Okay, the suspense is over, here you go, this one is extra long, much longer than most (What can I say? I was in a writing mood XD)... Lucky Chapter number 7!

Chapter 7- Are you okay? (Super creative title, I know... *shame face*)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Rouge the Bat continued...

"...Rouge?" He asked groggily. He slurred my name in a way that gave me the impression of someone trying to speak with a mouthful of marbles. He immediately looked very displeased with how it sounded. I almost laughed at his expression. He was injured beyond the comprehensibility of the average person, and Shadow was worrying about his articulation. Typical.

"Yeah, Shadow, its me." I replied clearly and slowly, knowing how serious it is with a head wound to be patient and make sure his brain is working correctly, and not to create any surprises or sudden movements. It was especially important now that I know his speech has been affected, since his mouth wasn't bloody or swollen, the only explanation was that his brain was not synching his muscle movement the way it was meant to. Either the muscles weren't responding to his commands; or the worse option, his brain was having trouble sending the commands to the muscles in the first place.

My statement registered, and after a few seconds, in heavily slurred speech, he asked me; "...Did we catch him?" But it came out more like: "diwe gatchim?" Much to the hedgehog's embarrassment.

It was a good thing I had taught myself how to lip-read, or I might not have been able to figure out what he had asked.

I grinned, partly because he seemed so upset at his inability to articulate, and partly at his question's directness.

"Yea, we caught Sonic, and it was all thanks to you." I told him. Everyone in the room was silent, no one contradicted my statement.

He gave a small, tired smile, and then winced from his head injury. "'Ow baddo I loog?" He slurred, which translated into: "how bad do I look?" His tone of voice told me that he didn't really want to know how bad he was.

I looked him over. He kept his eyes on mine the whole time. His gloves were crimson with dried blood from the wound on his left side. The hem of Amy's dress was wrapped around his torso and it was soaked crimson on his left side. But most of it had dried, making me think that it had stopped bleeding altogether. The black fabric wrapped around his head was soaked through and wetly shined in the overhead lights. There were a few streaks of blood trickling down his face and muzzle. His red stripe was matted with crimson blood around the gash. His forehead still looked strangely flat where he had hit the floor, but it didn't look as bad as it had earlier, it was slowly, but surely settling back into place. His ruby red eyes looked like they were having a difficult time focusing on my turquoise blue ones. He was laying flat on his back on the floor, and he had moved his arms to lay loosely crossed on top of his stomach. His legs were out straight out on the floor, I hadn't noticed before when he had been lying on his side, but now it was evident that his right foot was pointing in the wrong direction. I prayed to Chaos that it wasn't broken, and hoped that it was only dislocated. He had various other small cuts that for the most part had been sealed up, though he did have another gash on his leg above the foot that was twisted. All in all, he looked pretty beat up, but not nearly as bad as he should look after having hurt himself merely fifteen minutes ago.

(Again, so morbid! DX)

I looked at his face again, I brushed a drop of blood off of his cheek and gave him the heavily toned-down version, "I'm not gonna lie, tough guy, you look pretty bad. But you could look worse." He let my statement register for a second, and looked at the ceiling.

Something seemed to dawn on him and he asked, "Wheressonic?" Which I lip-read as: "Where's Sonic?"

I looked to Eggman and Amy for help, they had understood him this time, but they both still looked a bit shellshocked and shrugged at my questioning glance. I still wasn't sure what happened myself, so I made something up.

"He passed out after all the excitement. Tails took him back to their ship." I lied. But Shadow couldn't tell, he was still groggy because of his forehead, and upset over his lack of ability to speak clearly.

He stopped and stared at the ceiling for a full minute and a half. He looked to be in deep concentration, and every few seconds his lips would faintly move to some unsaid word. I thought he was actually unable to say anything, and began to worry again, but then he finally cleared his throat.

He then proceeded to ask Eggman a question very slowly and with a little difficulty, the whole time looking at me. "Egg mann, doyou have-uh hospiddal wing on thisship? I think I may beein needof one." (It's close enough, it needs no translation)

The doctor seemed surprised to be addressed. "Uh... No, I don't believe so. I only ever had robots on this ship, there was no need of first aid."

