Chapter Text
New Mobotropolis…
Three o’clock in the afternoon
Rain whispered against Amy Rose’s living-room window.
Ordinarily, she would have enjoyed it.
Rain made the city shine. It turned every streetlamp into a ribbon of light and gave everyone an excuse to wear cute boots, drink something warm, and complain dramatically about their quills
Today, however, the rain was boring.
Amy sat among many pillows beneath the window, dressed in pink sweatpants and a pale red T-shirt. Her red boots lay abandoned beside the couch. One cheek rested against her palm as she watched raindrops gather on the glass, tremble, and race downward.
The city’s force field had been opened to allow the storm through. New Mobotropolis needed the water. The trees, flowers, and gardens were probably grateful.
She was not.
Sonic had run away from her again.
Amy’s fingers drummed against her cheek.
Technically, he had not announced that he was running away from her.
He had glanced over his shoulder, smiled that crooked little smile of his, announced that he had “places to be,” and disappeared in a blue streak before she could ask where those places were.
But Amy knew running away when she saw it.
She also knew Sonic.
At least, she thought she did.
Amy lowered her face farther into her palm.
“Oh, who am I kidding?”
The rain offered no answer.
different plans moved through her mind. Perhaps she needed another approach. Something less direct. Something that would catch him off guard without frightening him.
A deck of fortune cards lay on the table beside her. She had already consulted them twice that afternoon.
The first reading had been unclear.
The second had been wrong.
She was considering giving destiny one final opportunity to correct itself.
She reached for the deck, then stopped.
“No. I am not asking again.”
A moment passed.
She picked it up anyway.
Amy shuffled the cards between her hands, concentrating on Sonic. Not merely his face, she told herself. Not his eyes, his smile, his voice, the way the breeze always seemed to follow him into a room...
The cards slipped from her fingers and scattered across the rug.
Amy stared at them.
“All right. That one was my fault.”
She crouched to gather them, but one card had landed faceup.
The Moon.
Amy’s mouth tightened.
Uncertainty. Distorted perception. Things concealed beneath pleasant appearances.
“I know what you mean,” she muttered. “You don’t have to be smug about it.”
She placed the card back in the deck and set the entire thing facedown.
There were limits.
Amy understood that now.
When she had been younger, persistence had seemed like the answer to everything. If someone did not notice you, make yourself impossible to overlook. If a door remained closed, knock louder. If Sonic ran, chase him.
It had all sounded terribly romantic.
But persistence could become something uglier when it stopped caring whether the other person wanted to be pursued.
Amy knew that.
Usually.
She folded her arms over her knees and looked through the rain again.
Still, Amy understood that there were lines.
Every person drew one somewhere. The difficulty was discovering where it had been drawn before accidentally stepping across it.
Sonic’s line seemed to move.
Sometimes he laughed when she flirted with him. Sometimes he teased her back. Sometimes he stood close enough that she could feel the warmth of his shoulder beside hers and looked at her in a way that made her heart flutter.
Other times, the slightest mention of romance sent him running toward another postal code.
Amy knew she pushed him occasionally.
Perhaps more than occasionally.
But she was doing her best not to cross his line.
It was not her fault that Sonic refused to tell her where it was.
Long before she had known Sonic, she had known stories about him.
She had heard them after her old life had already begun falling apart. After Eggman’s chaos had separated her from her family, her home, and nearly everything that had once made the world feel safe.
She remembered very little about her parents now.
Sometimes she could recall the warmth of a hand around hers. A voice humming from another room. A shadow leaning over her bed.
Never a complete face.
But she remembered the stories about Sonic.
The fearless blue hedgehog who appeared wherever Eggman believed himself untouchable. The hero who laughed at machines, outran armies, and vanished before anyone could thank him.
Every person told the stories differently.
In one version, Sonic had faced an entire battalion alone.
In another, he had stopped in the middle of a battle to rescue a frightened child.
Some of the details were probably exaggerated.
She had not cared.
To a lonely girl, Sonic had represented something simple and beautiful: evil could be challenged. Captivity did not have to last. No matter how enormous Eggman became, someone could still be free.
Before Amy fell in love with Sonic, she had fallen in love with what he proved.
He proved that the world had not become entirely ugly.
