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::
There are no bullets. There are no guns. Maria Robotnik merely sits looking out over the vast expanse of space with a smile and her entire life ahead of her, and it’s a phenomenon unlike any other.
“Hey, Shadow?”
Shadow lifts his gaze from the open book in his lap to her side profile. “Yes?” he asks.
“You ever wonder what the moon looks like from down on Earth?”
“Not really,” he tells her, flipping from one page to the next. “We see it every day from up here. Why would I care about seeing it anywhere else? It’s not like it’d be any different – just farther away.”
“But it is different,” she insists.
“How?”
“It just is, alright? The size, the shape, the way its phases look… It’s different, I just know it is.
“Believe what you want,” he sighs, “I’m sticking to the truth.”
“That’s boring,” she says.
“Boring, but a fact. You and I see the moon every day, Maria, and not once has it ever changed.”
“ You’re boring. You sound more and more like Grandfather every day,” she amends. Shadow lets out an indignant huff and returns to his book: one of the professor’s, and a dull one at that. Maria laughs.
In three weeks, GUN will put a bullet through her back.
T wo weeks before GUN puts a bullet through Maria Robotnik’s back, the professor tells Shadow that she no longer has any undamaged veins left for treatment. The very IVs and blood transfusions that have preserved her life until now have conspired against her, and with her arteries faring no better, the doctors have motioned for surgery.
Shadow does not need to be asked what to do next.
“I’ll do it,” he says.
“Blood won’t be enough this time, Shadow,” the professor adds. He speaks with twitching fingers and a smile that strains at the corners. “They’ll need tissue, marrow… I can’t promise you won’t feel pain, even with your abilities.”
“I’ll do it,” he says again, fists clenched over his lap. “For her.”
One week before GUN puts a bullet through Maria Robotnik’s back, Shadow holds her hand as she takes her first, wobbling steps out of bed since the operation. “I wish Grandfather were here. He hasn’t seen me up like this in months,” she tells him, voice strained from the effort of keeping upright. “Oh, why does he always get called away at the worst times? It’s not fair.”
“It’ll make for a nice surprise when he returns, at least. Why not practice some more until then?”
“You bet! Mark my words, Shadow – by this time next week, I’ll be running!”
The week GUN puts a bullet through Maria Robotnik’s back, she and Shadow sit side by side in the main chamber of the ARK, watching the faraway moon through the window. A series of books donated to them by members of the research team lay scattered around them; some about children, others about the stars. Maria ghosts her fingers over words written in a language she can’t understand and smiles.
“Hey, Shadow?”
“Yes?”
“When Grandfather returns from his trip, I think… I think I’m finally going to ask him about taking us down there.” Shadow turns to look at her in alarm, and she gives a small, nervous laugh. “I know, I know! It’s too soon for me to even think about leaving the ARK, I know. But I should at least tell him I intend to do so one day, don’t you think? I want him to know how serious I am about this, about everything.”
Shadow lowers his eyes, frowning. As much as he wants to share this dream of hers, the thought of leaving the ARK admittedly scares him a little. He can hardly imagine a life anywhere else.
“When you leave here,” he begins, “I wonder what you’ll do?”
“Who knows? Maybe I’ll go to a real school and become some great scientist or doctor.” Maria pauses to laugh and hug her knees to her chest. “Then again, a simple, ordinary life honestly sounds just as grand. I think I’ll be happy doing anything so long as I get to see the moon every night.”
“Again with the moon? You’ve seen it your entire life up here.”
“Not like they do,” she sighs dreamily. “Crescents, gibbouses… There are even times when the moon disappears completely from view, leaving the sky totally empty! Can you imagine that?”
Shadow makes a face. “An empty sky sounds terrifying. I don’t think I want to imagine that.”
“Well, that’s too bad.” Maria grins at him, her cheeks warm with life. “Because one day, no matter what anyone says, we’re going down there to see it ourselves.”
“I’ll go, but I still don’t see what’s so special to you about this moon business.”
“Does it really not interest you at all?”
“It’s not that, it’s just…”
Maria tilts her head. “Just…?”
“I just don’t like the idea of it, I guess. Of the moon suddenly being ‘different’ from the moon I’ve always known. It’s weird. I don’t like change like that.”
“Ah, now I see.” She smiles and looks back out the window with a hum. “Change is pretty strange, isn’t it? And scary, too. But I think you’ll find life pretty boring if you choose not to embrace the things coming your way – well, then again, you like boring, don’t you? You and Grandfather could both spend the rest of your lives talking about the same old things, I’m sure.”
Shadow’s quills bristle in embarrassment. “T-That’s not…!”
“Prove me wrong, then. Come with me when I tell Grandfather my dreams of leaving this place,” Maria says with a toothy grin. Shadow’s heart pounds in his chest at her words: terrified, yet delighted all the same. “It’ll happen, I know it will. With you watching over me, I’m bound to get better in no time!”
Two days later, Maria Robotnik dies.
The moon looks on as Shadow plummets through space. Omnipresent, constant; like gunfire, bodies, and death.
::
When he comes to, he is lying on the floor beside an unconscious Amy Rose, the scent of blood and steel wrung heavy in the air. He has no recollection of the events leading up to this current, somewhat compromising position between them – what he does have is a headache.
“Rose?”
No response. Amy remains curled up in complete and utter silence, her limbs tangled in his. Slowly, carefully, Shadow pulls away just enough to roll over onto his back. Pain courses through his body, and with it comes a wisp of memory – a powerful, soaring enemy and the release of his inhibitor rings into the snow. Ah, Shadow thinks. He weakly flexes his hands, unused to the air touching his wrists. That would explain things. He’s expelling energy faster than he can keep up with.
But what about Amy? Why is she here? What even is here?
He trails his eyes across the ceiling and down the opposite wall. The sight of shelter-typical equipment greets him: a cot, a table laden with communication devices, and several reinforced supply crates bearing symbols from GUN. He must have brought Amy here with him to recuperate from the battle, though he can’t imagine how in his current state. Everything hurts, even his lungs.
(“No,” Amy says, pulling him up by the arm. His blood soaks into the white cotton of her gloves. “I won’t leave you here. I won’t lose you again.”)
Shadow snaps his head back towards the pink hedgehog with a start.
“Amy?” he asks again.
Nothing. Not even movement.
“Amy,” he repeats with growing urgency, “Amy, wake up. Amy.”
When she again fails to respond, a thick wave of nausea rolls through Shadow with enough force to blur his vision. Panting, sweating, he reaches across with some effort and pushes the other hedgehog flat onto her back. A strained breath quickly forces its way out from her lungs.
She’s alive.
