Again, Shadow woke up in a hospital bed. Though the room was dark, Shadow could see it was the same one as before. A vase of flowers nearby. A window with a tree-tastic view. Mr. Eiglestein sitting in a- oh wait. No, no Mr. Eiglestein. Just an empty chair. Shadow looked down. The sling was now on the other arm. Great. Shadow settled back to wait out the night when a sound from the window caught her ear. A rustling of leaves. Shadow got up again and flipped on the lights, tiredly stumbled toward the window, flopped down in the nearest chair and looked out at the branches.
It was an understatement to say she was surprised when Sonic fell from a higher branch to land on the one right outside.
Sonic had been having a bad day. It had a good start; avoiding Amy, plus getting some actual sleep, plus going to his favorite diner, plus getting the best chilidogs in his life, minus a diner fight, minus some head trauma, minus Rouge telling him that Shadow was actually in town to kill him, minus knocking out said Shadow, and finally now- trying to find Shadow's room and nearly falling out of a tree in the dark. But it wasn't dark anymore…
When he had accidentally KO'd Shadow, he followed the doctors to the room where they had put her for the night. He noticed it had a tree out the window and decided to climb it in order to "visit" Shadow outside of visiting hours. Unfortunately he had lost track of time when he was unconscious earlier and when he was about twenty feet up, it got dark outside. While trying to pick his way out of the tree, he missed a step and fell down a couple of levels of tree branches, landing face-first on one he could actually see.
Sonic straddled the branch he had landed on and sat up; looking at the fluorescently-lit window that had sort-of saved his life and noticing the ruffled sheets of the bed on the far side of the room, the vase with the bunch of flowers. This was Shadow's room! He had found it! He almost celebrated, but he quickly realized the lights were on and bed was empty. Where was the occupant of the room?
Shadow caught her breath, one hand over her chest; the other in a sling. She leaned against the wall right next to the window, slowly leaning away, trying to convince herself to look out the window- just to make sure she wasn't having some freaky kind of dream or something. She slowly peered around the edge of the window, out into the tree. Sonic was still there. He waved at her. Shadow cautiously waved back. Sonic pointed at his wrist. She shrugged, exaggeratedly.
"We're having a real conversation," muttered Shadow, to no-one in particular. "The first one in years."
Then Sonic began pantomiming things Shadow couldn't understand.
I…ear pull … shoe. No- no wait, socks! No, legs? Ear pull legs tree branch. Starting over? Eating? Eating shiver barking-like-a-dog... Um. Tail wag.
This was going nowhere, fast. Shadow looked around for something to write on and noticed a clipboard on the inside of the door with a pen attached to it by a string. That would work.
Apparently Shadow wasn't into charades. He left the window and came back with a clipboard, holding it up to the window after taking a moment to write on it.
"WTF."
Very subtle.
Shadow turned to the next page and wrote some more.
"I'M SORRY."
He was writing fairly big. Did he think Sonic was blind or something? Oh, wait.
"FOR 4YEARS AGO."
That one was kind of squished onto the page. Sonic frowned. It wasn't Shadow's fault. Sonic shook his head and pointed at his chest before touching his cheek near his eye and tracing a line down to his chin. He held up four fingers and wasn't entirely sure how to pantomime years, so he pointed to his wrist again.
No, I'm sorry for four years ago.
Shadow read this as "No. I cried for a long time."
"I'LL MAKEIT UPTO YOU."
"SOMEHOW."
Sonic pointed at Shadow, made a hand motion for "no," drew a shape in the air and karate-chopped through it, put up two fingers, made a wide gesture, unable to think of a way to sign "do that," put up four fingers and pointed to himself.
You don't have to do that for me.
"You can't. Karate-chopping-circle to the world for me."
Shadow wasn't happy that Sonic wasn't accepting his apology, but she was also irritated with the weird pantomiming.
"ISTHERE ANYTHING"
"I CANDO???"
Shadow seemed distressed, his eyebrows twisted upwards, his shoulders shook. Sonic made the "no" motion again and drew the tear on his cheek again.
Don't cry.
"No. I cried."
Shadow got worse. She started writing something on the page, much smaller than before, her pen scratching across the page with emotion in every line. This was bad. Did Shadow take it the wrong way? Maybe he thought Sonic was insulting him, saying he was a crybaby or something? This was bad. This was bad.
Shadow threw the clipboard against the window and disappeared out of the angle of view the window provided.
"JUSTBECAUSE YOUCRIED DOESN'TMEAN ANYONE THINKSANY LESSOFYOU. AREYOU THATSHALLOW? WHYARE YOU EVENHERE TRYING TO TALKTO ME IF YOU ARE ONLY GOINGTO MAKEME FEEL BAD? DOYOU WANTTO SEEME CRY? YOUWANT REVENGE? IWON'T LETYOU. Iwontletyou."
This required drastic measures. Sonic shuffled forward as much as the bending bough would allow and knocked on the window as loud as he could.
Poink! Poink! Poink!
Shadow shook her head. She was as curled up as she could get, sitting on the floor near the window, crying her eyes out. No. She wouldn't give him what he wanted. No. No.
Poink! Poink! Poink! Poink!
Never. He had hurt her enough. Enough for one night. Enough for one lifetime. First thing in the morning she would buy a plane ticket and get the heck out of this town. Find somewhere else to live. Somewhere with fewer jerks.
Poink! Poink! KURRRAACCK!
Shadow jumped up and looked out the window. Their eyes met. Sonic's pupils had been mere pinpoints in his green irises, surrounded by dinner-plate-sized sclera, but Shadow saw them dilate a bit as Sonic signed one last phrase.
He pointed at himself. He drew a heart-shape on the window. He pointed at Shadow.
I love you.
"I love you."
Shadow's eyes had been wide with fear, but as she and Sonic mirrored each other, each putting a hand to the glass, they softened in understanding.
They grew wide again as Sonic dropped out of sight, taking the whole tree branch with him. Shadow screamed.
Why did the hospital have to have plate-glass windows?
