Something Special

Sometimes you find something special about one person, something you never would have expected to find from them. Normally couples can point out whatever they love or hate about one another without difficulty. But, other times, they can only pinpoint what makes them want to start a huge fight with the other.

It doesn't always turn out like that, but with Shadow the Hedgehog and Rouge the Bat, it just did. They want to find that something special, but there are so many bad days between the two, they never bother to.

One day, while Rouge was making dinner (she didn't trust Shadow in the kitchen after the last time he experimented with the food), she thought back to their earlier years, before they got hitched and had their two kids, Unikey and Ruby. As she listened to the TV show they were watching just in the other room, she thought about how happy they had been before.

Now, the only happiness they had was when they had to fake it for the kids.

She blew a stray hair away from her face as she stirred the soup in the pot that was giving off a heavy steam. She sighed as she heard Shadow come in the door. He was in a terrible mood, as usual.

"I'm home," he grunted from the front door as his shoes thumped onto the floor. Unikey and Ruby cheered and ran towards him. Rouge could feel his mood increase as he saw his kids.

Rouge smiled for one while thinking about her husband. He was such a good dad. Protective, caring, loving, and he always listened to them. They adored him, and she loved him for that.

She also thought about how his nose crumpled up when he laughed, as rarely as that happened. It was so cute, and it always made her giggle a bit.

There was also the way his quills bumped into place when he woke up, no matter how much he tossed and turned. It was the funniest thing.

As she began to become lost in thoughts of the things she loved about her man, she found herself giggling like a lovesick teenager. She felt the best she had in a long time, and she was just thinking about the guy who she normally wanted to strangle on a daily basis.

He heard her giggling and became curious, one eyebrow raising over the other. He gently put down Ruby who was climbing on his back and told the young ones to go to the living room where they had been previously. Preparing to enter yet another whispering battle with Rouge, he was shocked to see her staring at him with a loving look on her face.

She wasn't on the phone or anything like that like he'd been expecting. She was waiting for him, and it wasn't to fight. It was because she was in a good mood. Or bad, and she wanted some "relief."

"Hey Shadow, how was your day?" she asked, approaching him slowly. He quickly glanced at the pot on the stove. She saw this action and laughed, not mockingly, but just...humorously. "Don't worry about that, it's still got maybe ten minutes on it anyways."

Her smooth voice gave off a sense of youth, unlike how it normally sounded, which gave off a sense of anger and hate. What was she up to?

"Rouge, are you okay?" Shadow asked, pulling Rouge from the one-sided embrace. "You are acting...weird."

"Well, I was just thinking about you, as dumb as it sounds. I started thinking about everything we've been through, and I was also thinking about everything about you that I love about you. Like, how you cross your legs when you go deep into thought. Just little things."

Shadow seemed taken back, though it was flattering. He observed Rouge, and noticed her wings, which were twitching as she spoke, a rare thing that only happened when she was excited about something. Her eyes were also sparkling, like the stars had appeared in the middle of the day.

They just looked at each other, suddenly picking out the little things they loved about one another. Ruby and Unikey could do nothing but stare, trying to keep themselves from laughing. They didn't know that their parents were repairing their marriage because they didn't know it didn't need major repairs.

Rouge suddenly felt the presence of her kids, and just as they finally stopped gazing at each other, the couple looked at their kids with relief that they didn't have to fake their happiness anymore. They could finally be happy and not worry about the little fights.

The kids rushed towards their parents, Unikey running towards his father, Ruby running towards her mother. The parents picked up their children, then felt a little shocked by their sudden query.

"What were you guys doing?" they asked in unison. Rouge glanced at Shadow, who was grinning as if he were Sonic.

"We were just finding something special."

The kids and Rouge were satisfied with his answer.

The End