Alive, but not well. Her breathing is irregular, the rise and fall of her chest more labored than it should be. And as he lifts his hand from her shoulder to the pale of her cheek, he finds her skin hot to the touch. The heat of it sears through the thick cotton of his glove and burns his palm, startling him. He retrieves his hand.
She needs medical attention.
They both do, he notes with some detachment, but at least one of them is conscious. With a pained grunt, Shadow props himself up onto an elbow and attempts to push into a sitting position. He collapses immediately, cheek to the floor, his muscles retaining none of their usual strength. His jaw clenches with anger.
Get up, he tells himself, baring his teeth in the dark. Get up. She needs you. She needs you to get up.
Rolling over onto his stomach, Shadow stretches his arms out over his head and drags himself across the floor towards the supply crates. GUN shelters, however long abandoned, are always prepared for deathbound soldiers. He unlatches each crate one at a time, digging weakly through their contents until he procures a small black container. It’s filled with syringes. Shadow rifles through them with unsteady fingers until he finds the one he needs, uncaps it, and stabs it straight into his thigh.
He closes his eyes and counts to ten.
There.
::
When the strength returns to his legs, he crawls on his hands and knees back over to Amy’s side. “Hey,” he says again, touching her face, “Rose, can you hear me? Wake up.”
She doesn’t, of course, and Shadow resigns himself to sitting back on his haunches. Why won’t she wake up? Could she be injured somewhere, or is it just her fever? Mumbling an apology under his breath, he pats down the areas of her body where blood has soaked into her clothes and fur. None of it is hers.
Gulping, Shadow retrieves his hands and runs them over his head, his stomach, and sides. Nothing. Not even a scratch. The skin beneath the layers of matted, dry blood is fully intact and without injury, which would mean he healed himself sometime after the memory of Amy helping him up.
Realization dawns on him in a sick lurch.
Without his inhibitor rings, Shadow would have lost consciousness the moment his healing factor kicked in. He’d be face down in the snow somewhere if not for Amy, but that would also mean –
“It was you,” he whispers, heart pounding in his ears. “You brought us here.”
Amy says nothing. She only continues to lie in the dark; breathing, burning, and still.
::
He lowers Amy into the cot with trembling hands and eyes that watch her every not-movement, desperate for something, anything, to rouse her from this seemingly eternal slumber. If only he could remember what happened. With his memories intact, he could race out into the snow, pick his inhibitor rings up right where he left them, and teleport them both home.
But then again, he should have known something like this was going to happen. Pushing past a certain limit without his inhibitors almost always results in him entering a weak, disoriented state. Memory loss may not be typical, but it is a possibility when serious injuries are added into the equation. He wonders then how powerful their enemy must have been for him to behave so recklessly, and in front of Amy, of all people. When she comes to, it will definitely be with a lecture in mind.
Stepping back, Shadow turns and resumes his rummaging through the supply crates. His efforts reward him with a handful of blankets, a box of self-heating patches, and a rubber hot water bottle. He decides to save the patches for emergency use, though if Amy were awake, she would no doubt insist on using half of them all at once.
“I’m sensitive to the cold, you know,” he imagines her whining with a pout. “I can’t believe you’d even think to hold out on me at a time like this!”
A smile ghosts over his lips. He wills it away with a scowl and a focused shake of his head.
::
GUN shelters always come loaded to the brim with medical equipment, something Shadow has never cared to be thankful for until now. After removing his gloves and washing his hands, he makes quick work setting up an IV drip at Amy’s bedside. Snippets of memory of his time aboard the ARK flash through his mind, each a firm pinch in his side he dismisses without so much as a wince.
“Sorry,” he mumbles. He removes her coat and gently drapes it over her lap for warmth. Then, after cleaning the spot, he injects the needle into her forearm. Amy’s fingers give an involuntary twitch and nothing more.
He remembers Maria giving the same reaction once, during the one and only time Shadow had attempted to insert her IV without supervision. Inexperienced, he had missed the vein and ended up hitting something else, something that pumped blood out from the pale sliver of her arm and onto the bed. He remembers crying, too, when it happened, terrified of what he had done. And while the professor never did raise his voice at him for it like the doctors did, the disappointment in the man’s eyes had been impossible to miss.
Shadow gently lowers her arm back down onto the cot.
“I’ll boil some water and clean you up in a bit,” he tells her. “I can’t do anything about your clothes, though. It’s too cold to leave you without them, plus I’m not so crass as to…”
He trails off and lifts the blankets up towards her chin.
::
Nothing on the communication table works. Not even the radio, which only plays the sound of deafening static when he attempts to patch through to every frequency he knows.
Staggering to his feet, Shadow limps his way around the room and pokes through every nook and cranny available to him for spares. He finds clothes, food preserves, instant coffee, guns – everything but what he needs.
In other words, they have nothing. No radio, no communicator, and no phones. The latter of which must be out there with his inhibitor rings somewhere, and he didn’t feel Amy’s on her at all during his pat down.
Damn it.
He buries his face in his hands, compressing a long, angry sigh into his palms.
Damn it damn it damn it.
He knows help will come sooner or later: if Rouge or Omega don’t track them down first, then it’ll be Tails, maybe even Sonic. Their friends would gladly chase them to the ends of the earth without ever needing to be asked. But what he doesn’t know is how long they’ll take. It could be hours, even days, before they hear from anyone outside the shelter, and Amy might not –
He digs his claws into the sides of his face, almost as if to punish himself for the thought.
No, he thinks. I won’t let that happen.
::
True to his word, he returns to Amy’s side and spends an unprecedented amount of time washing his blood out from her fur and quills. He ends up having to swap the bucket of water out twice, both nauseated by the metallic smell soaking into his hands and concerned that he might only be making things worse.
“It’s not too hot, is it?”
His eyes flicker towards her closed ones. He waits.
“Amy?”
The rise and fall of her chest continues, steadier now. Shadow wrings out the washcloth in silence.
(“I won’t leave you here. I won’t lose you again.” She shoulders him onto her back, hardening her expression to the feeling of his blood soaking into her. He mutters a weak protest, but his body hangs limp: a marionette without its strings. She picks a direction and wobbles forward in the snow. “I’d rather die than have it come to that.” )
Dark, red liquid drips down into the bucket at his feet, rippling and distorting his reflection.
He thinks of the scientists and their families aboard the ARK, of the impossible amounts of blood each of their bodies contained. At one point during his and Maria’s attempted escape, he had watched a GUN soldier line several people he knew up along a wall and open fire. The entire corridor was painted red in seconds.
“You should have just left me there, you know.” Amy can’t hear him, but it needs to be said. He watches her with the same sort of apprehension he would watching a plume of smoke rising in the distance. “I would’ve survived. You knew I would’ve. So why didn’t you just leave me there?”
