Hey Everyone! Been a while, eh?

For your paitence, I decided to give you a post-Teaching Darkness, pre-Teaching Darkness: Visions story. This is set a week after story one... so Shadow won't exactly be nice to Mephiles...

Great news: I passed my senior exhibition... so that means I get to graduate! I can't belive it's almost time to end school now... 13 plus years go by a little fast, but at the same time slow, y'know?

Anyway... I'm keeping you away from the story... so, here... please... enjoy :D

Mephiles sneezed, groaning at the sight of the slimy stuff that had trailed onto his crystal hands. This was his first time he could ever recall being sick; the Scepter of Darkness never had germs of any kind, so he could admit (if he was willing to…) that his immunities weren't very strong for a hedgehog of his age.

All because of that stupid water…He thought heatedly as Rouge handed him a box of tissues.

"Rouge, why are you babying him?!" Shadow said loud and coldly, his red eyes narrowed at his shady counterpart. "Do I have to keep reminding you what he did to us?!"

Rouge sighed heavily. It had been a week after the whole "Shadow-being-controlled-by-Mephiles" ordeal, Shadow still (and who could blame him?) hating the sick hedgehog that had taken residence with them, who's cold had worsened somewhat as Shadow's was gone just but a few days ago.

"Shadow, we've been through this already…" The bat said, her patience with Shadow's stubbornness wearing extremely thin. "He's very sorry about what he's done, wants to start over, and realizes the wrong in what he did…"

"I say he's just playing us…" Shadow said quickly, skimming through a T.V. Guide for anything worth watching. "We already know he's manipulative… so what's to say this isn't another one of his little plots, eh?"

Mephiles' ears flattened against his head as he sank lower into the couch, tissue to his nose, his eyes watering from both the comment, and his sneezing fits.

"I said I was sorry…" He murmured, turning his attention to his feet. He had only had them for a week, so seeing something there was something he was learning to get used to.

"'Sorry' doesn't change the fact you invaded my brain." Shadow said quite coolly. "'Sorry' doesn't get rid of the fact that you made me hurt my friends… 'Sorry' doesn't erase the fact that you tried to manipulate me to your advantage… 'Sorry' doesn't help you at all…"

"Shadow… just give him a chance…" Rouge said, hoping to fix this before the situation got bad. "After all… he's a lot like you…"

Shadow raised an eyebrow.

"Come again?"

"I mean… both of you are results of experiments created to help people…" Rouge explained. "You both had something traumatizing happen in your early days… both of you were misled… both of you were…" She stopped, hoping to word this right. She took a breath. "Both of you pretty much had your early lives ruined by GUN officials…"

"I didn't kill his best friend in front of him…"

"But you did stuff him into that Scepter…"

"I had to! He's evil!"

"And what did he do the moment he came into existence?"

"… He… ran?"

"Because..?"

"Because he was going to do something bad, I don't know! I didn't really have the time to ask him when I'm in a time period I wasn't supposed to be in… that portal could have closed up at any moment!"

"… Actually…" Mephiles spoke up for the first time since his admission of his apology. "… I was running because I was scared…"

"Yeah, right… of what?" Shadow snapped, casing the sick shade to flinch.

"… Th-there were de-dead bodies and glass everywhere… and you were ch-chasing me…" Mephiles stammered, his ears nearly disappearing under his quills.

"They were only dead because of the explosion that created you!"

That hit Mephiles hard. He shifted his gaze back down to his feet quickly, staring blankly as he lost himself in his mind with that one thought. He fell silent, his features free from any emotion.

Rouge was about to demand that Shadow apologize to the shade, when Shadow set down the T.V. Guide magazine, stood up and headed for the door.

"I'm going outside for an hour or so… you probably want me to think about what I've said or something…"

A little surprised, Rouge nodded.

"I'll see what I can do…" Shadow said calmly. "I'll see you in a while…"

And he left Rouge with a stunned Mephiles.

Silence.

"… He's… he's gonna hate me forever… huh?"

Rouge turned her head to look at the crystalline hedgehog who was now staring at his arm, tracing a crystal claw along it, blue fur scraping off under his finger, a disheartened look on his face. He looked away from what he was doing, closed his eyes and lowered his head, his claw still moving up and down his arm. He let his other fingers join with it, and stayed silent for another minute, before yelping out in pain.

Looking down at his arm, they saw that a couple of his claws had broken the skin. Blood pooling lightly from the wound, Mephiles looked sick at the sight of it, the memory of his most recent and previous injuries (which were nearly done healing… apparently he had accelerated healing compared to most other people…) still present in his mind. He let out a weak moan, and closed his eyes quickly.

Rouge took a look at. It wasn't really all that bad.