Whenever Amy felt frightened or alone, she imagined him racing somewhere beneath the same sky, fighting another impossible battle and winning.
The thought kept her going.
Before she had ever met Sonic, he had already made her life feel beautiful again.
Amy’s expression softened.
Perhaps that had been the beginning of the problem.
She had not known his impatience then.
She had not known how quickly his attention wandered when a conversation became too serious. She had not known that he sometimes hid behind jokes, or that freedom could become an excuse to avoid anything that frightened him.
She had known only the hero.
She still loved fortunes, mystical objects, and anything that suggested the universe possessed secrets waiting to be discovered. She had loved those things when she was younger and had never entirely outgrown them.
After months of hearing stories about Sonic, she had asked her cards whether she would ever meet him.
They had predicted a destined encounter on the small satellite known as Little Planet.
She planned the journey for months.
She had studied its annual appearance, gathered everything she needed, and traveled there with the certainty that something extraordinary awaited her.
Her lips curved into a smirk as she remembered searching for Sonic across Little Planet.
Then she had finally seen him.
Amy squeezed her eyes shut and released a cheerful squeal into the empty room.
She could still remember arriving there with her heart hammering, searching every strange path and impossible landscape for the blue figure she had imagined so many times.
The real Sonic had looked confused.
Amy smiled despite herself.
She had nearly fainted. Sonic had stared at her as though a pink hedgehog materializing and declaring their meeting to be fate was somehow unusual. He stared at her with the most adorably confused expression she had ever seen.
Amy opened her eyes, still smiling.
Then Metal Sonic had taken her, but he rescued her from Metal Sonic.
Then, almost immediately after saving her, he had run away.
The first time he ran.
And the first time she gave chase.
Amy rested her forehead against the cool glass.
After Little Planet she had not returned to her old town for long. Eggman soon overran and destroyed it, leaving her with nowhere familiar to go.
In search of shelter, she eventually found her way to the Kingdom of Acorn.
To her surprise, she had bumped directly into Sonic again. Finding Sonic there had felt like another sign, like destiny had placed him in her path twice. At least, that was the romantic explanation.
The less romantic explanation was that she had spent a considerable amount of time following his movements after Little Planet.
She had been stalking—
Amy’s smile twitched.
Well...
Tracking him.
There was an important distinction.
Tracking sounded resourceful.
Besides, finding him again in the Kingdom of Acorn had saved her a great deal of time.
Amy smirked proudly as she stared through the rain.
Even now, it sometimes felt unbelievable.
After admiring Sonic from afar, seeking him out, and imagining so many impossible futures with him, she now lived in the same city as he did.
She knew him personally.
She fought beside him.
She was his friend.
Though she still wanted to be considerably more than that.
Some part of her had never separated Sonic from the idea of marriage.
She had wanted to marry him when she was young.
She still did.
She was simply more sophisticated about it now.
When she had been a child, she imagined Sonic suddenly recognizing that they were destined for each other, sweeping her into his arms, and agreeing to a wedding almost immediately.
Adult Amy understood that relationships were more complicated.
There would have to be dates first.
At least three, preferably.
Then a proper confession. Flowers would be appreciated but not required. Sonic was not particularly good at planning romantic gestures, so she was willing to be patient while he learned.
Eventually, there would be a proposal.
He would probably attempt to make it casual because sincere emotions made him nervous. Amy would see through him, naturally, but she would pretend to be surprised.
She had matured considerably.
Amy sighed dreamily before catching her expression in the glass.
Her smile faded slightly.
She knew that placing someone on a pedestal could be dangerous.
People were imperfect. Relationships were difficult. Eventually, disagreements happened. Many people entered romances carrying an idealized image of the other person, only for everything to collapse when reality failed to match it.
Amy understood that.
She was not naïve anymore.
She knew Sonic had flaws.
He could be impatient.
He hated remaining still.
He avoided emotional conversations whenever they became too uncomfortable.
He could be reckless, stubborn, and almost impressively oblivious.
But those things were only the rough edges around everything wonderful about him.
They did not change who he was beneath them.
At least, Amy did not believe they did.
Her feelings had never faltered.
If Sonic offered himself to her today, she would take him without hesitation.
She had built much of her life around becoming someone he could finally recognize.
As pathetic as it sometimes sounded...
