Amy proceeded to undo the ropes until Sonic was free before placing the cover back where it was.

The experience made her weak in the knees. Prior to laying him down, she had removed whatever remained of his clothes, leaving him in his full, unobstructed glory. Amy had resorted to motivational chants in her head to retain the sight of the goal rather than her own impulses. Previously she had successfully tempered her resolve with the image of two magnets colliding and breaking to pieces, unable to accommodate the forces compelling their union.

Her heart was more difficult to convince this time. There was a chance that everything would be fine if she just let go. Self-restraint put her under tremendous pressure. Since Sonic, too, was experiencing this heartache from his side, her refusal to indulge was causing him more pain. Rather than let love be her guide, she selfishly gave in to fear, uncertainty and doubt. The outcome made everyone unhappy.

She had miscalculated. As such, Amy was guilty of not showing him her love to the best of her ability. She knew exactly what she had to do to alleviate that guilt: relinquish her fear and let love take over.

The logic of the heart was flawless. Amy didn't have the courage to try refuting it, which meant that she has already conceded wronging Sonic and was aware of the right method of atonement. However, she had no obligation to adhere to logic, a perplexing trait that saved her skin in unlikely situations.

Revisiting the temptation with him being conscious of her actions risked overwhelming her already strained faculties. Her thoughts and feelings were in agreement that it would be exceptionally gratifying to smother Sonic and that Sonic would agree to the experience. What reason did Amy have to put aside such an obvious fact?

Amy exhaled. This both alarmed and confused Sonic, but it was a misunderstanding on his part. Amy was frustrated with herself. Above all else was her long-term goal. She was doing it for Sonic's health. Right now, he was her patient and both of them had to respect this temporary if regrettable status. The suffering born from this respect was an investment for their bright future together. It would become a fun memory worth revisiting later on.

"There. Happy now?" she asked. Sonic was no longer tied to the bed, so he could recuperate in greater comfort. His safety was compromised somewhat since he would fidget more and risk reopening his wounds, but Amy had determined the risk to be acceptable.

A lot of things looked acceptable to her now that the image of him lying bare in front of her was firmly imprinted into her brain. The bedsheets obstructing the view were a detail her imagination could easily overlook. Amy saw what mattered the most, and, with her newfound power, she could also hear what mattered the most.

"Mhm."

Admittedly, Sonic's internal silence exceeded her expectations. The hedgehog had a knack for acting without thinking. To be more precise, he acted on impulse and the timing of his thoughts coincided with his actions.

Sonic tried to get up all of a sudden. Having overestimated his strength, he lost balance, keeled to the side and was about to plant his face on the floor when Amy hopped over to cushion his fall.

"Careful! You can't run away from me if you break your legs, can you?" she asked after catching him and making sure that he wouldn't go further in the wrong direction. If he chanced a spindash with his present posture, Amy estimated that his head could end up making a hole in the ceiling.

Amy, then, realised that she has lost focus and said too much. To hide her embarrassment, she pushed Sonic back onto the mattress and waited for him to take care of the rest. Eventually, Sonic conceded, but he had already caught up to the message behind her words and was not going to let it go. Amy grumbled under her breath while hoping that he wouldn't pursue the matter as she watched his expression change.

"You…know I want to run away?"

She nodded. Sonic paid little attention to semantics, so reading into the phrasing was probably meaningless, but Amy went there and got her pride injured. Despite cushioning his fall, he was still eager to leave her company.

"Am I that obvious?"

Sonic's lips didn't move as he asked this question, a sign that it was a part of his internal dialogue. Reacting to it would raise more questions than Amy was comfortable answering, which prompted Amy to also stay silent. She even averted her gaze to make it less obvious; using the smallest of clues Sonic could read her better than anyone.

"Okay. This is awkward. Why isn't she tackling me yet? What is she up to? Wait…does this mean she's done something weird to me while I was out and-"

If Amy didn't know better, she would have considered Sonic's line of thinking a provocation. The truth was more depressing: following Sonic's loss in the previous battle with Eggman, his trust towards Amy has deteriorated.

Amy was acting in Sonic's best interest the entire time. There was nothing remotely weird about it.

Not that she could blame him about having doubts. Amy already knew the taste of failure, so it didn't hurt much. For a hero like Sonic, the result of the battle was a serious blow. His desire to leave and brood over it in solitude was understandable.

However, Amy couldn't help feeling bitter about concluding their brief conversation here. What he had told her was enough to give him food for thought further down the line. He has carelessly left her with plenty to process.

