~Ğøōđbýę~

~11~

*Four Years Earlier*

Just opening the door to Sonic and Tails' shared home seemed to panic Shadow. That became especially clear when Shadow noticed people staring at both him and Sonic.

Knuckles was the first to walk up to Sonic and Shadow, giving Shadow a quick glare before looking at Sonic. "Why is he here for Tail's birthday?" Knuckles asked. Sonic shrugged "He's a friend isn't he?" He asked, tilting his head. Shadow stepped closer to Sonic very discreetly, Sonic barely noticing. Knuckles shook his head, poking a bruise on Sonic's arm.

Sonic winced and backed away, almost knocking into Shadow. "That's new." Knuckles aggressively commented, glaring at Shadow. "You didn't have that an hour ago, now you turn up with Shadow and you're black and blue." Sonic rolled his eyes. He put his arm around Shadow's waist and brought him in closer, Shadow tensing up very slightly. "I fell off of a palm tree." Sonic explained - he wasn't lying, he was just bending the truth. "It isn't your party anyway, is it?"

Knuckles rolled his eyes and clenched his fists with a growl, squishing the plastic cup he was holding. "I can't believe you'd pick him over us." (Not that deep Knuckles :P) Sonic glared back at Knuckles, Shadow now easing into Sonic's forced side hug. "You invited Rouge and Tails didn't invite her. If she's your plus one consider Shadow mine." With that, Sonic walked away, his arm still around Shadow's waist.

Tails was more than happy to see Shadow, thanking him for comming and going so far as to invite him to a group picnic Amy was organising for next week. Shadow became more comfortable around everyone and everyone had a pretty good time - aside from Knuckles who mostly sulked.

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Shadow now had full recollection of the events on the ARK with Sonic and the gang. He couldn't get over the crocodile disintegrating into the space colony and controlling it however. It made no sense and no one could argue with it.

"Did you give my rings to Rouge?" Shadow asked. Sonic nodded with a smile "The same rings you have on now - I think." Shadow stared at his wrists and played with the rings for a few moments. They were scratched, slightly dirty and far from brand new. One even had a small dent about the size of a bullet engraved within it.

"Yeah... they've been through a lot." Sonic laughed, Shadow didn't get the joke however and instead stared at Sonic blankly. "You'll remember soon." Sonic encouraged. Shadow nodded, deciding he would probably need to wait before forming all of his opinions. "It's weird..." Shadow sighed "I despise you, but I respect you from what I can remember." Sonic nodded "I couldn't make any sense of it either." The lapiz hedgehog explained, looking over to a book on the shelf.

He grabbed the book and walked back over to Shadow, sitting with him on Sonic's bed. It was a mint green in colour with silver words printed on the front, reading 'photo album'. It looked old, but also new. The edges of the cover were creased and going white yet clean and seemingly delicately handled by everyone.

Shadow watched Sonic for a few moments as he stared at the book in thought. He had noticed how much of an affect he had on Sonic. He had noticed a rift both grow and close between him and Amy also. Shadow had found it weird Sonic had cared for him so much - he had been gone for quite a while apparently and so could only chalk it up to relief. Nevertheless, it weirded Shadow out that he was basically a walking corpse.

Sonic eventually opened the book, an overwhelming amount of pictures catching Shadow's eye. Sonic flicked through the pages slowly, as if he was also reminding himself. He explained most of the pictures to Shadow, such as one of him, Sonic and someone named Silver - an ivory hedgehog with golden eyes who occasionally visits.

He said they were all a close group of friends - in the photo Sonic had engulfed past Shadow in a hug. Shadow noticed how happy he seemed in the photo, how he didn't mind Sonic throwing his arms around him or how he didn't mind the ivory hedgehog taking the photo.

Sonic continued to flick through the pages, opening one and abruptly closing it once he saw what was on it. This confused Shadow more than anything, all he had really seen of the page was a very small glimpse of what appeared to be himself.

He must have been in a club of some kind and had his arms outstretched and his eyes closed. He could just make out a nose belonging to someone else; a lot of his muzzle being hidden by a peach one. Shadow jumped back, startled.

He clearly had someone special in his life, someone he had left and everyone hadn't mentioned. They were probably hurting, unaware that he was back.

"I had a partner?" Shadow asked Sonic. Shadow noticed the lapiz hedgehog grow slightly red as he shuffled around - possibly to buy himself some time. "Well... you did have a boyfriend at one point in time." Sonic spoke reluctantly, carefully choosing his words and being intentionally vague. "What was his name?" Shadow asked. Sonic shook his head "It doesn't matter. He cheated on you." Sonic hurriedly replied.

"Who cheated on who?" A voice suddenly asked. Both Shadow and Sonic jumped, looking to the bedroom door to see Amy. She had two cups of coffee in her hand. She placed one mug - a pink one saying drama queen - on Sonic's TV stand before handing Sonic his own mug. "Shadow's ex." Sonic said. Shadow noticed the nervous look he gave Amy.

As if on queue, Amy saddened. She nodded her head and faked a smile. "Yeah, he was a great guy..." she paused, looking to Sonic before looking to the ground. "Until we found out he liked someone else and never even like m- you!" Amy sighed, as did Sonic.

Shadow never understood the complications between Amy and Sonic. All he could really gather was that sometime in the past the two had been seeing eachother. He wasn't sure if they still were, were on a break or had broken up, but the latter seemed to be the most likely. He couldn't help but pity them slightly.

"Yeah... he didn't deserve such a wonderful person." Sonic responded, looking to Amy instead of Shadow. Amy just nodded and took her mug of coffee and exited the room.

"Why were you talking about yourself and Amy instead of my ex?" Shadow suddenly asked, startling Sonic. "Also who did you actually like?" Sonic shook his head, taking a sip of his coffee before placing it in the bedside table and returning the photo album to the shelf "Well... I liked some guy." Sonic explained as he turned to Shadow. "He was a little older, and was actually to do with you."

Shadow tilted his head. Were these people intentionally cryptic for fun or did they just hate explaining things?

"So you liked my ex?" He asked abruptly.