Silver sighed as he rubbed his temples, feeling inexplicably anxious. He knew Venice would be fine with Amy, unlike some other people she'd never let him out of her sight or nearly drown in a lake, but he couldn't help but worry. Venice was startled so easily, and he had problems with controlling his power... Shaking his head firmly Silver decided to have faith in his friend. He had grown a lot since their first meeting, becoming more confident and outgoing with every day. His relapses into the shy, terrified teen he was before were becoming less and less. He'd be fine.

As he waited for Amy and Venice to come back to the kitchen of the HQ, he used his powers to fiddle with a salt shaker to entertain himself. Throwing away Venice's torn shoes and putting his coat and gloves in the wash had taken minutes at best, and he had been sitting here ever since, making the tiny object bop up and down through the air. They were taking a lot longer than he had expected, though, and his stomach rumbled. He didn't really know what he was allowed to take from the fridge and cupboards, especially not after some incidents that had taken place during the war. He wanted to eat together with his friends anyway, it was more convivial like that.

A giggle behind the door to the hallway caught his attention, and he carefully put down the floating item before turning towards it. It creaked open very slightly and Amy slipped through the tiny gap, closing it behind her immediately. He raised an eyebrow at her odd performance.

"Close your eyes," was the only thing she said as she turned towards the door once again, putting her hand on the handle. Covering his eyes with his hands and closing them for good measure, he heard Amy giggle again and some shuffles towards him that had to be Venice's. At Amy's giddy "Alright!" he opened them again, and he jumped up while grinning when he saw Venice stand in front of him, with shiny grey boots and fitting bracelets.

"Ooh! You look good, Ven!" Silver complimented his lookalike as he twirled around him to view him from every angle. The boots were structured quite similarly to his, but also had some key differences. Just like how he and Venice were so similar yet also different in their overall appearance. Amy had done a good job, they fitted Venice perfectly. "They look like mine!" he joyfully noted.

Venice looked at his gloveless hands he was fiddling with, though Silver could hear from his tone of voice he was happy also. "That's why I picked them," Venice explained timidly as he peeked at Silver from the corner of his eye. "Do you... think they look good?" Dropping himself in front of Venice and ruffling his quills, Silver laughed. "They look great! It's an honour," he assured the ivory psychic.

During Silver's inspection Amy had made her way further into the kitchen and was now hectically collecting plates, mugs and cutlery. "I just realised we didn't even offer you two anything to eat! You must be starving! I'll make you something, what would you like?"

Picking up everything she was carrying with his powers, Silver easily put each thing in its place on the table surface, dropping the much-abused salt shaker in the middle as he inconspicuously brushed away some kernels from the table. "I have no preference myself, but do you have anything you want to eat, Ven?" Both he and Amy laughed as Venice bashfully mumbled that he liked Amy's soup, blushing furiously as he played with his fingers and stared at his boots. "One portion of soup for each, coming up! Go sit down, I'll handle this." Grabbing all the required ingredients and pans, Amy went to work.

Pulling out a chair for Venice to sit on and returning to his own seat, Silver made some small talk with both his friends as they waited for Amy to finish cooking. It didn't take long for the kitchen to be filled with the smell of fresh bread and boiling soup, and Silver could feel his stomach rumble more intensely and his mouth water. "I like cooking as well, but I once nearly set the kitchen on fire and now I'm not allowed to touch anything without supervision," he disclosed to Venice with an exaggerated eyeroll, making the other psychic giggle.

"It was a disaster!" Amy teased as she walked over to them, her hands covered in pretty red oven mitts as she carried a huge pot of soup. "Everything was seared black, there was chaos everywhere, and it took weeks for us to get out the smell!" Shaking his head at the silly memories, one of the very few happier moments in the War to Take Back the Planet, Silver grabbed the bread from the counter and used his powers to give all three of them a piece and a sizeable helping of soup.

They had barely begun to eat before a knock sounded on the door. "I smell food!" Sonic hollered as he burst in, licking his lips at the meal on the table he was presented with. Both Silver and Venice jolted at the clamour. Tails, who had been following him, rolled his eyes. "What a way to enter, Sonic. You're setting a great example here," he sighed as he made his way over to Amy to give her a hug, before turning to Silver. "Hey, Silver!" he laughed, and Silver stood up and reached out to ruffle his bangs.

"Tails! How have you been?" The genius shrugged in response. "Just the usual; inventing things, drawing blueprints, making sure Sonic doesn't do anything stupid..." He stuck out his tongue at his brother and quickly darted behind Silver as Sonic puffed up his quills and sent him a mock-angry glare. Turning his attention to Venice, who was staring at his bowl and appeared to be pretending he didn't actually exist (it backfired badly), Tails cheerfully greeted him as well. "You're Silver's friend Venice, right? It's a pleasure to meet you!"

