What If…Shadow Survived?

A Fanfiction By Stoney, A.K.A. 'The Defenestrator'

Chapter Two: Distant Relations

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"One of the oldest human needs is having someone to wonder where you are when you don't come home at night."

--Margaret Mead, 1901-1978

"Anybody who believes that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, flunked geography."

--Robert Byrne, 1930-????

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Western Province – Mirlojo Village

July 10, 3236

8:47 p.m. CMT (Central Mobian Time)

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"You just wait 'till ya meet him!" Ben exclaimed proudly. "He's gonna be so happy! We all thought you were dead, ya know."

"Yeah, I'd guessed you would have." I admitted, biting back the boredom I was starting to feel, and the doubts creeping into my mind. What if Ben was lying? What if his dad WASN'T Maria's brother? What if...? I shook my head to clear it, scolding myself for being so pessimistic. I'd find out for myself what was going on in a few minutes, anyway.

Ben led me up a narrow paved street lined with plain wood-and-brick houses, built in the traditional squarish Earthen style. He pointed out one in particular that seemed to be more well-kept than the rest, and guided me up its walk until we stood in front of the door. "This's my house, Dad should be inside. Hang on an' I'll get him!" The young boy opened the door and scampered inside with the kind of speed that only children possess, calling out for his dad the whole way.

I was left alone on a neatly-trimmed lawn in the middle of an unfamiliar settlement, feeling like a dozen pairs of unseen eyes were watching me. I scratched the back of my neck nervously and willed Ben to hurry up.

Presently there was a creak as the door opened. In the shadows of the doorframe stood a man. He stepped forward into the light, allowing me to see his face.

* * * * *

"Hey, Shadow?"

The black hedgehog sat cross-legged on the floor, content to be seated there rather than in a chair. He looked up from the novel he'd been reading, an ancient Echidnaen text on the Chaos Emeralds. "Yes, Maria? What is it?"

A pale human girl sat on a large bed nearby with her back facing him, protectively hugging a pink teddy bear to her front. Her delicate feet dangled over the edge of the mattress, as she gazed longingly at a small, framed picture she held in one hand. "Do you..." She paused, and was glad Shadow couldn't see her blush from where he sat. "...do you ever wish you'd had a family? I mean, a normal one...you know, with a mother and a father?"

Shadow closed the book and placed it next to himself on the carpet, expression thoughtful. "I've never really thought about it before," He admitted. "I suppose it would be kinda nice, I guess. But I don't think it really matters as long as you and the Professor are around--you're all the family I need."

Maria remained silent for several moments, and something that sparkled in the room's light trickled down one cheek. "I wish I had your optimism..."

Shadow stood up, concern taking hold when he heard the sad note in her voice. "What's wrong? Maria, are you okay?"

She turned to look at him, and he was startled to see numerous tear-streaks marring her otherwise-perfect features. Her eyes were wet and shiny. "Maria?" He gasped, hurrying over to sit next to her. "Why are you crying?"

The girl wiped at her eyes in a futile effort to stop the tears, but couldn't. She closed her eyes and bowed her head, looking crestfallen. "I still miss them," She murmured meekly.

"Who?"

"My family..."

Shadow noticed the image in the frame that Maria had been holding. It was a photograph depicting a slightly-younger version of herself sitting astride the shoulders of a large, smiling, red-bearded man. He looked to be in his mid-thirties, from what Shadow could tell. Standing next to this man with his arm wrapped around her shoulders was a tall and elegant woman -- her most distinct feature seemed to be the long, flowing blonde hair that careened like a frozen waterfall down to just below her waist. Her belly was round and heavy with unborn child; it was obvious she was in the later stages of pregnancy.

"That's my mommy, my daddy, and me from a few months ago, when they visited me on my birthday," She explained after looking up to see him eyeing the picture. "They weren't able to stay very long because mommy was still pregnant, and they said that being in outer space wasn't healthy for her..."

"Pregnant with whom?" Shadow asked, studying the faces with a mixture of curiosity and wonder.

