Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Callie MacPherson, head librarian of the Green Hills Public Library, tapped her finger against the steering wheel of her late model Subaru Forester. She sat at a red light, watching as the crossroad traffic moved through the intersection. It was ‘rush hour’ on a Friday afternoon, which, in a little town like Green Hills, basically meant it took her twenty minutes to get home instead of fifteen.

Absently humming along to the radio—60s Gold on SiriusXM, but she sometimes switched to the 70s and 80s channels when the mood struck—she glanced to the sidewalk on her right. Three ladies had emerged from Green Hills Grocery, arms loaded with totes overflowing with food and bottles of wine. They laughed together and loaded their purchases into a large SUV, obviously heading somewhere for a Girl’s Night.

The librarian’s brow furrowed slightly.

She’d never been on a Girl’s Night outing. She’d never been invited.

Of course, she’d never had friends, either.

Which was fine.

Really.

The women piled into the SUV now, and one said something, sending the other two into hysterics.

An ache appeared in Callie’s chest. It brought memories with it. Painful ones.

A horn sounded behind her and she startled, only now noticing the cars in front of her had moved. The light was green. She gave a quick wave to the car behind her and continued home.

An hour later and Callie lounged on her couch, dressed in her comfiest of pajamas and flipped through the various movies on Netflix. Supper over—leftover spaghetti, for the second night in a row—she settled into her nightly routine of ‘vegging out’.

In reality, she was killing time until it was late enough to head upstairs to bed.

Suki, a tabico and the more skittish of her two cats, lay against her, purring softly as the librarian scratched behind her ears. She usually only came out when it was quiet, and loved to snuggle while Callie watched TV. Bloom, the more rambunctious tuxedo, jumped up and practically walked over her sister to curl in Callie’s lap.

The librarian finally settled on a movie (Never Been Kissed, she loved Drew Barrymore) and dropped the remote on the couch beside her. She absently pet Bloom, her mind wandering back to earlier in the day. To something an echidna had said.

They had been at the library. She was the personal tutor slash sorta-nanny to the quite remarkable Wachowski kids—Sonic the Hedgehog, Miles ‘Tails’ Prower the Fox, and Knuckles the Echidna. Seems the three boys would get up to some pretty damaging shenanigans if left to their own devices while their parents were at work, so she’d been employed to keep watch over them, and give them some Earth schooling in the meantime.

This particular afternoon, they weren’t doing anything of note. The Wachowskis had a big camping trip planned for this weekend, something all three boys had been greatly looking forward to. Getting them to do anything that required any focus would have been near impossible right now, so she called a free day and let them do what they wanted, providing it was quiet.

Sonic had immediately snatched up a new copy of The Flash, while Knuckles practiced writing some of his original language. (Callie helped as much as she could with spelling, based on how the words sounded.) Tails worked on an activity book Callie had brought him, currently doing a crossword puzzle.

Blissful silence settled in the library, allowing the redhead to get caught up on her paperwork, and most of the returned books put away before any of the boys spoke.

“Scholar Callie,” Knuckles said, his voice soft in the silence. His nose wrinkled and he corrected himself. “I mean, Callie.” It had only been a few weeks since he dropped her title, but he sometimes slipped and fell back into old habits.

“Yeah, Knux?”

“May I ask a . . . personal question?”

She raised an eyebrow. “You can always ask. But I reserve the right not to answer.”

He dipped his head in a short nod. “Fair enough. I have been wondering about something.”

“What’s that?”

The boy furrowed his brow, before looking up at the woman. “Why do you have no mate?”

The redhead snorted a laugh. “Kiddo, can’t say it ever really crossed my mind that I needed one.”

“But Mother has a mate. And she seems very happy with Father.”

Callie nodded. “Yeah, she does. And that’s good. Because sometimes, just because you’re married doesn’t always mean you’re happy.”

The echidna tilted his head in thought. “Hmm. I suppose that is true.” He looked back at her. “Are you happy being alone, then?”

The redhead paused. A weight had appeared in her chest. “Why the sudden interest in my relationship status, Knuckles?”

The boy furrowed his brow. “I have been thinking. Of our family. We all take care of each other. We protect one another. Mother and Father have taken the three of us in, to protect and care for us. We are not alone anymore. And that is a nice feeling.”

Callie said nothing. She wasn’t sure she liked where this conversation was going.

“But then I think of you,” he continued, shaking his head. “You have no mate. No family. No one to protect and care for you. You are alone.”