Amy turned to leave. "You're welcome."

"Wait! Stop!"

An immediate reaction! She barely made a step towards the door and he called out to her. Amy's heart would have skipped a beat if it weren't intent on catching Sonic's every move as the situation unfolded. Like before, Amy had to exercise great willpower to keep herself together and not lose track of her goal.

"Why? Would you stop if I asked you to?" she asked without turning around to face him.

"Yes."

Ah. Amy suppressed a yelp at how quickly he rounded her. Competing desires vied for the chance to reach the surface and be communicated to Sonic. Fainting, subdued by Sonic's smooth talk, was one of them, but it would have caused a misunderstanding. Frolicking gleefully or pretending that he could not trifle with her regardless of circumstances were valid options.

She already stopped per Sonic's request and spent too much time considering her options, invariably cutting them off one by one. Amy couldn't leave like that, nor could she afford a leap into his arms.

Pouting as she turned on her heel to face him again, arms on her sides, she asked: "Why would you do that?"

Her expression quivered when she realised that he had been worried about her. Thankfully, the look in his eyes didn't last long because the internal screaming returned. Amy's pout must have been more expressive than she had intended it to be and it took a toll on his psyche.

"Emergency! Time to juice!"

Before he could get up and put himself in harm's way again, Amy pulled out her hammer and swung it around its axis in the air to telegraph her resolve. Sonic gulped.

"Because…" he began. Normally, such a pause would mean that the one speaking was picking his words carefully. Sonic was different: he took the initiative without a plan and was now plummeting in a mental void. Words were failing him.

"Because I care about you."

Amy's eyes glistened at what she heard in her head. Losing self-control in such a fashion was another mistake on her part, which she soon came to regret. The silence on Sonic's end intensified.

"Because?" she coaxed him. She had already heard what he was trying to say and she was so ecstatic about it she could explode like a firework there and then, but she had to do this right.

Sonic had to say it out loud. From Amy's perspective, it would be the same as him saying it the second time, which was even better.

Reality delivered comeuppance. Sonic's stature loosened, his eyelids closed and his head fell down on the cushion. Dramatic snoring ensued.

Amy was glad that he stopped screaming internally. Though, hearing him snore out loud on top of hearing him plan more snores in his head perplexed Amy. He was dedicated to this means of escaping confrontation with her, a decision she had to respect as her lapse in self-control was to blame. She had gotten too excited in plain view.

Since Amy didn't want to lower his confidence in his acting skills, she returned to his side, close enough for her presence to be felt, yet far enough for her breath not to tickle his ear. The snoring paused for a moment; he was listening carefully.

"I know you can't hear me, so I'll tell you this: I care about you. I also worry about you. With that in mind, you should either take care of yourself better and avoid excessive danger or let others take care of you more. A lot of people depend on you being there. You should take responsibility."

When the snoring resumed, Amy knew it was her cue to retreat. Albeit she was curious to hear Sonic's response, she wouldn't try to pull it out of him. By the time she got to the door, Sonic gave her something new to work on.

"I'm hungry."

The way to a hero's heart was through his stomach. Amy quietly thanked Sonic for the reminder, which doubled as a prompt to strengthen their bonds. Albeit she had mixed feelings about the issue, they coalesced into heat that lifted the corners of her lips. There was embarrassment that it has been a while since she last cooked for him underneath the glee about Sonic taking the initiative to guide her efforts.

Sonic wanted her to feed him, to fuel his strength and by doing so share his next heroic achievement with her. It was so thoughtful of him that Amy spaced out several times while changing outfits. The prospect of suddenly presenting herself and her cooking to him was simply too great to bear, but she had to do her best. After all, Sonic made this request in a way only she could hear. If it were a case of mere hunger, he would have said so out loud or even informed Tails, but he didn't. He wanted Amy to do it because only Amy's cooking would do. That was the essence of Sonic's message.

As much as she wanted to sit back and take in the rolling awe at her own pace, delighting herself in this foreplay to an act of love, the real thing was waiting for her.

Cooking at Tails' place left plenty to be desired. His kitchen was a cramped mess, there were no cute aprons and the owner cheaped out on ingredients. The discounted wieners that she found were going to be a challenge, but Amy had practiced making Sonic's favourite chili dogs in such trying conditions before and was therefore confident in her ability to please his taste buds.

Finding the other ingredients was relatively straightforward until it was time to season the chili. Amy considered asking for Tails' help when she failed to locate the seasonings, but she eventually found some in a locked cupboard. Tails had left the key inside, though, and he must have been in a rush because a few containers were overturned and their contents spilled out. One of those containers happened to be salt, just what Amy was after, branded as GHB salt.