Shadow thought for a second, then grimaced. "IssAmy sstill here? Or didsshe go withsSonic?" He asked me. That hedgehog didn't miss anything. He was obviously still having difficulty with his articulation, but it was improving very quickly.

Amy came over into his line of vision. "I'm still here, and yes, we have an on-board hospital on our ship, you're welcome to use it." She told him, correctly guessing what he was going to ask.

"Thankoo." He said, then before I could stop him, he sat up and leaned himself against the wall. He winced, but did not stop there. He managed to get himself standing completely upright on his good foot. He was a little wobbly from the lack of balance that only one foot gave.

"Shadow!" I exclaimed, and went to his side to help support him. Amy stood there with an expression of mingled worry and amazement. Shadow gratefully accepted my help and supported himself on my shoulder.

"Shadow! Don't pull stuff like that! You could have hurt yourself!" I scolded him, looking him up and down to make sure none of his wounds had been reopened.

He smirked at my paranoia. "I'll beefine, now holddon and I'll delebortus (teleport us) to the other ssship..." He drifted off while reaching into his quills for his emerald, but then he realised he was missing it. "Wheresssmy chaossemrold!?" (Where's my chaos emerald?) He wondered, his slur exaggerated by his frantic worry.

Eggman piped up. "I saw it fly off in this direction," he said, looking at the far corner. "Oh..." He trailed off, seeming put-down.

"Well, whaddisit (what is it)?" Shadow impatiently asked.

"Ah, well, it seems that your forehead is not the only thing you broke in your crash-landing," he stated, walking over to the corner to pick up what was left of the fake emerald. He showed us the handful of dull shards he had picked up.

"Dammit" Shadow muttered, "now how'm I ssuppossed to geddo their sship?" He asked.

"I may have a solution to that!" The doctor proclaimed. "This ship also used to carry some supplies, so I have hovering tables that would do the trick, if you don't mind lying down a bit more." He told Shadow.

Shadow nodded slowly, careful not to mess up his healing forehead. "Take usss to it." His S's were the only issue with his speech now, he had it almost completely under control.

"Oh no, Shadow, you are staying right here." I told him. "I will go get it and bring it here." Then I turned to Amy. "Do you mind keeping an eye on him while I go get the table?"

"Not at all," Amy replied, walking over.

"Thanks, hon." I said, letting her take Shadow's weight from me so I could leave.

Shadow was unintelligibly protesting against being left behind, and he was looking at me with an expression I hadn't ever seen on his face before. Usually he was either glaring, or death glaring at me, but now he looked more like a little boy with a scratch that was doing his best not to cry so that his friends and family would think he was tough. I guess that's exactly what Shadow was doing, he was forcing himself to slow down and talk right, sit up and even stand up to prove to the rest of us that just because he was hurt, that did not make him weak. He was obviously still in a lot of pain, I could see how much he was hiding it from the way he was biting the inside of his cheek and his lower lip, and how he would shift his weight and a grimace would flash across his face before being replaced again by the little boy expression. I wanted nothing more than to go back over to him and hug him, and tell him everything was going to be all right, and that he would be ok, and that he didn't need to be tough for me, because I already knew he was tough. I almost did turn back to him, but I realised that making him better was the best thing I could do for him right now.

Eggman directed me to a room a floor down, up the left corridor, and second on my right. When I got there, I found the room nearly empty other than for a few of the aforementioned hovering tables and several boxes. I took one of the tables, and it glided along behind me wherever I pulled it. It still worked pretty well, and I was sure it would do the trick for getting Shadow to the other ship. I dragged it back up to the room we were in and saw that Shadow was now sitting again (and not looking too happy about it), and Amy stood in front of him with her hands on her hips and tapping her foot. Shadow looked up when I came in the room and Amy turned around to see what he was looking at.

