AN: As I've promised, it is here! Shadow's POV, folks! Dig in while I go dig myself a hiding spot! Have fun!

Chapter 34: Between the Lines

"Agent Rouge, even if I understand your reasons and sympathize with them, we both know your actions cannot be left without repercussions."

"Of course not, Sir." Rouge knew she'd be facing some pretty severe consequences for keeping the situation secret before she even made that call. But Shadow's life was more important to her than her own interests. "I'm ready to accept whatever punishment you deem fit," she assented. Cooperation was the best route to take with Commander Towers. Even prior to her call, he'd known something strange was going on with Shadow thanks to Madonna, but instead of demanding from her to explain herself immediately, he'd decided to trust her and simply observe from afar. It was only right to return the trust. "My only request is to remain updated on Shadow's health."

"I've expected as much." Towers nodded. "You shall be. Now, as for you—"

-O-

For the time being, Rouge was to be suspended and have her freedom of movement restricted. She was ordered to remain in a specific room at the base where she was to stay until the situation was resolved and only after would the Commander reach the final decision of what her punishment should be in this matter.

Rouge was fine with that. At least, she was in the same building as Shadow even if she could not be with her friend; he'd been taken to the restricted part of the base that people had access to only on Commander Towers's order and she herself was locked on the opposite side of the complex.

However, as hours ticked by without any updates—which was both welcomed and nerve-wracking because it meant that Shadow was still there, still fighting Eggman's serum who knew how many rooms far and how many floors below—it meant Rouge's mind was bound to eventually start to wander without anything else to occupy it.

She thought of the mess that was the wisp situation with Witchcart. She thought of Omega whose repairs should be already mostly finished at this point. She thought of Amy and her strange behavior when Rouge had brought her to the hospital. She thought of Tails and Sonic and how exhausted they must be of it all just like her.

She leaned her head against the wall behind her, sighing as her thoughts were once more drawn to the ebony hedgehog himself because of the last two. She really hoped the antidote would come soon. It had to, didn't it?

If she had put all the puzzle pieces correctly from what she'd overheard and observed, the duck doctor that got loaded onto the truck along with them had been Tails' main contact helping them to deal with Shadow's situation. And the Commander had ordered for him to be take in, so he could clue in the team of GUN scientists that were assigned to the task of finding antidote for Shadow. Certainly, they'd be able to figure it out quickly when they already had some findings and material from the doctor at their disposal; along with the duck doctor, the GUN squad had also confiscated all Shadow's samples he had; with Shadow's unique situation of being an Ultimate Lifeform as well as half-alien, GUN had always been uptight about his biological material being handled by outside entities because they worried about potential misuse of Shadow's DNA for nefarious reasons. Rouge found it sort of ironic, considering that when Shadow was created it was for the sole purpose to be the organization's spy and assassin.

She sighed once more as she let herself slump to lay on the bed she was provided with it. Even if the GUN scientists had been provided with what they needed, it would be foolish to assume they could whip an antidote up in a few hours. She probably had a day or more to wait before any sort of progress was made. So, it probably was fine for her to finally rest for a few hours...

She was granted eight of those before a knock on the door rouse her from her sleep.

-O-

"How is he?" Rouge asked as she was allowed to step into the restricted part of the GUN HQ, the metal door behind her locking back into the place the moment she stood beside her supervisor.

"Stable for now," Commander Towers answered and motioned her to follow. They continued down the corridor, two armed guards walking both behind and ahead of them. Rouge tried to not look too uncomfortable about that. "Agent Shadow's treatment is being overlooked by Doctor Thorn. He used to be a part of the research team concerning the Project Shadow aboard the Space Colony ARK, but nowadays specializes in chemical warfare. Considering the circumstances, we deemed him the most qualified to deal with this troublesome situation."

"Certainly, Sir."