The librarian shrugged. “I take care of myself.”

She mentally begged him to drop it.

“As did I, all those years as I searched for the Master Emerald,” he said, despite her mental pleas. “I thought I was fine, all alone. That I didn’t need anyone.” He turned to look at his brothers, who were listening intently. “But I have found that sometimes being part of something is better. Having people who care about you, your tribe, is better.”

Callie busied herself with the few returned books she hadn’t restocked. No, she definitely didn’t like where this conversation was going. “I’m glad you all found each other. I really am. But I’m fine, Knux. Don’t worry about me. Some people really do like to be alone.”

And some people are scared of the alternative, her mind countered, making her frown.

She wasn’t scared. She was . . . pragmatic.

“Mother has said, we should help care for those who need it,” the echidna continued. This kid was like a dog with a bone. “Give to those who have less. And that is what I have chosen to do.”

The librarian gave him a cocked eyebrow. “Meaning?”

The boy sat taller in his chair, drumming a fist against his chest. “Since you have no mate or other family to watch over you and keep you safe, I will assume that task. I will be your protector, until such a time as you find a mate who can perform that duty.”

“Hey!” Sonic cried, dropping his comic. “I knew her first! If anyone is gonna protect her, it should be me!”

“I cannot help you didn’t think of it first,” Knuckles said, lifting a single shoulder in a half-shrug. “Besides, I am strongest, so I should be the protector.”

“Maybe we could all protect her,” Tails chimed in, always the peacekeeper. “Like we do with the Master Emerald.”

“Guys,” Callie called, her cheeks burning. This subject wasn’t overly comfortable in the first place, and listening to them essentially fight over who would protect her made it even worse. “No one needs to protect me. I’m good, really.”

“But you are alone,” Knuckles said for the third time in as many minutes. “You have no one close to you. What if you were in danger, or simply needed help?”

“Yeah,” Sonic added, and Callie thought she may scream if they didn’t stop talking about this. “I never really thought about it before, but Knux is right. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you hang out with anyone else. And you’ve got no one to talk to when you go home. Don’t you get lonely all by yourself like that? Doesn’t it bother you?”

All eyes were on her now, and her cheeks burned at the attention. Talking about herself was the last thing she wanted to do, ever, but now she felt cornered by their questions. Anger crawled forward, ready to lash out and tell the boys to mind their own business. They had a family, they had people they loved and who loved them back, good for them, but butt out of her life. She was just their tutor. Her personal life was none of their concern.

She took a breath, pushing that anger back. They didn’t deserve to be snapped at.

Thankfully, before she could answer, Tom walked in to pick up his kids, providing a welcome distraction and bringing the whole awkward and increasingly uncomfortable conversation to a sudden end. She had practically shoved them all out of the library, and heaved a heavy, shaky sigh once the doors swung shut.

Now a tiny pang of guilt settled behind the librarian’s ribs. Knuckles wasn’t trying to be insulting or condescending. The boy saw things in simple terms—alone equals bad, family equals good. He felt much happier and safer in a family scenario, so it stood to reason he thought she would too.

Even Sonic’s questions made sense, considering he grew up in isolation for most of his young life. Solitude was mostly forced upon him, to keep him safe. But that didn’t mean he liked it. It affected him negatively, and even now he gets a little clingy if left alone for too long. So his questioning, his worry, about her isolation was borne of first-hand experience.

And she had to admit that some small part of her, a tiny ember that she tried hard to snuff out, warmed at the notion that these boys cared for her enough to want to protect her. To essentially absorb her into their family circle, and make sure she was safe and taken care of.

A nice thought.

But unrealistic.

Because as sweet as the boys’ motivations were, it didn’t really mean anything. Kids were just like that. They only cared about her because they saw her every day. And it wasn’t like they were really friends with her—them or their parents. It was a . . . a business arrangement. She provided a service to them in the form of tutoring and kinda-sorta childcare. Once the boys matured a bit and didn’t need such regular supervision, they wouldn’t need her anymore and would all move on with their lives.

Which was fine.

Really.

Callie didn’t need friends. She was the approachable, kind, and understanding town librarian. That is what others saw. What she wanted them to see. Everyone knew her and liked her well enough.

She was friendly with everyone.

But friends with none.

And that was fine.

Besides, close relationships only brought pain when they ended. She’d learned that the hard way—the very hard way—all those years ago. That had nearly killed her. And the ache in her chest, in her heart, reappeared when she thought about it too much.

