad landing with the Tornado, after some very generous rounding up, were about... 0%. He'd managed to work the Cyclone's autopilot algorithm into the original Tornado — "original", again, in air quotes. The plane was his very own Ship of Theseus — in the last few months, but even then he'd had the South Island workshop since he was about eight years old. The fox could probably land at the runway with his eyes closed and his brain half functional.

The fox's brain only felt half functional. It was even more of a struggle to open his eyes now than it had been the last time he was awake, but he didn't even do it consciously. It took him an extra few minutes to even comprehend what he was seeing.

"Hey, buddy. Hey," Sonic said from the chair at his bedside. He sounded so... unnaturally patronising. Tails would have grinded his teeth if he could feel them.

Tails wanted to say 'don't talk like that', but he was pretty sure that wasn't how it came out. Maybe more like "ehhgehrrhhn..."

"Yeah," Sonic gulped loudly, his eyes darting away from Tails' face, seemingly doing what his body wanted, but wasn't allowed, to do, before returning to the younger boy. "Yeah... well... y-y'know... I'm sure you're not feeling great, but they think you're gonna be fine, you know? Full recovery, and stuff."

Tails made a slightly different unintelligible, slurring sound, and tried to sit up. He wasn't physically being held down anymore, but his whole body still felt like it was pinned down. It was like the time, years ago, when he had tried on Amy's wrist weights and hadn't even been able to get his hands off the ground. At best he was able to shift around while staying locked to his position, nothing actually prevent his movement but impossibly strong gravity.

Sonic instantly reacted, and reacted badly. "Tails, no, don't— buddy, please don't move."

'Don't move'? You couldn't get much more hypocritical than that. Half-complying, Tails stopped trying to sit up. He clearly wasn't going to get anywhere with it. He instead made the effort to raise his right arm, noting that there were some weird tubes going into it, some of his orange-blond fur shaved down to reveal the scrawny, dark flesh underneath, but he didn't think to question it too much. Maybe he was... donating blood? And he was moulting a little early this year... yeah, something like that.

Sonic watched with a way-too intense focus as Tails curled his middle and ring fingers inwards, leaving his thumb, index and pinky extended. "I love you too, little bro. I... I'm not leaving your side for a second until we can go home, okay?"

No, that wasn't the sign he meant to make. Tails shook his head and did his best not to gag from the instant nausea it gave him, then tried again. Making the same sign, but angling his palm down more. Moving his hand around a little, even though his whole arm was burning just from being held up for a few seconds.

"A-aeroplane? You want..." Sonic's face went slack, then sad, then furious. "You're asking how the Tornado is after all— do you even know what happened? I can't even—"

Sonic stood up for his chair and turned away, bringing his gloved paws up to his head as pressing his ears down to his scalp forcefully, like he was trying to silence the world around him. What had made him so upset? It wasn't even that loud around them... nothing more than the gentle whirring of an air conditioner and the occasional beep of a heartbeat monitor. Tails' brain wanted to fire on every remaining cylinder to figure out what could possibly be ruining Sonic mood, but he simply didn't have anything left. He had just wanted to ask if his plane was okay, since he didn't really remember landing or parking it. Now Sonic was mad at him, and Tails was still so, so tired, and now his arm hurt even more than the rest of his body did.

"I'm... I'm sorry... I don't... I didn't mean to... I'm not angry. I promise I'm not. But there's... there's more important things than the plane, okay buddy?" Sonic said, eventually turning back around with a more sympathetic expression on his face, a parent trying to put on a happy face to console their child, when they felt nothing but dread.

The fox's sleepy brain lagged behind as it tried to find out what the 'more important things' were, but eventually just gave up. Tails held out his arms to each side, even though the action hurt.

"They... I can't... buddy, they said... I'm not allowed to move you right now. Like, at all. In... it'll just be a couple days, okay? Then we can hug as much as you want. And— and I'll never let you go again, buddy. Never, ever, ever—"

What? Sonic was the one who seemed like he needed a hug. Tails wasn't doing it for himself. He prompted again, shaking his arms just a little.

Sonic looked down at his shoes. "Tails, I'm really not..."

Tails stared.

"Oh man, fuck it—" a whole second before Tails could blink, Sonic was back at his bedside, leaning over to Tails and gently putting his arms around his little brother. Too gently. Tails wanted to hold him tighter, but he really didn't have the strength. "I'm sorry Tails. It's okay. Everything is okay. We're both here."