"...Hello," Venice mumbled as he glanced at Tails, shrunken into half his normal size. With how startled he was by Sonic's entrance, Tails' unexpected appearance on top of that probably made him very insecure. "He's shy," Silver mouthed towards Tails, but the fox cub didn't appear surprised. Sonic probably had given him an extensive briefing on Venice already.

Silver and Amy quickly pulled out more bowls and spoons, and within seconds Tails and Sonic had joined them at the table. Between all the small talk and conversations Venice had gone quite quiet, discreetly shifting closer to Silver as he stared at the food he was eating with great consideration. Silver figured that with three other people, one of which he had never met before, he had to be feeling quite overwhelmed. Sometimes Sonic or Tails would pointedly look at Venice between their chatting, but every time Silver shook his head slightly. Venice would warm up to Tails soon enough, they just had to give him time to get out of his shell more.

Dinner was finished much too soon for his liking, even after both he and Venice got a second serving from Amy. But it had been very tasty and filling, and even the timid psychic looked slightly more relaxed as he pushed his chair away from the table and wriggled his ears. Silver laughed at how drowsy his face was, his eyelids drooping and a yawn badly suppressed. Standing up, Silver let him lean against his torso.

"How about you lot go to the living room and catch up with each other?" Amy suggested as she watched the scene in front of her unfold, a smile on her face. "Then Venice can rest and you three can chat. I need to go back to the hub, there's paperwork waiting for me."

With Silver, Sonic and Tails all voicing their agreements, Venice only flicking an ear at the mention of his name, they all got up from their chairs. With Sonic's help the dirty dishes and leftovers were put away in seconds, and Silver wrapped an arm around Venice to guide him and keep him up. Saying their goodbyes to Amy, who darted back to her domain in the HQ, the interesting crowd went the opposite way to the living room.

------

Yawning, Venice curled up further into himself, pulling his knees against his chest and snuggling closer against Silver's leg. Although Silver's original plan had been to make him walk, his body had been limp and his legs had simply refused to carry his weight, and he had been hoisted up on the other's back and carried here. His friend had put him down on a very soft surface and covered him fully with a blanket, then had sat next to him. Venice gladly used the opportunity for cuddles, softly whining until Silver's hand found its way under the blanket to his head and he could sigh from contentment instead. He had never laid on such comfortable furniture in his life, made only better by Silver's fingers that were steadily scratching behind a rounded ear. His breathing slowing, Venice felt himself drift away further still. The odd feeling was back in his chest, and this time it came out as very tiny vibrations from his throat.

"Ven's fallen asleep," he heard Silver murmur very far in the distance. "We won't wake him up if we talk softly." The words didn't really make sense to him, but it didn't matter all the same. He was safe. The sudden introduction to the fox cub had surprised him and he hadn't known how to deal with so many people at once, especially with how noisy and chatty they had been. Luckily they had all left him alone, and Silver had been with him throughout it all. He could sleep peacefully here, with his friend right next to him.

"Actually, Silver..." He recognised Sonic's voice, sounding much more grave and serious than usual. That did grab Venice's attention, and he blearily opened an eye and pricked his other ear. It wasn't entirely dark underneath the blanket, he could make out some of its patterns. There probably was a light on in the room. "There's something about Venice that we would like to discuss with you."

"Sure, what's on your mind?"

"Sonic told me some interesting things he noticed while spending time with him." That voice was Tails', he recognised it because it sounded a lot younger than those of the two hedgehogs. "To get straight to the point, he thinks Venice isn't a hedgehog, but a hybrid. Now that I've seen him for myself, I'm inclined to agree."

The scratching of his ear stopped, but Venice couldn't bring himself to care about it, fully awake now. The conversation had certainly piqued his interest. Sonic had discussed this with him before, at the edge of the lake. Venice already knew he wasn't a hedgehog, Sonic said so because he couldn't curl into a ball. At the time he had been scared and antsy, mostly because of Sonic's weird, jumbled explanation and the fact he landed on his face twice and then nearly blew out his back to humour the Blue Blur. If it meant he didn't have to curl into a ball, he didn't mind he wasn't a hedgehog in the slightest. What kind of species was a hybrid? The word sounded funny, but also gnawed at the back of his mind as if he had heard it before.

"But that's not supposed to be possible," he heard Silver say. Venice frowned at the statement. Why was a hybrid not possible? With how many people there were in this era there were probably dozens of them around every corner. "You guys told me that it was inconceivable for two different species to form a hybrid child. They'd always have either the traits of one or the other, not a mixture." He could feel Silver go rigid as well, his legs shifting to press closer against him. "Venice looks a lot like me, so he has to be a hedgehog! He's got quills!"

"But he had quite some physical differences that no hedgehog possesses," Sonic argued back. Making himself as flat as possible, Venice didn't dare breathe out of fear of missing something. His intrigue quickly shifted into apprehension. Why were they being so weird about him being a hybrid? Was a hybrid something different than just another species of anthros? "He doesn't have any quills on his back, and his ears and tail are entirely different from ours! Surely you have noticed that?"

