Shadow's hopes of another child were cast aside when Sara's case of morning sickness a couple weeks later turned out to be a normal variety of sickness. It was a bit of a disappointment for the both of them. Shadow hadn't been too serious in the pursuit of another child, but the false alarm had been a blow to his ego. How had Sonic gotten Amy pregnant in less than a year from their first child, and three years in, he still just had Maria? Not that he had room to complain, but it was something of a puzzlement.
Shadow sat on the living room floor with a green box made up to look like a school bus next to him. A number of materials from the box were scattered on the floor with Maria sitting a few feet from him. He pulled a cardboard shape from it and held it up for her to see. "What's this?"
"Circle!" Maria beamed.
"Very good," Shadow said softly. "And what color is it?"
"Red!"
"Good girl." He smiled gently toward her and reached for the next shape, an orange square. He didn't like the color orange much. "This?" He pointed.
"S... Skare." Maria nodded.
"Square," Shadow repeated patiently. "Color?"
"O...or...orange." She clapped her hands together cheerfully.
He picked up the next shape in the series, another circle; this one was purple. "What's this, Maria?"
"Circle!"
"And what color is it?" He tilted his ear toward her, used to her snap responses.
"Pritty."
He knit his brows together and tried to figure that one out. "Pretty?" he quizzed.
"Pritty!" She smiled.
"No…. It's Purple. Purr...like a cat," Shadow corrected.
"Pritty!" she replied again.
"It's the same color as Blitz. What color is Blitz?" he tried again.
"Pritty," the girl insisted.
An annoyed grunt escaped her father. "Purple... Try it again... Purple, okay?"
"Okay." Maria folded her hands in her lap and stared up at her dad with the brightest jewel red eyes ever.
Shadow sighed. "Pretty is not a color. Purple is a color." Shadow rubbed his forehead and glanced over to a cracked open bedroom door.
"Mommy's sick." Maria frowned a bit.
Shadow's hand patted her gently. "Yeah. Why don't you pick these up? I'll be back in a minute." He stood and headed to the bedroom, knowing full well that the cardboard and activity cards would still be strewn on the floor when he got back. "Are you okay?" he asked softly, hearing Sara cough a few times as he entered.
Even wrapped in a bundle of blankets, Sara's flushed face peeked out at her lover apologetically. "Yeah, I'll live," she coughed, trying to smile in spite of the cold.
"You're a bad liar." Shadow lay down on the bed next to her and wrapped his arms around the bundle of hedgehog.
Sara laughed softly, only to be thrown into another coughing fit. "How's Maria?"
"Good. She thinks purple is pretty." He released her and brushed Sara's bangs aside; they were thin tendrils soaked with sweat instead of silky flowing ribbons of hair. He sighed a bit at that.
"She has good taste." Sara smiled back.
"Can I get you anything?" He lightly stroked her quills, trying to ignore her higher body temperature. He couldn't help resting his palm on her forehead while she leaned against him as though his hand were an ice cube.
"Yeah. Can I get a new thermostat? I'd like to be something other than really hot or really cold for a change." Sara smiled even though Shadow's eyes didn't convey any humor to them. "Cold water and a fresh compress in the meantime."
"Thanks for the translation." He rolled his eyes lightly and gave her a quick kiss on the forehead before going to retrieve said items for her. As he suspected, the activity cards and shapes were still on the floor when he returned. They may have actually been in further disarray if he wasn't mistaken, as Maria was looking for a particular card.
"Papa! Can you read me this?" She held up one of the cards with a picture of a vulture wearing a ring on the front and a dog.
"Yeah, in a minute." He got Sara a glass of ice water and a wet hand towel. He quickly went about serving his mate before paying Maria any more attention.
"How come you never get sick?" Sara sipped at the ice water idly as she asked.
"Probably my alien DNA." Shadow shrugged. The only time he could remember being sick was a case of food poisoning...and soap operas. "You sure you're okay?"
"Nope. But I will be. See, imperfection means you get to take care of me when there's a problem." She smiled softly.