Sonic's hands moved slowly, placed on his brother's back and head and pushing so Tails was pressed against a blue-furred shoulder. But while his limbs were still and careful, like he was handling a glass sculpture, his torso was shivering, hiccuping and sobbing, albeit silently.

Ugh, about time. If Tails had to spend another minute in the air, he might actually die. Tails loved flying, loved the rush of a colourful landscape as he sped around the sky in a way even Sonic didn't get to very often.

But it was hard to enjoy those rushing colours when the current palette was 50 shades of pitch-fricking-black.

The sun had long since gone down, and the moon was barely visible tonight. Tails had been flying in total darkness for the better part of two hours, and it was... hm. Not challenging. The flying wasn't challenging, the difficulty was in the boredom. The difficulty was in keeping himself from manually checking if his altitude readout was correct by nosediving into the sea he couldn't see.

But no. He could see the distant mess of houselights and trail indicators that made up Spiral Hill. Home stretch, and then he could snuggle into bed.

Homesickness was a weird feeling. He had workshops all over the planet, even if they were mostly concentrated in the United Federation, and surrounding mobian islands — excluding West Side Island, screw that place. In the year he'd been away from 'home', he still stayed in one of his workshops for at least a week out of half of all the months. He wasn't really away from his place of residence, it was more just about being away from his friends, but seeing the stretching, rolling, and sometimes looping green hills of... well, Green Hill, appear out of the darkness ahead of him still felt good.

He eventually spied a shadowy structure that matched the shape of his workshop, evened out his descent path a little more and raised the flaps, controlled aerodynamics taking the wheel so he could lighten up on the throttle lever. Feeling the jarring but anticipated bump that meant a safe touchdown was good, and Tails taxied to a stop inside the garage. The lights and heating didn't come on automatically as the Tornado rolled into the structure, though that wasn't as shocking with the understanding the workshop's generators probably would have naturally fallen into some disrepair over the year, let alone the storms from the recent days. Made sense why the landing strip lights hadn't come on for his approach... okay, no light or heating then.

He could pad around outside trying to get them back up to working order, going through the hassle of working by torchlight to fix it or clean it out...

Or, he could grab a couple blankets and get comfortable in the back seat of the Tornado, like he was so used to doing at this point, then check on the generator in the morning.

He certainly knew which of those options sounded better.

"—xplosion has left the young hero in a critical condition. The public reaction is, to no surprise, ecstatic support for him and his family. Though it is early, and news of his condition has not yet been disclosed, theories have already started appearing across the internet. One Twitter user comme—"

"Can we turn it off," Sonic mumbled into his gloves, face buried in his hands. "Please. I don't... I don't want to hear it."

Amy nodded and reached over to the bedside where the remote for the room's little TV lay, and noticed a pair of barely open blue eyes watching her. "Tails!"

Sonic was up in a moment and hovering over beside Amy. He looked tired too, posture weaker than it should have been for the heroic hedgehog, eyes struggling to be more than half-lidded, mouth hanging open like he really wanted to speak, but he said nothing. At least, not before Tails did.

"Hhhhhhii," it was more of a breathy exhale with a slight inflection at the end over an actual word, but it probably sounded close enough to.

That, for some reason, closed Sonic's mouth, and opened Amy's. In that same, grating, patronising tone of voice that Sonic had used... the previous day... night? Whenever Tails was last awake. "Hi, Tails. Good morning. How are you feeling? Okay? Are you warm enough? Comfortable?"

Once again, Tails let out a hoarse, breathy exhale, his throat burning and his vocal cords metaphorically screaming bloody murder as protest to this apparent overuse. Weakly sucking a breath back into his lungs as an apology to his complaining organs, Tails curled his hand into a three-fingered claw, before trying to raise it to his face and finding that his elbow... simply refused to bend. He was lying down flat once again, so if there was anything blocking him... he couldn't see it, nor feel it. He still had the tubes in his arm. Those, he could certainly feel. No way that was for giving blood. The next thing he imagined was an IV, but... that didn't feel right. What would he need an IV for?

Amy's eyes moved down to the bedridden boy's half-clenched paw, and moved closer to his bedside, crouching down to one knee. "Was that you... asking me to get closer? Whatever you need, you can whisper it, if... if that's all you can manage."

Tails locked eyes with his brother, standing wordlessly across the room. He hadn't meant to, but... only now had he seen how still Sonic's silent, sleepless stare succeeded in staying. Maybe... he could still understand. Tails, unable to lift his hand to his muzzle, did as much of the rest of the sign as he could manage, making sure Sonic saw it. The three-fingered claw, a long exhale, and extending his wrist away from himself as far as he could, which, admittedly, wasn't much.