"I have, but..."

Tails intervened before Silver could finish his sentence. "Even if Venice is a hybrid it doesn't mean there's anything wrong with him," Venice heard him speak in an calm yet assuring tone, though even if it worked for Silver it did nothing to assure him. "But the fact that it is possible for a hybrid to exist naturally is very intriguing. Do you know anything about where he's from?"

The scratching behind his ear picked up once more, but Venice found it did not give him the pleasure like it used to only minutes before. Body frozen, startled to his core by the unexpected turn of the conversation, he waited for what Silver had to say.

"Venice... comes from a different dimension," the other psychic started. "He lived in a science facility, where they ran tests on him. Mostly because of his powers, he said." Although he couldn't see Sonic and Tails, he heard them hum as they listened. "Um, he didn't really tell me what they did to him, but based on how skittish he is I can come up with some scenarios. One time he just... snapped, I guess, and tore open a portal through the dimensional matrix. He ended up in the future, where I found him. He's stayed with me ever since."

"Poor Venice," he heard Tails whisper. The hand behind his ear moved to rest and stroke over the two quills on the back of his head. "He's safe now," Silver assured his companions. "Ven is frightened too, but I won't let anything happen to him."

Sonic, who had been surprisingly quiet during Silver's explanation, spoke up. "Do you think that he was somehow artificially created?" Venice had no idea what that meant, other than that it sounded scary yet painfully familiar. With Silver's words about his past he had found himself back inside his prior place of torture in his mind, and he fought to suppress his trembles to not show Silver he was awake and eavesdropping. His power nearly jolted out of his palms, and he squeezed his hands together in fists so tightly he feared he would break his fingers.

"Shadow is a hybrid between a hedgehog and an alien species, and he was artificially created as well. In a science facility, too. It could certainly be a possibility," Tails agreed. "Do you remember anything else he told you, Silver?"

"Uh, not really... Nothing that could help us find out more about his species, at least." After a few seconds of silence, wherein Venice stared intently at his knees and fought to contain the power inside him that was haphazardly buzzing throughout his body, his friend added: "Actually, that's not true. When I asked him, he said his name was PK-HMH."

Silence followed after those words, though Venice didn't know if it was because nothing more was said in the conversation or because his ears were ringing too much for him to hear. Silver's hand moved from where they had been laying on the back of his head to his ear again, and he tried to focus all his attention on the feeling to ground himself. "Do you have any idea what it could stand for?" Tails piped up unexpectedly, and Venice nearly jumped out of his skin at the unexpected noise.

"Well, PK is usually used to refer to psychokinesis," his friend responded. "That makes sense, since Venice has the same powers as me. But what the HMH stands for, I have no idea." Venice didn't know either, no-one had ever explained it to him. He had wanted to forget his former name entirely. He was Venice now, not a science experiment referred to only as "it" and with an abbreviation, which had gone awry, which had murdered-

Through digging his nails painfully in his wrist he brought himself back to the present, heart pounding in his chest. Venice heard some shifting from across where he was laying, and listened to Sonic's hum. "I was wondering, Tails... Is it perhaps possible if you do a DNA test or somethin'? So we'll get a better idea what kind of hybrid he is?" What were they talking about now?

Tails chuckled in response to the hedgehog's inquiry. "I won't be doing that, but I can take some samples of his cells and send them to a bigger lab a few cities over for testing. They have a database on all kinds of genomes from hundreds of species, so they'll be able to tell exactly where his genetics differ from you and Silver." Venice had completely lost track of the conversation, having no idea what in the world DNA or genomes were. Still, Tails had said the words with such confidence that it probably was very common knowledge for him. He seemed like the kind of person who knew what he was talking about.

"That won't hurt him though, right?" Silver inquired worriedly. Venice felt him securely push his hand closer against his head. Despite the situation he had found himself in, he felt the slightest bit comforted at his friend's protectiveness.

"It's a very non-invasive process," the genius fox assured Silver and their eavesdropper. "It won't cause him pain in the slightest." That was somewhat relieving to hear, at least. But still, the conversation they had had about him and the memories it brought back had frightened him to the very depths of his being, and the anxiety that had steadily become less over the days had returned full force. With his arm wrapped around his legs Venice tried to make himself as small as possible.

"I propose we go to bed. With Venice sleeping-" he suppressed a sigh of relief at not being discovered, not that it made him feel any better, "-we won't be finding out much today anyway." He heard creaking and feet shuffling on the floor. "Where are you going to rest, Silver?"

His friend pulled away his hand and very carefully stood up as well. "I don't want to move Venice, he might wake up. I'll sleep here with him," Silver responded to Sonic's question. After some rummaging Venice could feel his weight return to the furniture, Silver's head next to his. He listened to Sonic and Tails walk away as the three friends whispered goodnights to each other, and with a click the light was switched off and he was shrouded in darkness.