a/n: Needs little intro. Hope you enjoy.

"Are you sure that you're okay? You're bleeding."

"Relax, Amy. I heal fast, you know. I just have to go back in and make a few more rounds."

"I think you should get off that leg."

"No can do. Got to get back inside of that place before it turns to dust. Catch you in a few, yeah?"

"Yeah…Sonic, please be careful."

"No guarantees. But I'll try, Amy. I'll definitely try."

She hesitated in front of the closed door. Something like…an invisible force, perhaps…it was stopping her from turning the handle.

Fishing for a mirror in her purse, she held it up in front of her face. The cuts and scrapes weren't too bad from the last time. It had been two years since she had been here, and two years for him as well. Travelling around the world to see if there was anything anyone could do for him.

In those two years, she had taken on Eggman along with her friends. He had grown stronger, somehow…or maybe it was just that she didn't understand what Sonic did whenever he was away. He always said that he was just running around, relieving his boredom, but things seemed to be deeper than that. Things that kept the mad scientist at bay long enough for the young warriors to take down his latest scheme, whatever it might have been.

So much had changed in that time. Eggman was ready to challenge the world head-on, and it seemed like nobody could stop him. Not her, not Tails, not even Shadow, at least on his own. The countermeasures that seemed to be inadequate towards the blue hedgehog were working on his companions, frustrating them tremendously. There were long nights of planning that went up in smoke…

What a difference in two years…

She had bought a dress for today, the first one in years. A nice red blouse and a long white skirt, with matching boots. Ever since they were without Sonic, she had taken to jeans and sweatshirts as her regular wear. That familiar red dress had been ruined in a particularly daring rescue attempt, and she hadn't the heart to put it back together again. It reminded her too much of days gone by.

"Here I go…"

She breathed in and placed her hand on the metal handle, the surface glimmering as it turned and opened the white door. He lay on the bed in plain view, his body barely disturbing the hospital corners made up on the edges. His hands were folded behind his head, propping it up as they lay against the fluffy white pillows behind him. Red and white sneakers rested on the floor, neatly beside a pair of blue work boots. Each pair had a golden buckle on the outsides of each foot.

The room was a bleached white, devoid of any colour other than the bed's occupant, his footwear, and the black television perched in the top corner of the room.

"Hi."

He moved his toes beneath white socks and shifted his green eyes towards the visitor as she stood in the doorway.

"Hey."

"Long time no see."

"Yeah. It's good to see you."

She smiled. "You too." Her feet shuffled into the room, and she let the door close behind her. He moved one hand and motioned it towards a recliner on one side of his bed, near the window.

"Go ahead and sit."

"Sure." She clutched her purse and sat gently in the chair, which was strangely white as well. His eyes floated back towards the ceiling.

They sat in silence for what felt like forever, at least for the girl sitting in the chair. To Sonic, time didn't seem to be passing at all. It didn't seem to ever pass. Had he learned to live with it, finally?

No. That wasn't the case at all.

"How's the leg?" she asked. He was waiting for the question, not knowing how he would bother to answer it. It felt like a long journey, coming back home only to find that little had changed, and the few things that changed were for the worse. How was the leg? It seemed like a shallow question at first. As if she didn't care about him. But if anyone understood, it was her. That his legs were a part of who he was. Running. He needed to run, needed legs to run. He couldn't run if he couldn't rely on his legs.

"Still blown out."

"What…did they say about it?"

"There are all sorts of problems. Muscle tissue, bone reformation, lots of science-y crap. I don't want to bore you…this room does a good enough job already."

"Did they say when?"

"You mean when it'll be fixed, or when I'll be back?"

"Both."

He blinked a few times. "Those both depend on each other…they don't know when it can be fixed. They don't know if it can be fixed, because they think they've fixed one thing or another, and my leg's still shot to hell. Always some kind of problem."

She leaned over in her chair. "It's better than before, right?"

"Nope," he said crisply. "Anything above four and a half miles per hour puts intense strain on the leg, they say. It was about a year and a half ago, I think…they had me on a treadmill, and I just got to a certain point where I blacked out. Stupid thing threw me across the room. So I wake up, ask the doc when they stopped. Told me at five miles per hour, just about. Four point nine, maybe." He shrugged. "What can you do?"