Yes, she had.
She had done it for herself too, of course.
But during all her years as a Freedom Fighter, training, fighting, proving that she could stand beside the others rather than behind them, some part of every effort had been for him. Every victory had carried the private hope that Sonic would finally turn around and see her differently.
One day, Sonic would look at her and see everything she had become.
He would realize she was no longer merely the little girl who chased after him.
He would notice her.
Really notice her.
She had grown closer to him. That part was real.
Sonic sometimes sought her out when something troubled him. He told her things he never told anyone sometimes. Occasionally he sat quietly beside her without acting as if he was going to get up and sprint away in a moments notice though silence might trap him.
And then...
Well.
Amy felt warmth rising into her face.
She pushed herself away from the window and began pacing over the assortment of pink rugs covering her living-room floor.
From becoming a resident of New Mobotropolis to earning her place as an official Freedom Fighter, she had dedicated herself to the feeling Sonic had given her.
He was the spark that had kept her moving when the world became unbearable.
The proof that beauty, freedom, and heroism could survive.
So far, things had been difficult.
That was true.
But he had never actually lied to her.
Not directly.
Amy never lied to herself about how their relationship had progressed, either.
As far as she was concerned, she had made great strides.
He trusted her.
That meant something.
On the same note, he always avoided speaking about romance with her.
But that was Sonic.
Romance made him uncomfortable.
Serious emotions made him feel trapped.
His refusal to discuss them did not necessarily mean he felt nothing.
It could mean he felt too much.
Amy smiled faintly at that thought.
Sonic had never truly had an official girlfriend.
There had been many women in his life, though.
Far too many, in Amy’s opinion.
She hated admitting how easily they got beneath her skin.
Even a girl speaking to Sonic in a flirtatious voice could set something hot and unpleasant twisting inside her.
Bunnie...
Sally...
Amy’s eyes narrowed.
Bunnie was friendly with nearly everyone, she had not been involved as long as she knew her, and she hadn’t shown any serious interest in anyone.
Amy knew that.
Still, Bunnie possessed a natural charm that could make almost anything she said sound intimate. Sometimes she touched Sonic’s shoulder while laughing or called him “Sugahhog” with that warm drawl of hers.
Amy trusted Bunnie.
Mostly.
Sally was different.
There was history between Sally and Sonic. Sally had never been involved as well and she and Sonic had never dated. But there was a familiarity Amy could not erase, no matter how often she reminded herself that whatever closeness that existed between them before she arrived to the Kingdom of Acorn was not merely nothing.
She disliked the way Sally could command Sonic’s attention without chasing him.
One serious look from her, and he would stop.
Amy could wave, call his name, swing her hammer, and threaten to sit on him, yet somehow Sally merely had to raise an eyebrow.
It was irritating.
Then there was Blaze.
Whenever trouble emerged in the Sol Dimension, Sonic and Blaze slipped easily back into their familiar rhythm.
They understood one another.
They joked.
They competed.
They could spend time together without Sonic behaving as though the slightest affection might place him in chains.
Amy’s hands gradually curled into fists.
Blaze had never actually behaved as though she wanted anything romantic from Sonic.
She enjoyed his friendship.
That was all.
Amy knew Blaze had been lonely before meeting them and had become less so after forming bonds with Sonic, Cream, and Marine.
There was nothing suspicious about that.
Probably…
Amy adopted a suspicious expression as she looked toward the window.
Blaze might simply enjoy Sonic’s friendship a little too much…
She would keep an eye on her.
For Blaze’s benefit, naturally…
Then there was Nicole.
Amy did not know whether she was imagining it, but on rare occasions Nicole behaved strangely around Sonic.
She was a computer...
Person...
Machine...
Whatever the correct term was.
Nicole claimed to originate from the future, and had enough complicated circumstances surrounding her existence to make Amy’s head hurt.
Occasionally, however, Nicole seemed a little too interested in Sonic.
Not that she was worried.
Computers could not get married.
Could they?
Amy stopped pacing.
She considered that.
Nicole created virtual body, a form. She did not have one when they first encountered her...
Amy shook her head hard enough to disturb her quills.
“Absolutely not.” she squeezed her eyes shut.
Nicole was not interested in Sonic, she didn't even have to ability to feel emotions. There was no evidence whatsoever.