So she closed all those thoughts, all those feelings and memories, in her mental vault. Just shoved them away, and slammed that big door closed, nice and tight. She wasn’t that person anymore. Ignoring made it easier to get through her day-to-day life. Easier to convince herself all that pain and heartache happened to someone else.

And she wouldn’t let it happen to her. Not again.

Detach. Don’t get too close.

Best to stay friendly, but separate.

That’s the way she lived her life, and she’d done just fine.

Yep.

Just fine.

. . .

Okay, so maybe sometimes the loneliness got to her. Maybe sometimes she would stay in her pajamas for the entire weekend, eating a little too much ice cream, watching a little too much TV, and wondering if she needed to adopt a few more cats to fully embrace her ‘spinster cat lady’ title.

Maybe sometimes the silence in her house turned deafening. The house itself felt cavernous, the space on her couch like acreage.

Maybe sometimes the vault cracked open, just the teeniest bit, and she would find herself ugly crying over something that had happened years ago, as though it were still a fresh wound that had been dug into. And she’d cry and cry and hate herself for things that had happened when she was a girl barely in her 20s, before she could slam that vault closed once again.

And maybe it took her a few days to compose herself enough to venture out into the world again, wearing the “always calm and collected Callie” face the town expected.

But that was only sometimes. Everyone had a period of feeling sorry for themselves, or dwelling a little too much on past mistakes, right?

When they felt alone, and insignificant, and like if they disappeared tomorrow no one would notice or care?

Or that their lives were one big long slog of never-ending tedium, occasionally punctuated with tiny moments of what could be contentment, but even those were very few and very far between?

Or that no matter how much they told themselves they were fine, everything’s peachy, no soul-sucking loneliness or unhappiness here . . . there was always that one spot, buried deep inside, that was uncomfortable but tolerable, like a tiny rock in your shoe?

But that rock felt like it grew bigger with each passing year. With each passing day. Until you found yourself shuffling along, alone and in pain, but so used to it that the very idea of removing it was even more uncomfortable than the rock itself.

Because as uncomfortable and painful as that rock was, it was familiar. You’d carried it for a long time. Years. Decades, even. Thinking of removing it . . . living without that familiar pain . . . actually enjoying your days, and maybe even . . . letting others . . .

It was scary. Terrifying, even.

Living with the rock was easier than facing life without it.

But everyone felt like that, at some point or another.

Nothing to read too much into.

No, Callie MacPherson didn’t need friends. She didn’t need family. She was fine—just fine—on her own, thank you very much.

But as the movie’s finale started, where Drew Barrymore was met on the baseball field by the man she loved as her friends and family watched and cheered, Callie clicked the TV off with a loud grunt. The sudden movement sent Suki running, and the redhead pushed Bloom off her lap as she stood.

“Stop thinking about it,” she hissed to herself. “Just knock it off, damnit.”

Slapping the switches a little more forcefully than what was necessary, Callie turned off all the lights before heading upstairs to her bedroom. She needed to journal. Right now. All these thoughts and emotions were swirling around in her head, returning again and again to the front in a loop. The longer they looped, the stronger they became. And the more likely the vault would crack open.

That couldn’t happen.

She needed them out. Writing them down usually helped to get them out of her head and let her move on with life.

So that’s what she did. For the next two hours, she wrote. Furiously, messily, angrily. Page after page of questions, answers, and emotions vomited out on the paper through her pen. At some point tears trickled down her cheeks, and she scrubbed them away with the heels of her hands, hardly stopping her transcribed soliloquy.

Until finally, her pen slowed. Her mind cleared. She had successfully transferred the hot mess in her head to the page, and felt more herself. Tired, but herself.

Or at least the version of herself she allowed.

With a long sigh, she closed her journal, noting the quickly dwindling number of remaining blank pages. She’d have to pick up a new one soon. They didn’t seem to last long, anymore. These thoughts . . . that rock . . . bothered her more and more lately.

After placing the book in her nightstand drawer, she set her glasses aside and clicked off the lamp. She’d no sooner settled beneath the covers when she felt two thumps at the foot of the bed. Suki and Bloom had arrived. They moved and circled a bit before finding comfy spots and curling up for the night—Bloom against her leg, and Suki snuggled at her side.

Callie released another sigh as she stared into the darkness. Moonlight filtered through her window, casting shadows across the ceiling.

