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It’s a clear sky tonight. The stars twinkle and the full moon showers the world with its silver light. The sound of campers can be heard, fussing about as they get ready for dinner and the thousands of songs that follow after. The hearth grows taller, stronger, and Sonic swears he can feel it this far away. Campers power it with a newfound hope in their hearts—the questers are home, and all is at peace.
Except for Sonic.
Amy’s taken him to the gang’s everyday hangout place—a homey clearing in the woods. It has two thick logs that the four of them sit on and chat for as long as they can. They’ve made the place their own in little ways: the grass flattened to accommodate Tails’ paces, a tree dented with a blow from Knuckles, and the logs and surrounding nature decorated with marks and flowers by Amy (decoration is key, she insisted).
Now Amy stands in front of Sonic, and there’s a look in her eyes that makes his heart clench. Since Knuckle’s offer of returning home with him, that expression was all she had when she wasn’t speaking to anyone. It was a new opportunity for her, a new life in her true home: Camp Jupiter. A home where she rightfully belonged. Not with Camp Half-Blood, not with the Greeks, not with him.
That’s why she brought him here, he realized, to tell him she was leaving.
Amy looks up to him, “Sonic—”
“You’re going, right?” He beats her to it, and that look is unbearable. Amy lowers her head, nods, and Sonic feels something in him break.
Only the ambiance of the forest is heard for a moment, and Sonic feels sick. He doesn’t know why he’s feeling this way, doesn’t know why he wants Amy to stay here with him. Not to go, not to have days without him. He’s never felt this. He can’t pinpoint what it is, and it terrifies him.
Sonic is the one to break the silence. “Guess this is goodbye, huh?” He places his hand on his neck, rubbing it as if it would calm the emotions coursing through him.
Amy grabs Sonic’s hand with both of hers. She squeezes his hand, and it ignites a spark in him. Not the spark running or adventure gave him; this was the same spark he felt when they first met, when she saved him and Tails from a horde of monsters. When she laughed with him for the first time, when she did the smallest of things for him, when she flirts with him, when she chases him. When they talked about their pasts under a starry sky, when he realized she was like him—wanting adventure, wanting to live life to its fullest.
When she fell into Tartarus with him and yelled that he was so stupid, that she wouldn’t leave him, and he laughed and held her close. When they kept each other sane in that wretched place, when he playfully asked if she was charmspeaking him, and she said no with a vow to never lie to him. When they held hands to assure each other they were real. When, in the River Styx, he saw her reaching out for him when she wasn’t there at all. When he realized that seeing her in Aphrodite was not normal.
“No,” Amy was quick to exclaim, “No, no! I promise I’ll come back! I promise I’ll write to you or- or find some way to talk to you! I wouldn’t leave if it meant I couldn't talk to you or the others again. You guys mean too much to me, and leaving for good would just be stupid of me to do and—”
“Ames,”
“—I wouldn’t even know what to do with myself if I just went after all of this—”
“Ames,”
“—So I will come back and—”
“Amy.”
She stopped. Amy’s eyes held unshed tears, and Sonic wanted to wipe them away with his hand. Instead, afraid of that feeling again, he placed his free hand over hers. A soft smile had grown on his face from her ranting; it was a trait of Amy’s that Sonic had become fond of. If he could, he’d listen to her rant whenever, wherever.
“I know,” Sonic says with the softest voice he didn’t even know he possessed, “I’m not worried about that. I know you’ll come back.”
Suddenly, Amy’s arms are thrown around Sonic like they have been countless times before. But this hug is different; this hug makes the spark in Sonic burst into a flame. It threatens to consume him whole, to rupture out of his skin and take Amy with him.
To feed the fire, his arms envelop her and hold her tightly. His body finds peace with hers, so he closes his eyes and lets her scent fill his senses. It’s greedy to want her to stay, he thinks. It’s greedy to want her to choose a life that is not hers. But what is worse is that Sonic will never admit this; he’ll keep it to himself and let those pink curls haunt him at night.
So he holds her close now, lets her stain the fabric of his shirt with tears, lets himself hug her the way he wants to. A part of him feels foolish for acting like this is the last time he’ll see her, but maybe she’s thinking the same, too.
Amy breaks the hug and wipes away her tears with her palm. Her glossy eyes feel too much for Sonic, but his own meet hers, and he can’t pull away. Sniffling, smiling, Amy says, “I leave tomorrow.” And that’s all Sonic needs to hear.
“Let’s make the most of it.” Sonic hasn’t let go of Amy yet. “Can’t have you be teary-eyed all night.” She laughs, and he keeps it in his memory, keeping whatever he’s got about her stored in a special part of his heart.
She’ll come back to him and, this time, he’ll welcome her with open arms.