She looked relieved to see me. "As soon as you left, he tried to make a break for it, and when he tripped, he nearly fell on his face again!" She told me, turning back to glare at the ebony hedgehog. He had a stupid sort of mischievous half-smile on his face, and looked to be a little dazed. "Good thing he didn't get too far, and I managed to catch him, but I think he may have shifted his skull a bit."

I forgot all about the table for a minute, and ran back to Shadow's side. "You big idiot! Why would you pull something like that!" I yelled at him, more worried than angry and checked him over again. He didn't seem to be any more messed up than before, but the gash on his head was bleeding again, and so was the wound on his side. He seemed to be ok, except for the still-dazed expression on his face. "Shadow, are you okay?" I asked him.

There was a short pause that seemed to last an hour before he responded, this time with perfect articulation. "No, my skull is smashed, I have multiple cuts and gashes, my foot is pointing in the wrong direction, and overall, I feel like I've been run over by a fifteen ton truck." He stated, quite calmly; almost in his normal way of speaking. "I wouldn't say I'm exactly okay." He finished, still with half a smile lingering on his features.

I didn't know whether I wanted to slap the smile off of his face for being a smart mouth, or hug him for being able to be a smart mouth. When he saw my mixed expression, his half-smile widened into a grin. It was really annoying, and I could tell he was trying to make fun of me. I didn't let him have the pleasure of knowing he had really had me worried for a minute.

"Smart-ass." I said, standing up and going back to the hovering table. I pulled it over to him, and he had already stood up when I made it back to him. He was determined to get on the table by himself, but it was easier said than done. The table was hovering mid-chest height, just below his shoulders, and far above his waist. For a perfectly healthy mobian, it would have been difficult, and it was far too high for him to lift himself onto it with his diminished health, and he failed twice before giving up and leaning back against the wall with a disappointed expression.

I sighed. "Come on Amy, lets give him a hand."

She walked over and stood on his left side, and I was on his right. Eggman helped by pushing the table down so it would be easier for us to lift Shadow onto it. I had Shadow put his arms around Amy and I, while we each put one arm on his back, and used the other to support one of his legs. We had to be very careful as we laid him on the table that we didn't touch his side wound or his ankle. When he was finally on the table, we had another problem to solve.

"How are we gonna get this thing from this ship to yours?" I asked the pink hedgehog next to me. Yet again, Eggman had a solution.

"If I can get close enough, we could line the bay doors up with each other and you could go straight from here to the other ship's cargo bay, I just need permission from Tails to board and a little time to line us up." Eggman told us.

"I can get you the permission, go ahead and start getting lined up, I'll go and talk to Tails and get the shields down." Amy said, walking towards the little ship-plane she had used to get on board. She left, and a couple of minutes later, the shields went down, and the bay doors of the Blue Typhoon opened.

Eggman lined up the ships quickly and carefully; and soon enough, I was pushing Shadow on the table into the Blue Typhoon, Amy was waiting for us in the cargo bay. She started walking to the hospital area, and we passed by Knuckles, who was doing his best to awaken the master emerald. He wasn't making any progress, and the huge gem was still a dull, dark green. When he saw us, he did a double take and stared at Shadow, who despite all his injuries was still grinning his head off like a lunatic, I was really worried about him.

"Dude, you okay?" The echidna asked him.

"Nope." Shadow replied, not seeming too displeased about this fact.

The echidna gave me a quizzical look as we rushed past, and I shrugged. Knuckles stared at us as we kept going, and Amy led us the rest of the way to the on-board hospital.

When we made it there, there was a proper hospital bed waiting along with a small tan rabbit pulling out various equipment and first aid supplies. When we came in, she told us to put Shadow on the bed so she could clean him up. She couldn't have been older than nine years, but she seemed to know what she was doing with the hospital supplies, and we obliged. Once Amy and I got Shadow on the hospital bed, the rabbit handed us both wet cloths and told us to wipe as much of the blood as we could from around his wounds. I took my cloth and, as gently as I could, I unwrapped the black fabric from his head. it was completely soaked, and I threw it away. Even more carefully than I had unwrapped his makeshift bandage, I dabbed the blood away from around his gash, making sure not to touch the flattened spot on his forehead. Amy did the same with the wound on his side, slowly unwrapping the hem of her dress from it, and then using her cloth to wipe the blood away.