"Sonic…"

"Don't worry too much about me. If it happens, it happens. If not, well…it doesn't. Pretty simplified, I guess."

She brushed back a strand of hair. "Does it hurt?"

"The leg?"

"No…I wasn't asking about the leg."

He exhaled sharply. "You saw me when I was in here, the first month or so. Felt like garbage, felt boxed in and all of that. Still do, but I just go downstairs to the gym, knock around the speedball some…takes care of most frustrations. I have my hands," he said while holding an arm up and flexing his fingers. "They've been always been able to keep up with my feet, and I've had to use 'em a lot more ever since I started drifting."

"Is it enough?" she asked.

"Never is," he said honestly, looking into her eyes. "But I deal. I have to. I guess you were expecting fireworks on my end?"

Amy nodded.

"Mm. I can see why you would. I lose the one thing I love to do, the one thing I live for above all else. Yeah, I was pretty pissed for a while, but eventually I kind of simmered down. Got it bad in the streets, though. S'why I don't go outside."

"I heard," she replied bitterly. "I don't understand how those…those people thought they could do that to you. After all you've done for this world! God, I just want to strangle those motherfu-"

"Easy there, mami." He reached over and patted her on the shoulder. "You've probably got enough stress on you already."

"I know, it's just…so frustrating seeing you like this. I like it when you're happy and get to do what you feel like, you know? It's like a part of me is missing when I wake up each morning, knowing that you're just stuck in a bed. You can't even go on a jog anymore." She placed her hand over his as it rested on her shoulder. "It hurts me too."

"Coulda made a couple of sandwiches with all the veggies they threw at me, eh? Or maybe a fruit cocktail." He frowned. "Some jackass threw a bottle of musk at me about five, six months ago. I swear the nurses are still looking at me funny…I dunno if they wanna hurl or if they wanna jump me."

Amy giggled and patted his hand. "Still an aspiring comic, I see."

"Hey, I'd need a day job."

"Concert pianist?"

"With all that scrambling for plane tickets, I'd exceed my posted speed limit."

"You make a decent argument," she said with a smile. "Can I ask a weird question?"

"Sure. What's on the noggin?"

"You have room for one more?" she said while motioning to the bed. He smiled and shifted himself over as she kicked off her boots. Amy slowly eased herself beside him, absorbing some of his warmth as she laid back against the pillows. She hooked one arm under his and rested her head on his shoulder. Closing her eyes, she listened to his breathing for a while, remarking on how familiar it sounded. Peaceful as always.

"Sonic?"

"Yeah?"

"What do you think about?" she asked softly.

"Lots of things. It's never one subject, really. I…I dunno, recently I've been thinking about the Tornado, maybe the last two or three Tails built over the years. Something to the effect of optimization? I remember how the plane engine was put together. I read some books on math so I could understand some of the timings, the equations, and formulas and all that. I just take the plane engine apart in my head…"

"Would you show me, Sonic?"

"Well, you can't see it through your eyes, but I can show you what I'm thinking. Simple stuff here, when I take this part of the engine and do this to it, maybe go in here, to the cylinders," he said while drawing in the air with his hands. His eyes flickered to imaginary parts strewn across the ceiling, dancing with light as he teased apart components.

"I'm looking at the compression ratio over here. Increase that, check against a certain formula for the output. Is it viable, as Tails says? What am I sacrificing for this? Things like that, and so forth. Maybe I want more torque for the propeller. We've only had the one, anyways. The kid likes to optimize for the X-wing mode, though. So I have to think about things like the wing structure for general purposes, damage ratings, too. Need to think about durability. So I have to think about all those things, at least in theory."

Amy closed her eyes and listened to him speak, his voice soothing to her after so long without it. He thought about many things, and did them very quickly. Then again, wasn't that natural for him? He had to think about which turn to take while travelling at seven hundred miles per hour on a regular basis. His feet were fast, but his mind had to be just as quick to keep up, or else there would be nothing left of him.

"Sonic?"

"Yeah?"

"Have you thought about…not ever running again?"

"…Nah."

She opened her eyes. "Why not?"

"Because there's no reason to. I'll run again one day, maybe not now, but one day."

