D-002.

5 Days Before Launch.

As the orange hue of the sunrise beckons on Icarus' room, he softly opens his eyes, almost as if he barely slept. He stares at the ceiling for a moment before sighing.

Oddly enough, the house seems oddly quiet. No chaos, no yelling from his mother or fire alarms…just…nothing.

He gets up and slowly creaks the door to his room open, but once again: nothing. He walks over to his parent's room, and he can hear quiet mummering. The closer he gets, the closer he realises that this mummering is a very unusual thing for him to hear. An actual argument.

Against his conscience's pleas, Icarus puts his ear on the wooden door.

Shadow: "Well, if he just runs off again, I will just get one of these window locks."

Amy: "That is NOT a solution!"

Shadow: "Well, what is?! You want me to grab your son, the kid who didn't even know who we are until 2 damn days ago, and just tell him 'Yeah, the fate of the universe is in your hands, good luck and have fun'?!"

Shadow's tone was quite sharp, causing Icarus to flinch away from the door for a second, before slowly putting his ear back on.

Shadow: "Look ... .I…I am sorry for raising my tone, but you can't possibly think that sending him off to this is remotely a good idea. All it takes is… one stray blast or one of the hundred idiots who took issue with that imbecile to recognise him and…"

Amy: "I know, I really do but…Shadow, we can't just keep hiding…all of this from him. Can you imagine being in his place for just a moment? Imagine if…look, I do not mean anything by this, but imagine for a moment that Gerald never told you about Maria's condition, not what you were made for or what they were doing to you with all those experiments back then, then the day of the raid happened…how would that make you feel?"

Shadow: "That's different…"

Amy: "It isn't-"

"IT IS! I was MADE for it, I wasn't given a choice, is it so wrong to give him that choice that I never got?!"

…

While all of this should sound like bombshell after bombshell; the talk about experiments, this 'Maria' and 'Gerald'; it got Icarus thinking a sense of guilt for his rebellion …why does he even want to go up there? His parents know of his powers, that's great! Besides, it's not like he would be alone after they go up to space. With his father gone, maybe he can convince Amy to tell him some stories. Like, his family has direct access to the Chaos Emeralds as if it's no big deal, so just what sort of other secrets do they have?

Pondering this made him miss whatever conclusion the conversation ended on, but he is snapped back to reality when he hears Shadow's footsteps walk closer and closer towards the door. Icarus takes a step back, and pretends to be just walking out of his room just then.

Icarus: "Yo, father. Morning."

Shadow: "Hey…"

Knowing his father probably wouldn't want to talk right now, Icarus decides to begin walking out of the house, going to college out of his own intuition.

"Icarus…" Shadow calls out.

Icarus stops in his tracks and turns around with a "Yeah?"

"Aside from today, due to the fact that he's got a conference, feel free to visit Miles, only after you attend college, alright?"

Icarus: "Why are you-"

Shadow: "W-well…because…"

Amy peaks out of the door frame of their room, Shadow looks back on her with a soft expression and a sigh before turning back to Icarus.

Shadow: "Because I am sure that…all of the things you heard recently must be a lot, especially since you only just discovered we too possess supernatural talents. You can go ahead and…ask him anything you'd like, okay?" Despite sounding like he's got a gun to his head forcing him to talk, his soft tone makes Rose smile in gratitude, which infects Icarus and causes him to flash a grin too.

Icarus: "You got it, dad. I'll be off now."

Shadow nods and Amy gives him a wave goodbye.

As Icarus softly closes the door behind him, Shadow has a small moment of realisation that makes his very soul gleaning.

This was the first time since Icarus was around 8 that he called Shadow 'dad' rather than 'father'.

And with that, the rest of the day unremarkably passes as the world sleeps in peace once more…

4 days to go…