Stop thinking about it. Being alone wasn’t that bad. She could do what she wanted, when she wanted. Didn’t have to answer to anyone. Wasn’t tied anywhere. If she decided to move somewhere new, start fresh once again, she could with little trouble. Just cast out an internet search for open library positions, and go from there. Like she’d done almost five years ago when she’d moved to Green Hills. Just pack everything up and move on.

Yep. Felt good to be so free.

. . .

But.

If she was honest with herself, completely and brutally honest, sometimes she did wish for someone to be close to. Not necessarily a significant other—although she wouldn’t mind having a special someone to share her life with—but someone.

Sometimes she did feel like it’d be nice to actually settle somewhere. To put down roots, and make friends, and feel like a real, honest-to-God person, and not just a hollow shell going through the motions and filling a role. A placeholder. A background character.

To call a place home instead of just where you live.

To call people friends instead of just someone you know.

To be a part of something. Community. Friendship.

Family.

Because sometimes . . . sometimes she did feel awfully lonely.

“No good comes from thinking after dark,” she said out loud to herself, and her heart gave a jump at how loud it sounded in the darkness. It was a saying she’d picked up from Maddie, and thought it quite insightful. “You’re fine. You don’t need anyone. Stop feeling sorry for yourself.”

She wasn’t lonely. She was fine.

Maybe these thoughts meant it was time to move on. Maybe she was getting a little too comfortable here. Maybe Green Hills was too small a town.

Maybe her involvement in the Wachowski boys’ lives was more troubling than she originally thought. They all reminded her so much of . . .

With a grunt, Callie closed her eyes tightly and rolled over. She didn’t want to think about that. She tried very hard to not think about anything.

A voice whispered in the back of her mind. How many moves had there been before Green Hills? How many more will there be after? You’re running. The past will always be there. Ignoring it doesn’t do any good. Do you want to run for the rest of your life?

“No good comes from thinking after dark,” she said again, her voice a harsh whisper. She curled tighter into her blankets. “You’re fine. Just fine. Things will be better tomorrow.”

Sleep took a long time to come for her.

Running. Always running.

The little hedgehog with the gray fur ran as the sounds of shouting and machines closed behind.

“Don’t lose him!” a gruff voice called out, and the hedgehog ran faster, pressing a hand against the stitch in his side.

His feet hurt. He had outgrown his boots a while ago (months? A year? Time meant nothing to him anymore) but to cast them aside would have been a sure way to get captured. The ground was covered with rubble and other sharp debris, which would slice into the sensitive pads that covered the bottom of each foot.

Better to have squished feet than shredded feet.

He skirted the crumbling buildings along the street, the hot, dusty air drying his throat. Several fires flared in the distance, sending more ash and smoke into the already filthy atmosphere. His eyes burned.

The little gray hedgehog ducked into a shattered storefront and hurried through the destroyed back wall. He crossed the alleyway, and crawled into another ruined building, this one the remains of a grocery store. Ducking behind one of the abandoned registers, he hugged his knees to his chest.

He didn’t bother looking for food, even though his stomach growled at the thought. The roving gangs would have cleaned this place out months ago. Hunger was a constant companion.

Air wheezed past his throat as he panted, sucking in dry, dusty breaths. He’d been lucky there hadn’t been any bandits taking shelter here. Dealing with a surprised gang would have been worse than getting caught by the skunk brothers chasing him.

“Where’d he go?” a voice called, and the hedgehog pressed his hands against his mouth, eyes bulging. It sounded like they were right outside.

“Dunno,” another voice responded, and the sound of whirring drones filled the air. “Probably hiding in one of these buildings.”

“Search them all,” a third voice said, and the electric quality meant it had come from one of the drones’ intercom. “Start at opposite ends of the street and work your way toward the middle. Check every building. I want him found and returned.”

The first two voices made affirming sounds, and then his pursuers moved away.

Panic gripped his chest, threatening to close his throat. It was only a matter of time before they found him. His lungs burned, his legs ached. Running wasn’t an option.

He couldn’t go back to that horrible lab. To that doctor. His wrists and ankles were still sore from the cuffs that had held him captive for so long, even though they had been gone for a few weeks.

The pain reminded him of the doctor. How he had smiled as he pressed buttons and moved sliders on the control panel, watching the hedgehog writhe in agony, fighting against the shackles holding him. “For the good of the future!” he would cry, causing pain again and again.

The boy didn’t even know what the doctor was trying to do. He just knew it hurt.

