Speedy's note: Set in Forces, so spoilers. Get out while you can if you don't want those.

I don't have much, if any, excuse for this near plotless little snippet, except that I just had to write it after binge-playing Forces yesterday afternoon. It wouldn't leave me alone anyway. I'm a Knuckles fan, Knux is awesome in Forces, and because damn, if you have them find out after six months, wasn't that worth a cutscene, Sega?

Knuckles shook his head to himself, watching the door close behind his friends as they filed out of the room, their newest recruit in the middle, Amy chatting encouragement, Vector berating Charmy over his lack of such with Espio and Silver trailing along silently.

Then the door shut, dropping Knuckles into the stillness of the empty room, accompanied only by the soft whir of the computers' fans.

Slowly he trailed back towards the screen. There was nothing new on it, and he still wasn't all that comfortable with it, with all the technology that screamed of everything unfamiliar. For a moment he closed his eyes on the artificial glow of the screen, let himself wish for the Master Emerald's warm light instead, for the clean, crisp high altitude air of the Floating Island, then he shook it off. He didn't have time for that.

When he opened his eyes, the computer's bluish light stung on his retinas. He'd never get used to it. But as he'd just said, he'd never get used to saying Sonic was gone, either, and he was living with this knowledge for half a year. They all were. It would never feel real.

Sonic had never been one to worry about. Sonic survived the unsurvivable. Several times. He'd been there, watched him take on Chaos, teleport an entire space station in a Chaos Control so powerful it had almost killed Shadow. And that was just the start of a long list. Sonic returned from near apocalypses looking casual about it.

It wasn't that Knuckles hadn't known that much of it was front and demeanor. It had taken a while, but as he got to know the blue hedgehog, he got to see the exhaustion and injury hidden so skillfully under that catching grin. Back then, Knuckles had often thought it silly, or downright inappropriate given the circumstances.

Now, it was one of the things he would have needed here the most. Knuckles could try his best to be a good leader, someone to reassure the others when things got rougher than what was even normal now, and he had some actual hope he was doing a good enough job.

But he couldn't just put on an easy grin and say something encouraging, not with the natural conviction Sonic had about it. Sonic had been able to make certain doom look like a fair game, and he could do it because he believed it, too.

Knuckles... Knuckles wasn't the born optimist, and when they lost Sonic, they lost not one of their best optimists, but two. It seemed weird that Amy was holding it together if Tails was not, even if she was clinging to a delusion.

Knuckles didn't even have that to cling to. Not a straw to clutch.

In front of him, the computer chimed with an incoming message. Knuckles swiped at the screen with a practice that was in his hand now but that still felt unreal to his mind. A message from a spy. Hopefully not another air strike they absolutely didn't have the defences to deal with...

When the communication came online, the picture was grainy and the sound crackled with statics. Eggman's machines and force fields interfering, Knuckles supposed. Tails would have been explaining it in all its science detail. Knuckles would have cringed and complained, now the lack of technobabble almost hurt in his ears.

He shook himself out of it, focused on the words of the person on screen. "Sonic is alive, I found -"

The rest of the sentence was lost in a sudden rush in his ears. Knuckles grasped the edge of the table, he didn't even know if for stability or just to have something solid under his fingers. Something about his hardly believable reality snapped in half, tumbled away from him, this fragile thruth he'd forced himself to believe and work with over the course of half a year shattered under a completely unrealistic, foolish, painfully daring assault of hope.

It took him a second to work through the rubble of it that was falling atop his head. That couldn't be true.

He had missed whatever was the rest of the message, but when he found his voice back, all he managed was an eloquent "What?"

"I'm sure." The timid, but understanding smile was clearly visible even through the graininess. "But I have bad news, too."

Knuckles sighed, fumbling for his composure, for a clear head and the attention his spies had any right to ask of their commander, and when he spoke again he succeeded to banish the tremor from his voice. "Of course you do."

But even while he listened to the bad news, and six months of torture and a pending execution definitely was bad news, something still felt lighter, easier. If Sonic had survived those past six months, maybe there was more hope left for them than he'd dared to have. And if anyone could walk away from an experience like that with a smile and in fighting shape, it was Sonic.

As the transmission cut off, Knuckles dropped to sit on a supply box, for the moment safely out of sight of anyone who needed to see a strong, determined leader. They had no time to lose, but a second's breather, a second to allow his mind and heart to catch up with new events would hurt less than to do something silly because his head wasn't on quite right.

Sonic was alive. All the odds for that... The echidna shook his head, then cringed as guilt reared its ugly head. They should have kept searching.

He should have kept searching. He owed a friend of so many years more than just giving up on him first evidence he got, in particular if, as he'd noticed just minutes ago, this friend had a knack about surviving the unsurvivable, and even more so in this war that had them fighting illusions everywhere on the planet. Why, why had it never struck his mind that Sonic getting killed in battle had been one such illusion, too?

His death had been hard to believe as it was, and Knuckles had put so much effort into moving on, into accepting this new reality they suddenly lived in, that keeping up hopes for Sonic would have made it impossible to keep his mind on the important task of organising the resistance.

The echidna bit his lip. It was just that, if he'd dared hope, he'd not only spared Sonic several of what had to be dreadful months, he'd have spared them all trouble and heartache, and this whole war would have been so much easier with Sonic's death not on their minds, but the hedgehog fighting for their side.

Knuckles shook his head. It helped nothing to dwell on past mistakes. They needed to move forward. Look for the positive things.

He almost grinned at this Sonic-ish idea. He'd never thought he'd say it, but he couldn't wait to hear a Sonic idea, an overly confident and reckless plan, to argue against and work out a sensible middle ground. He was a guardian, always would be, he had a tendency to try and not risk too much. He was working on it, in this still new role of guarding people and fighting for their planet, but just this role had always come almost effortlessly to Sonic, and maybe between the hedgehog's devil-may-care-what-can-possibly-go-wrong kamikaze and his own visions of everything that could go wrong, they could find a way to turn the page in this battle.

He smiled. It would do a little miracle for their all morale to have Sonic back. He'd been their first loss, and was to the day the one that hit closest to home. To know Sonic wasn't lost after all, that the planet would have their hero back, that they would have their friend back... It would mean a lot in this long, often hopeless war.

If they could bring him back and find him more or less in one piece, mentally and physically, it would take weight off Knuckles' shoulders he carried since he'd so thoughtlessly and boldly proclaimed he'd lead the resistance against whatever it was.

Now, he was keeping his word, and he surely wouldn't step out if Sonic returned. By now, after these long months, those were his people out there. They answered to him, followed his plans. But for all the assistance Amy and the rest of their friends constantly provided, it would be good to know Sonic at his side in this. Even if just to put a little thing right in this time of wrongs.

Knuckles pushed himself back to his feet and reached for the radio again. They had a friend to rescue who'd been waiting for six months. They couldn't let him wait any longer.