Even though I was being extremely gentle, Shadow involuntarily flinched every time I touched his head with the cloth. He closed his eyes to keep himself from flinching too much and focused on remaining still. The crazy grin had disappeared from his features, and he wore a grimace of pain as we cleaned him up. His gash had finally stopped bleeding.

When we had finished cleaning up his major wounds, I could tell that Amy was itching to leave. I remembered how much she cared for Sonic and realised that she was probably worried out of her mind about whether he was okay or not.

I looked at her sympathetically. "Amy, I've got this from here, maybe you should go check on Sonic." I told her. She gave me a grateful look and ran out of the room.

The rabbit pulled out a brown bottled labeled 'peroxide'. "Okay, mister Shadow, this will sting a little, but I need you to hold very still." She informed him.

She took a cotton ball from a container and put some of the peroxide on it. Shadow braced himself for the inevitable sting and she rubbed it very lightly over the gash on his forehead. Apparently that stuff stung more than a little, because Shadow yelped and jerked back.

"All done." The rabbit said as she pulled out a roll of clean white bandages and started wrapping his gash up. "Now for your side." She added, pulling out the peroxide again and another cotton ball.

This time, Shadow was more ready for it, and didn't move while she rubbed the cotton ball over his side wound. Again, she wrapped it up in the white linen bandages. She did the same for the gash on his right leg. Now that his main wounds were taken care of, we went to work cleaning the rest of him up. We didn't dare mess with his skull until we could take an x-ray of it and his foot. We managed to get all the dried blood out of his mane and fur, and we had taken his gloves off to clean them out. If it weren't for the flat part of his skull, the bandages, and his twisted foot, I would've guessed that he was just as healthy as always.

The rabbit, whose name I had learned was Cream, pulled out a weird device that looked like a big camera, but had special parts on it that also made it look something like a television. I guessed this was the x-ray machine.

"Head or foot first, Mister Shadow?" Cream asked him.

Shadow thought about it for a second. "Foot I guess, I know more or less what my skull will look like. I'm curious about my foot." He answered.

The rabbit complied with his request and propped his foot up. Then she gently and carefully removed his rocket boot before positioning the machine to look at his foot and pressing a button to capture the x-ray image. An image appeared on the television screen facing the bed Shadow was in. We could see that the bones in his foot were very out of place, but thank Chaos, none were broken. It was only dislocated, and I sighed in relief. Cream studied the image for another minute, then looked to me.

"It looks like I can just quickly twist it back into place." She told me. "However, it will hurt, a lot. Even more than the peroxide. It would be best if he had something to squeeze, like your hand." She stated, looking at me expectantly. "I'll give him some ibuprofen, and I will numb his foot, but a lot of bones are out of place, and he will most likely still feel a lot of pain." She said this quite bluntly, but I still couldn't imagine holding (of all people) Shadow's hand. When she saw my expression, she continued, "of course, if that's too weird, then I can get someone else to hold his hand, but I don't want him jerking away and messing it up any more than it already is, so I won't pull it into place until he has someone's hand to hold." She waited for me to respond. (Awkward...)

Shadow sighed, "I'm assuming I have no say in this?" He complained.

"No, you must be holding something, end of discussion." The rabbit replied stubbornly.

"Fine, I'll hold his hand, but only because you're telling me that I have to." I said, and grabbed his hand before he could say anything else.

Cream gave him some ibuprofen and injected a shot of numbing medicine into his foot.

The rabbit firmly grabbed ahold of his foot. "I'm going to count to ten, okay mister Shadow?" She asked and he nodded in reply. "One... Two... Ten!" She said, and yanked his foot back into position.

Shadow's eyes widened, and he hollered in pain. He death gripped my hand, and I thought he was going to break it from how hard he was squeezing it. He jerked his head back into his pillow. It only lasted a second, and then his foot went back into its regular position with a pop and a click. He let go of my hand as soon as his foot was back to normal.