The hedgehog’s throat tightened, and he grit his teeth. He couldn’t cry, no matter how badly he wanted to. They’d hear. But he was so tired, so hungry, and just wanted to be left alone.

He missed his mother. How long had it been since that day? He’d been little then. A child of five maybe? It was hard to keep track of time even when he wasn’t being tortured and experimented on by a crazy doctor. It felt like a lifetime ago.

The first time the doctor had caught him was not long after his mother . . . was gone. At first he seemed nice. Like he wanted to help. But that hope didn’t last long. The platypus was only after his power. This strange power his mother had always told him was a gift. A blessing from the gods.

He didn’t think it was a blessing, or a gift. He thought it was a curse. He didn’t like using it. It made him stand out, and scared others. It made him a freak.

It had taken his mother from him.

And now he was moments away from being captured, again, and returned to that horrid lab where he’d be punished for escaping. Again.

Was that all there was to his life? Running and pain? Hunger and loneliness?

Please, he thought, frantically hoping that someone, anyone, could somehow hear him. Please help me. I can’t go back there. They can’t find me. Please! I just want to be safe. He closed his eyes tightly, and a few tears managed to slip out despite his efforts to keep them back. I want to go somewhere safe!

A familiar tingle ran up his spine then, but it was different somehow. The power that made him different, made him a target, made him dangerous and feared, flared. It shot away from him, and a large portal opened, rimmed in the same cyan light of his power. He stared at it, transfixed by the swirling darkness within. He’d seen other portals before, and this looked nothing like them.

“What’s that?” the voice from before called. It was further away, but this strange portal had drawn their attention. His pursuers would be here within seconds.

Without giving himself time to think, the little hedgehog bolted. Wherever this portal lead, it had to be better than here. Had to.

Silver the Hedgehog jumped into the swirling portal as the drones behind him fired.

Callie sat at her kitchen island, scrolling through her phone. She’d fed her cats, then gotten her own breakfast. Now she yawned, rubbing the last of the sleep from her eyes.

The emotions from last night left her feeling off-kilter and drained, and more than a little stupid. In the light of day, they seemed like little more than some childish whines. So she was alone, big deal. So she didn’t have any family, so what. So she had a fairly traumatic experience way back when. Other people had it much worse, so sitting here and whining about it was pretty stupid and selfish, when you got right down to it. There were worse things going on in the world than what she was dealing with.

Get a grip, lady. Lose the pity party and keep moving.

Now she focused on her plans for the day. A big part of her wanted to simply laze about, but keeping busy would help those uncomfortable thoughts fade. It was supposed to be nice out, relatively warm for early May, and sunny. A good day to work outside. Her yard had gotten a little wild toward the end of last summer—again—and she supposed it was as good a time as any to start getting it back under control before it got worse.

Which it inevitably would. She wasn’t the most diligent at landscaping.

The librarian stood, and stretched backward to pop her lower back. That’s when she noticed the early morning sunlight dimming.

Brow furrowed, she turned to the windows. The forecast wasn’t calling for rain.

What she saw made her eyes widen and jaw drop open.

Tucked in the trees behind her house, positioned about ten feet off the ground, was a swirling . . . something. A portal, or vortex of some sort.

As she watched, a flash appeared from inside, and a loud boom rumbled through not long after. Then something shot out of the thing. A light colored object, moving at high speed. It hit the ground and slid, gouging a trench in her yard about five feet long.

“What the frick,” Callie muttered to herself as she walked out onto her back deck. After another few seconds, the portal-vortex thing closed. The sky returned to its previous brightness, and she moved to inspect the damaged trees. “Weird.”

Some branches had snapped in a few trees, but other than that, there was no sign there had been anything out of the ordinary just a few seconds before. Callie looked down at the impact point from whatever had come through. Fresh earth bled through the grass near the treeline, marking a shallow ditch leading toward some tall weeds.

She followed the trail in the grass, searching for the very literal extra-terrestrial object that had damaged her yard. Whatever it was had left a fairly deep depression. It must have been moving damn fast.

When she reached the end of the dirt trail, her eyes grew wide. A decidedly organic creature lay there, unmoving. Its gray fur was charred in some spots, but the spikes along its back and head looked awfully familiar.

She knelt next to the creature and rolled it over, revealing its face. The muzzle was unmistakable.

It was a hedgehog. With tattered gloves and dirty, worn boots.

Callie uttered a sigh that was more like a groan.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me.”