Shadow unceremoniously drops the washcloth into the bucket. The sound is heavy and hard, bringing to mind images of bodies and the blood they contain. Red liquid sloshes around his feet and stains the whites of his shoes.
“What if you…?”
::
How long have they even been here for? Shadow turns his eyes towards the row of clocks hung over the communication table. All but one have grown out of sync, their time differences each nonsensical and absurd. He can’t even say for certain the one he’s come to rely on is accurate, but it’s something, and it’s constant. Amy has supposedly been asleep for two hours now.
Why haven’t the others come for them yet?
Impatient, Shadow searches through the rest of the supply crates and finds two more adrenaline boosters. He places them in the same black container as he considers his options, doubtful of the circumstances beyond the secure walls of their shelter. After all, the enemy could still be out there. Even with the temporary boon the drugs offer, he’s in no condition to fight.
But then again, it’s not like Amy’s in any condition to be kept waiting, either.
“Three hours. I’ll give those fools another three hours. After that, I might have to do something drastic that I honestly hope you won’t be awake yet for. If whatever’s out there doesn’t kill me, I know you will,” he says to her. The words come with a pop and a release of air as he tears open a can of apricots. He jams a fork into one of the slimy yellow spears and holds it towards her motionless face. “Can you believe the only fruits they have here are apricots and pears? Seriously, what idiot even stocked this place? When you think of canned fruits, it’s peaches or nothing.”
He brings the apricot spear close to her nose, hoping to entice her into consciousness with its sweet, syrupy smell. The doctors often did this with Maria aboard the ARK whenever she had a difficult time after rigorous treatments; opening cans of peaches, cherries, and other fruits, they would instruct Shadow to sit with her and let the sensory experience do the rest of the work. Her stiff features would eventually begin to flutter with life, and she and Shadow would grin and share the fruit together afterwards.
But Amy doesn’t do this, only continuing to lie still instead. The weak breath from her nostrils ghosts over and around the spear. Shadow stares.
“Yeah… I guess there are better things to wake up to, huh? I don’t even like apricots myself.”
He sets aside the fruit and retrieves the tin of instant coffee, holding it towards her face in the same manner. Nothing. The bitter, acidic scent wafts into the air between them.
“Hey,” he asks, shoulders bobbing in silent laughter, “What is this? You’re suddenly too good for coffee? But you always drink so much of it.”
Once, the pink hedgehog had offered to let him take a sip of the coffee in her hot pink tumbler. He remembers it being foamy and rich and a pinch too sweet to even be drinkable, but Amy liked it, and that made Shadow like it as well (though, not enough to ever recreate the drink on his own – he had limits, even as the Ultimate Lifeform).
Shadow sets the instant coffee down beside the fruit on the floor. His movements feel heavier than before, slower; the drug must be wearing off. His eyes flicker towards the case of syringes on the nearby table, contemplating.
“Three hours,” he reminds himself. With his irregular metabolism, it’s a miracle a single dose even lasted him this long to begin with. “I’ll wait for three hours, and then… and then…”
::
“You know,” Amy says to him one night, hands jammed into the front pocket of her hoodie, “Even after all these years, I still have a hard time admitting there’s a giant, gaping hole on the other side of the moon. It’s just so easy to forget!”
He sweeps his gaze out over the city and the dark sky nestled above it. Tonight, only the moon is visible to them: a waxing gibbous. Shadow thinks of storybooks written in languages he never learned and bags of IV fluid and looks elsewhere.
Not at Amy, though. He avoids looking at her, too.
“I also forget sometimes,” he replies with the sort of pathetic, fumbling delicacy only she inspires in him. Agreeing to pick up drinks for Vector’s party with her was a mistake, but one he’d be willing to make again if only for the pleasure of her company. He doesn’t dare pick apart why this is. “But maybe it’s for the best that we forget as often as we do, Rose.”
She slows for the sake of conversation, and Shadow sweats. “Why’s that?”
“Well, I mean… Doesn’t it bother you to know that something that’s always been the same suddenly isn’t ?”
Amy comes to a complete stop in the middle of the sidewalk, prompting Shadow to do the same. His ears twitch at the sound of her boots gritting over the coarse pavement; she’s turning towards him.
“No, not really,” she says. “At the end of the day, it’s still the moon.”
“What?” He finally looks back up at her, frowning with disbelief. “It’s changed, though. It’s not the same moon you and I have always known.”
“It’s not exactly the same, sure, but the moon’s still the moon. And it exists in spite of everything it’s been through, so I’m happy to appreciate it – damage and all.”
He blinks. Amy is watching him now with genuine interest, her every feature set aglow beneath a veil of moonlight. Warm eyes, soft lips, rosy cheeks – mesmerized, Shadow finds himself unable to look anywhere but at her.
“Anyways,” she sighs, “We should probably get going. I’d hate to keep everyone waiting, and you know how cranky Rouge gets when parties run dry.”
Clasping her hands together behind her back, Amy flashes him a brilliant smile before practically skipping on ahead. Shadow stares after her, frightened, trembling; and it’s not for the first time when he wonders what would happen if he were to reach forward, take her hand, and leap into the abyss.
Probably nothing, he thinks tiredly.
He walks after her, a strange, oppressive feeling gripping his chest. The moon looks on.
::
Shadow awakens with a start. Frantic and disoriented, he flashes his eyes every which way to make sense of his surroundings. Reinforced ceilings, drab walls – he’s still in the shelter. Which would also mean that he fell asleep despite his intentions to keep watch over Amy. Disappointed in himself, he compresses his body down against his current surface with a sigh.
Wait.
He’s on his stomach. His first thought is that the drug must have worn off, causing him to pass out on the ground again. But as he realizes the surface beneath him is warm and comfortable, he frowns and uses what little strength he has left to feel around with his hand. He touches something soft, frowns deeper, and turns his head in the same direction.
It’s Amy.
Amy, whose sleeping lips he’s kissed his knuckles to, her face a mere few inches away from his own.
Forgetting the weakness in his body, Shadow lets out a strangled gasp and tears himself away from her. Doing so causes him to fall right out of the cot and onto the floor, wide-eyed and shaking.
I have to get us out of here.
Eventually, his eyes dart towards the clock. It’s been five hours. Five hours of him lying beside Amy, sharing breath and body heat and –
He clutches his hand to his chest. The feeling of Amy’s lips pressed against it burns through him.
I have to get us out of here, now.
::
The second shot is administered, and Shadow trudges towards the exit. In preparation for the uncertain journey ahead, he’s tied a long, thick cable around his middle: both to prevent getting lost and to drag himself back should he lose strength out in the snow. The other end remains bound up in its wall mounted reel. He decides he’ll travel as far as it’ll extend.
He also decides to travel with a gun.