"My brothers, Ivo and Ian..." Maria's eyes filled with more tears. "I...I miss them all so much..." Her hands began to tremble as she fought to control her emotions, to not break down in front of Shadow......but the feelings of lonliness and despair were too strong to keep in check. She bit her lip, shoulders shaking, and Shadow placed an arm on her shoulders. Internally, the hedgehog's worries increased, and he felt extremely awkward. What was he supposed to do in this kind of situation? Comfort her, obviously, but how?

After a brief pause, Shadow settled on voicing a suggestion Gerald had made to him at one time when he was feeling particularly frustrated with his Chaos Training.

"It's okay, Maria...just let it out, you'll feel better afterwards," He assured her. His words had a profound effect; like a final crack in the supports of a dam, all of the girl's restraints vanished and allowed her feelings to rush forth. The picture and stuffed animal both fell to the floor as she held her face in her hands and sobbed, wishing more than anything to be back home again. She didn't flinch when two supportive arms encircled her, nor did she make to move away when Shadow held her close. In fact, she did just the opposite, throwing her arms about his neck and clinging to it like it was her only hope for survival.

She listened to him whisper comforting words in her ear while she let go of her pent-up anxiety: "Ssh...Maria, it's all right...they're still around, they can come visit you like they did then...it'll be okay...just cry it out, that's it...there you go..." She nodded but said nothing, silently thankful for the comfort that he lent. Despite being relatively young by human standards, the ebony hedgehog could act remarkably mature sometimes--almost as if he'd become fully-grown emotionally while staying in the physical body of a young teenager. Right now, she appreciated that fact more than ever.

Finally, after a seeming eternity, she managed to calm down and lightly pull away, sniffing and drying her eyes with a shirt sleeve. "T-thank you, Shadow...I-I needed that."

"Are you okay now?" He asked, still worried.

Maria gave a small nod. "I'll...I'll be fine." She bent down and picked the photograph back up, letting out a deep sigh. "You know Shadow, I hope you'll be able to meet my parents someday. They're very nice, you'd like them."

"I would?" Shadow blinked. "What about your brothers?"

She nodded. "You'd be able to meet them, too. I think they're a couple weeks old by now."

Shadow gazed at the floor, withdrawing into thought. "That...would be nice." He fidgeted uncomfortably for a couple moments, than abruptly stood up to head for the room's only entrance and exit. "I've got some Chaos Training to do, now. Shall I meet you back here later?"

Maria smiled. "Sure. Oh, and Shadow?"

He paused in the middle of closing her door behind himself. "Yes?"

"Thanks again."

Shadow smiled in return. "You're welcome." He shut the door, and was gone.

* * * * *

I looked steadily at the blonde male that leaned on the doorframe in front of me. He was fairly old by human standards, somewhere in his early-to-mid fifties--as the many wrinkles and laugh lines around his eyes testified. A shoulder-length, tied-back ponytail swung behind him, complimented by the small beard and stubble around his chin. Dressed casually in a short-sleeve polo shirt and blue jeans, he gazed at me with twinkling sky-blue eyes. They're colored just like Maria's, I realized with a pang.

"So, you're the Shadow I've heard so much about." The man grinned warmly, sticking out a hand to shake. "I'm Ian Robotnik. Welcome home."

I was admittedly stunned by this statement—welcome home? What did he mean by that?--and stood there for several moments, staring in surprise at Ian and shaking his hand. Finally the human released my arm and stepped aside in a gesture of invitation. "Come on in; we have a lot to talk about."

* * * * *

I blinked. "Uh…wow."

Ian grinned. "Nice, huh?" He closed the door and walked forward. "I bought this house during a post-war economic depression, so it was dirt cheap. Really, it was just lucky chance that I found it."

I trailed behind him, looking at the wealth of miscellaneous objects that adorned the walls. A sunken den took up the room's right half; in there was a couch, several chairs, a large TV, and many shelves of books. A large rectangular dining table was placed in the middle of the room, with multiple chairs arranged around it. The kitchen adjoined the area's right side, and near the back of it was a door leading on further into the house.

