Time could have passed by before his eyes and he wouldn't of noticed. Shadow was too far gone, sitting at his desk and buried in a pile of paperwork. It was no doubt the most boring part of the job, but one he would take just as seriously. Or in this case gladly. It had been five days since Sonic woke up at the hospital, and after their big blow up, Shadow couldn't bring himself to go back and visit. There was still so much tension, and he was too busy to deal with that right now. He did however keep tabs on the teenager. The doctors reported to him daily about his condition, whether he was stable or if any progress had been made, or any results. Unfortunately no one had contacted him today, and it was getting on for midnight.
With a sign Shadow closed the folder to his work. Updating these old files and writing the new ones had been oddly relaxing, a great way to keep his mind focused. He took his phone out of his desk's top draw and checked it again, still no missed calls. The hospital never failed to call, so why not today? This is what he needed to keep his mind off. There's no avoiding it now, he'd have to go and visit.
Placing his phone down, Shadow scooped up the files and stood up, only to be caught off by the loud voice entering his office.
"Shadow! What is this?"
Looking up to the owner of the furious voice, the ebony agent rolled his eyes as the General pushed his was through the door.
"What do you want?" he asked flatly, carrying on as if the man had never entered the room.
The General however, not one to be disrespected, marched over and slammed a new set of paperwork on the desk. "An explanation. According to this you have requested a leave of absence for, and I quote, "as long as you feel like" and have also applied to be assigned as an officer in the witness protection program in regards to the case of Miles Prower, a.k.a Sonic."
Shadow merely huffed, and placed down his files, no longer caring to file them. "What part do I need to explain to you?" he asked condescendingly.
"Shadow he is no longer an asset to this case, Eggman has been captured and as I recall the deal you made was to wipe his records after doing so. I told you to contact his family and send him back home, but instead you feed him lies! You can not go ahead with this."
"Why not?"
"Because we have no use for him! This is a waste of time. I need you out on the field, capturing the rest off Eggman's troops and getting more people like him off the street, not taking maternity leave because you feel guilty for some lowlife brat!"
At those words Shadow felt a chill down his spine, a cold, hatred educed chill that made his teeth grit. He kept his back to the General, fists clenching as he feared what he would do if he turned and faced the man. Yet, it wasn't for the words spoken about Sonic, it was the implication that he had gone soft.
"Eggman is not convicted yet. All of his so called 'troops' have been reported as MIA, and the prisoners that we freed refuse to testify against him. Right now, Sonic is all we have to make sure Eggman gets the death sentence. We have the evidence to prove this crime mob all relates back to him but we have nothing on the roboticiser, or that that technology even exists."
The General shook his head and paced around the desk "Well perhaps if you had been less distracted then you would have recovered the roboticiser instead of letting it get destroyed."
Shadow snarled, "Distracted? I captured Eggman! That was my job!"
"You allowed the biggest part of our investigation get destroyed all because that brat was in it, if you had of just left it alone, captured Eggman, and not destroy the one machine we needed to convict him, then this wouldn't have been a problem."
"Sonic would have died, I did what I had to."
"No, he would have become a robot, ergo, giving us the evidence we need for how dangerous Eggman is and would have guaranteed us his demise."
Shadow threw his fists down on his desk, punching his computer to the floor in a fit of anger. The General barely flinched. "You would have no care about his life?" Shadow spat, unable to even comprehend what he was hearing.
"Don't get high and mighty with me Hedgehog. You gave no care to Maria when I ordered you to protect her, why would I care for one of your kind?"
All he wanted in that moment was to rip that man's throat out and watch him bleed, perhaps, had there not been so much at stake, he would have. It took so much out of him to remain composed, to not show even a shred of emotion to the hateful and discriminative attitude of his commander. With deep inhales, it took much longer then he would have cared to admit to suppress his anger, to suppress his need of justice, all so he could turn around, and stare this man dead in the eyes. "Be careful of what you say, I'm sure the rest of your employees will feel differently."
The General paused a moment uncomfortably, a sure glint of regret emitting across his face. With a large number of mobians working for him, his personal views needed to be kept as that, personal.
"You have my formal apology, I believe we've gone off track. I cannot allow you to let Sonic live with you further, you are to contact his parents and have him sent home, however, he will still be used as a witness in the court hearing."
Shadow shook his head, "No. Part of the deal was that we not contact his parents, and I will respect that part of the deal as much as the rest."
"Then he will be placed in foster care."
"He can't! He's not well enough, he's suffering from delusions and thinks everyone is working for Eggman. I'm the only one who can protect him, he knows that. We need him for this trial, he can show his robotic arm and that will be enough evidence to support our case."
"That wont be possible."
Shadow raised his brow, "Why not?"
The General paused for a moment, though he appeared annoyed over what he was about to say. "The hospital contacted me earlier. I had given them specific orders not to remove the arm but apparently Chief of Medicine had over ruled in survival of the patient. Your little friend has been in surgery all day after collapsing. It had gotten too infected."
The General could say no more. Shadow began to ran.
In mere moments he was out of the HQ building, running at his highest speed down the street, pushing past anyone that was in his way.
The Hospital was shortly in his view and he didn't hesitate to burst open the doors and slip right in. With the sudden panic, doctors and nurses tried to stop him, but they could barely form a wall before Shadow had ran past. He ran up several flights of stairs, all of which lead him to the door he hadn't seen for five days. He threw it open, not caring how loud or how disruptive he was being. Three doctors surrounded the bed, each one pinning something down in their hands.