She was being ridiculous.
Still...
Amy’s eyes squinted suspiciously…
She would keep an eye on her too.
Lately, Sonic remained as single as he had always been, and she had been attempting a different approach.
Less chasing.
More patience.
More opportunities for him to approach her.
It had not been easy.
She had experienced a great deal of sorrow at his hands over the years, even if he had never intentionally meant to cause it.
She had watched him run from her again and again.
She had stood directly in front of him while somehow feeling trapped in his shadow.
Other women drifted into his life, caught his attention, and occasionally seemed to reach parts of him Amy could not.
Amy stopped her aimless wandering and lowered herself beside the window again.
She tried not to allow the frustration to build inside her.
Sometimes, however, it became palpable.
She saw it reflected in the glass.
The sadness.
The loneliness.
The pain sitting quietly behind her eyes.
A question had always existed somewhere in the back of her mind.
How much time and energy had she sunk into Sonic?
How much of herself had she built around him?
How much of their relationship existed only on her side?
She did not have to turn every scrap of attention into proof of a future that existed only in her imagination.
The thought frightened her.
Without that future, what had all her waiting meant?
What did it say about her if the beautiful story she had carried for so long had never been a story at all?
Amy looked at her reflection.
The window placed her face over the city beyond it, leaving her suspended among blurred lights and running water.
She had spent years trying to become part of Sonic’s life.
Sometimes she wondered how much of her own life she had neglected while doing it.
Her friendships were real. Her accomplishments were real. The people she had protected were real.
But whenever Sonic appeared, everything else seemed to fade around him.
That was not his doing.
It was hers.
Amy drew one knee to her chest.
“I love him,” she said softly.
The reflection said it with her.
She did.
That was real too.
But the Sonic she carried inside her, the flawless hero, the destined husband, the lonely boy secretly waiting for her to prove herself...
That Sonic was not real.
She had assembled him from stories, hopes, memories, and excuses. She had taken every beautiful piece of the real hedgehog and filled the spaces between them with things she wanted to believe.
Compared with the other women who had passed through Sonic’s life, Amy sometimes felt as though she had merely sprinkled herself through his story.
She had tried to buffalo her way into the center of it.
After all that effort, she had accomplished the impressive achievement of becoming his guy buddy.
Amy’s face twisted.
She did not want to be his guy buddy.
She wanted to be the girl he missed when she left.
The one he sought in a crowded room.
The person who could make him stop running, if only for a little while.
She wanted to matter to him in a way that no one else did.
Sometimes Sonic made her sad, and Amy no longer knew what to do with that sadness.
She had followed him for so long that stopping would feel strange.
It would be like waking one morning and discovering the sun had decided not to rise.
All her life, and nothing had truly happened between them romantically.
Not yet.
Amy corrected the thought immediately.
Nothing had happened yet.
She was still a long way from giving up.
Sonic was single.
He was not too far gone.
He cared for her, even if he had not properly understood the form that care was supposed to take.
Perhaps no one had ever taught him.
Perhaps he was frightened of losing his freedom.
Perhaps he believed love would turn into a cage.
Amy would never cage him.
She only wanted him to choose to return to her.
If she ever received a real chance, she wondered how things would unfold.
They might disagree.
They might even falter.
Sonic might run.
Amy knew herself well enough to understand that she would chase him.
She would not let him go merely because things became difficult.
That was what love meant.
Wasn’t it?
Admittedly, there were times she felt she was going nowhere fast with him.
Amy sighed and watched the clouds begin separating outside. A narrow shaft of sunlight slipped through the gray, touching the rain and causing the wet city to glimmer.
The thing was...
This Sonic she knew...
He was not real.
And she knew...
She could not make him real.
Amy stared at her reflection.
The Sonic who constantly fled from her could not be the same Sonic who crossed continents to rescue strangers.
The Sonic who refused to acknowledge her feelings could not be the same one who sometimes looked at her with such warmth.
The careless Sonic, the distant Sonic, the Sonic who became frightened whenever she moved too close. That could not be all he was.
It could not be the truest version of him.
The real Sonic was the hero she had heard about as a child.
The one who had saved her on Little Planet.
The one who appeared whenever hope seemed impossible.
