It's All My Fault

Chapter 3 - So Close, Yet So Far Away

The golden fox looked next to him. Guilt fled his body. So close, yet so far away. He just wanted him to wake up, forgive him, and for the two to leave the hospital together. Alas, it wasn't that simple.

Night had crept up again on Station Square. The moon hung over head, like a ginormous nightlight in the sky.

Though the doctor had been busy with healing Sonic, he didn't forget about the kit. He took Tails off the ventilator a few hours back, only moments before putting Sonic in the room. Elwin knew how close the two were, and requested for them to be in the same room.

He heard the door click. The doctor who had saved them both walked in.

"Will he be okay?" The two-tailed fox was as anxious as ever. Ever since Sonic had been knocked out that afternoon, Tails had been worried (and guilted) sick.

Elwin chuckled at the fox's anxiousness, "Yes, your brother will be just fine. In fact, based on my research, he should wake up some time tomorrow!"

Tails should've been happy. He was. But waiting till tomorrow felt like forever. He just wanted this whole misadventure to be over. Alas, it wasn't that simple.

"Tails?"

"Hmm?"

"Are you alright? You spaced out."

"Oh! Sorry... I just...," the fox replied bluntly, "... tomorrow feels so far away..."

The doctor pondered. He wanted to help the poor kit. Of course, he couldn't just force Sonic wake up. That'd slow his progress down tremendously. Alas, it wasn't that simple, but he had another idea in mind.

Elwin walked across to Sonic's bed, and stood at the opposite end as sat the fox. He then, carefully, pushed the bed towards the fox. He stopped it right at a curtain, used to separate the view the patient in that bed had of the other beds in the room.

"W-what are you doing?"

The doctor didn't respond. He, instead, walked towards Tails' cot, and begun to push it towards Sonic's. He stopped it, again at the curtain. Only an inch separated the two beds.

"There," Elwin said, satisfied. "Distance: shortened."

Tails looked next to him. He examined his older brother closer than he did before. His left arm was in a cast, and he had multiple bandages covering his wounds. Then, as the golden fox looked even closer, he noticed stitches on the blue hedgehog's left cheek.

Tails felt tears well in his eyes. Guilt attacked. Luckily, thanks to Elwin, silence didn't.

"Elder David A. Bednar once claimed: 'Guilt is to the spirit, what pain is to the body.'"

"'Guilt is perhaps the most painful companion of death,'" Tails quoted without batting an eye. "Coco Chanel."

"Touché...," the doctor replied, before beginning to leave the room. "At least try to take some advice from Marshall Rosenburg: 'If you want to live in absolute Hell, believe that you are responsible for what other people feel.'"