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It was Mother’s Day on the islands, and Cream had cordially invited all her friends to spend the day with her mother, at their cottage.
Sonic and Amy arrived first, though it was hard for the speedsters not to. But for the first time, they’d arrived together without a hint of embarrassment. In fact, they arrived literally hand-in-hand.
Cream rushed to greet them, and they happily crouched down to accept her hug.
“Hello Miss Amy…”, she started giggling in anticipation of her next statement, “…Mr. Amy.”
“Ooh, you’re getting good”, Amy replied.
Even Sonic had to give her that. “Hope you’re not too bored now you can’t play matchmaker for us.”
“Not at all!”, she said cheerily. “Now I need to get mother and Vector together!”
Cream was one of the first they’d told about… them. Or was it first to find out? It was impossible to tell, because Sonic and Amy weren’t sure exactly when they’d crossed the line into officially “dating”. One day they weren’t, the next they were. No fanfare, no drama. It just ‘happened’. As naturally as breathing.
And today was one of the rare times they didn’t have to hide it, because everyone at today’s party also happened to be on the, admittedly growing, list of those who knew.
“Sorry I’m late!”
Speaking of which, Tails.
Cream flew to greet him and they performed an impressive aerial high-five.
“Okay, there’s Mr. Tails, so that means everyone is here!”
“Hang on”, Sonic incredulously cut in. “Aren’t we forgetting-?”
“Hey everybody! Thank you for inviting me and Froggy!”
The group turned to face the source of that unmistakably deep voice, and sure enough the speedsters were not the first to arrive, as Big the Cat had been at the cottage the whole time. SOMEHOW.
Amy tackled his belly and gave the best attempt at a bear hug she could muster. “Oh Big! Never stop… being you.”
“I’m not sure what you mean, but I’ll try.”
Sonic wondered: Was Big among those who knew? Eh, the inner machinations of his mind were an enigma. He probably knew they were dating before THEY did. Like everything about Big, it was best not to question it.
Cream led the gang into the cottage, to the dining room, where Vanilla was already setting the table.
“HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY!”
“Thank you for all your hard work!”, Big said.
“And thank you all for being such good friends to my daughter”, she replied.
Amy handed her a basket of freshly baked cupcakes. Another advantage of being so fast, with her the phrase ‘straight out of the oven’ was often not an exaggeration.
“Careful”, warned Sonic, “after you’ve tasted Amy’s cooking, you’re not gonna wanna eat anything else for the rest of your life.”
Amy slung an arm over his shoulder. “Preeeeetty sure that’s just you.”
“Sure you wanna test that theory?”
“Ooh! Are we testing theories now? I’m in!” Tails’ interrupted.
“Well, I did make some with mint icing, just for you…”, Amy teased back.
Laughter from all preceded Mother’s Day brunch and tea. With the world in jeopardy so often, its heroes had long since learned to appreciate these quiet moments. A chance to relax, and unwind.
Well, for most of them. For one member of the group, a presence that entered the room after their meal threw her into turmoil.
“Excuse me. I need to go outside for air.”
----------
Amy sat on a log at the edge of Floral Forest’s tree line, close enough to the Rabbits’ house to get a clear view of the back yard, but far enough away to… well, far enough. She watched Tails, Cream and Big engrossed in an intense game of “Catch Froggy” (a game Big invented, yet was somehow the worst at). It was Cream’s asking nicely versus Tails’ unnecessarily elaborate traps vs Big’s… himself.
But her eyes were mainly drawn to the group’s other watcher: the robot protector standing by the back door.
Hang on. Someone else was absent from the yard. Oh, of course. Right on cue, she felt the log’s weight shift, followed by a soft “What’s up, Ames?”
Sonic sat a little away from her, to give her some space, while being close enough for her to feel the faintest graze of his fur against hers. She liked it when he did that. But even that wasn’t enough to lift her mood.
“Oh, it’s just… I…”
She wasn’t sure how to begin.
“It’s Gemerl, isn’t it?”
But he’d already noticed which way she was looking.
She wasn’t even sure she wanted to talk about it.
“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”
Oh Sonic. He was more thoughtful than anyone realized. Especially himself.
“But hey, you’re always helping me ‘talk about feelings’. I figure it should be a two-way street.”
He’d learned from the best, though.
Amy took a deep breath.
“Okay. I suppose I’ve avoided this for a while, and if someone has to know it should be you. I see him every time Cream invites me over. Worked with him at Restoration HQ. Even fought together before. But I’ve always tried not to think about it too hard. About what he is. What he… maybe was.”
They’d first met Gemerl, like surprisingly many of their friends, as an enemy. Eggman’s then-latest robotic general in a plot to steal the Master Emerald. Followed orders unquestioningly, but the group sensed a kind of sadness around him. They’d encountered robots like that before. Gamma… one other. Both lost. They didn’t want a repeat of history, so Tails launched into repairing him as soon as their final battle was over. Even managed to isolate and remove Eggman’s code. After this he seemed to take a shine to Cream, for reasons no-one could explain, and he’d stayed with her family ever since.