Sonic didn't move for a second. Tails had the time to wonder if he even saw the movement, if he should do it again, before Sonic let out a shaky sign and reciprocated, doing the full movement his brother had meant to. Bringing the claw to his snout and exhaling into it as he moved his hand away.

Tails nodded, Amy looking confused at the almost-illegible conversation between them.

"He's—" Sonic started, and the word dragged out of his mouth like sandpaper. It was a grating mix of groggy and dry, bubbling up like he'd been crying, but at the same time having the moisture level of the middle of Down Under. "He's... hot. Too warm."

"Uh... okay. That's... we can..." Amy stood back up, eyes crossing over Tails' prone body, before reaching to something around his midsection and pulling it back. Felt and sounded like some kind of cloth moving... must have been a blanket, or something. Definitely cooler now, thankfully. Amy resettled the blanket again, just above his knees. "How's that?"

Tails curled his right hand, once again, into a weak thumbs up, giving as grateful of a smile as he could manage.

"Good. That's really good, Tails. Anything else? Any pain, anywhere?"

Pain? No... why would he have been feeling pain? Aside from his namesakes, obviously, he was still lying flat on top of them, so there was a bit of an ache there. His back was complaining too, like he'd been badly hunched over for too long. Far too long... that didn't make much sense though. Based on what he saw each time he was awake, he'd been in bed for... days.

At the shake of Tails' head, Amy turned around, looking to Sonic. The hedgehog hero was still... still. If Tails had to guess, the two hedgehogs were having a silent conversation, just like he'd just had with one of them. Amy, of course, was turned away... but Sonic was facing him. Green eyes kept flicking between him, after which they just kept wavering, before turning back to Amy to right themselves again. It got... really off-putting, really quickly. If he could have, Tails would have tried and lighten the mood how Sonic might've... a joke. 'Do I have something on my face'? Maybe that was a little basic for Sonic... he would have come up with something better if he was more awake.

Oh. Huh... he was falling asleep again. That was... odd.

Tails blinked his eyes open, and the lighting in the room had suddenly changed. The overhead light in the ceiling above him was definitely the same, still way past uncomfortable, but the light outside the room...

Oh, yeah. Surroundings. This was... the first time Tails had really taken note of his. He was in a square room, the bed he was residing in pushed up against the centre of one of the walls, and his feet pointed inwards back toward the middle. The wall across from him was pretty much blank, just a plain, clean, white material. To his right there was a door, mostly glass, with a couple of steel-grey plates going across it, dissecting the glass into thirds for... decoration? Through the glass, he could see down an intersecting hallway, with most of the lights dimmed or out completely, the only light with any kind of brightness being one in the ceiling over what looked to him like a reception desk. To his left as well, a large window with not much of a view. It was mostly dark out, so he assumed... nighttime sky.

In his immediate vicinity, standing around his bed, were three people. To his left, almost like an inverted silhouette against the window, stood Sonic, stance tense but slouching, eyes aggressive but red with sleeplessness. Behind him, with her arms halfway held out, like she was ready to stop him from moving if he tried to but not doing so just yet, was Amy.

It made sense why she seemed to be cautiously hovering behind Sonic. The speedster seemed to have exchanged the movement of his legs for that of his mouth, a silly-string of words escaping him breathlessly as he entirely refused to calm down. Most of it was fast for Tails to understand, which meant all of it was too fast for anyone else to understand, but he could pick out a few sentences.

"What do you mean we just have to wait?!" and "I thought you all said he'd get the best treatment here, so why is no one ever treating him?!"

Tails turned his head, to see the other side of his bed. A... doctor, maybe a nurse, it looked like. A human one. Scrubs, gloves, a whole stack of surgical masks tucked into his top pocket. He looked wholly unprepared for Sonic the Hedgehog — hero of the world, globally renowned good guy, famous-enough-to-have-unlicensed-copycat-merch speedster — to be basically shouting at him.

The human lowered his gaze, like a puppy that had been kicked, and noticed Tails' eyes open. "Oh— uh, hey, we're in business! Hold on I need to... go get the RN—"

Sonic froze once again, like he seemed to have done every time Tails woke up, before he finally decided that he wasn't going to let another chance to talk pass. "...Miles—"

Okay. Bad start to any conversation. Tails felt like cringing, and judging by Sonic's reaction, he must have physically done it as well. The name had always been... awkward. If you were to ask Tails himself, he'd tell you that was his name. Not 'Miles', but actually 'Tails'. Unless it was a tax document, government form, a petition he really cared about, or something else truly important, he would have happily gone the rest of his life as 'Tails'.