He was breathing hard, trying to get his pain under control. "What happened to three through nine?" He demanded angrily.

"Sorry mister Shadow, but it would have hurt a lot more if you had tensed up, so I had to surprise you!" Cream responded innocently.

I was rubbing my hand that was sore from being squeezed so hard. "He nearly broke my hand, you weren't kidding when you said he needed something to hold onto." I smirked.

"Sorry," he mumbled, "I was caught off guard."

"Apology accepted" I replied, "it's not your fault."

He looked gratefully at me for a second, then his features went back to their usual impassive expression. He flexed his foot. "Are you going to x-ray my skull now?" He asked Cream, suddenly all business.

"Yes, if you want." The tan rabbit replied.

"All right, lets get this over with." He said.

Just then, Cosmo, Knuckles, Amy, Chris, and Tails ran into the room looking worried.

"We heard somebody scream, what happened?" Amy fretted.

Tails saw the image of the dislocated foot on the screen. "Ouch..." He said, then looked at Shadow's foot to see that it was back to normal. "Oh..." He trailed off, realising what the scream had been about.

Knuckles also looked at the X-ray image. "Dude, ouch. Are you okay?"

Shadow gave a wry smile, "My answer still hasn't changed since the last time you asked. Though I am feeling a bit better."

"I hope so, we've been at this for almost two and a half hours now." Cream piped up.

"Have we? How about that." I commented.

"Actually, we're almost done, I doubt there's anything I can do about his skull, but we should take an X-ray of it all the same." The rabbit told us all.

"I'll stay and help." The seedrian quietly put in.

"I'll stick around too." Amy said.

"Well, I'm not much use anywhere else, I'm not making any progress with the emerald, so I'll stay too. Anyways, I wanna know how bad it is." Knuckles informed us.

"I put the ship on autopilot, so I don't need to go anywhere. And I know a thing or two about bones, so maybe I can help." Tails said, standing next to Cosmo.

"Ditto." Inserted the human, Chris, who was standing in the corner.

"All right, it looks like you have an audience, mister Shadow." Cream stated.

Shadow groaned. "Ugh, wonderful." He said sarcastically. "Let's get this over with."

Cream obliged and set up the X-ray device. Shadow patiently waited for her to finish aiming it properly and closed his eyes. Everyone in the room settled into a chair or stood by the door. I remained standing where I was, next to Shadow.

"Ready?" Cream asked.

"Go ahead." Shadow told her.

Cream pressed the button and a second later an image appeared on the screen. I heard several sharp intakes of breath, and Knuckles blew a long, low whistle.

"Boy, Sonic really did a number on you." The echidna commented.

I was afraid to look at the screen. I still felt like it was my fault that he was hurt, and seeing how bad it was would only make it worse, instead I watched Shadow's face. He still had his eyes closed, I got the impression that he didn't really want to see what his skull looked like either. He must have felt me staring at him, because he looked up and saw me. We just stared back at each other for a second, then with some unsaid agreement, we both looked at the screen at the same time. I gasped at what I saw, and then I heard Shadow moan and flop his head back onto the pillow. Then he took a sharp breath because he had moved his head too quickly and the fragments of his forehead shifted. I saw the other people who saw the X-ray first had been watching our silent communication and waiting for us to look. Knuckles seemed amused by Shadow's reaction.

The X-ray looked so much worse than I thought it would. The majority of the image was filled with an almost entirely white web of cracks. That was the flattened area of his forehead. It was almost impossible to distinguish any one piece, because it had been broken into so many tiny fragments. Most of them seemed to be in the right places, and were beginning to heal, but a few of the fragments were shifted up or down and were preventing the surrounding fragments from healing properly.

Any normal person would likely have died with a forehead like that. Shadow should count himself lucky to still be breathing. And this was what it looked like after he had had about three hours to heal.

Everyone was watching Shadow, who was glaring at the ceiling like he could burn a hole in it.

It was Tails who broke the silence. "Shadow, you should be dead."

Shadow quit glaring at the ceiling and closed his eyes. He mumbled something too quietly for us to hear.

