December had finally hit, and Shadow found himself in a general store after Omega requested some AA batteries.
"WHEN I HOLD THEM LIKE THIS," the robot had explained, gingerly gripping one of them between his metallic thumb and forefinger, "IT BRIEFLY SLOWS DOWN MY PROCESSORS IN AN ENJOYABLE AND STRANGE WAY. I AM ALSO ABLE TO SHOCK PEOPLE, WHICH I HAVE DEEMED TO BE HILARIOUS."
Shadow had his concerns, but he was far from the technological genius that his grandfather had been, and if Omega wanted to get robo-drunk or robo-high, then so be it. He trusted him to know his limits…
...Kind of.
As he looked around for the batteries, he couldn't help but notice once again that it looked as if the holiday season had bombarded the aisles of the general store in a way that was borderline obnoxious. Every year it seemed to be the same things, the same green and red flashing lights and the same songs that wormed their way into his head with the intent to stay. Even after eleven months without them, it always felt like he had heard them all just last week whenever they played.
It got more than a little irritating, but he never complained. No point when the songs wouldn't go away and Rouge would only tease him and call him a Scrooge.
His eyes roamed over the signs marking out the type of stock on the shelves, but a few once-overs and a quick check in a section that sounded promising 一 Household Goods unfortunately only held things like trash bags and pest spray 一 yielded no results.
"Must be behind the counter," Shadow figured, turning around to approach the registers. As he turned around one aisle, though, a splash of blue and white caught his attention, breaking the monotony of red and green.
It was a small area, dedicated to a handful of items that brought memories rushing back to the forefront of his mind; candles, chocolate coins, and a few bits and pieces that all had the words 'Happy Hanukkah!' printed on them.
It was all cheap and kind of simple, but all the same…
"Just like on the ARK…" Shadow murmured to himself, his eyes roving over all the merchandise, his hand reaching out without a second thought to the small bags of gelt, plucking a few up. As he reached for a cheap dreidel, he frowned at the thought that Hanukkah got such a small display while Christmas got everything else, but it had been much the same on the ARK. Still, as he brought everything he wanted up to the registers and the cashier scanned it all, his mind was still trying to dig up every last detail he could remember.
"Is that everything?" the girl behind the counter asked, jolting him from his cascading memories.
Shadow blinked, bringing himself back to reality, looking from the pile of things on the counter to the shelves behind the register, and remembered his reason for coming in the first place.
"Do you have some AA batteries back there?"
"Yes we do! Just give me a moment and I'll be right back!"
She sounded exhausted. Shadow wasn't surprised. He made sure to thank her as she handed him his bag and his receipt.
"Thank you," she said, sounding a mite more genuine in her happiness. "And um… happy Hanukkah!"
The hedgehog nodded at her as he walked off, glancing down at his bag, holding a pack of batteries, a dreidel, and an absurd amount of chocolate coins. "Happy Hanukkah," he whispered.
"That's a lot more than one pack of batteries," Rouge remarked as Shadow set his bag down. "Stocking up in case Omega goes through them all too fast?"
"No I…"
The bag was out of his hands the next second, and teal eyes grew wide. For a moment, Rouge was silent as she pulled one sack of gelt out of the bag, but the question in her eyes faded as she found the dreidel next. Her nonplussed look shifted into something much softer.
"It's been a long time since I've seen one of these," she remarked, much to Shadow's surprise. She plucked the wooden top from the rest of his purchases, turning it around in her hands, and glanced over at him. "Did you want to play?"
"You know how?" Shadow demanded, and Rouge giggled at him.
"My favorite aunt was Jewish," she explained, looking back at the dreidel and regarding it nostalgically. "My dad's brother's wife. I didn't get to see her much, but when I did, I loved it. I like to think that I was one of her favorites, too."
Shadow listened in respectful silence. Rouge had never talked about this aunt before, and he wanted to know whatever she was willing to tell him.
"Anyways, that's not really important," Rouge dismissed, a typical thing she did when talking about something that got too personal. It seemed as though that was all Shadow was going to get today. "I remember playing dreidel with her a few times, but it's been years. All I really remember is…" She turned the top in her hand until she settled on one of the sides. "This is the one where you get everything in the pot."
Shadow looked at the letter painted on the side. "You're right. That's 'gimmel'."
"Gimmel!" Rouge echoed, a grin on her face, and the sound brought back memories of another voice cheering the same, and blue eyes glinting in the light as she brought the coins toward herself, looking lively and healthy and…
"So does that mean you know how to play?"
Rouge's question brought him back to reality, and Shadow's gaze went back to the pile of coins on the table. "It's been a few years," he admitted, "but mostly, yes. Most of the scientists celebrated Christmas, but some were Jewish. One of them, Dr. Schwartz, was very nice to me and Maria. He answered our questions about his holidays and let us participate in some of the traditions. Dreidel was our favorite."
There was a short silence following his explanation, wherein both mobians revisited old, cherished memories before looking back at each other.
"We're playing," Rouge announced, starting to open some of the sacks of gelt, and Shadow sat beside her, a small smile playing on his lips.