They stopped before another metal door and one of the soldiers knocked on it. Not long after a bald man with a gray beard in a white lab coat emerged from the room. He had a clipboard in his hand and a displeased expression to his unfriendly face. Rouge disliked the man on sight.

"Doctor Thorn," the Commander addressed the man. "How is Agent Shadow?"

"The subject is awake and responsive." A frown marred the doctor's lips as if he was not happy about this development.

Rouge herself was happy about the news, but she could not ignore the way in which it was delivered—the terribly callous way the man was speaking about her friend. "The subject has a name," she very much growled at the man. If she didn't already disliked him before, she would certainly do now.

"Of course," Doctor Thorn assented, but the tone alone in which he said it was enough for Rouge to say he did not care at all and would continue to address Shadow as he himself saw fit.

The Commander gave her a stern look but did not reprimand her or the doctor for the disrespect. Instead—"Any other development?"

The doctor pushed his half-moon glasses up his nose. "The subject has displayed a concerning degree of aggression and violence in the past half an hour. I propose moving him into a higher level containment because current precautions have proved inadequate."

Towers frowned. "What happened for you to come to such conclusion?"

"Please, see for yourself, Sir." The doctor stepped out of the way to let them in what appeared as an observation room to Rouge from the outside.

She followed Towers into the room, taking a quick, mental catalog of the place. There were many screens displaying all sort of data, several cabinets and what appeared to be some sort of portable examination station in the corner, microscopes and other similar instruments occupying that particular space. There were two other spooked-looking scientist, the duck doctor from before, looking serious, as well as two soldiers, who had their guns trained on a window that took up one entire wall. The window was cracked and the soldiers looked anxious as they watched whatever was on the other side.

Rouge stepped closer to take a better look at the room behind it. Her insides twisted in a mixture of shock and worry at what what she found.

There were scorch marks on every single wall of the room as if somebody had gone to town with a flamethrower in there. There was a simple hospital bed in the room, flipped over with the mattress and all the bedding looking like an absolute mess. There were strips of leather dangling from the metal frame of the bed, torn to pieces. An IV bag laid on the floor, transparent liquid oozing out of a big cut across the plastic wall of it. There was a plastic tube still connected to it and when Rouge let her gaze follow it, she found a catheter at the end of it, covered in a splash of blood. There was a trail made of droplets of the liquid and when Rouge's gaze continued along it she found the source.

Shadow was huddled in the corner of the room, blood smeared all over his forearm, hands and the few torn leather straps that were still wrapped around his limbs. He was leaning heavily against the wall with his left side, one leg propped up, so he could rest his elbow on his knee and his head against the palm of his hand. His entire body was trembling but that seemed to be more of a physical reaction than an emotional one, his stare completely vacant and his expression slack and free of emotion as he stared sightlessly at the wreckage of his room.

"Gaia, what happened?!" She twisted around to face the scientists, who seemed to jump a little at her tone. "What did you do?!"

"We've done nothing," doctor Thorn spoke once more as he stepped back inside, pushing his half-moon glasses up his nose. "The subject simply woke up and proceeded to destroy his room. He did not listen to any of our attempts to calm him down, though it was obvious he understood what we were saying. He's been sitting in the corner for about an hour now, refusing to acknowledge any of us beside telling us to 'piss off' to quote him."

Shadow... Rouge laid a hand on the intact portion of the glass, trying to asses what on Mobius was going on in her friend's head. She had never seen Shadow look...empty like this.

"I believe it's obvious the subject is volatile and refusing to cooperate. Therefore, he should be moved—"

"Let me talk to him," Rouge cut in the doctor's assessment, knowing she needed to get to the bottom of this. She needed to know the reason behind Shadow's outburst to decide whether higher security was warranted and if not defend his case; she did not want Shadow to be subjected to more than was necessary.