"It's bigger than it appears on the outside." I admitted, examining a collection of carved stone arrowheads that had apparently been dug up from somewhere and framed before being hung on the wall as they were. I turned to look at Ian. "You've got good taste."

"Thanks. Come on, I'll show you around the rest of the house if you want."

I trailed behind the human as he led me through door after door, showing me the many far-flung areas of the house. It soon became obvious that Ian had to be at least slightly wealthy to afford it, economic depression or no.

"Ian, what do you do for a living?"

The man stopped in the middle of gesturing towards a bathroom. "What?" He asked.

"Your job. I was just curious."

He frowned, though it didn't seem directed at me. "Government." He answered shortly. "Can't say anything other than that."

"Aw Dad, come on! Give him a break," Ben groaned from the next room over. He walked in and waved at me. "Hi Shadow. Dad's a scientist, but he likes to be reeeeeal secretive 'bout it. Must run in the family, I guess."

Ian gave his kid an irritated expression that looked so exactly like one of Prof. Gerald's annoyed looks, it gave me chills.

"You're a scientist?" I spoke up.

"I can't say anything." He gave Ben a pointed look, silently daring him to disagree.

He did. "Dad, knock off the secrecy already. G.U.N.'s gone; it's not like anybody's gonna shoot you if you talk now."

I went rigid.

G.U.N.?

Ian seemed furious. "Ben…" He growled, voice low. The nephew of Maria, meanwhile, seemed to be getting angrier by the minute.

"For God's sake, Dad, he's Shadow! I thought you'd understand that HE of all people deserves to know!" The kid burst out. "You've been moping about it for years now, but here's your chance to make up for it! What are you waiting for??"

Total silence descended upon the area. Not a soul moved.

I took a deep breath, and let it out. Did I really want to know this? Was I about to find out something…horrible?

"What's going on?" I asked.

Ian dropped his head, leaning against the wall with a heavy sigh. "Ben, go to your room."

The kid drew himself up taller. "No way! I'm gonna stay right—"

"NOW!" Ian roared, looking angrier than ever. He stood up and marched over to Ben, picked the kid up by his shirt, opened one of the room's entrance doors, and threw him into the hallway beyond before slamming and locking the door shut.

"There we go." He breathed, looking at me while brushing stray hair out of his eyes. I couldn't help but notice he seemed slightly panicked. "Don't mind him, he's always making up stories about me—"

"HEY! LET ME IN!" Ben's muffled voice demanded from the other side of the door, followed by several muted 'thump's as he beat on it with his fists. Ian raised his voice to speak over his son.

"—overactive imagination and all that, you know how kids are—"

"DAD!!" Ben yelled. Ian's voice got louder.

"—the doctor suggested we give him some sort of medication, you know, to help calm him down—"

"OPEN THE DOOR, OR I'LL TELL SHADOW RIGHT NOW!"

Ian froze. "Uh…"

Apparently, he took too long to decide, because Ben began to yell again. "SHADOW, HE WORKED FOR G.U.N. AND HELPED THEM RESEARCH THE—mmmmmmpppphhh!" This last was issued as a muffled cry as Ian hastily unlocked the door and entered the hall. He poked his head back in a few seconds later with Ben tucked tightly under one arm and a hand over the kid's mouth.

"Sorry, but could you excuse me for one second?" He left before I could answer. Several minutes later, he came back alone. "So sorry about all this, he just gets excited when he meets new people. So anyway, this is the guest bathroom…" He stopped speaking when I glared at him.

"G.U.N.?" I snarled, arms crossed and hands balled into fists. "I can't believe it! I must be hearing things! Tell me it's not true, Ian. Tell me that you didn't join up with the same people who killed your sister. Tell me!"

He seemed to shrink before my gaze. At first, he looked like he was trying to form some sort of excuse to justify himself, but apparently nothing came to him. He finally sighed, lowering his head. "Shadow, it was just a job—and besides, I don't work for them anymore. You can't blame the whole organization for something a couple of generals ordered."