Stashing it into the loop of cable around him beside the last syringe, Shadow spares a small, guilty look over his shoulder towards Amy. It’s best she doesn’t wake up for now – he doesn’t want to imagine the disappointment in her eyes should she see him returning with a gun in hand.
“I don’t have a choice,” he mutters more to himself than to her. “And it’s just this once. You know I’ve stopped using them.”
Amy doesn’t respond. Shadow stares.
What if I come back and she’s…?
He doesn’t dare finish the terrible thought.
Limping, he abandons the exit and returns to her bedside. He watches her for a moment, then slowly, hesitantly, reaches down to ghost his fingers over the space beneath her nose. Despite her still form, she breathes. And as she breathes, Shadow aches.
He wants to touch her.
He wants to touch her so badly, he could die.
But to cup Amy’s cheek, to smooth back her quills and wipe the sweat from her brow with all the tender admiration he secretly harbors – no, Shadow thinks, retrieving his hand in a flash. He clenches and unclenches it at his side, the ghost-sensation of her breath still warm against it.
“I’ll be back,” he says quietly. “So wait here for me, alright?”
He waits again for the fluttering of eyelids and the twitching of nerves. Nothing. With a sigh, he touches his hand to the space beside her head, nods, and takes his leave.
::
There are no buildings, no people, and no enemies. Only a world bathed in white: an expanse of glistening snow as far as the eye can see. Overhead, he sees the moon nestled amongst the stars watching him with a Cheshire-like grin. Thin, menacing, it makes Shadow feel the smallest he ever has in his life. He tightens his expression and looks away.
One hour. You have one hour to find your inhibitor rings, Shadow. You don’t have time to stand around with your mouth hanging open like an idiot.
Luckily enough, no fresh snow seems to have fallen since their arrival. Amy’s footprints are still fully visible in the snow, along with strange, slithering trails that Shadow suspects must be from his legs dragging behind her. He winces at the image and marches on.
::
(“I picked the wrong boots to wear today, that’s for sure,” Amy gasps in between steps. She walks with her body doubled over, exhausted from the combined weight of a barely conscious Shadow and the cold air. “You’re always telling me I need to plan ahead when I get dressed for the day, but do I ever listen? Of course not. Can’t wait for that ‘I told you so’ you’re going to give me later, when we…”
She trails off, glancing sidelong at Shadow. Without the strength to keep his head upright, he sways like a ragdoll with her every movement.
“Shadow? Hey –”
Her foot suddenly sinks into a deeper patch of snow than expected. Yelping, she tumbles forward. As she does, she takes the brunt of the fall and allows herself to be crushed between Shadow and the snow. A pained whimper escapes her, but mind over matter: she staggers back to her feet, hiccuping and sniffling, and continues on.
“T-That GUN shelter you told me about… We’re almost there, okay…? Almost… Almost….” )
He feels the weight of moonlight on his back. It streaks through him like a bullet through muscle and bone.
This has to be it.
Shadow stares out over the ashen crater at his feet. Leftover Chaos Energy from the battle buzzes in the air like the summertime song of insects; incessant, ringing. He takes slow laps around the crater in search of his rings, feeling around as much as he can in the snow. Nothing.
Sweat gathers around his temples, and the area he covers grows wider. Eventually, he finds himself far away enough from the crater for it to exist as no more than a thin, black line in the distance. Still, he finds nothing. Not even his or Amy’s phones.
They’re not here.
His every limb grows numb. Gradually slowing to a stop, he stares down at his hands in the snow with an unlinking expression.
They’re not here they’re not here they’re not here.
His vision blurs. Not with exhaustion, but tears. He grits his teeth.
So, what, I just go back empty handed? I go back with no means of saving her? What if she doesn’t make it by the time help comes? What if she…?
The air stills. Without even a breeze to register, the ringing in his ears grows louder. He trembles.
What if Amy dies?
::
He’s halfway back to the shelter when the drug wears off. Shadow collapses onto his knees, yet unlike before, it’s not despair or desperation that finds him first - it’s anger. Using the last of his strength, Shadow brings his fist down over the ground and lets out a furious scream.
As the Ultimate Lifeform, he can do just about anything, can’t he?
He can teleport, and he can heal. He can raze entire cities to the ground in seconds and decimate armies in half that. Food and water are both leisurely pursuits rather than necessities: he can live without them, just as he can sleep and air.
Yet what can he do for someone he loves?
Hot, angry tears stream down his cheeks. He beats his fists down into the snow again and again, until the rage consuming him at last simmers down into a strange, unfeeling numbness. His fists tremble, then unfurl. A dejected silence follows.
It’s always like this.
He sits back on his heels and casts his white surroundings an empty look.
If only I had an Emerald… No, it’s too late for what-ifs now. I’ll have to give her the last syringe and just hope that it’ll -
Something in the snow suddenly catches his eye. Shadow blinks and doubles back; astray from his path sits a single, golden band glittering in the moonlight.
Ignoring the exhaustion in his body, Shadow wipes his eyes with the backs of his hands and dives forward. He grasps onto the inhibitor ring and it phases back onto his wrist in a movement as easy as breathing. Hope leaps high in his chest.
“Just one,” he whispers. A partial amount of energy sweeps through his body with enough force to make his head spin, and he laughs, rolling over onto his side. The ring around his wrist glows like a halo in the white light of the moon. “Even with just one, I can do it. I can save her.”
::
The walk back to the shelter resumes with newfound purpose. Though still short of his usual strength, he can now keep upright without relying on the cable for guidance, and the speed of his movements has improved considerably. He might even try using Chaos Control after another hour of rest, and if that doesn’t work, at least now he should be able to carry Amy without passing out.
The shelter appears in the distance. At the sight of it, a small, excited smile curls at his lips.
I’m at 50% now. That’s a whole lot better than what I was at before.
He thinks of Amy waiting for him and breaks first into a jog, then a clumsy run. Taking it easy in preparation for what’s to come would be the decision of a wiser Shadow, but at present, he can only think of seeing Amy and telling her the good news. Smile widening, he pants out eager clouds of breath into the cold air and pulls into full view of the shelter.
And then he stops.
The entrance is wide open. Lying at its foot in the moonlit snow is the collapsed body of Amy Rose.
::
(“I won’t lose you again. I’d rather die than have it come to that.”)
But what about me? What am I supposed to do when you’re gone?
::
He races back inside the shelter with Amy clutched to his chest. Panting like that of a dying animal reaches his ears; as it rises into a low, anguished keen, he realizes the sound is coming from none other than himself, and he shudders.
It’s always her luring him into small, fragile moments like this, isn’t it?