"Miles... I'm sorry. I'm so fucking sorry, man, for getting angry when you first woke up, and sulking the whole of the second time, and..." Sonic had never quite seen it the same way. He wielded the name 'Miles' like a flare gun. Used so rarely it could almost be forgotten about, but when he did say it aloud, it got Tails' attention like nothing else could. Not only his, but other's. Amy let out a soft gasp and stepped away. "I'm so stressed, and scared, and nobody will tell me what's going on, and I just need you to be okay. Are you okay?"

Was he okay. There was that question again, the same one Amy had asked. Yeah, no duh he was okay. Everything he woke up to, again and again, implied that he shouldn't have been okay, and yet no one was bothering to tell him why. Adults were so... fricking weird.

At the shaky 'OK' sign Tails made, shifting his left hand as much as he could to make it pronounced, Sonic sighed, and hung his head. "I love you. You know I love you."

Another 'no duh' moment. Tails changed his sign, relaxing a hand for one second before switching into another. Two fingers in, two outstretched, thumb to the side. Palm facing out as much as he could manage.

"Okay. Y-yeah, okay, right," Sonic murmured without raising his head back up. His hands were gripping the low railings of Tails' bed so hard his wrists were shaking, but he tried to force a soft chuckle into his next words anyway. "And... and you're, uh... not trying to ask about the Tornado this time, right?"

He wasn't, but... that was a good question too. He'd have to ask later, for sure...

Why did Tails' bed have rails? Hard, white plastic, like a hospital bed.

Tails, thankfully, stayed awake after that. A different nurse came in, a mobian this time, a squirrel with more years on her than the three heroes combined. Checked all the tubes in his arm, which indeed turned out to be IV... and then heartbeat, blood pressure, and so on. She adjusted his anaesthetic dosage — that was the word, anaesthetic — so he'd stop drifting in and out so much.

A fact was revealed that shocked him far more than it should have. He was, actually, in hospital. Seaside City Medical Clinic. In the ER, no less. Last time he'd been in a state of medical emergency was...

Actually, hell. He might never have been before now. Technically, the state Sonic first ever found him in, a mangy kit with a coat that was more dirt and scabs than fur, could be considered a 'medical emergency'. Of course, he hadn't gone to the hospital for that. Sonic had bought, bartered for, and if need be, stolen anything he'd heard would help. Medicines, shampoos, ointments, all that kind of stuff. The hedgehog must have rendered more than a dozen pairs of his own gloves unwearable just trying to apply that stuff to Tails' body. Usually when he did, he'd sit the fox down in front of the Tornado, and rattle off facts about it.

Any and all specifications he could recall. Length, wingspan, horsepower, maximum altitude... Tails always seemed the most wowed by the details that came with numerical values.

Then he'd start going through his own personal feats with the plane. Longest flight duration — ninety-two minutes — coolest trick he'd ever done — loop-de-loop — coolest, and only, crash landing — only a few weeks prior, when he landed on West Side Island... Tails had been appalled to learn Sonic's highest achieved speed with the vehicle was thirty miles per hour over the vehicle's documented maximum.

And after that, Sonic would give an "all done!". Tails would turn around as much as he could, trying to look over his own shoulder back at Sonic, who'd just finished applying a frankly stupid number of creams to his brother's torso and limbs.

Back then, Sonic had never tried to lie or omit Tails' own condition from him. Since the day they'd met, the older had truly believed the younger to be the coolest, smartest, brightest person in the world. He assumed little Miles Prower would figure it out for himself anyway, even if he didn't get told, so would be the point of keeping it from him?

Little Miles Prower, now, didn't feel so cool. He didn't feel so smart. He didn't feel so bright.

He didn't feel good. Not physically, physically he was just fine. He didn't feel good, because the eyes Sonic kept looking at him with were the same as when the kid was getting a desperate, scrapped-together trail-treatment for mange. All sympathy and care and "ooh, that looks like it hurts".

Only this time, the hedgehog wasn't saying anything. No one was. And Tails didn't understand why.

It wasn't like there was some secret, debilitating damage his body had suffered, that was worth keeping under wraps. Tails knew that much. He had all his arms. All his legs. Hands, shoulders, knees and toes. No head injury, aside from being a little confused and sleepy all the time.