"SURE I can! Just WATCH me!" I ranted, waving my fists in the air. "I just can't BELIEVE it! YOU, of all people! What in the Entities' names made you join THEM??"

"Well, at first I thought I could help ruin them from the inside out…" He muttered quietly, staring at the floor.

"THAT'S NO EXCUSE! Why, I oughta—" I stopped suddenly. "Wait. What did you say?"

"My parents waited until I was seventeen before they told me about Gerald, Maria, and the ARK. They claimed they'd kept it a secret so I could handle it better when I did learn. Well, they weren't quite right; I didn't take it very well. I was horrified and outraged that someone had taken my sister from me before I even got the chance to know her."

I felt a sudden bout of sympathy for Ian in that moment, but I buried it under my angry, hurt feelings. I had to remember that I was mad at him. He took a deep, somewhat shaky breath, and continued.

"I wanted to hurt them. Make them pay. And I knew that like most military organizations, the best way to do that was from the inside out. So I joined them. They were happy about it—after all, they'd lost Gerald not too long before and needed a replacement—but I soon found out they were far from stupid when it came to handling potential traitors. I'd planned on blowing the whistle on a few of the more illegal acts G.U.N. had participated in…but nobody trusted me with any major information, and I never managed to make a dent in the group. Most importantly, I learned that not all of them were cold-blooded killers like I'd thought. I eventually realized it was wrong to persecute an entire group for the actions of a select few."

"So you quit." I stated, hoping and praying it was true.

"Yeah. Select few they may be, but they controlled G.U.N., and the organization was still deep in illegal operations. I couldn't just report them outright to the police or media like I'd wanted to, though—thousands of honest, hard-working people who weren't involved in the illegal stuff would lose their jobs if G.U.N. went under."

My anger slowly fizzled out as Ian spoke. I began to understand some of what he was saying, though I fought my best not to as it went against a good chunk of my beliefs. I knew that not all humans were bad, but I'd always thought that every person enrolled in G.U.N. was. Ian was saying different, and I was all too aware of how wrong it would be for me to try and enact vengeance upon the group when innocent people might get hurt as a result. Besides, Maria wouldn't have wanted me to hurt anybody, even those who'd ordered for the ARK to be invaded…damn. So they were just going to go unpunished? It didn't seem right, but neither did any of the other choices I had.

Now I know why people rarely look at the big picture. Knowledge of a situation is paralyzing.

I decided to switch my line of thought to something else. Okay, so Ian was better than I'd thought. He wasn't a traitor. That's good. And he'd quit of his own free will. That's even better. I was a bit skeptical about his description of G.U.N., though—the day of the ARK's invasion, all the soldiers I saw wearing their uniforms sure seemed heartless to me. But then again, my memories could be twisted around from my personal opinions and Maria's death. Who was to say what those men really thought and acted like at the time?

Dammit, now I was back where I'd started.

I let out a sigh. "How long ago was this?"

"Five years to the day, next month."

I stayed silent. He looked up, changing the topic to something less depressing. "Hey, uh…do you still, you know, want the tour of the house?"

I slowly nodded. I could live with this knowledge. Hopefully. "Yeah. Uh…what did Ben mean by you moping about it?"

"I joined the organization that single-handedly killed my family. Of course I felt guilty."

I didn't feel completely satisfied with this answer, but decided to let it slide for now. After all, I'd only just met the guy. Who was I to try and read his emotions so soon before getting to know him? He might be completely different from what I think he's like… "So who are you working for now?"

He turned to give me a secretive half-smile. "Government."

I snorted at him. "Still can't talk about it?"

"Nope!"

"Okay, then answer me this: is it in any way, shape, or form related to G.U.N.?"

"That'd be a big negative. It's federal government, not military."

"Fine. Let's just keep going. Which part of the house is this?"

* * * * *

It took a while (or so it seemed to me, at least) to get through every room; my first assumption was right, Ian's abode was huge. At one point I considered calling it a 'mansion' instead of a 'house', since it certainly fit the part. Then I decided it wasn't so, as mansions generally had several floors with dozens and dozens of rooms each; Ian's home was just two stories tall, and there were only around twenty to twenty-five rooms total inside it. Eventually we'd entered and exited every nook and cranny that could be found, with the exception of one.