He lowers Amy back down onto the cot. Her previously immobile body now lies shivering in the dim light of the room. She’s ice cold and soaking wet. Bitten by instinct, Shadow strips her of her wet clothes and replaces them with what he found earlier: a pair of black thermals, a sweater with the GUN logo stamped on its back, snow-pants, and a jacket. They’re all at least five sizes too big for her, but with his thoughts currently running at Mach 5, he can’t be bothered to care.
He opens the box of self-heating patches next. His unsteady fingers struggle to peel back the adhesives, and he ends up tearing more than a few clean in half. Those that remain are applied to every surface of Amy’s body he can think of. Her forehead, her hands, her feet – he even pulls back the top layers of her clothes and sticks them onto her stomach and waist, with the last going onto her chest. Some idle, faraway part of him wants to feel embarrassed, even a little ashamed, by what he’s seen, but embarrassment is no longer a luxury he has time for, so fuck it, fuck it. He steps back, sweating, and Amy continues to shiver.
Now what?
His eyes wildly dart around the room. There are no hypothermic shock blankets in this shelter. He’s checked, and for whatever reason, there are none. This is as much as he can do for now.
No, no, he suddenly thinks, gripping the sides of his head. This can’t be it. This can’t be all he can do for her. There has to be more than this. Would hot water help? Should she drink it, or should she sit in it? Does this place even have a washtub, or will he have to make one from the empty crates? Is there even enough time for him to spend doing all of this? What about Chaos Control? If he attempts it now, will it work or –
Or will she die?
Both his mind and the world around it screech to a sudden stop.
No.
She will not die. He will not let her die.
Eyes settling back over her body, Shadow inhales sharply and rips the cable from his body. His gun clatters to the ground, followed by the rolling of the syringe. He doesn’t care. Closing the distance between them, he slips in beside Amy under the blankets and, just like before, clutches her to him with the fiercest of desperation. She’s cold to the touch.
“Come on, Rose. You’re not going to let something like this do you in, are you? You’re stronger than this. I know you are,” he whispers, taking his hands and rubbing them up and down her sides. His body heat is all he has left to offer. “Rose, do you hear me? Do not die. Do not fucking die on me, you hear?”
Scowling, he finds her icy hands beneath the covers and lifts them towards his mouth. Cupping them between his own, he exhales his hot breath over them again and again. They give an involuntary twitch.
“Come on, come on…” Guiding her hands towards his face, he settles them on his neck while he wraps his arms around her waist. He squeezes their bodies together impossibly tight, wishing he could transfer his every ounce of warmth to her through touch alone. “Amy, please, I… I can’t lose you alright? I can’t. I’m tired of always watching these things happen around me. I can’t do it again, so please, please…”
Through her parted lips, Amy makes a small, troubled sound. It’s the first noise she’s made since they’ve arrived in this cold, desolate corner of the world, but Shadow can’t even bring himself to appreciate it. Closing his eyes, he touches his hands to her cheeks and smooths back her quills.
“Please, please.” He presses their foreheads together, his next words softer than a whisper. “Don’t die.”
::
When he dreams, he dreams of sleep; of his body curled up like a moon amongst twinkling flowers and dark grasses tousled in the breeze. A flash of light strikes. He falls. The night opens up like a gaping, black maw and consumes him, leaving him to tumble through an endless abyss... no, no, there's more light now. Rose-gold and honeyed light. It rises steadily in the east, eating away at the cold, at the dark, and it’s so impossibly warm that he –
Shadow jolts awake.
Lying beside him is Amy Rose, her mouth parted in a soft, surprised gasp and her palm pressed to Shadow’s cheek. She’s staring at him, and Shadow, uncertain of how to respond, stares back.
“Hey,” she whispers. Their faces are so close, he can feel her breath on his lips.
“Hey,” Shadow replies in a daze. Without thinking, he slides his hand up over hers and squeezes it tight. She smiles. “Have a nice nap?”
::
There’s no sugar, and so the coffee he hands Amy is black and without a hint of sweetness. She takes a tentative sip of it and immediately scrunches up her nose in disgust. Shadow suppresses a snort.
“Hey!” The pink hedgehog lowers the enamelware cup with a pout, the excess fabric of her too-large clothes bunched around her wrists. “Don’t laugh!”
“I didn’t,” he tells her.
“Then what was that just now, huh?”
“Had a tickle in my throat.” At her doubtful look, Shadow cracks a small smile and takes a seat on the overturned crate opposite to the cot. The air between them now is warm and comfortable; he likens it to sunlight streaming through leaves. “How are you feeling? If you need to lie down again at any point, let me know.”
Amy returns her lips to the rim of the cup, and immediately, all Shadow can think of are those very same lips gently pressed to the ridges of his knuckles while she slept. He swallows and trails his eyes from the drink to the warm, rosy glow of the pink hedgehog’s face. She doesn’t seem to notice his embarrassment – then again, it’s not like she would understand it even if she did.
Get it together, idiot.
“I’ll be fine. I felt so weak before, but the worst I feel now is an ache in my legs from all the walking I did earlier. Well, that and this weird pressure in the back of my head, but that’s probably from being knocked out for as long as I was, huh?” She pauses, her eyes falling over Shadow’s wrists. A nervous sort of recognition enters them, and she sits up with a slight frown. “What about you? You’re still missing one of your rings.”
“Oh,” he says simply, glancing down at himself. “It’s nothing. Even just one is enough to keep me afloat for now.”
“That doesn’t sound like just ‘nothing’ to me…”
“Yeah, well, you should’ve seen the way I was getting by when I had neither of them. I had to crawl around at one point – dragged my body across the floor, too. Trust me, this is a major improvement.” A part of him expects Amy to giggle in amusement at the mental images he’s provided for this very purpose, but to his surprise, the pink hedgehog looks at him in horror instead. He swallows anxiously and tries again, waving a hand to dismiss her concerns. “Seriously, though – it’s fine. Now that I have one on, the energy seeping out of me has more or less stabilized, and I can get around no problem. I might even have enough Chaos Energy to get us out of here soon.”
“So you’re telling me that right this moment, you aren’t able to access your powers at all?”
“Well, not necessarily. I could attempt to use them, but their success rate and effectiveness would be… stunted. I doubt I could get us any further than that crater outside.”
Hearing this, the soft glow around Amy dims. She weaves her fingers across the front of her cup like vines, swallows, and looks at him with a noticeable tremor. “You… You went all the way back there?”
“I… Yeah.” Shadow pauses and watches her unsteady expression with a frown. “Why, should I not have?”
“No, it’s not that, I just, um… Do you, uh, remember what happened there, Shadow? You’ve been awfully quiet about things, so I can't help but think…”
“I don’t,” he admits quietly. “I’m assuming I must’ve hit my head in some way… Injuries in my disoriented state tend to reflect poorly on my mental wellbeing.”