Two days later he got his voice back, and — even if his vocal chords ached from disuse, and his throat was burnt like he'd spent days screaming against a rushing desert wind — tried to ask a nurse about what happened. "An accident".

Not only was it not a real answer, it was just vague enough for his mind to experiment. 'An accident' made him think... well, the obvious.

So he went back to asking about how the Tornado was.

What a horrible idea that was, apparently.

If one had to chronicle all the damage the Tornado had sustained throughout its short history, they would have been writing for... a very long time.

Sometimes Tails thought that very fact was a slight on his piloting skill, but that was his more emotional side. Pragmatically, flying in the conditions he usually did, his beloved aircraft being unscathed probably would have been a sign of... cowardice, or something. As much as Tails liked to use that word to describe his worst moments, he knew he was anything but when sitting in the cockpit.

Sonic ran, rolled, and jumped toward danger. Tails, to the best of his ability, did the same, along with flying into it. He'd done strafing runs on Egg Carriers, he'd been shot down by lasers and missiles and everything else Eggman had in his arsenal. He'd had emergency landings on every imaginable surface, in every conceivable condition. A year ago, he, Amy, and Sonic even got dematerialised into Cyber Space mid-flight.

So... yeah. He was pretty proud of the Tornado. If the Tornado had a mind of its own, he'd like to think it thought he was treating it right.

Maybe not, though. Even in the darkness of the garage, cozied up to himself in the backseat of the aircraft, he could see a whole mess of scars, scratches, and abrasion over the plane. And that was just on the parts he could see, the rim of the cockpit and the surface of the bottom wings. He was sure if he could turn on the power in his workshop, and gave the Tornado a more analytical once-over, he'd see all the worst of the damage. Both that which he'd manage to lead it through in the last year, and the ghosts of previous damage. The stuff that wasn't really there anymore, scrapes shined out of the metal, bends in the frameworks that he'd long since righted.

Damnit, now he was thinking about it. He knew what he was like when he got the way he was, and resisting it was an exercise in futility. He couldn't sleep until he stopped wondering about the Tornado's current state, and he could stop wondering until he checked it himself. Kicking his blanket off of himself and reaching for the satchel now resting in the front seat, he blindly dug through the contents in search of the Miles Electric, eventually pulling the tablet out and hefting it in one hand before hopping out of the plane, tails bristling at the sudden chill of the garage.

Guess he was fixing that generator after all.

Sonic broke his promise.

He'd promised he wasn't angry. It was a lie. For some... baffling, unknowable reason, every time Tails tried to ask about the state of the Tornado, it infuriated Sonic instantly, intensely, intercepting any other conversation or checkup they could be in the middle of.

And then, on the seventh day after Tails had his anaesthetic remeasured— the third time he woke up, the first time he saw Amy, whatever one wanted to call it — Sonic wasn't around. The statement that he'd stay with his little brother "until they could go home", hadn't been promised, but it had been said with the same tone that accompanied a promise. If Tails wanted to sound childish about it, which he kind of did, he had... trusted Sonic, to keep that semi-promise. He felt betrayed, a little.

No. Nah. Nevermind. Not betrayal, that wasn't what he meant. Sonic needed to run. It was part of his DNA, and he'd let himself be cooped up in hospital for at least a week, probably longer.

It was just... Tails wanted his big brother there.

Even if it was a little immature. It was a childish want he was fine to have.

Tails got more visitors after that, none of them the one he wanted to see. Not to say he didn't appreciate them, far from it. Amy came by more often, seemingly trying to make up for Sonic's absence and apologising on the Blue Blur's behalf. One of the days, she brought Cream with her, who herself brought some mint-chocolate pastry she'd made with Vanilla. The snack had disappeared in a day, obviously. It was lovely. Same issue as all mint-chocolate things, a little too much chocolate, not enough mint, but Tails still made sure to offer the rabbits a million thanks.

Tangle and Whisper came by as well, seemingly with the intention of catching Tails up on what he'd missed over the year. Not a lot, unfortunately, as the lemur realised after getting through the first four months in no more than five minutes. Whisper had tried to help, but didn't succeed in adding much more. Team Dark had to have some random G.U.N. mechanic try to fix Omega one time, since Tails wasn't around. Hadn't gone well. Apparently the killer robot was still walking with a limp.

