Disclaimer: I don't own Sonic the Hedgehog.

A/N: If you haven't seen "Sonic the Hedgehog: The Movie," I again recommend it! Besides being an overall great movie, it also shows how Sonic probably deals with sadness. And if you've beaten Sonic Adventure 2 or Sonic Adventure 2: Battle, you kind of get the same feeling from him...

"Metal?" Tails repeated.

"Yeah. The robot. Hyper Metal Sonic," Sonic repeated, clarifying it.

"What does Metal have to do with Shadow?"

"You don't understand. You just don't understand," Sonic said.

"Understand what?"

"Metal. He died."

"Yeah. I know."

"And I could have saved him."

"Oh." Tails nodded slowly. "I see..."

"You probably don't." Sonic shrugged. "I mean, this is why I don't live in the past. Too many things that happened." He stared off at the sun, which was setting slowly.

"Bad... things?" Tails asked. "Like... Metal's death and when we all thought Shadow died?"

"Not exactly..." Sonic said. "I've always been fast. I've always been able to run fast, and I want to keep going ahead. But thinking about the past is like going backwards. I can't change anything that's already happened, so I might as well move on. Like I say, I'll never look back, I've got no regrets, because the world doesn't wait for me..."

"You choose to go your own way," Tails finished.

There was a few minutes' silence. Sonic tried to start again. "I guess... in a way... I'm trying to keep Shadow safe, be nice to him, all that... kind of to make up for Metal."

"...Shadow isn't Metal," Tails reminded him quietly. "Metal was just a robot--"

"I know, I know..." Sonic waved it off, knowing that no one but himself would ever truly understand Metal... "But like I said, you really don't understand..."

"What?" Tails asked. He stood up. "What don't I understand?"

"You didn't really know him," Sonic said, a little frustrated. "Do you know what happened there, in the ice crater? Right before he melted into the magma?"

"No."

"He... I... we were both totally beat up and exhausted. I mean, he was completely broken all over, and that's really something when you're made out of metal. Then he saved the president and Ojisan from the airplane, but then it exploded..." Sonic shook his head. "He fell into the crater where the magma was. Then I ran in after him... and Knuckles ran after me... And he was crawling away from the bottom of the crater, away from the magma pool, and I kept going forward, going in after him. Then Knuckles grabbed onto me and wouldn't let me go. But I kept trying anyway. Then, we almost reached each other..."

Tails saw Sonic frown.

Sonic continued. "And... at that last moment, he slapped my hand away. And then he told me... 'There is only one Sonic... Then he was gone..."

Tails nodded. "But what does this have to do with Shadow?"

"When I saw Shadow falling..." Sonic said, staring blankly at the ground, "it was reliving the past all over again. I saw Shadow... but I also saw Metal... it was like I had let him down again. I'd let him kill himself all over again. I'd let them both killl themselves."

"I didn't know Metal all that well... and I don't know Shadow all that well, either... but from what you've told me, it kind of sounds like Metal knew what he was doing... but Shadow didn't have any control over it," Tails reasoned.

"Shadow could have used Chaos Control too," Sonic said. "We were both in Super form when he started falling."

Tails began. "But why--"

"Because. I didn't want to," Shadow answered Tails' question, appearing right behind Tails and Sonic.

"Shadow!" Sonic exclaimed. "What are you doing out here?"

"What I'm doing is none of your business," Shadow answered. "And it's none of your business as to why I chose to do what I did." He turned and started walking back to the airplane-house.

"Shadow, wait," Sonic called after him, scrambling to his feet.

"Mm?" Shadow turned his head and looked back.

"Why... why didn't you use Chaos Control before you entered the atmosphere? It would have been a lot easier on your body..." Sonic asked weakly. "If you did it anyway..."

Shadow's eyes flashed. "Like I said. None of your business." Shadow turned and walked back indoors.

Tails stood up and walked over to Sonic. "He's right... it isn't..." he sighed.

Sonic groaned and ran a hand through his quills. "And that, my friend, is why I don't like to live in the past..."

~*~

Shadow heard Sonic's comment from outside. He whispered to himself, "Maybe that is for the best... I should stop living in the past too..." He walked to the chair and fell asleep in it again. But he couldn't ignore a pain, a feeling of emptiness and sadness, gnawing away at his heart and mind...

Shadow thought, as he dreamed... he remembered hearing somewhere...

"If something isn't working out the way you wanted, you are doing something wrong."

The old professor had said that...

"What am I doing wrong..." Shadow whispered to himself.

"Nothing's worked out right. I was completely prepared to die... I planned my death..." he admitted to himself. "But Maria came and stopped it...

"She came and stopped a living person from dying. But why? I fulfilled my promise... I think. I didn't have any more reason to live any longer..."

Shadow rethought what he'd heard Sonic say about Metal... and himself.

"Time replayed history..." he sighed quietly. "That... Metal...? And myself...

"And he believed that we killed ourselves... that I killed myself..."

Shadow's eyes lost their cold, icy look for a moment. "...I feel... remorse... somehow."

~*~

"Stupid!!" Sonic muttered, kicking at the dirt outside the house.

"What's stupid?" Amy asked him.

"Why did I tell Tails and Shadow about how I remembered Metal? Why did Metal die? Why did Shadow trick me into thinking he died?!" Sonic yelled.

"Metal? You mean that horrible--"

"Yeah, I met him again after I met you. But," Sonic changed the subject, "if Shadow was going to save himself after all, why did he make us all think he died?!"

"Maybe he didn't decide to do it until later?" Amy offered.

"Argh!" Sonic sat down. "We were in Super form! He could have saved himself any old time he wanted before he hit the atmosphere! But nooo, he had to wait until he was starting to get burned up before he saves himself! If he'd just used Chaos Control with me I wouldn't feel so bad..."

Amy sighed and walked back inside. As she passed the sleeping Shadow, she heard him murmur and saw him frown angrily...

"My memories are real..."

~*~

'Metal...' Sonic thought...

'Metal was the only person who could ever understand me, understand everything I did... we were... linked, somehow. Every one of my thoughts, my feelings... he thought or felt. He had my abilities... or maybe I had his... We were equals in every way.

'And the only person who's ever come, even close to that, was Shadow.

'Which is probably why it stung so much when Metal died. When Shadow almost died...'

Sonic swallowed hard.

'It's no good living in the past... you can never change the past...'

He stared out over the ocean.

'But I wish I could...'