AN: I decided to try an angsty/dramatic approach to the whole "Sonic was gone for 2 years" idea that was before Sonic Chronicles, and how it affected everyone else. This didn't turn out as good as I had hoped. That seems to be happening a lot lately. I hope you enjoy!

In the two years in which Sonic was gone, Tails had gotten over his fear of lightning.

Before that, when rain pelted away at the weathered old wood that constituted his lonely little workshop, and thunder pounded nature into submission, and purple-white bolts danced across the black backdrop of the sky, he shook. He shivered. He quailed and whimpered and one time came very very close to crying.

But Sonic would always quell his fears. He would hug his adopted little brother, smooth the sweat-soaked fur gently. He would tell him everything would be okay.

Then he had gone away. The person who had been an immovable, ever constant presence in his life ran.

And ran.

And ran.

Sonic left. (it had been the only time he did not say goodbye.) The storms stayed.

Tails decided he was not afraid of such a silly thing as lightning.

"If you truly love someone, let them go."

Amy believed this statement was utterly and completely ridiculous.

What was the point of chasing someone down if you just had to let them go in the end? She had preached with the grandiose, affected manner of an expert on the subject, her eyes alight and hands waving and gesturing dramatically.

Her audience, one Cream the Rabbit, could only nod profusely and wonder if her best friend had neglected to take her medicine.

When Sonic had left, she had changed dramatically from the bright cheerfulness that had marked her character, and Cream could not help wonder if that part of Amy had gone with him.

Some days, Amy merely stared into space, her eyes possessing the look of someone not entirely there. Sometimes the little girl had trouble calling Amy back from her distant and faraway place.

She walked hunched over, hands grasped close to her midsection as if holding something in, her feet shuffling instead of bouncing.

There were periods where Amy locked herself inside her apartment, the only thing discernible from beyond the barricade being mournful sobs.

Doctors had given her pills to ease her ills and worries. And then, another subscription to ease the side effects of the first.

Cream did not think it was a very nice thing of Mr. Sonic to do, for him to leave without telling everyone goodbye. She did not like this Amy at all.

On the worst of worst days, Amy cradles the broken glass between her delicate hands. She does not notice the red, jagged streaks on her arms. She rocks back and forth, moaning with heart-wrenching grief as the photograph, yellowed with age and bent with tears, is assaulted with bitter heartbreak and salty pain.

She thinks Sonic has left because of her.

Knuckles considered Sonic a friend. Yet his absence did not matter too much on the grand scale of things.

The birds sang. The flowers bloomed, wilted, died, seeds burrowed in the earth, and were reborn into magnificent plumes of color.

The rivers and streams flowed. The sun rose and fell. Their world had gone without Sonic for millennia before he was born, and would continue to do so after he had run his course.

Knuckles is quiet, content, and peaceful. The Master Emerald is undisturbed in its majesty and power.

The silence he hears now is heaviest of all.

Rouge was never particularly close to Sonic. The whole idea of heroism and the scrutiny it involved wasn't really appealing to the huntress. Leave people to their own devices, she always said.

She much preferred the allure of the shadows. With the cloak of night hiding her identity, she could manipulate. Seduce, bribe, steal, and play to her heart's content from the safety of the dark.

In the G.U.N. Academy, she had learned many things. What was most oft drilled into her head to the point of ad nauseam was the sappy sentiment of "Betrayal is the most potent form of poison. The betrayal of a teammate causes anger and sadness. These emotions fester, grow, seep into the blood like a disease, and will eventually explode beyond the point of control."

They had proceeded to blather on about how an agent must master control of their emotions, but she had ceased to pay attention to what her employers said long ago.

Rouge observes Amy, Tails, Cream, and Knuckles from the shadows. The word rolls across her tongue in a sinister manner. Betrayal.

She cannot help but think this is what Sonic has done.

Shadow knows how idiotic it is to get emotionally invested.

Many hours of his life have been spent mulling over the image of Maria's painfully thin frame pressed against the glass of his escape tube, her eyes cold and lifeless, a horrible contrast to her smile as she sagged forward, the gunshot wound in her chest blooming into a horrifically red flower.

He had been unable to sleep for many torturous nights, his head pulsing in pain at the memory and rage at himself for failing to protect the one person he had loved.

He had wasted years plotting and planning for revenge. The schemes were implanted in his head. Thoughts of revenge that had not boiled in his own blood, but in that of his broken creator driven mad over the death of his granddaughter.

He had spent far too long wondering about his past.

Their entire world revolves around the faker- he thinks one night, for they are mere satellites revolving around something larger.

He can only pity them.

Sonic is not prone to such long absences. It was common for him to be absent for several weeks at a time, but never a period as extended as two years.

Two. whole. years.

Twenty four months.

Seven hundred and thirty days.

Seventeen thousand, five hundred and twenty hours.

One million, fifty one thousand and two hundred minutes.

Sixty three million, seventy two thousand seconds.

But who was counting? (Amy was.)

When Sonic returns after two years, acting as he had never left and things had never changed, the world harshly rebuked him.

Things had changed.

He had left.

The world was not his anymore.

Reviews? Constructive criticism? Feedback? I like all those things.