The most odd visitation, by far, was probably Dr. Eggman and his daughter, of whom he'd apparently gotten pretty close to while Tails was away. The arrival of the rotund, red-jacketed roboticist concerned Tails as much as it did confuse him — how the most infamous villain on the planet was able to enter a hospital, much less a rival of his' emergency room, was beyond him — but it seemed well-intentioned, probably because Sage was behind it.

Her form being constructed by a crabmeat badnik barely keeping up with Eggman's gait, a holographic projector balanced precariously atop it's metal carapace, Sage managed to look about the same as she had in cyber space a while back. A few minor revisions, maybe. Shorter, darker hair, nose a little sharper, a pair of her own green-lensed welding goggles hanging loosely around her neck. A little more like her old man.

Certainly didn't act like him, though. "And these medical professionals — if 'professionals' is even the correct word for them — had your left-hand tail's brace miscalibrated. I found the inconsistency when comparing your current treatment plan to the Eggnet's own medical profile of you. Had it been held in such a way for an extended period of time, it would likely have led to a worst-case scenario of an exacerbated fracture, and the loss of feeling or muscle control."

"Uh," Tails responded, absolutely sure he looked even dumber than he felt in the face of Sage's finally-finished lecture. A monologue about how crass his treatment plan seemed to be, and how easy it was for her to modify the hospital's data and schedule new procedures for him without anyone being any the wiser. "Thank... you?"

"Expressions of gratitude are entirely unnecessary," Sage tilted her holographic head up, chin held high in pride, and a smirk that tried harder to be sinister than it should have needed to. "It is in my father's best interest that you remain some kind of challenge to defeat in his future exploits."

Tails swallowed awkwardly, and let his eyes drag across the room to an absolutely ecstatic-looking Eggman, failing to sit still on one of the too-small-for-him chairs against the far wall and looking to be about ten seconds from clapping his hands and whooping with pride at Sage's passable trash talk. Maybe he was better at parenting than he was at world domination. That particular change in occupation would certainly help the Restoration out...

On the thirteenth day since Tails woke up properly, just shy of a week since Sonic vanished, his brother returned. Tails was gently awoken by one of the nurses at early light, before Sonic stepped in. He was trying to conceal the scowl that kept crawling up to his face, being... successful enough that Tails could ignore it. Not that he really wanted to.

What then proceeded was almost fifteen minutes of painfully uncomfortable silence. Sonic looked over Tails, laying flat in bed. Tails looked up to Sonic, standing rigidly, yet simultaneously like he might as well have been knocked over by anything resembling a breath.

"Are you... gonna be upset again, if I ask about the Tornado?" Tails said, his eyes dropping to his feet. They were still concealed under his thin blanket... currently, his main source of entertainment was wiggling his toes as much as he could under the sheet, watching the tiny movements. Gaia knew there wasn't much else to do in that room...

Sonic, similarly, let his eyes fall. Instead of picking it back up to Tails' face, he started walking over, like bringing Tails into his line of sight was easier than adjusting that line of sight. His sneakers squeaked quietly on the floor until he stopped at Tails' bedside. "I... I want to say no, buddy, but... yeah. Yes. I really will be."

"I just—" Tails sniffed the air, his muzzle twitching. Hmph. Sonic kind of smelled like... smoke? A little more like ash, maybe. "I don't understand. I don't like that nobody is telling me anything."

"It's... not..." Sonic struggled to get the words out, before he planted a hand on one of the railings of Tails' bed, and slumped down into the seat he'd first been in when Tails woke up.

"Sonic, come on!" Tails couldn't stop his voice from raising to a shout. At least fourteen days in hospital... look, he wasn't 'Sonic the Hedgehog' levels of ADHD, but he needed to move. He needed to tinker. He needed to use his hands and his mind. "People... somebody said there was an accident. I didn't... crash, did I?"

Sonic slouched further, let his hand leave the side of Tails' bed so he could run both of them through his frazzled head quills, before he let it thump back onto the mattress. Palm up this time.

Tails looked from the gloved hand, up to Sonic's turned-away face, lit from the top by the fluorescent lights of the room, and barely given depth by the pale light of morning from the window behind him. Gingerly, he reached his own out, and placed his own palm flat against Sonic's. Tails, not having his gloves on — not having had his gloves on this whole stay in hospital —  could feel every seam and stitch in the fabric, every minor micromovement Sonic made, which... Gaia Above, there were a lot of them.

"No. You... you didn't crash, buddy. It's... well, no one was there, at... at the time, but... here's... this is sort of how they think it happened."