“You did,” she tells him, a thin smile working its way across her lips. Shadow doesn’t like the way it looks on her; devoid of warmth, it’s almost as if someone’s taken a knife and carved it into her unwilling expression. He clenches his fists over his lap and involuntarily flattens his ears. “Hence, the crater.”
Shadow looks at her.
“What?”
“The crater,” she says again, closing her eyes. “That was you. You fell.”
“I… Fell?”
“Yeah… Because of me.”
::
By the time Amy reopens her eyes, Shadow has already come to terms with the news and feels no more than idle curiosity towards it. This, clearly, is not the response the pink hedgehog had been expecting. She frowns at his calm expression and clutches the cup so tightly between her palms, her knuckles turn white.
“Aren’t you upset?”
“Should I be?”
“I’m literally the reason we’re in this mess. I’m the reason you got hurt, Shadow. You should be extremely upset!”
“Well,” Shadow says, sitting back on his hands, “I don’t remember it, so I don’t care.”
“What?!” Incredulous, Amy shoots up to her feet. “Then… Then I’ll tell you and make you remember it! And then… And then…!”
Shadow thinks of the past several hours he’s spent agonizing over her condition and shakes his head with ease. “Go ahead and tell me if you want,” he replies, “But it’s not going to change anything. I’m not upset at you now, and I highly doubt I was upset at you then. So, again, tell me if you want, but I can guarantee you it’s not gonna work.”
The pink hedgehog puffs out her cheeks in frustration. She looks off to the side and says nothing.
“Besides, I know I’m not the nicest guy around, but I’d have to be a genuinely fucked up person to try pinning the blame for any of this on you. Removing my inhibitors, getting hurt… What could you have even done about it?”
Amy’s eyes flash towards him. “You told me not to come with you,” she whispers with trembling lips. “You… You told me to stay behind with the others while you checked things out on your own, but I didn’t listen. I just… I don’t know. It just didn’t seem right to me, the idea of you heading straight into danger while the rest of us sat back and did nothing to help. So I followed you, and… I got in the way.”
She pauses to drop back down with a sigh.
“Just like always.”
Her story finishes, and Shadow finds himself compelled to get up and sit beside her. The sudden closeness startles Amy only briefly; after a quick glance, her body language relaxes and a heavy breath pumps its way out of her lungs. Shadow rubs the back of his neck.
“Listen, Rose… I might not be able to remember whatever happened out there,” he says. “But I’ve never once viewed you as someone who gets in the way of things, because you aren’t. You’re quite capable.”
Amy snorts with a shake of her head. “Capable? I lowered my guard at the worst possible moment and you wound up taking the brunt of it on my behalf. That’s capable to you?”
“Hey, it happens. And, what, are you really trying to tell me you could survive a fall from that height? I made a crater. You would’ve made –” Images of red-painted hallways and Maria bleeding out on the floor come to mind. He inhales sharply. “Look. I know you feel responsible for how things turned out, but if you ask me… I was probably happy to take the brunt of the battle for you. Even now, I’d gladly do it all again.”
“You’re crazy,” she mumbles.
“So are you. I can’t believe you’re beating yourself up over something that you wound up saving me from in the end. If you weren’t there, I’d probably be unconscious in the snow somewhere right now – Speaking. Of. Which.” Shadow crosses his arms and turns to half-heartedly scowl at her. Amy blinks. “You scared the shit out of me, passing out outside in the snow like that. Don’t ever do that again.”
“You? Scared? I thought you weren’t scared of anything, Mr. Ultimate Lifeform.”
“But I was scared,” he admits softly. Dropping his hands back down to his sides, he bites his lip and looks away. His chest squeezes painfully. “I was scared I was going to lose you.”
And for the longest time, Amy says nothing. She only sits there and stares at him, the air between them pulsing with a strange, quiet tension that neither seem to know what to do with. It’s only when Shadow hesitantly glances back at her does she finally react: dropping a hand down over his, Amy laughs warmly, tenderly, and blinks back tears.
“Funny,” she says, “I was scared of losing you, too.”
In spite of everything – or, perhaps, because of it – a small smile tugs at the corners of Shadow’s lips.
::
With Amy’s miraculous recovery, the panicked drive Shadow felt to get them both home as soon as possible diminishes, and he suggests that she rest for at least another hour or so before they attempt heading back. Her response to this is one typical of Amy Rose – clean up first and bathe, then she can rest. Shadow raises a brow at the chain of commands.
“The bed is filthy, there’s supplies all over the floor, and you’re still covered head to toe in blood. Not exactly the best conditions to rest under,” she explains. As she speaks, she strips off her jacket and unclips the suspenders of her snow-pants. The clothes fall to the floor in a muffled heap, leaving her to hurriedly clutch at the waistline of her thermal pants so they don’t fall away as well. She curses under her breath.
“Here,” Shadow offers, retrieving a roll of gauze. He unravels the appropriate length, rips it, and leans down so that he can tie it around her waist. Amy gives little reaction to the sudden proximity other than a small, somewhat flustered giggle.
Shadow suddenly becomes flustered himself. How did he go from shivering on moonlit sidewalks to this? His hands stiffen, and he fumbles with the knot cinching her pants together twice. Noticing his struggle, Amy reaches down to help. Her fingers graze over his.
“I got it. Thanks,” she says.
“N-No problem. I’ll, uh. Go heat up some water to clean myself off with.”
“Oh, wait! Let me help!”
“I can heat up water by myself, Rose. It’s not hard.” Going to fetch the electric kettle, he looks back over his shoulder at her. “I’ll boil some extra to wipe down the cot with. We can throw a blanket over it, too, if it’s still too dirty for your liking.”
“No, silly,” Amy laughs, rolling back her sleeves and the bottoms of her pants. The fabric gathers around her elbows and ankles. “Let me help wash you down.”
Shadow nearly drops the kettle in surprise. “Y-You – what?”
“Yeah! You did it for me, didn’t you? So let me do it for you.”
“Y-Yes, but that was – I wasn’t –”
“Only if you’re comfortable with it, of course,” she corrects. “It’s just that… You’ve been taking care of me all this time, haven’t you? So I’d like to return the favor.”
Shadow opens his mouth to speak, but Amy cuts him off with a smile that seems to fill every corner of the shelter with light. His lips tremble, and he breathes out in a slow, shaky exhale between them.
“Besides,” she adds. “Someone’s gotta take care of the Ultimate Lifeform every now and then, too, y’know? And who better than me?”
Suddenly, it’s as if the abyss between them was never so great and terrifying to begin with. As if he could step over it at any given moment, and it would be easy. So frightfully easy.
::
“You have really pretty fur and quills – I ever tell you that?”