Amy’s problem was that 'one other'. Because Gemerl resembled this lost robot in everything but color. And strangely, not even Tails could determine whether this was the original reprogrammed, or a new Eggman design inspired by it. But if there was any trace of the original’s code or memory banks left, he would’ve found it. Which means…
“Emerl is gone”, Amy continued. “I accepted that a long time ago. But… every time I see him, I can’t help but wonder. Does that make me foolish?”
Sonic let himself glance at her face for the first time, to check for tears. None, yet, so his view returned to the garden.
“Hey, if ‘foolish’ was bad, you wouldn’t hang out with us.” That was half an attempt to lighten things and half dead-serious. “Just shows how much you cared about him, is all.”
He had a point. ‘Better to have loved and lost’, and all that. But she needed more.
“I know you cared too. We all did. He was kind of the group’s ‘baby’. But…”
“Mom!”
A paralyzing jolt shot through Amy’s system at the return of a memory. A voice she thought long-forgotten.
“It’s just… it being Mother’s Day and all… I…”
Sensing this, and tears beginning to flow, Sonic clutched her hand. She smiled.
“I know Ames. You can stop now.”
“No. I’m going to keep going. We’ve never talked about this, and I want to.”
She glanced down at their intertwined hands.
“But don’t let go.”
“When I met Emerl, I was… in a strange and dark place. I adored you so much, and you kept running away. This had gone on for months and… I went a little crazy. (“A little?”, Sonic would normally snark. But not this time.) I started to think the reason you ran was because you didn’t like me. And instead of thinking that had something to do with my… incessant behavior and boundary-crossing, like a reasonable person, I thought you must not see me as ‘wife material’. That I wasn’t caring or nurturing enough. Or, I’m most ashamed to admit: not skinny enough.”
Okay, NOW Sonic had to cut in.
“Ames, why didn’t you tell me?! I know I was weird around you back then, but if you’d said you thought I had a problem with the way you looked, I would’ve denied it straight-out.”
“I know that now. But I was young, and… delusional.”
Sonic was still holding her hand, but his other was now a clenched fist.
“And I kinda made you that way! I’ve always told myself that if I had Silver’s powers, I’d go back in time and punch the old me in the face for how he treated you. But NOW-!”
Amy turned to her partner, grabbed his fist and gently moved it back to his side.
“Sonic. We’ve discussed this. You had no obligation to return my feelings back then. How you acted was reasonable, given how I did.”
He sighed. Yeah, that was true. Now calm enough to lighten the mood, Sonic added:
“The Extreme Gear hostage situation was totally on me though.”
Amy laughed. “We both had a lot of growing up to do.”
“Tell me about it.”
His gentle, relaxed gaze met hers.
After a few seconds…
“Ahem. Continue.”
“Where was I? Oh. At least the boxercise and weight training helped me fight Eggman. But my point is, seeing you and Tails ‘raising’ that robot, when I was in that state? My dumb brain thought: ‘I’ll be the robot’s mommy and Sonic will be its daddy! THEN we’ll see who’s wife material!’”
Sonic chuckled a little.
“I believe your official fan club refers to this as ‘Amy’s cringe phase’, and I don’t blame them one bit. Here’s… the thing though. Even I treated it like a big joke at first. But… he actually started calling me ‘Mom’.”
Hearing a pause, Sonic interjected again. “I remember. Nearly gave me a heart attack the first time he did that. You wanna know something funny?”
“Funnier than my hopelessly deluded young self?”
“I’m willing to bet on it. See, I later realized that was kinda my fault.”
“Huh?”
“When you showed up, I knew I had to book it. But before I did, I told Emerl something like: ‘listen to whatever Amy says.’”
Air was already escaping Amy’s lungs as the implication hit her.
“You accidentally ORDERED him to obey me, and then I told him to call me ‘Mom’?! Oh… my… gosh…!”
A full-on giggle fit was incoming. Sonic beamed, knowing it was about to get even better.
“I haven’t even gotten to the best part! So, Emerl’d been glitching up all morning. Spouting random junk. Tails was just about to take him to the workshop for a tune-up when you arrived. But after you brought him back from your, um, unplanned parenting day, after I’d freaked out at the ‘mom’ thing… he’d stopped doing that. And Tails did a scan and found nothing wrong.”
Amy’s laugh grew so much she had to lean on her partner’s shoulder to avoid falling on the ground.
“MY DELUSIONS OF MOTHERHOOD FIXED HIM?!”
Sonic had gone into this planning on giving her space, but as they laughed together, he couldn’t resist holding her. Their talks often went this way of late, reminiscing over old adventures, laughing at their stupid past selves, before ultimately finding comfort in where they’d ended up. The relationship that, by some miracle, they’d built since.
As naturally as breathing, Amy leaned into him and continued the story.
“He got bounced around between us after that. Rouge even roped him into CRIME if I remember right. But, and you might not know this, whenever he was left to his own devices, he’d often come to me. He’d help me shop, we’d go running in the woods, train together, go to the beach and…
I’ll never forget what happened on one of our trips. We were about to head back home, when he turned to me and said, out of nowhere:
“I love you, Mom.”