"You're sure?"

"No, I'm not sure, Amy. It's just nice to believe that it'll all work out fine. I don't think about a future without running because I don't want to live that kind of future right now. If it comes, it comes. I'm just not planning on it."

She nodded and clasped one of his hands in hers. "Whatever happens, I'll be there for you."

"Thanks. I appreciate that, Amy."

"I appreciate you, Sonic."

"Heh." He smiled and kissed her on the forehead. "Good to know. I never asked how you guys were holding up."

"We're all in one piece…Tails is growing up pretty fast. Everyone's the same, I guess. Rouge is a little nicer these days."

"What happened? Did she strike gold, or something?"

"It's possible," Amy said with a smile.

"And yourself? Are you alright?"

He felt her squeeze his hand tighter. "I have these dreams…about the day you first were admitted here. Like I'm frozen in time, or everyone else is, and I can see you in pain, still beating up your legs because you had a job to do. Sometimes, I'm looking at my past self, screaming at her not to let you go any further, but she doesn't listen and you don't listen, and it all happens anyways."

"I see…how often, Amy?"

"Most nights. And…" She sniffled. "I have this one dream all the time, where…we're both running on the beach, and you're beside me. And you just…start disappearing all of a sudden, and I'm holding your hand, trying not to let you go. But it happens anyways. You always leave me. I wake up, my chest just hurts…and I just feel so depressed. So alone."

"…What do I look like?"

"You were smiling, Sonic. You were…always smiling," she said through her tears. He put an arm around her.

"I'll always be smiling, no matter what. So that dream was spot on. I'm not going anywhere, though. I'll always be around whenever you need me. Well, from now on, I guess…I haven't kept to that lately, trying to take care of my bum leg."

"From now on…?"

"From now on."

She turned his head towards her. "How would you do that?"

"Tails isn't the only wingman we have, you know. I've got plenty of flying under my belt. Ask Knuckles, I saved his spiky butt a few years back. Beautiful catch on the wings, you should have seen it, Ames." He made a box with his fingers. "Polaroid moment."

"It'd be good to have you back."

"I'd bet. It'd give ol' Buttnik some indigestion from seeing my handsome mug on his screen after two years."

"It's a pretty handsome mug," she said as she kissed him on the cheek.

"How cheeky of you, Amy Rose," he quipped.

"You're a character," she shot back.

"Yup," he said with a smile. "And a very interesting one at that," he said as an aside.

"What was that?"

"Nothin'."

"Well, besides all of that…you seem so unlike what I was thinking, Sonic."

"Not following what you mean by that, Amy."

"I…well, I thought that you'd be really upset and so bitter at everyone, at the world, at yourself. I was expecting a totally different Sonic."

He snorted. "Go figure, huh? Well, looks like everyone's been off the mark so far. My last job I saved…what, nine hundred people directly, maybe another thousand or two by clearing paths for 'em at the same time? Something like that. I'm…not bitter about losing my ability to run. Peeved, yeah. Bored, maybe half the day at most now. Lonely, nah. All I had were my thoughts back in Green Hill, and that was fine. Still is to this day. Uh…people. People are assholes in general. But, I mean…you have the tolerable ones and the intolerable ones. So," he shrugged, "that's all that is. As for me…well, I don't have my speed anymore, but I've done what I had to. If that was my time to exit, then so be it. I can live the rest of my life knowing that I used my powers for good. Good enough, right?"

"If that's what you believe, Sonic."

"Oh, I believe it! I mean, all of it. My life hasn't been wasted at all."

Amy nodded. "Nobody can take that from you, because it's what you feel in your heart."

"Right-o."

"What you said about coming back…did you mean it?"

"Depends on how badly you want me."

She closed her eyes, feeling herself slip away in his warmth. "If the oceans were made of ink…"

"Yeah?"

"And the sky was made of paper…"

"Mm?"

"…"

"Amy?" He heard her yawn softly.

"I'd still run out of room…to tell you how much I want you back…"

Sonic put an arm around her as she finally nodded off, head against his shoulder.

"Thank you, Amy. I…feel better already." He turned his head towards the window.

"Even if it's only five miles an hour…yeah, you've convinced me. I think I'll keep running forward."