Shadow stares down into the circle drain on the floor. Dark, red liquid steadily flows into it and disappears with every rinsing application of the washcloth, and for the life of him, he can’t bring himself to look away. Not even when Amy slows her movements and gently, carefully lifts his arm so that she can inspect it for any remaining dry blood. Her bare hands on him burn hotter than the water.
“You think so?” he asks, digging his fingers into his palms.
“I do,” Amy hums. She wrings out the washcloth and dips it back into the steaming bucket. “Especially in the moonlight. You capture it so well, it’s like you glow in it.”
“Huh…”
“Sorry, was that weird?”
“What? No, it’s just… I haven’t heard that in a while,” he mumbles, glancing at her. Sitting on overturned metal buckets around the drain, Amy’s close enough for their knees to be touching. The bewildering part of this to Shadow is no longer the lack of distance, but instead, how readily he now welcomes it.
After some time, he speaks again.
“Maria used to say the same thing.”
“Hm?”
“The thing about my fur and quills. Whenever the ARK would get close enough to the moon, she’d grab me and we’d watch it through the window together. And then she’d tell me exactly what you said, that I always seemed to glow in the light.” He pauses to huff out a breath of laughter. “You know what’s funny, though? We saw the moon every day, and yet all she could talk about was how badly she wanted to see it the way everyone down here does. She was obsessed with the idea, honestly… I never understood it.”
Amy moves on to cleaning his shoulders and back quills. “Why’s that?” she asks, her voice as gentle as her touches.
“Like I said, we saw the moon every day from up there. I figured there were better things to look forward to. Things like oceans, forests, mountains – to be honest with you, I could’ve gone the rest of my life without ever seeing it again.”
“So it was like an old piece of furniture,” she hums.
“What?”
“An old piece of furniture, like an end table or a coat stand by the door. You don’t ever really think about it, and compared to other things in your house, it’s hardly a piece you feel anything towards when you do. It’s just there.”
He looks back down at the drain. Everything’s red.
“Yeah,” he sighs. “I guess it was something like that.”
Amy retrieves the washcloth from his back, wrings it out, and brings it to his face. She dabs at the dry blood gathered around his temples. “I’m surprised, though,” she adds with a thoughtful smile. “I never would’ve imagined you felt that way about it. Between you and me, whenever I think of you… it’s usually the moon that follows.”
He furrows his brow. “Why’s that?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe it’s because you’re both just so mysterious,” she teases. Before Shadow can think to respond in kind, the pink hedgehog carefully touches her fingers to his chin and coaxes him to tilt his head back. He fights to remember she’s only cleaning his face. “That, or maybe… maybe it’s the way you silently watch over others, and how I always know you’ll be there… Yeah. I think that’s it…”
“Hmph. Makes me helping Dr. Eggman blow a hole through it so much more comforting to think about, doesn’t it?”
“Are you trying to start a debate with me about that again? Because you know I’m just going to tell you that it wasn't your fault every time.”
“Tch.”
Amy resumes her cleaning, and Shadow watches her.
He imagines reaching out and touching her face as he had done before. He imagines searing heat and bright, burning light engulfing the night sky. He imagines her leaning into his palm and closing her eyes.
“Hey… Back then, did you and Maria know about the ARK being this planet’s second moon?” Amy suddenly asks, breaking the silence. Shadow blinks and realizes that she’s watching him now, too; her eyes are tender and warm, yet lined with something mischievous. “Once a year, when it lines up right above the full moon and becomes one itself… Did you two ever know about that?”
Shadow says nothing. He only stares up at her, not breathing, not wanting to.
“I do wish she could’ve seen the moon the way she wanted to,” she continues with a small smile, “But I was thinking just now… Every year she spent aboard the ARK, she got to line up with the moon and become one herself. You both did, in fact. So I guess it’s no wonder you’re so amazing at watching over others, huh? You and Maria have always been doing just that.”
Oh.
His vision steadily blurs with tears.
“Shadow?”
She touches her hand to his face without the washcloth. There’s that heat again – Shadow squeezes his eyes shut and swallows thickly.
“Shadow? I’m sorry, did I –”
Unable to endure it a moment longer, Shadow leaps forward. He throws his arms around Amy, and the gesture is so thoughtless, so instinctive, he barely even registers it himself until he feels her hands slide up and around his shoulders. The swiftness of her response almost seems to suggest that she, too, has been waiting for this moment to come – that, up until now, she’s been holding back just the same.
“Rose?” he asks.
“Hm?” Amy smiles into his shoulder, her voice muffled. “What is it?”
“Thank you.”
“For what?” she laughs. “Talking your ear off since waking up?”
Shadow pulls away just enough to meet Amy’s expectant gaze. No, he wants to tell her, for waking up, for living; for allowing him to feel all the strange, impossible things he does when he remembers that they exist in this world together.
But Shadow doesn’t tell her any of this. He doesn’t even speak. He just cups her face in his hands and kisses her and kisses her and kisses her, until the abyss closes up and the grinning moon dips somewhere down the horizon, vanishing from sight.
::
They lie side by side, their bodies curled towards each other in the same manner they had when Shadow first came to. The only difference now is their joined hands, and the way their hearts beat together in a steady, synchronized rhythm: like the moon with the tides, and the sun with its pulsing rays of light.
“You know,” she whispers, squeezing their palms together, “I wouldn’t mind staying here for more than just another hour or two.”
Shadow huffs out a quiet breath of laughter and squeezes back. “What, don’t tell me you’ve grown fond of this place?”
“No, but I like being alone with you like this. It’s nice.” Amy presses her lips to the corner of his mouth, then to his chin. “You’re always so busy with work… When will you ever have time to sneak over?”
Shadow takes his other hand and places it on the warm of Amy’s cheek. She closes her eyes and leans into it with a smile. “Don’t worry,” he tells her. “I’ll make time.”
“Promise? ‘Cause I still want to talk about this with you some more later...”
“I promise. In fact, I’ll make so much time, you’ll be sick of me by the end of the week.”
“I’d never.”
“Careful, Rose,” he advises with a smirk. “I might hold you to that.”
“Oh, yeah?” Amy opens her eyes and challengingly matches his expression. “Go on, I dare you to.”
He chases after her lips again, laughter clipping in through his breath.
::
Sometime in between the next several dozen kisses they share, Shadow drifts off with Amy happily nuzzled to his chest. While he dreams, he feels a powerful, full body warmth envelop him. It’s Amy, though he doesn’t realize it. She is using her final moments before sleep to hold him firmly, tightly, and to whisper her thanks to Maria for keeping him safe.
The shelter around them eventually grows quiet and still.
::
“ – shhhh –”
“ – hold it steady, otherwise it’ll –”
“ – please send me those, I’m gonna hang ‘em on the fridge for him to – “
“ – hey, hey, keep it down, will ‘ya? He’s gonna –”
Shadow furrows his brow at the strange noises coming all around him. It’s only after another moment of what sounds like muffled giggling does he realize that, yes, it is giggling, and it’s coming from someone – multiple someones – other than Amy. His eyes fly open, and he bolts upright with bristled quills.