"I can take care of this for you…" She said softly, trying to calm him down, as he started shivering, obviously not okay with this accidental self-inflicted wound. "Let me go find the first aid kit… there's some bandages and something to kill the germs…"

"Eh..?" Mephiles said lightly, an ear perked. He wasn't really paying attention; his brain seemed to have tuned out for a moment.

"I said I'm going to take care of this for you…"

"… oh… o-okay…" He said softly as the bat left to find the kit.

She returned within a few minutes, finding the shady hedgehog to be string at his scratch with disgusted interest. He didn't seem to notice her at all… at least until she sat down on the couch next to him.

He jumped slightly, and turned his head to stare at her.

"You don't seem to really be accustomed to seeing your own blood, huh?" Rouge asked him.

He nodded slowly, and let out a shaky sigh.

"To be honest…" He confessed. "This week was the first time I have ever seen it… Shadow was actually the first to injure me in all of my time of existence…"

"Yeah… Shadow's pretty tough…"

Silence as the bat wiped at his arm with antiseptic, then folded up some gauze and taped it to him.

"… Can I ask you something?" Mephiles spoke up.

"Hmm?"

"Why did you choose to do that for me? The wish on the Emerald?"

"Because you deserved a second chance…"

"After all I did?"

Rouge paused, and tried to hide a smile.

"Someone I know was just as bad once…"

"I bet they didn't almost destroy the planet…" Mephiles looked away.

"They almost did twice…"

Mephiles' ear twitched and both perked up.

"You're just saying that…"

"No, really… they were just like you… misled by some tragic event, and wanting to stop at nothing short of the destruction of the planet and the ones who did them wrong…"

"Too much of a coincidence…" Mephiles shook his head. "I say you're just making that up…"

He stopped for a moment, twitched his nose, took a deep breath… and sneezed again.

Letting a frustrated growl roll of his tongue, he grabbed another tissue wiped his nose.

"How do you stand these 'colds'?" He barked, his previously perked ears now flat against his head.

"Well… it could be worse…"

"What could be worse than having your nose blocked up to where you can't breathe right, stuff coming out of your nose and a constant sneeze you can't shake?"

"Well… you could have the flu…"

"Flu being what?" Mephiles had never heard of this, so naturally… he was curious.

"It's an infectious disease that gives you the chills, then a fever, sore throat, coughing, malaise… that's a lot worse…"

"Okay…" The shade said slowly, raising an eyebrow. "Repeat that, please… then explain the meaning of each phrase except 'sore throat' and 'coughing'… because I have no idea what those others are…"

The bat explained to the hedgehog, looked a little surprised at the end of it. He turned away murmured: "Okay… I take it back… it could be worse…"

Silence again.

"But, Shadow's gonna hate me forever… huh?" Mephiles raised the question again.

"Not forever… maybe for a while… but I don't think forever…"

"He doesn't really like me…"

"Well… it's only been a week… he still needs more time…"

"I've known you for just as long, and you don't hate me…"

"That's because you saved me and any other future lives…"

"But it was because of me we were even in that situation…"

"True… but you learned you lesson, right?"

"There was a lesson in nearly getting killed?"

"Not a literal one, per se… what I mean is that you learned that what you were doing was wrong… right?"

"Yes…"

"Besides… how do you hate someone who saved your life?"

"Good point…"

Just then, Shadow came back inside.

"I decided not to be gone too long…" He declared as he closed the door. "I've also decided that I may have gone too far… but that doesn't mean I'm gonna like you…" The last part was directed to Mephiles. "So don't think I'm gonna be as nice as Rouge… At least… not for a while… a long while…"

Mephiles nodded slowly, showing him that he understood. He didn't wasn't him to get mad at him again.

"Glad we understand each other…" Shadow with somewhat of a joking smile.

Mephiles nervously returned it, and Shadow nodded and left the room.

"He… he kinda scares me, now…" Mephiles said to rouge, his ears still flat against his head.

"That's just how he is… He's not really as mean as he seems… I think he's mostly mad at you because of the whole 'invade-his-brain' and causing me to get hurt somehow…" She lifted her right wing carefully, which had now been properly treated and was well on the mend, but still could not be used. "He doesn't like it when somebody does any of the two…"

"I kinda figured that…" Mephiles looked down, staring at his feet again.

"Just give it some time… I'm sure he can't stay mad forever…"

"I guess so…"

Pause.

"Hey, Rouge?" Mephiles quickly turned his head at the bat.

"Yeah?"

Mephiles paused for another moment.

"Thanks…" He finally said, with a small smile.

Rouge returned the gesture.

"No problem…"

And then... Mephiles sneezed into his hands again, and groaned.

Thought I forgot about his cold, huh? No... not really... I've been waiting to write it in :D

Hope you liked it

RaeLogan