We were afraid to talk for a moment, then Knuckles cut the tension. "I'm sorry, we couldn't hear you." He said.

Shadow opened his eyes and glared at him. "I should have died fifty years ago on the ARK, I should have died last year when I fell from frickin' space! Are you really surprised?" He yelled, obviously still agitated over the state of his skull.

Knuckles backed off. "Sorry, dude, I just wanted to know what you said."

Shadow closed his eyes and calmed himself down, when he opened them again, he looked much less angry. "Sorry, I... Overreacted." He apologised to Knuckles for his outburst. Then he turned to Cream and Tails. "Is there anything at all you can do to fix it?" He asked hopefully.

Tails and Cream looked at each other, then they both looked sympathetically at the ebony hedgehog in front of them. "No" they both responded.

"If they were larger pieces, maybe we could do something, but as it is, we don't have the expertise to do anything, so we can only keep them from shifting any more and wait for your skull to heal naturally." The rabbit sadly told him.

He sighed heavily in defeat and sunk back into the bed, seeming to cave inward on himself. For the first time, he showed how much his injuries were affecting him, and he looked like the fifty-year old hedgehog he was. He didn't bother opening his eyes when he spoke again. "What do I do then?" He asked in a depressed tone.

Cream didn't seem worried about his sudden change in mood. "Unless you want to see what a certified doctor can do about it, you'll just have to stay here with us until it heals on its own. It shouldn't take too long, only a few weeks, maybe a month at most, you seem to be a very fast healer, even faster than mister Sonic!"

"A month..." He repeated slowly, still with closed eyes. He opened his eyes to see everyone staring at him. "I'd like to be left alone, please." He requested, addressing Cream.

Cream nodded, and started shooing us all out of the room. Before she left, she reminded Shadow, "whatever you do, don't fall asleep, unless we have someone watching you, it's very dangerous for you to be sleeping this soon with a head injury that severe, you could cause serious brain damage."

Shadow nodded in understanding. He lay back in the bed and stared pensively at the X-ray image of his skull on the screen. Cream softly closed the door behind herself as she left the room.

I stopped her as she started walking down the hall. "What's going on with Shadow? I've never seen him this depressed before, will he be okay?" I questioned her.

"Mister Shadow is going to be fine. Don't worry about him. He's likely just bruised his brain, and he's having mood-swings is all. I advise that you stay by the door, because he'll probably ask for some company in a few minutes."

"How can I not worry about him? And what's all this about mood-swings?" I pestered her.

"Mister Shadow is very resilient, and I'm confident that he will be fully healed within the month. I doubt he'll even develop any permanent brain damage, as long as he's careful. Don't worry about him. And the mood-swings are most likely caused by the fact that he's been injured in the part of his brain that has to do with emotions. His injury is literally right on top of that part of the brain." She informed me in a matter-of-fact tone of voice. (I actually looked this up, its true)

"Okay... Bye then." I said, and went to go sit by the door.

The tan rabbit waved cheerfully at me as she walked down the hall and around the corner. I was alone in the hallway, so I looked through the window of the clinic to see Shadow sitting up in his bed with his legs dangling over the side. He was leaning down to massage his right ankle. I didn't blame him for wanting to get up and move around. I'd be a little antsy after being forced to lie down for almost three hours straight as well. I knocked on the door and Shadow slowly looked up, and seeing me through the window, waved me in. Looks like Cream was right after all.

I walked into the room. "What do you think you're doing?" I asked.

Shadow looked at me innocently. "I was just gonna walk around to exercise my ankle a bit. No one said I couldn't." He explained quickly.

I gave him a long hard look, then went over to help him get down off the bed. He got down slowly, then steadied himself on my shoulder. I helped him walk over to the television, which was still showing the depressing X-ray image of his fragmented skull. He made me help him get closer to the screen so he could reach over and flip it off.