Sonic was suddenly speechless.
“I never told him to say it. I don’t know where he picked it up from. It just… happened. And all of a sudden, I didn’t feel deluded. I just… cried. Then I held him tight, and told him Mommy loved him too, and would always protect him… even if his Daddy was a big jerk sometimes.”
He didn’t even scoff at that.
“But…”
“Power... Overflowing... Can't hold it in... Can't hold it in... Sonic... Shadow... Help... In such pain... Mom... It hurts... The pain...”
“I couldn’t keep that promise.”
Tears were flowing, but Sonic let them. Amy needed this. They just sat in silence, for as long as it took.
“I remember you shut yourself up at home and didn’t speak to us for weeks after that. Honestly, all of us took it hard. Me, Tails… even Shadow. Actually, don’t tell him I told you this but, ESPECIALLY Shadow.”
Shadow, huh?
“Saving the day but losing someone is the worst part about our… whole ‘gig’. But Shadow came back. Heck, I’ve cheated death more times than I can count. Emerl… he was the first time one… stuck. And sometimes, that still hurts.”
Amy wrapped their arms, hands still locked, around his shoulders and leaned in closer. She’d gone in expecting to be the only one who poured their heart out. Guess they just… got like that together, sometimes.
They stayed silent a little longer, but it was nearly sunset, and the others were probably getting worried. Time to head back.
“Ames. You can just leave. I’ll make some excuse, if you don’t want to risk seeing him aga-”
“No. I want to.”
That was unexpected.
“I need closure, and I won’t find better time than now. And no offense, but I’d like to do it alone.”
Sonic already figured she would. Though he wasn’t going to send her off with nothing.
So as she got up to leave, he stood and gave her a quick peck on the cheek.
This didn’t entirely surprise her. Still, Sonic wasn’t typically one for physical affection, so gestures like this meant something. Reserved for times he really wanted to show how much he cared.
“I love you so much”, she said back.
“I know.”
----------
Cream greeted Amy as she returned to the cottage. “I’m sorry I was away from you and your mother so long.”
“Don’t be”, Cream replied, before her tone shifted to a dreamy whisper. “You both looked so happy.”
Aww, Cream had been watching. And was adorable. So Amy had to give an honest reply.
“Yeah. We are.”
But now the important part. “Can I talk to Gemerl for a moment? It won’t take long.”
Cream nodded. “Mm-hm! He was just with Mr. Tails. I’ll bring him.”
After an agonizing, heart-pounding wait, Cream returned with her robot… brother, Amy supposed? That sounded right.
“Cream, your mother and Tails might need some help cleaning up”, Amy said. The girl sensed her tone, nodded more seriously, and left. Ever the mature one for her age.
Now to begin.
“Gemerl, query. Who am I?”
The black and yellow robot’s eyes narrowed to slits, and his processors whirred and clicked. Before coming back with:
“SUBJECT IDENTIFIED AS: AMY ROSE
WORLD-SAVIOR
MEMBER OF TEAM SONIC
EX-COMMANDER OF THE RESTORATION
HONORARY MEMBER OF THE RABBIT FAMILY”
Aww, really? She already figured as much, but hearing it as part of a robot’s database made it feel… official.
There was something distinctly missing from that list though, and she knew that was coming.
Now, part 2.
“Query. Who is Emerl?”
There was a pause this time before the whirring started. And when it began, it was far more intense. 30 seconds, and it didn’t show signs of stopping. In fact, Gemerl seemed to be straining. Were those sparks, and smoke? Amy thought it might be bad, but she wasn’t expecting this.
“CANCEL QU-”
Before she finished the command, she was interrupted.
“EMERL. SUBJECT IDENTIFIED AS:
GIZOID DISCOVERED BY TEAM SONIC.
TRAINED IN ART OF COMBAT.
AWAKENED BY DOCTOR EGGMAN
DESTROYED OUT OF NECESSITY”
As expected, just basic facts. Nothing mo-
“PREDECESSOR TO THIS UNIT.”
What?
Gemerl’s processors whirred again, though no sparks this time.
“DESIGN OF THIS UNIT BASED ON EMERL DATA
MEANING… UNCLEAR
UNSURE IF UNIT’S BODY WAS ONCE EMERL
OR NEW EGGMAN DESIGN MODELED AFTER IT
REVELANT PREVIOUS QUERY FOUND”
Previous? Did Cream ever…?
“PREVIOUS QUERY: EXISTENCE OF AND WHEREABOUTS OF EMERL’S CODE AND MEMORY DATA
RESULTS:
DATA NO LONGER EXISTS, WITHIN THIS UNIT OR ELSEWHERE. CONCLUSIVE.”
Amy, surprising herself, breathed a sigh of relief. That was what she expected. And like she said, she’d made her peace a long time ago.
“Thank you, Gemerl.”
She had her closure.
But she had one more thing to do.
“Query: can I update your database entry on Emerl?”
“AFFIRMATIVE. SUBJECT HAS HIGHEST-LEVEL CLEARENCE.”
“Then add:
“His mother’s name was Amy Rose.”