"Yeah yeah. Watch me fall apart every time you sneeze, will ya?" He shook his head lightly and headed back to his little girl. The school bus box had housed a number of activity cards and games, but it also had cards that held little short stories. The story Maria had chosen was about a vain ol' buzzard who prized a gold ring. One day she lost it in the cleft of a rock, and a small puppy was the only one who could fish it out for her. It wasn't an exciting story, but it was just another thing to set the bonds between father and daughter.
Crisp air began moving through Station Square again, which meant birthdays were arriving. Shadow finally confided that September third should be his birthday, and the two had decided on a romantic evening out to celebrate. Sara's was at the end of the month, but she liked a little more social birthday for herself. A couple years ago she'd been pregnant during her birthday; not this year, it seemed.
In the meantime there was a family outing to the local zoo. "You don't find coming here a bit disturbing?" Chris asked, walking beside the couple. He and Helen had joined them, as well as Sonic and his family.
"Nah. We have animals like this on Mobius," Sara chuckled.
"You didn't think we made chili dogs out of friends, did you?" Sonic quirked a brow.
Chris blushed a bit. Of course, he had offered Sonic dog food once upon a time. "You have a favorite animal?" he asked, trying to break the awkward silence.
"Cheetah!" Sara piped up. "It's the fastest thing on four legs."
"Yeah, Sonic raced one in Africa." Amy rolled her eyes, cradling Rift to her. "Wound up carrying the poor beast!" The group laughed.
"I like birds." Helen smiled softly. "They get to fly away and have all the freedom of the skies."
"I like ponies!" Maria beamed, clinging to her mother's hand.
"Yes, we know you do." Sara smiled at her little girl. She carried her birthday pony everywhere with her. It'd definitely seen better days, and part of its left eye was even scuffed up. She wondered how it had become so old in only a few months, but such was the life of toys.
"I like monkeys. They climb lots!" Blitz put in.
"So what kind of animals do you like, Shadow?" Chris asked after they'd walked a ways into the zoo.
"...Snakes," he replied.
The group went by a number of animal enclosures. The kids were thrilled with the big cats like the lions and tigers, and Sara, of course, liked the cheetah run. Sonic had threatened to break into the "run" and show them how it's done, but Amy had managed to knock some sense into him. The ape house was a favorite with Blitz, who enjoyed climbing all over stuff at home, so that was no surprise.
The aquarium, the aviary, and the reptile house were then hit up in that order. Since it was all handicap accessible, they had no problem with Helen being along. She really enjoyed the aviary, and a couple of birds had even perched on her wheelchair. The aquarium had gotten a number of ooohs and ahhhs from the group, centered around the sharks it had and a dark exhibit with flashlight fish, which glowed in the dark. The reptile house creeped Maria out, and she cried about halfway through it, where an exhibit showed the skeleton of an anaconda. Shadow attempted to console her, but she wouldn't stop crying until they were outside.
The last stop in the zoo was the petting zoo, a little section with domestic animals set up. "Maria? Want to pet the pony?" Shadow asked gently.
"Pony?!" The girl brightened and was led over to a stable with a tame small pony.
"Funny seeing Shadow like that," Sonic commented once he was out of earshot.
"Like what, Sonic?" Amy glanced at him.
"Ahh, just the way he handles Maria. Never woulda thought it possible." He shrugged.
"Well you don't have a sensitive bone in your body, what do you know, Sonic?!" Amy made a face at him.
Sara laughed and went over to the animal pens. "Maria! Careful!" Her warnings came too late, as a goat proceeded to nibble on her My Little Pony's frizzy hair. Crying ensued.
"Crap!" Shadow tried to pull back the toy with one hand and handle a crying Maria in the other.
"Sorry! I should've been watching!" Sara apologized and pushed the goat's head gently aside as she surveyed the damage. "Ahh, it's not so bad." She took a pin out of her hair and clipped it to the remaining fluff on the pony toy's head.
"Aww! Cool!" Maria stopped crying and giggled in delight at the pony's new hairstyle.
"How do you do that?" Shadow's crimson eyes made contact with the deep brown pools of his love. They always seemed to sparkle knowingly.
"I'm a mom." She smirked a bit too much like Sonic and gave him a quick kiss before turning back to the wiry furred goat she was pushing aside. "Maria? Want to see the camel next?"