Not my usual fanfic. But recently I found myself getting into Sonic X. I've always been a fan of Tails, and this series just brought a depth to his character that I've felt others have lacked. But, moreover, I was taken with the Tails and Cosmo relationship, and the pain and anguish expressed through both of these characters as events spiralled beyond their control.

Then the old cogs started working, and an idea for a story emerged. How would Tails live his life without her? What would the future hold for him?

Well, I invite you to find out. I hope you enjoy.

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Without You

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One Day Later

"Remember, I'll always be with you. Don't be sad, Tails. Whenever you miss me, just look for me right here beside you... Look to the trees and the sky. That is where I will be."

The skies were growing dark now, twilight slowly receding over the distant horizon, taking the last of the bright daylight with it. Tiny little speckles of light were just beginning to appear overhead, each one a distant sun burning brightly from afar.

Beneath their gentle glow, sitting in the bitter evening air, a small vulpine creature rested atop a lonely hillside, sitting beneath the night-time shade of a tall oak. His arms clasped his knees to his chest, his gaze averted upwards towards the heavens. Every now and then the breeze would pick up, playing through the leaves, urging them gently into motion and causing the stars to dance between them. It also reached out to touch the soul below, gliding down to ruffle through his fur. It instilled him with a desire to shiver, but he allowed himself to ignore it.

The world around him seemed almost to fade into the background, his mind wandering somewhere above him, lost in the void between the leaves and the stars.

She was up there, somewhere. Waiting, perhaps. Watching over them all, maybe even watching him right now. He couldn't help but wonder...

As the chill wind tried to pester him once more he caught the distant scent of flowers on its ebb. How strongly it spurred his memories of her, his battle against his tears almost lost for a moment as a lone crusading token of his bitterness worked its way down the soft white fur of his cheek.

He paused a moment to wipe his eyes, determined to not let another follow in its wake.

Everything reminded him of her. Every sensation, every scent, every waking moment a bittersweet reminder of what was and what could never come to be.

Only yesterday he'd been with her.

Only yesterday...

What a difference a day makes.

The breeze pressed at him again, urging him back into the present. The leaves still danced. The stars still twinkled. The world still went on.

But he was not at all sure that he could.

She hadn't wanted him to be sad. He knew that. But he'd loved her, more than perhaps even he had realised. What else could he offer her memory now but the mournful regret that after all they'd faced together he had lost her? That it had been his own cruel fate to rob them both of their future?

"Cosmo..." her name whispered, it's very inflection cherished and revered, despite the lump in his throat.

"I miss you, Cosmo." He spoke again, his voice less raspy and a little bit more certain, "I know you told me not to be sad, but I can't help it."

His breath caught in his throat, and it took all of his will to hold back his sobs. He wrapped his arms more tightly around himself as the night air finally forced a genuine shiver from him. But it soon passed into relative stillness again, leaving him alone with his thoughts for another few moments.

But the coldness he felt wasn't just the cruel games of the night air poking and pressing him. It was the overwhelming sense of loss he felt.

"I wish it didn't have to be this way. I wish I could bring you back. Maybe go back to that moment, figure out another way... Maybe... Maybe..."

Another tear worked its way down his cheek. This time he simply let it be. It trickled down his cheek, tracing its way like an icy fingertip running across his fur and skin. Eventually it found the end of a hair, dropping to the ground and vanishing into the grass.

Closing his eyes, he sighed deeply, "You fell into my life, Cosmo, from the stars. Like an angel. I didn't know it then, but you were going to change me. I felt a better person when I was with you, as if I were somehow whole. Your beautiful smile, your soft laugh, the sound of your gentle voice... It completed me in a way I'll never understand.

"And now you're gone... I'll never see you again..."

For the briefest of moments the breeze seemed to part the branches of the tree, a leafy canopy drawn aside, the starscape above unveiled like a beautiful masterpiece speckled unto some dark canvas. Those particular stars were all too familiar. A new light, formed by the clash of almighty energies as one dark warrior had folded the very fabric of space-time around himself in order to save countless other lives, twinkled and glistened as a permanent reminder of what had nearly been an unparalleled tragedy.

Though to him, little could have made it worse.

"I..." he began, words almost failing him. Almost... "I don't know how to go on without you, Cosmo... I don't know if I can stop being sad, because I feel so empty. I don't know if I can ever stop loving you, Cosmo..."

For the final time the cold, sharp breeze drew itself across that hilltop, dancing in time with fur, leaves and starlight in a near-silent harmony. But the sole occupant of that hilltop, with his solitary perch beneath that grand oak, allowed the event to pass unmarked. Not a single shiver was offered to the cold from that point onwards.

Instead, he allowed himself to lie there, his mind wandering somewhere amongst the stars. From time to time it drifted into the past, recalling warm and bitter memories, drawing them to the surface to be relived one precious moment at a time.

Memories were all he had of her now.

Memories, and his undying love.