The ground was marshy, making every step a threat of slipping but every second stationary a risk of getting stuck forever. Tails, against what he'd originally thought, hadn't actually waited for the storm to pass before setting off for South Island again. No... instead, he'd apparently been keeping pace through the eye of it.

Rain was pelting, winds were whipping, there'd probably be lightning strikes within the next few hours, and Tails certainly didn't have the right shoes on for this.

Still. He'd worked in worse conditions, on more difficult projects, especially over the last year. He'd crossed deserts, rainforests, he'd hopped between islands, assisted humans and mobians alike. Yeah, maybe thunder was still going to make him tuck his tails between his shaking legs, but he sure as hell wasn't going to be running anymore.

It probably would have been more comfortable to go back inside and find a raincoat, but... nah. He and his tools were already outside, crouched in his backyard and greasing his gloves on the internals of his generator. Once he had the light and heating back on, a hot shower and a bunch of bath towels would feel even better just by comparison.

Still... wasn't good. Once again, not quite his most troublesome project, but it had that level of difficulty to it that simply prevented him from seeing the fun in solving it. His shoes and knees were covered in mud now, most of what he was dealing with was water damage and minor rust instead of actual engineering work, and the downpour only seemed to be getting worse on the time goes on.

Raindrops were the size of Master Emerald shards by the time he decided he'd gotten enough of it in working order, and felt just as sharp. Flicking the starter, expecting to be greeted by, at the barest minimum, the lights in the garage coming on, rewarded the fox with... absolutely nothing. Tails' ears wilted to either side, half from exasperation and half from just how drenched they were.

Alright, screw it.

He tracked mud back through the garage, and upstairs. Whatever. He'd clean it tomorrow. Same case for grabbing drawer and closet handles with soaking wet gloves, pulling them open and scouring through them until he found what he was looking for.

A fake chaos emerald. Not the same one from the ARK, but the same design process. He'd honestly built it more as a memento than anything of use, but it did have... some energy properties?

Rough mental estimations told him it could power his house for... half a week, at most. At the absolute least, until the storm passed in a couple of hours, and that much was plenty. Obviously, he'd have to... make sure it didn't... y'know. Sap the remaining energy in the generator and explode, like the original was supposed to have done for the Eclipse Cannon.

Back in the rain and the mud. Fake Emerald secured... stabilising... stabilising...

The Miles Electric showed green — and regained a little battery life from being connected to the Emerald — before Tails unplugged the device. Three big steps back... then another three. Another... Tails ran to take cover behind a tree.

And yet, no explosions came. The lights in the garage came on — fizzled a little, probably overcharged — but went more stable as other lights in the structure followed suit. Now, that was home.

Tails walked back in with a pep in his step, actually kicking off his shoes before heading inside this time. Shower first. Then, he'd clean up the mud he'd tracked through... then, a nice, long nap until the skies stopped attacking South Island. Water took a minute to warm up, which was fine. He had to spend a little time to find all his usual shampoos, conditioners, and fur products anyway. Then he let the hot water run over him for, like, half an hour.

Bath towel tied around his waist, one lazily laid over his shoulders, a third being ruffled over his head, Tails left the bathroom and started looking for something to clean up the few footprints of 'adventure' he'd brought back inside. Getting mud off the concrete floor of the garage would be easy enough, but the hardwood upstairs was gonna be a pain...

So, half an hour after his shower, he was back on his knees and trying to scrub at his floors, not to much success. The mud was still a little... clumpy. Too solid to mop, too moist to get with a dustpan or vacuum...

Tails was puzzling over the solution to this particular problem, when the most deafening boom he'd ever experienced seemed to go off in his ears. Glass suddenly littered the floor... from the windows? Had they been... broken, blown in? His ears were ringing, his vision shaky and dancing with spots. He was doing his best to resist the feral first response, the urge to drop to all fours and bark at the danger. Instead he found the closest wall, holding a hand out to steady himself as the world seemed to shake.

It was a... a lightning strike. Just... just thunder. What did Sonic always say? 'It can't hurt'cha, little buddy'. Or, more like... 'You've had missiles explode closer to your face than that, kiddo'. Yeah. Yeah, maybe something like that.

Or just...

"It's going to be okay, Miles."

Tails pushed off the wall, trying to make for the stairs. The wrong commands seemed to be being given to his legs and tails. Namesakes were as still, steady and straight as could be, while his legs seemed shaky, barely able to hold his own weight.