The doctor turned to her sharply. "Woman, do you think you—"

Commander Towers raised his hand to gesture for Doctor Thorn to silence himself. When he did with a sour expression on his face, the Commander turned towards her. "Agent Rouge," Towers addressed her, his heterochromatic eyes assessing her, "you do realize that agent Shadow is not himself at the moment? Even if you two are friends, he might still end up attacking you in this state. Are you willing to take the risk and accept all responsibility for whatever might happen to you?"

She did not hesitate. "Yes, sir."

"...Allow her in, then." He motioned for one of the soldiers to accompany her towards the single entrance to the room which was a level below the one they were currently at.

Once before the door, Rouge took a deep breath before stepping inside once the light turned green. The heavy metal door slid back into place once she was inside and she could hear the soldier who had accompanied her enabling all the locks on the other side.

Let's get on with this. Rouge let out a slow exhale as she turned towards Shadow, finding the male still sitting in his corner, not acknowledging her presence—if he even noticed her arrival that was.

"Shadow," she called as she began to slowly make her way over to him. She felt the eyes of the many humans looking at her from above, but the crimson eyes she actually wanted to see did not even flicker to her. Come on—! "Shadow," she tried a little louder with a little more insistence, but a black ear barely twitched, even though she was already halfway there. She came to kneel before the other. "Shadow, it's me Rouge." Tentatively, she reached out and slowly placed it on the closest body part to her—a dark furred knee. "Hon, please, talk to me."

Shadow sighed, at last. "...Why are you here, Rouge?" Unfocused red eyes turned to her and Shadow sounded just so tired as if the weight of an entire world had come crumbling onto him and he was just done with it all, bone-weary tiredness visible in every little move. Though, she supposed he had the right to feel like that, considering he'd almost died only like twelve hours ago and had now woken up in what was more of a cell than a hospital room.

Still, Rouge could not feel but a little elated at hearing her friend actually talking again. "As support." She dared to move her hand to his shoulder. "To ask how you're doing."

Shadow snorted as if he'd heard a great joke. "How I am doing? How do you think I can be doing right now, Rouge?" The crimson were suddenly full of fire and Shadow's tone so bitter and angry it caught Rouge off guard. "After doing that? Letting some fucking serum get the worst of me and—"

"You weren't in control of yourself, Shadow," Rouge tried to placate the other, wanting him to know that she was still on his side; violence was simply Shadow's to-go answer when he found himself in a tough spot or a stressful situation and obviously waking up in what was essentially cell would trigger the response in him—and the whole point of the serum had been for Shadow's emotions to rule him rather than his sound judgment, so it was not to be unexpected he had exploded before he'd the time to properly assess the situation. That was not on Shadow.

"It's all Eggman's fault," she insisted, planning to say exactly the same when she'd speak to the Commander later. As well as Shadow, she too knew that despite Towers putting his trust in Shadow, Towers had always been on the look out for volatile behavior in Shadow after the almost-fall of ARK and then the alien invasion—in both of which Shadow, unfortunately, had a significant, undeniable involvement—and was ready to return Shadow back into his cryogenic chamber containment if Towers deemed it necessary for the safety of the people of Earth. But Shadow should not be punished for something that was out of his control.

Shadow snorted as if finding her argument amusing. "That's not an excuse for me not controlling myself—I should have but did not. I thought myself to be better but I failed exactly when it mattered most."

Rouge's lips pressed into a thin line. Shadow had always been hard on himself when it came to letting himself succumb to negative emotion like that since the mess that was the ARK and the invasion, but this seemed a little disproportional to what she was used to. He acted as if he found destroying his 'cell' on par with those two. It was not. He'd been—still was—being affected by Eggman's serum. Commander certainly realized it too. Shadow was not to be blamed here.

Thus, she reiterated it, "Shadow, it's not your fault—"

"Is it, Rouge? I don't think we'd be having this conversation if it wasn't," he challenged her, his eyes getting just a little harder. "I'm locked up here for a reason." He gave a laugh, and it sounded both scorned and self-deprecating. "I'm quite surprised you are still talking to me, too."