The end result was pretty as a picture, with a taste to boot. Amy was proud of her work. It certainly took a bit more out of her than she anticipated, but the drowsiness she started experiencing was just another sign that she gave it her all.

With that in mind, a fox was not about to steal Sonic's food from under her nose. Tails' intention was so obvious she saw through him sooner than he entered the kitchen. He didn't even get to open his mouth to get rejected.

"You can have whatever is left in the pan," she said in a deliberate tone. The hand that was aiming for the chili dogs immediately drooped and retracted.

"But it's my kitchen."

"It's Sonic's food."

Tails couldn't argue with that logic. Amy had prepared more of the toppings than it would have taken to fill Sonic up and Tails was old enough to be able to assemble a chili dog on his own.

Not that he was going to. Tails took a few mouthfuls of the piping hot sauce and bit into a bun as an afterthought. His excitement showed Amy that he wasn't used to this sort of food prepared with love and kindness. Amy was happy to help him with that, even if that wasn't her original intention.

Amy still had to present her work to Sonic. Exhaustion made her steps heavy, but she returned to his side as the victor.

This time his reaction had none of the anxiety he exhibited earlier. His eyes were brimming with gratitude, and hearing his boisterous praise in her mind brought waves of tingling from head to toe.

"Thanks, Amy! These are the best. How did you know?" The voice coming out of his mouth between greedy chews was muffled. Amy's ability helped her fill the blanks, however, so she heard him clearly.

Replying was harder than she imagined it would be. Now that she was right next to Sonic, receiving his praises about the food she made for him, as well praise for her kindness and thoughtfulness, she couldn't help spacing out and taking in the events as they unfolded. Before long, there was one chili dog left and Sonic had fallen silent. He was waiting for her to snap out of her dream world.

"I've been practicing..." she murmured, her gaze turning away from him. This wasn't supposed to happen. She wasn't intending to respond this way, but she couldn't stop herself. It was too much, too soon, and Sonic now had a suspect smile on his face.

He picked up the last chili dog, brought it closer to her and went: "Say, 'aah', please."

"Ahhh," Amy's voice trailed off.

Amy nibbled on the bun, surprised by the sudden turn, and was about to insist that it was Sonic's food when he pressed it to her lips to coax her to take a bigger bite. To make matters worse, she could hear what he was planning to do and there was no beating his stubbornness.

She hadn't realised that Sonic heard the sound her stomach has been making while he wolfed down the chili dogs. In fact, she remained ignorant of the hungry gurgling until Sonic took notice and made sure she had her share. His way of going about it left her no choice. What a hero!

The drowsiness spread to Sonic and his posture gradually loosened. He was having trouble holding the chili dog up in his hand, so Amy rushed the process by taking bigger bites and seizing his hand to finish it this way.

His hand feeling heavy in her grasp, Sonic yawned, lowered his eyelids and said, "I leave the rest to you."

Amy finished her chili dog and treated Sonic's palm thoroughly to make sure it was clean. The sleepy spell was contagious. Too contagious for Amy to consider what actually happened just now.

It wasn't until she heard a thud in the corridor that she put pieces of seemingly unrelated information together: the salt she found in the locked cabinet, the weird brand name on the container and Tails' plan to sedate Knuckles.

Amy's eyes tried to widen in shock at the realisation that she drugged her boyfriend, herself and a fox that happened to come by. The noise in the corridor was likely Tails losing consciousness. Sonic was sound asleep, and her turn was approaching fast.

The last she saw of the wildly swaying conscious world was a flashing red light out the window. It belonged to one of Eggman's spy drones.

"Sonic," she whispered anxiously, her hand stretched out to Sonic's chest, and fell asleep next to him. Amy couldn't muster a scream despite putting everyone in a precarious situation. If Eggman were to attack now, they'd have no one to fall back on. What a way to spoil a girl's dream.

"Wake up. Sonic, you have to," she pleaded. The dark void that had taken over her vision offered no consolation, but the familiar voice that reached her at its end brought her back to her senses.

"Whoa, Amy. What are you doing here?"

"Hmm?" Amy rubbed her eyes and looked in the direction of the voice. She saw Sonic standing in front of her.

Tails' home was nowhere in sight. Instead, she was greeted by a looping landscape, lush grasses and sunflowers. They were in…Green Hill?

"Look out! It's Eggman!"

Author's note: Feel free to review and follow, so you don't miss the next update.