“Who –”
“TACTICAL RETREEEEAAAAT,” Vector hollers, snatching up Charmy and Espio in his arms and racing out the door. Shadow just barely has time to stare after them when another bothersome individual edges her way into his line of sight, smiling in a way all too reminiscent of a particular mad scientist.
“Rouge…?”
“In the flesh, Lover Boy,” she snickers, making a point of waving her phone in the air between them. Shadow blinks once, twice, then scowls as he comes to grasp what she and the others had been giggling about. “And here I thought having to rescue you would be the most delicious part of this moment – for once, I love it when I’m wrong.”
“Where the fuck were you guys?” Shadow seethes, keeping his voice down only for Amy’s sake. She continues to sleep beside him, her only movement the gentle rise and fall of her chest. Their hands are still joined. “I’ve been taking care of Amy for hours now!”
Rouge raises a brow.
“Not. Like. That.”
“You thought it, not me,” the bat says, holding up her hands defensively. “And I apologize for the fashionably late entrance, hun. We were tracking you guys down by the signal coming from your rings, but the one we chose to follow first had fallen into the sea. Took the geniuses back at base a lot longer than it should’ve to realize you wouldn’t be down there in the first place – well, not unless you had iron weights tied to your legs.”
Shadow runs his hand down over his face. He’s too tired to stay angry. “Good to know. And you brought the Chaotix with you… why, exactly?”
“Did you hit your head or something? They’re the ones who pitched us this assignment to begin with.”
“What? Did we have the afternoon free or something?”
Rouge rolls her eyes. “You really did hit your head, didn’t you? Guess that’d explain why this place reeks of blood, and maybe also how you got over your nervous school boy routine around Pink here.”
“My what?”
“Nevermind.” Rouge glances down at the sleeping pink hedgehog, concern at last weaving its way into her features. “What even happened out there? When you two went missing all of a sudden, I couldn’t help but think that maybe she’d gotten hurt or –”
“She saved me,” Shadow says firmly.
“Ah, no wonder you finally cracked. Nothing beats a hero, huh?” Smirking, the bat tucks her phone away and turns her back on the two hedgehogs with a wink. “Well, I'll leave you two to get decent. Meet us outside when you’re ready, sugar, and be sure to tell Amy we’re getting her medical treatment the moment we arrive back on base. Poor thing looks dreadful.”
“Shut up.”
“Oh, relax. You look even worse.”
Rouge exits on a peal of laughter, leaving Shadow to glance down at Amy in mild concern. Disheveled appearance aside, everything about her seems normal… Could he have missed something? Paranoid, he bites his lip and gives the pink hedgehog’s palm a desperate squeeze. The gesture rouses her immediately, eliciting a soft, sleepy sound from her lips that flusters him more than he cares to admit.
“Mm… Shadow…?”
“Rose,” he murmurs, holding her hand tightly. “How are you feeling? Can you get up?”
“Mmhmm…~” Her eyes flutter open. Blinking away the remnants of slumber, she yawns and meets his gaze with a drowsy smile. “Hey… I’m okay… Did you, ah, wanna head out soon, or…?”
His cheeks grow hot with embarrassment. Waking up beside Amy like this is something he’s eager to get used to – it might just kill him otherwise.
“Y-Yeah, uh.” He stops to take a deep breath, hold it in his lungs, and exhale in a nervously strained laugh. “Rouge and the Chaotix are here. They’re going to take us back to base, so… I think. I think it’s time to go, yeah.”
Smooth. Real smooth, Shadow.
But thankfully, Amy is either too sweet or too drowsy to acknowledge his bumbling explanation. Giggling, she pushes herself up into a sitting position and kisses his cheek. Shadow reddens. She does it again.
“Our nightmare honeymoon’s over, huh?” she teases.
“O-Our what?”
“Too much? Sorry.” Another kiss, this time to his nose. Shadow nervously darts his eyes towards the exit in fear that the others might be taking pictures again; thankfully, there is only a beam of sunlight streaming in from the outside to greet him. He blinks at it in slow, steady recognition and relaxes. “Hey, help me find my wet clothes, will you? I don’t remember where we put them… Oh, and I might’ve had a bag with me? I think? I actually don’t know if I left that out there or what, but I’d still like to check… Shadow? Shadow, are you okay?”
He blinks again and looks back at her. Amy frowns worriedly.
“Are you feeling alright? It’s not your missing inhibitor that’s bothering you, is it? ‘Cause I’m sure we’ll be able to get you a replacement in no time, so just hang on a little longer!”
“What? Oh, no, no, I just…” Shadow trails off. Of all the feelings bubbling up inside of him, it’s giddy excitement that breaks the surface first. He bites back a smile and ducks his head. “I’m looking forward to what’s going to happen between us from this point on. Forgive me if I’m a little out of sorts… I’m still coming to terms with the change and how much it makes me feel...”
Amy blushes all the way up to the tips of her ears.
“M-Me, too,” she sputters, scooting close enough for their knees to touch. “I’m also looking forward to things, so… so I’ll do my best and, um…!”
Shadow glances up at her and, with some effort, searches for her hand within the baggy excess of her sleeves. Once it’s been freed, he laces their fingers together and presses a kiss to her knuckles. Amy squeaks.
“Don’t worry about it,” he says. “You’re already amazing.”
“S-Shadow…!”
“What, you think I’m lying? Am I so dishonest in your eyes?”
“N-No, but –”
“Hey, uh,” Vector’s voice nervously calls from outside, bringing the moment to a screeching halt, “Real happy for you guys, honest, but we can hear every word you say from out here and it’s kiiiiiinda –"
“ – awkward,” Espio finishes.
“I agree,” Charmy tacks on.
“Well, I sure don’t,” Rouge shouts, the loudest of them all, “Keep going, baby!”
Shadow wastes no time in using the limited reserves of his Chaos Energy to storm outside and give them all the scare of their lives.
::
Through the backseat window of the Chaotix’s airship, Shadow watches the sun peek out at him through a layer of blue-grey clouds. Amy alone sits beside him; the other occupants, the Chaotix, are all bickering amongst themselves over whose fault it is they didn’t come through with a rescue plan sooner. Rouge is somewhere flying outside on her own.
“Hey,” Amy whispers to him, sliding her hand over his. “Are you alright?"
As soon as their hands touch, the skies clear for a single, golden moment, and light streams in through the window. He closes his eyes and allows it to fall over him like a veil. It’s warm.
“Yeah,” Shadow whispers back. He turns to look at her with a smile, the sun in his quills. “I am now."
::