Rouge scowled at the remark. As if a single bout of destruction—where nobody had even gotten hurt, might she add—could make her change her mind about him being her friend.

"I'm never gonna give up on you, Shadow."

"You should," he said and something in his tone told her that he already had.

Rouge's frown deepened. She did not understand why Shadow felt like that but reasoned it was just Eggman's serum cranking up Shadow's self-loathing and other negative emotions to eleven. She knew he hated what GUN had molded him into aboard the ARK but it had never came out with such a force. Of course, this could also be just finally the straw that broke the camel's back. Either way, Rouge was determined to prove to Shadow that he was not the lost cause he believed himself to be—by convincing the Commander of the same. However, that, of course, won't be possible unless Shadow starts cooperating.

She opened her mouth and hoped she'd be able to pull him from whatever dark crevice of his mind he was currently stuck in and convince him to do exactly that.

-O-

A few hours ago before Rouge had arrived, Shadow had still been writhing in agony.

He felt as if somebody had shredded his muscles into individual fibers then promptly proceeded with scraping what remained off his bones and then sewing it all back on with a barbed wire. His insides felt like he had been stabbed in several places, his liver being the main sources of the sensation. His body was drenched in sweat and yet his own skin felt seared like he was being roasted alive. When he turned his attention inward, he did not find his mind in much better state. It was a total mess, nothing but randoms sounds, sensations and glimpses of things that passed way too quickly for him to even be able to recognize what they were.

The last time Shadow had felt this bad was when he was recovering from impacting on Earth as an essentially living comet after he'd fallen all the way from the ARK after having teleported it back to its stable orbit after the battle with BioLizard.

What had happened to him?

He doubted he'd taken another dive through exosphere and all the following atmospheric layers again, though he could not be totally sure with his mind as scrambled as it was. Still it was unlikely, and so he tried to focus on remembering as far as his mind would allow him.

A mission. He'd been on a mission, he recalled after a few several long moments of struggling. He'd been in Eggman's base, looking for information about the doctor's next plan. He'd fallen into a trap. But he hadn't been alone. Somebody had fallen into the trap with him. Rouge? No. Not her. It was...Sonic. Sonic had been there with him.

Hands curling into fists with the little strength they still possessed, he let out a pained groan as the realization just made his brain explode with images. All loud sounds and bright colors and there was too many of them—

It was all coming to fast and he wasn't able to process them properly, managing to take only a glimpse of one before another was already pushing into its place—it were memories, he realized—but not memories he'd have prior to the mission that he was certain of.

Why was there so much Sonic in all of them—?

He tried to sort through them—there was so many and so many different locations, several days must have passed at least since Eggman's base—but he managed to find some consistency. Sonic was almost everywhere and they'd been looking for Chaos Emeralds and often enough there was some mention of a serum—oh, the doctor had given him the serum that was probably why his memory was so scrambled and why he felt like an absolute shit.

He tried creating a time-line of events but he had no reference to determine which events preceded which, so he could only guess and hope he was remembering things in order—they'd fought against somebody called 'Witchart', there had been a festival or something, an illegal underground fighting matches, an EG racing championship too—?

Shadow's head was pounding already, too much information coming all at once, but he forced himself to power through it, wanting to know what exactly had happened. There was so much Sonic and, wait, what—? Shadow had kissed Sonic at some point, what the—?!

His mind latched onto the memories of the hero like a hungry leech, and, with a shock, Shadow realized, he had not kissed Sonic once but had apparently done so several times. All of it were glimpses, nothing but frozen moments in his mind, but he remembered it all crystal clear, down to the distinct smell of petrichor and forest than always clung to Sonic, the silkiness of the blue fur and firmness of muscles hidden beneath it, and the feel of the small scar that adorned Sonic's bottom lip that was barely visible even under the right light but which Shadow could vividly recall how it felt when pressed against his own lips—

Shadow did not understand. How? How it came to him kissing Sonic?