It was time to make some new memories.
"Aaaaaaand gimmel!" Rouge sang, drawing the pot over to her side while Shadow groaned.
"I swear you're cheating," he growled.
Rouge clicked her tongue, resting her chin on one hand. "Now now, Shadow. Luck isn't cheating."
"It might as well be when it's you."
Rouge only winked at him, and it was that moment that Omega decided to make his entrance.
"QUERY: WHAT'S THE HOLDUP?" he demanded, scanning the two lifeforms in front of him, followed by the table which was still covered in the pieces of their game, and a few small balls of golden foil from winnings consumed. His ocular lenses went into hard focus, giving the impression that his eyes had narrowed. "ARE YOU ENGAGING IN FUN WITHOUT ME?"
"Sorry Omega," Rouge apologized, reaching over to pat him on his metallic arm. "We got a teensy bit caught up in the moment. Turns out that dreidel is a nostalgic game for the both of us."
Shadow frowned as Omega remained silent, reaching back into the bag for the pack of batteries that had been his reason for going out in the first place. "I have these for you," he offered, sliding them across the table in his own gesture of apology, but Omega's silence persisted, with only the faint hum of his engine making a noise. Shadow drew his hand away, certain that he had made Omega annoyed or disappointed or angry or whatever the robotic equivalent of those were, until Omega sat down at the table as well.
"DATA DOWNLOAD COMPLETE. CREATING FILE: DREIDEL. CATEGORY: GAMES." Omega's eye lights dimmed and then brightened again, looking akin to a blink. "SHADOW. ROUGE IS KICKING YOUR BUTT. SPIN MORE CAREFULLY."
Rouge immediately burst out laughing as Shadow crossed his arms. "Calculating spins is cheating, Omega," he warned as the robot tried to pick up the dreidel by the top. Unfortunately, the robot's fingers weren't made with dexterity in mind, and the dreidel slipped through his grasp a few times as Rouge brought her giggles back under control.
"Okay boys," she announced, standing up. "I'm gonna go look for something, so you can play without me for a bit."
"Omega can't eat chocolate," Shadow deadpanned as the top slipped from Omega's fingers again.
"Play for batteries," Rouge replied, already on her way out of the room.
What an obvious solution. Shadow resisted the urge to smack his own forehead and instead watched Omega try and fail to pick up the toy a few more times before the robot found more luck gripping it around the middle.
Shadow fully expected Omega to be running probabilities, calculating spins to grow the pot and weighing it against the probability of Shadow winning, before calculating the correct amount of spin to land on gimmel, but it seemed as though Omega had taken Shadow's comment about cheating to heart, and their games ran normally.
"ARE YOU HAVING FUN?" Omega asked out of the blue, and Shadow felt a flare of happiness that Omega was prioritizing fun over winning just this once.
"I am," he replied, and he meant it.
"Found it!" came a triumphant call from several rooms over, and a minute later, Rouge sauntered into the room, holding something proudly over her head before setting it down by the television.
It was a menorah, old and covered in small beads of dried wax at the base.
"My aunt's," Rouge explained, and a chill ran through Shadow as he realized why it was with Rouge instead of her aunt.
You lost her, his mind said.
"Are you going to light it?" his mouth asked instead.
Rouge's smile faltered, taking on a more plastic quality. Her fingers reached out to touch the menorah. "No… I looked it up, and it's already the fifth day of Hanukkah. Not much point now if you ask me."
Shadow decided not to push it that day.
Nor did he ask why, when three days later, he and Omega came home after a mission from G.U.N. and found Rouge in front of the menorah, adorning it with nine candles. In her hand was a box of matches.
"It's the last day," she said, offering no further explanation, and no more was asked for.
Shadow and Omega watched in silence as Rouge lit a match, lighting the candle in the middle before shaking the match until it extinguished. They watched as she took the middle candle and, one by one, lit the eight other candles before replacing the ninth in its place.
The flames flickered delicately, dancing back and forth as the soft winds of breath pushed them, and as the light outside continued to fade and the room grew dark, the fire continued to burn, just like in the story Dr. Schwartz had told Shadow so many years ago.
"It's beautiful," he remarked absentmindedly.
"It is," Rouge gasped out, voice thick and wet, and when Shadow looked over to his side, he saw her blink a few tears out.
"Are you-" he started to ask, only to be forcefully cut off.
"I'm not crying!" Rouge snapped, openly in tears and staring forward.
Shadow looked back at the menorah, taking a step to the side until their arms were touching. "You're right," he whispered. "My mistake."
From behind them, Omega pulled them both into an uncomfortable embrace, and for a while all three of them stood there, watching the candles burn and the wax drip as the sound of Rouge's shaky breaths filled their ears.
Shadow looked at the flames and remembered. He remembered Dr. Schwartz. He remembered his grandfather and his sister on the ARK. He knew Rouge was remembering her aunt, whom she had loved so much, and who had loved her in turn, enough to give her the menorah in front of them to remember her by.
They were all there, in their memories and in their hearts.
Thank you, Shadow thought as another drop of wax fell onto the base of the menorah.