The one who trusted her, laughed with her, and occasionally allowed the mask to slip.
That Sonic was in there.
She had seen him.
She knew she had.
But she could not force him to remain.
She could not reach into him and pull that Sonic free.
No matter how much she chased, flirted, waited, or improved herself, she could not make him become the person she knew he could be.
It was a thought and feeling she grappled with, not yet possessing an answer for either side.
Perhaps Sonic needed more time.
Perhaps she needed another approach.
Perhaps she needed to show him that love was not the end of freedom.
The sunlight outside strengthened, sending faint colors through the raindrops clinging to the glass.
Amy watched her reflection become surrounded by pale pink and gold.
She always wondered...
Was what she was looking at real?
The telephone rang.
Amy jumped so sharply that one of the cushions toppled onto the floor.
It rang a second time.
She quickly rose from her seat and crossed the room, curiosity replacing the heaviness on her face.
She hurried over, clearing her throat before lifting the receiver.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Amy.”
A large smile spread across her face before she could stop it.
She twirled one finger through the quills beside her cheek.
“Hey yourself!”
“You busy?”
Amy glanced around her living room.
The pillows remained scattered beneath the window. Her fortune cards sat untouched on the table. Rain continued to trace winding paths down the glass.
“I’m not busy.”
“Cool. You wanna come over? I’m working on something, and Tails said you would actually understand the instructions better than me.”
Amy laughed.
“Like someone I know?”
“Instructions are suggestions.”
“They are absolutely not suggestions.”
“That sounds like something you should come argue about in person.”
Amy tried not to smile too widely, though Sonic could not see her.
“I suppose I could spare a little time.”
“Great. See you in a few?”
“I’ll be there.”
“Oh, and what were you trying to tell me earlier? Before I had to take off?”
Amy ceased playing with her quills.
For a moment, she stood perfectly still.
She could ask him now.
Why did he always run?
What frightened him so much?
Did he ever think about her when she was not standing in front of him?
Had he ever imagined what might happen if he stopped?
Amy looked back toward her reflection in the rain-covered window.
Then she smiled.
“I’ll tell you in person.”
“Okay. See you in a few.”
“I’ll see you in a minute.”
The line clicked dead and Amy remained beside the telephone, holding the receiver against her ear long after the call had ended.
Then she slowly placed it back…
She remained there quietly for seconds, wearing an unusually stoic expression.
Then she clasped both hands against her chest and turned around with a tender smile.
It was Sonic.
He had called her.
He had asked whether she wanted to spend time with him.
That was proof she had grown closer to him, if nothing else.
There had been a time when Sonic only ran.
Now he came back.
Sometimes, anyway.
It made Amy wonder in what respects he cared for her.
Could everything truly be one-sided when he sought her out like this?
When he remembered something she had tried to tell him?
When he invited her into the ordinary parts of his day?
Sonic cared.
Perhaps he did not yet know what that care meant.
Perhaps he was not ready to place a name upon it.
But it was there.
Amy could feel it.
A few minutes ago, she had been sad enough to question everything.
Now the sadness seemed almost foolish.
She giggled and rushed toward the stairs.
She needed her boots.
And proper clothes.
Something casual enough to suggest she had made no effort, while still being flattering enough to ensure Sonic noticed that effort had somehow not been made.
Perhaps a little perfume.
Not too much.
She did not want to overwhelm him.
Amy rushed upstairs, nearly tripping on the first step as she hurried to change.
Halfway up the staircase, she stopped.
Maybe he simply wanted her company.
Maybe he had spent the entire afternoon thinking about the conversation they had not finished.
Maybe today would be different.
She knew Sonic still had not seriously considered her romantically.
But she only needed to remain persistent.
It could not always be one-sided.
One day, the Sonic she knew was inside him would stop running.
One day, he would look at her and finally understand what had always existed between them.
She was certain of it.
From the living room, afternoon sunlight finally broke through the thinning clouds. It struck the rain-covered window and scattered pale colors across the walls.
For an instant, the entire room seemed to glow pink.
Amy looked back at it and smiled.
She could see the light.
Though her sorrow remained, colored through rose-tinted eyes.
Amy always wondered...
Was what she was looking at real?
Amy then ran upstairs with a giddy smile, already imagining his reaction when she arrived.