Since the moment he'd recognized what they were, Shadow had decided to keep all the feelings and attraction he felt towards the hero buried, determined to never let anyone know of his infatuation with Sonic. Most certainly not Sonic himself. For he was no fool.

He knew pining for the hero would gain him nothing but potential pain and humiliation down the road if he ever decided to confess his feelings or Sonic somehow learned of them. Putting aside the facts that Sonic might not be interested in men or relationships of romantic variety at all, Shadow had been downright nasty to the hero for the majority of the time they'd known each other and considering the way they had started off—Shadow first framing Sonic and then working to blow up the planet Sonic loved so much—he doubted Sonic had ever even considered him a possible choice of a partner.

Sure, Shadow was working for the good side now, had improved his attitude and started treating Sonic nice instead as an annoyance, and, yeah, Sonic called them friends but Sonic's use of the word was so frequent and loose, it really could not be used to determine what Sonic thought of anybody he called that. It held no real weight.

And anyway, even if Shadow was better now, it did not erase the past; and even if Sonic was not one to hold grudges, Shadow found it impossible to believe Sonic had ever forgiven. Plus Shadow's cold, standoffish, and pessimistic nature certainly did not match Sonic's affectionate, ball-of-sunshine personality in any way. Why would Sonic ever be interested in someone like him? Anybody be interested in somebody like him?

Therefore, with his downright evil past and his rather unlikable personality as a bow on top, he did not believe that love was something that could happen to him and he most certainly had not expected that if it did come, it would come from Sonic himself of all people. Most of all, he'd never even entertained the idea that his feelings could ever be reciprocated—

However, as Shadow's mind continued to reel and roll the tape of his memories, he realized he might have jumped the gun when he realized that all those memories were after all frozen moments and they could all easily be stolen ones—an assumption confirmed when among all the downtime in between these moments where he and Sonic were emerald-hunting—he presumed—were also memories of Sonic keeping distance between them or looking uncomfortable.

Then Shadow also started to remember the pushing away—

Once. "—time to reintroduce you to the term knows as 'personal space'. You used to be very fond of it—"

Twice. "H-hey, stop! Rule 2!"

Thrice. "Stop! We really need to leave!"

Four times— "Shadow, I'm sure we can talk this out—"

Shadow felt his blood turn cold as the memory continued on—Sonic backing away while trying to talk sense into him, being caged against a wall by himself in a tiny cell with no escape, Sonic struggling to push him off—Shadow tasted his own blood on his tongue, felt the fury at Sonic biting him—he'd lunged onto Sonic once more, and, and—

The memory ended, nothing but a gaping void greeting Shadow when he scrambled to remember what happened after. But no matter how much he tried, no memory ever came forth. But there was no way it had ended well; when sparring the two of them were matched, but they weren't the same, with Sonic being a tad more agile, and Shadow being on the stronger side. However, in such close quarters as they'd been, Sonic had no chance to maneuver and in that way get an edge on him as in their usual fights—

Shadow's stomach plummeted as he recalled blue-furred flesh trembling under his touch and shaky breaths in his ear.

Bile rose in his throat.

No, he couldn't have. He was not that kind of a monster.

He refused to be.

Emotions quelled inside him and Shadow suddenly become aware of the faint traces of another's chaos energy floating among his own and it took only a heartbeat for him to identify the chaos signature. It had no reason to be there. Such things occurred only if one chaos user performed a chaos technique on another user such as when instinctively defending themselves when in panic—

No.

Shadow's eyes snapped open, bright artificial light stabbing him in them, but Shadow did not care. Crimson eyes looked frantically around the room, finding concrete walls surrounding him and a big observation window on the wall right across his bed. There were three humans in white lab coats staring at him from up there, two unfamiliar, one vaguely.