Shadow's eyes widened in horror at what he saw.
"Stop it... STOP IT!" He yelled, leaping at the nearest doctor and pushing him away.
"Sir you can't be here" they tried to protest, but he already got a look at the boys face.
Sonic was foaming at the mouth. His eyes rolled back into his head as his body spasmed out of control, while the peach of his skin ran raw with rashes. His arm, was no longer there, neither was his shoulder, and a quarter of his breast plate. They had removed the entire section, any trace of the artificial limb was gone, now replaced with layers upon layers of gauze, that oozed with red.
"Sir please" a voice said, while hands laid onto his shoulders, pulling Shadow away from the trance he was stuck in. "We have this under control."
"What happened?" he demanded to know.
The doctor replied calmly, "He's just come from surgery, there was complications getting him to wake up from the anesthetic."
"But he..."
"He will be fine. We have dealt with this before, so please allow us to do our job and stay outside" he was told, before finding himself being pushed into the hallway and the door slammed shut.
Shadow stared at that door for a long time, not knowing what he was feeling.
All he could think of, was how numb he felt. How the world suddenly felt cold.
Sonic... looked like he was dying, and there was nothing Shadow could do. He felt so helpless. Why would the hospital not tell him this was happening? Did they just assume the General would pass on the message?
It didn't matter. It should have been Sonic's choice, did he even want the arm removed? But then, apparently he was too ill to have decided. He should have had someone to talk to about this, someone to help him make this choice before he got too sick to handle the consequence... who was kidding, he should have been there to talk to him about it. The doctors had kept him informed but he just assumed the kid would be alright, and truthfully he didn't understand a lot of the terms they used, and was too proud to ask.
But, if having the arm removed now would increase his health, then that was a good thing, right?
However, he now no longer has an arm. How will he cope? After being roboticised, Sonic adjusted to the new appendage really easily, being able to control it as fluently has he had done before with his real arm. His only concern was water leaking through the skin, and apparently getting it tuned up every month by Eggman. Shadow had hoped that Espio, or someone on the G.U.N team could keep on top of those adjustments from here on after. He saw clearly there was an infection, but the doctors were supposed to treat it and allow him to keep the limb. But now, now it was far too late. A whole chunk of his upper body had been removed. Not only has he lost his arm, but his dominant hand also. Now, he will have to learn how to write all over again, he will need to learn how to do basic skills with only one hand, such as cooking, cleaning, dressing, washing, so much he would struggle with now.
And the General wants him to go into a foster home.
No. He was his responsibility. The arm only got infected because of the explosion on the roboticiser damaging it. This was his fault. He would put it to right.
An hour had passed, Shadow was almost asleep at this point, when the doctor that had thrown him out before, again, laid a more gentle hand on his shoulder and woke up. "Mr. Shadow?" he questioned. Rubbing his eyes, the hedgehog groaned, "Just Shadow."
"Very well. Sonic's stable now if you would like to see him."
It felt like a lot of information in just a few words, and it took Shadow a moment to process them. "Shouldn't he be asleep?" he asked.
The doctor shook his head, "He's worried if he goes to sleep he'll have another fit, I thought perhaps you could help reassure him.
Shadow paused, "Could he have another fit?"
"Doubtful, he's on enough medication to keep his vitals at a normal level."
He merely huffed, not believing this doctor. Most likely everyone was tired and wanted to go home, probably not wanting to deal with a paranoid fifteen year old. Without any more prompting, Shadow walked into the room by himself, immediately frowning at what he saw.
Sonic was sat upright against all the pillows, but he looked exhausted. His eyes were opened only half way, and the thick black shadows lined beneath them. He stared only at his feet that were covered with a blanket, and swayed slightly as he fought off the urge to rest.
"Hey, long time no see" Shadow greeted, walking around to the side of the bed where he still had an arm. Sonic drowsily looked up and watched the agent sit on the bed at his side.
"I can't tell if you're real or not" he mumbled breathlessly. Shadow smiled in amusement, "Don't worry, I'm not a faker like you" he said.
"Huh?" he was too tired to even ask properly.
"I came in before while you were having a fit, I bet you were faking to get my attention."
Sonic was too tired to laugh. All was left was a lingering silence. With that, Shadow sighed, "Come on faker, you need to rest" he said while reaching over to adjust the pillows.
"No, no I can't... I don't want to go through that again" he moaned in response.
Shadow pulled away, but placed his hand against Sonic's head for no more then a second. "What happened to you today?"
Sonic shook his head, "I don't know... I was walking around... then collapsed. I felt them pick me up and... then place a mask on me. Then I wake up, and my arm is gone... and I'm in pain, I start to black out and... I don't know... I remember being sick and... I thought I was going to die... I don't want to go through it again... needles hurt... food is terrible..." at this point he started to ramble on, so Shadow shushed him to be quiet, already seeing that the guy was drifting off regardless.
"I'll keep watch okay, if you start dying in your sleep I'll wake you up" he offered. It was ridiculous of course, but this kid was doped up on meds and in desperate need of reassurance he wasn't going to die in his sleep. So he said what he needed too, and soon after, watched as Sonic finally closed his eyes.
"Please don't leave..." he whispered, before drifting away into a deep slumber.
Shadow smiled tiredly, feeling his own eye lids grow heavy with the weight of the day. "Promise" he whispered back, before getting up and pulling a chair up to the bed. There he sat down, allowed his head to fall back and closed his eyes. That night was the first time he slept properly in a week.