"And this, is Maria's room." Ian finished, opening a door. Before it had even opened all the way, I'd sucked in a sharp breath at the name.

"What--?"

Ian blinked, then looked sheepish. "Oh, I forgot to mention her, didn't I? She's my daughter. I named her after my sister, Maria Senior, whom you knew way-back-when. She's still young, 'round five if I'm not mistaken." He scratched his head uneasily and dropped his voice to a whisper. "At times, I've gotta admit that there's something a bit…odd about her. She doesn't act like other kids her age, but she reminds me of Sis a whole lot. Maybe too much, actually…"

I was barely listening. Among a room of bright, cheerful colors and fluffy materials sat a lone human girl, tiny and delicate. A river of gold tumbled down her back, covering the one-piece blue flannel pajamas she wore. She appeared not to have noticed our arrival.

I walked into the room without knowing I was moving, eyes transfixed upon the small figure sitting on the floor in front of me. The child was playing with several wooden building blocks, each of which had been delicately carved with a letter of the New Mobian alphabet. My breath caught in my throat when the child turned to look at me, because in front of her were stacked three letters; A, R, and K.

"ARK." I exhaled, voice a whisper.

She peered curiously up at me, and I found himself unwillingly returning the gaze. Though small, she was the splitting image of the Maria I'd known—right down to the two forelocks that were parted in the middle of her forehead. Her baby blue eyes were very bright with some sort of hidden intelligence.

"Hello." She chirped. A sound somewhere between a gasp and a surprised yelp was her only reply: though slightly higher-pitched and younger-sounding, her voice was the same one I'd known all those years ago. After a pause, she pointed at me and asked, "You're Shadow, aren't you?"

I tried to reply. Chaos and Order so help me, I tried. But speech was impossible. My mouth moved soundlessly for several moments as a heavy feeling rose up from within, strangling my chest, making breathing difficult. Dizziness overcame me. I closed my eyes and turned away, gasping for air and swaying. Luckily Ian recognized the warning signs; he rushed into the room in time to catch me as the world spun and went dark, leaving me collapsed on the spot.

* * * * *

The first words that came to my mind after regaining consciousness were pretty eloquent ones, considering my state of mind at the time.

Ow, I thought. That hurts.

I groaned. The world's largest convention of bathtubs had decided it would be a grand idea to go tap-dancing inside my brain. They were currently hammering out a fancy little number, making my skull throb with the kind of dull agony that only comes from repeatedly slamming one's forehead into a blunt object.

The air became several microscopic knives that stabbed into my eyes when I opened them. I squinted, wincing from the pain.

"Ow! Chaos, that REALLY hurts."

A head popped into my field of vision, blotting most of the light out. "You okay?" The little Maria girl asked. It took me a couple moments to realize she must've been sitting beside my bed while I was out, and then it took even longer to think of something to say in response. But before I could speak up, she put a hand to my forehead.

"Daddy says you've got a bit of a fever," she reported matter-of-factly. "He said you'll probably be in bed until tomorrow."

My reaction was completely unexpected to the both of us. As soon as I felt the delicate sensation of the girl's fingers on my fur, emotion welled up in me and just burst out. "Maria," I whispered, face scrunched up from the effort of not breaking down into hysterics, "it really is you in there…isn't it?"

The girl's eyes softened. Looking up into them, I suddenly felt numb. I was unable to do anything but stare—my limbs seemed paralyzed all of a sudden. Thank you, arms and legs, for abandoning me in my time of need. And here I'd been, thinking all my body parts were supposed to be on my side. Silly me.

The moment passed, luckily, and the girl turned her head away. Her expression seemed oddly pained for some reason. "I…um…" She seemed about to say something big, but changed her mind and stood up to walk out of the door to my room. "…get some rest, okay?"

"But, wait-!" I called out. It was too late, the door had just shut behind her. I let my outstretched hand drop back to the bed with a sigh. "What's going on…?"

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