Shadow's eyes turned to slits when he recognized the face disfigured by the wrinkles of old age, remembering the scientist as one of the few that particularly enjoyed putting him through all kind of downright sadistic experiments back on the ARK. An involuntary growl was born deep in Shadow's throat, his anguish mixing with long forgotten wrath and Shadow yearned to get up and release the onslaught on the man to pay for what he'd been put through and give way to the emotions swirling inside him, but Shadow found himself unable to—crimson gaze snapped over to his own body, finding himself tightly bound to the bed by numerous leather straps. He was also hooked up to an IV bag with a clear liquid that Shadow had no doubt was some sort of sedative.

The set up was achingly familiar from his time on the ARK. The one they'd employ anytime he got out of control—or that was at least what they called it anytime he reached his snapping point during his so-called 'training'—and severely mangled somebody or was about to.

Shadow squeezed his eyes closed to escape the sight even if he knew what it all meant. It all had to be true then. He'd done so, after all.

His hands curled into such tight fists that his nails broke the skin of his palms, causing sharps stings of pain that were lost on him in his emotional turmoil. But no amount of self-flagellation would be able to change the past anyway. And this time around there was no chance of redemption nor atonement for the past either.

There was nothing he could do to right the wrongs this time.

Absolutely nothing.

And thus, Shadow just threw his head back and screamed, thrashed and raged, releasing the torrent of emotion inside him into the physical world, loathing himself for his own betrayal and despising the unfairness of it all.

His bindings snapped, not able to withstand the power of his fury. An alarm sounded and the lights were flickering red, but Shadow did not care, and just let his hands destroy and enjoy it as he'd been taught to do ever since before he could even understand it was a wrong thing to do.

After all, that was all he had ever been—even if some people, him including, had dared to believe otherwise. But that was not true. He'd crossed the final line of monstrosity and just proved that underneath the civilized facade he was nothing but a savage animal, nothing but a bringer of destruction and suffering, destined to turn whatever he touched to ruin. As the GUN officers aboard the ARK had molded him to be.

So, he just destroyed as was in his nature, letting the world know what kind of vile beast it had allowed to exist.

-O-

"You know—" Rouge inclined her head. "—I've never been good at following directions of what I should and shouldn't be doing." She gave him a wry smile. After all, just look where she was now. She let the smile slip off her face to instead be replaced with a hint of seriousness. "But you will need to be now, hon. They want to stuff you into even worse cell because of this—" She gestured vaguely to the mess he'd caused. "—However, I could talk them out of it if you actually started to cooperate. Can you do that for me?"

"Rouge—"

"Please." She gave him the look she only ever used when she needed him to listen to her. "Let them help you. And try to stay calm. I don't want you to go into another cardiac arrest."

Shadow blinked in confusion. "Cardiac arrest?"

"Doctor's serum did quite a number on you, darling," she explained, figuring Shadow just didn't remember. She didn't know how conscious and aware he was when it'd happened. "So do me a favor and don't almost die on me again. At this rate, I'm going to get wrinkles before I'm even thirty from all this worrying about you."

She expected Shadow to give at least an amused snort at her remark, but the hedgehog instead regarded her with a strange expression on his face. However, before she could puzzle out what it was that her friend might be thinking, Shadow gave a simple short, "...I'll try," and the muscles of his face relaxed back into the emotionless mask he normally wore.

"I'm holding you to you word," she said, giving a squeeze to Shadow's shoulder before finally standing up and walking over back to the metal door that was the only way out of the room.

She gave him a last look and a small reassuring smile before the metal door gave away once more, and she was let out of the room.

As she walked away, in her subconsciousness, gears continued to turn as Rouge could not quite shake off the impression that she and Shadow had not been having the same conversation.

As she walked away, red eyes followed her, a small spark igniting deep in their depths.

AN: ...Probably not what you were hoping for, eh? *in a whisper* Shadow is my favorite character. I swear.

Anyway, from now on, Shadow will join the main POVs cast, so keep your eyes peeled for more drama with our favorite hedgehogs!