He found himself at the bottom of the stairs, head pounding. He'd... fallen, somewhere. Tripped on one of the steps. His fur felt slick with blood, but... not that bad. Thinking wasn't too impaired, maybe just a concussion. He had to get out... out. Somewhere... open space. Middle of the field, or further... Spiral Hill? He could get to Spiral Hill.

He tried to reach for another wall to pull himself up, and the building started to rattle. Shaking worse than his legs had been, his hands going with it as he just tried to hold on, feeling like a head pressed against a bus window during transit. A plane going through heavy turbulence, even though he should have been safely planted on the ground.

Tails was stumbling towards the Tornado before he knew it, not driven by thoughts of logic, or tactics, or safety.

The writing on the side of the plane read 'Sonic', and that was exactly what he wanted right now.

His back hit the soft padding of the backseat as Tails managed to pull himself into the cockpit, despite how much his muscles seemed to be refusing out of fear and weariness. The second earth-shaking crack within a minute or two rang out, and Tails felt his body curl in on itself as much as it could. Sonic could... Sonic would come by. To help him, in just... a second...

The world felt like it was splitting apart around him... 'felt like'? Maybe... maybe it really was. The walls were shivering themselves to death, long cracks forming across the ceiling and corners of the walls. The roof seemed to be... bending inwards, like it couldn't hold up its own weight. It was... going to... collapse?

What was happening? It must have been... the Fake Emerald shouldn't have sapped any energy, he'd tried his best to install it in such a way that it would only be able to expel energy into the generator, unable to draw it in... unless... oh. Ah.

Maybe he shouldn't have used it while a lightning storm was overhead.

Tails tried to roll to his front as the structure caved in, hands covering his head, and a shooting pain roared across his back. A million pounds of rough concrete, broken flooring, and snapped rebar was crushing him, pinning him, trapping him.

"Sonic!" The fox tried to call out. If his weak, hurt voice even managed to make it out of his rubble prison, it certainly didn't carry much further than that. Not with the wind almost as heavy as the broken building covering him, the rain that had been threatening to drown the wildlife now dripping into the enclosed cockpit of the plane as well. "Soniiic!"

Tails kept wailing into the storm. South Island kept giving no response.

Tails had always been told he was a genius. Smarts like Eggman, speed like Sonic. After managing to remember what had happened... he didn't particularly feel like either. Someone smart should have known that using the Fake Emerald was a risk. Someone fast should have been able to get away from the building, not cowering away inside as it collapsed.

"They, um... they still... don't know what caused it. There's an investigation, so... you know. They're trying to see if it's foul play," Sonic said, still not looking at Tails as he finished stammering his way through what the EMTs had tried to find out. "I was there... the past week, trying to see if I could bring you a piece of the Tornado, but there's... there's nothing, Tails."

Tails didn't much feel like looking at Sonic either, but he couldn't turn away.

"They said you were... uh..." Sonic gulped. "You still... trying to... call... call out for me. When they got you out. The Tornado had, uh... crumpled in, around you."

That was... certainly an answer. The one that Tails had been asking for, again and again, trying to chase down ever since he woke up.

"Your back... spine... took some damage. And... and you almost... asphyxiated... 'coz you were trapped for so long."

Tails' hand wasn't merely resting on Sonic's anymore. It was gripping, tightly, even as the very sensations were so intense they almost hurt. Sonic's was gripping his as well, trying to sit still. His other hand was digging into his own thigh, fingertips putting pressure on his gloves so much Tails swore he could see the imprints of his nails.

"So... is... am..." the first thing Sonic had said, when Tails first woke up, was that he was going to be okay. Going to be. Maybe Tails had... misinterpreted that. Maybe that was why Sonic was so upset. "Am I... okay?"

The older brother finally met the younger's eyes, for the first time since he'd started recounting events. And, for the first time since even longer, maybe since Tails had first seen him, Sonic seemed brighter. His eyes had a dim light where there had previously been none at all. Like he was almost... relieved, that Tails was actually thinking about his own condition instead of the Tornado's. "No. No, you're... not."

"Oh."

When Tails stuck out his arms, Sonic was there in an instant. An awkward hug, where Sonic was clearly trying not to even glance a finger over the brace on Tails' back.

"When... when am I going to be okay?"

"A long..." Sonic buried his face in Tails' shoulder, so when he next spoke his voice came out muffled in Tails' fur. "A long time. There'll be... surgeries, and physical therapy, and... and stuff..."

"Oh."

Tails wished he could say something more intelligent, but... he didn't feel particularly intelligent right now.

That was okay though. His brother was here with him.

It was a childish want, but it was a childish want Tails was fine to have.