"There, that's better." He said, dusting his hands off. He looked pleased with himself, and I couldn't help but admire the way he so spontaneously and calmly put his injuries behind him. He looked over at the far wall and started to head in that direction. He was walking almost completely by himself now, and only barely held onto my shoulder to stabilise himself. There was a small, circular-shaped window in the wall, and he walked directly over to it. Just out of the window was a breath-taking view of the entire planet just below us.

Shadow's shoulders dropped and he sighed. "I remember now. It was like this every day back on the ARK. Maria and I would sit by the windows and watch Mobius below us. We used to imagine what it would be like to actually walk on the surface of the planet. She would always have these fantasies about how it would be like to walk in actual field or go shopping, or even feed ducks in a park. The doctor had all sorts of books to show us pictures of what things look like, and she was fascinated by ducks." He gave a happy half-smile, like he was remembering something funny. "She would talk about them all the time, 'Shadow, aren't ducks just so cute?' And 'Shadow, when we get to Mobius, you'll be sure to take me to feed the ducks, right?'..." He trailed off, lost in his newfound memories.

I watched Shadow as he stared out the window, remembering all the good times he'd had with his only friend in the world before she'd died. He must have felt awful when she sacrificed herself for him. I couldn't even imagine.

Suddenly, Shadow gave a great big yawn.

I smiled. "Looks like somebody needs a nap," I teased.

"Maybe your right, I could use some sleep." He admitted, and started to head back towards the bed, he didn't need my support anymore.

"Don't fall asleep just yet." I told him. "I'll go and get Cream, she said something about keeping you awake without a watch, so I'll tell her that you're tired."

Shadow nodded. "I hate feeling like an invalid, but you're right, and I don't really want permanent brain damage." He sat up in the bed to help himself stay awake. "Go, and hurry, I won't wait forever."

I flew out of the room and down the corridor towards the control room. I figured that Cream was that way, from the direction she was heading when she left.

When I walked into the glass-domed room, I saw the mayhem ensuing. Tails was ordering the other mobians around and there were screens showing news reports of a huge beast that had been tearing apart forests and towns. There were blurry pictures of the beast. It was Sonic. He was out of his mind, tearing apart everything in his path. Eggman was on another screen, he and Tails were working out the best way to stop the hedgehog (or Werehog, in this case).

"I still think we should contain him until we can find out what's wrong with him." The doctor told Tails.

"I'm not putting my best friend in a cage!" The kitsune thundered. "Sonic's just... Confused. I'm sure we can solve this without treating him like a wild animal. Sonic is still in there somewhere, I'm sure of it!"

"Well, what do you suggest we do?" Eggman asked.

There was a brief silence. "Tails, I don't like it one bit, but... Eggman is right. All we can do is catch Sonic and try to figure out what's wrong with him." Amy said from the corner where she was watching the reports. She looked very defeated.

"No! We can't put him in a cage! We just can't! We'll... Umm, we'll send a team down to try and calm him down! Let's at least try that first! If... If that doesn't work, then we'll try Eggman's idea. Okay?" He said desperately, not wanting to give up on his friend.

"Fine. We'll try it your way, but at the first sign that it's not working, we pull them out of there and contain Sonic." The doctor compromised, knowing the kitsune wouldn't agree with him without at least trying to reason with his friend first.

From the news reports and the pictures on the screen, it was obvious that Sonic wasn't in his right mind. There were photographs of streets that had been torn up by huge claws, with houses in shambles on the sides. There were no death reports, so Sonic hadn't killed anybody... Yet. At least he was only attacking inanimate things. No one had realised that the monster causing so much chaos and destruction was Sonic, and the citizens were calling him 'the doomsday beast' or just 'the beast'. There were religious persons on the streets with signs saying: 'We told you so' and 'Pray for your souls before its too late!'. There was a reporter from a helicopter getting a live video feed of the beast trampling through a forest and knocking trees out of his way like they were no more than annoying branches. Apparently the helicopter was traveling at top speed, and it was still only barely keeping up with him.

"I'm going for sure." The young fox stated stubbornly. "Who's coming with me?"

"I'll go with you." The pink hedgehog told him as she walked over.

"I'm coming as well." Knuckles declared as he jogged across the room.

"Don't forget me!" A young human exclaimed as he ran across the room.

No one else joined the team heading down to Mobius, so the four of them huddled up and began planning out how they were going to stop Sonic. I was almost mad at the lot of them. Shadow was injured so severely to the point of having been on the verge of death because no one had offered him help when he asked for it. Now here they were, about to do something just as dangerous, and everybody in the room joins in to help. Where was this enthusiasm when Shadow needed help? Then again, I really can't talk, as I was one of the people who had ditched him in his time of need.

No one had noticed that I'd walked in yet. The rabbit I was looking for was bringing food to everyone. It was long past lunch, and I was hungry, so I flew over to her to take a sandwich and ask her about Shadow.

"Hey Cream!" I greeted, walking up to her. She waved in reply. "I need to ask you something." I told her.

"Hey miss Rouge! What is it?" She asked.

"First, can I have a sandwich? They look delicious." She nodded and I took one. "Second, Shadow is tired, and we wanted to check with you to see if it was okay if he went to sleep." I finished.

"We'll, he can sleep, but someone has to watch him to make sure he doesn't shift too much in his sleep. The rest of us are going to be busy, so you have to watch him. All you have to do is make sure he doesn't end up with his forehead in his pillow. And if he starts moving too much like he's having a nightmare, then you should definitely wake him up." Cream instructed.

I put my hand on my forehead in a saluting pose. "Yes ma'am," I said, and began to walk back to Shadow.

"Wait a minute!" She exclaimed, causing me to stop and turn around.

"What?" I asked when I saw her expression.

"Don't forget to take a sandwich for mister Shadow! He might be hungry." She replied in a sweet, concerned voice.

I smiled at her thoughtfulness. "Of course not, I'll take... This one for him. Thanks for reminding me Cream." I said, choosing a roast beef, Swiss cheese and pickle sandwich for the ebony hedgehog. I turned to go, and this time I got all the way back to the clinic without any interruptions.

When I got back to the room, I saw Shadow leaning back against the headboard of the hospital bed, his eyelids drooping from his sleepiness. He sat up when I walked into the room.

"Hey, I brought you some food if you're hungry." I said.

"Oh, is that what took you so long?" He asked sarcastically. I rolled my eyes.

"No, it's just a little crazy in the control room right now. Cream had some sandwiches and she asked me to bring you one." I explained as sassily as I could.

Shadow tiredly rubbed one of his eyes with his fist. "Okay, I think I'll take the sandwich, I am a bit hungry. And it actually looks quite delicious." He stated, and I handed him the roast beef, Swiss cheese, and pickle sandwich. I was glad I had chosen one he'd like.

He quickly ate his sandwich and yawned. "Go ahead and fall asleep, I just have to watch you and make sure you don't move too much." I told him. I went to sit in the chair by the door.

"Okay, fine." He yawned again. "Good night." He laid down and closed his eyes and I saw him relax as his breathing slowed down and he fell asleep.

"Sweet dreams, Shadow." I said, even though I thought he was already fast asleep and probably couldn't hear me. His ear flicked and he faintly smiled in his sleep. Nothing got past him, and I smiled at how harmless and sweet he looked with the smile on his face as he slept. I know Shadow is the last person who would want sympathy, but he seemed so lonely. It was no wonder he was so unhappy all the time; he had nobody who cared about him.

I'm going to change that, I decided. Shadow deserves to have someone care about him. I'm going to be that person. No more making fun of him. Well, maybe a little. But definitely not as much, I conceded. I'm going to be Shadow's new best friend. He deserves that much.

I settled back to keep an eye on the sleeping hedgehog.

AN: Hey, hope you liked it, I've decided to quit with the comments nonsense, so you win... (More like I like writing to procrastinate from doing my homework so much that I've already written like, ten thousand more words, and I am not a patient person.) (teehee, I'm the real winner XD) anybody got any issues with Shadow x Rouge, suck it up, because I don't care, they would be so cute together. Chapters out once or twice a week at most, once every two weeks at least.
-Kthxbai, Silverfangirl96