Amy stepped out onto the balcony over looking the sea, and smiled contently as she leaned her arms on the railing. She closed her eyes as she listened to the sound of the waves crashing on the rocks below.
There was something calming about the sound.
She stood there silently taking it all in: the sounds and smells of he ocean, and the feel of the gentle breeze.
“May I join you?”
With a start she hopped up from where she was leaning and frowned angry at Shadow as she felt her pulse slow down to normal.
“Don’t do that! You nearly made me jump over this railing!”
He chuckled softly and went to stand next to her, staring off into the distance, admiring the sight of the water glistening in the moonlight.
Even in the night there wasn’t a cloud in the sky.
Amy leaned back on the railing and they stood in silence.
“Having fun?”
She grinned up at his impassive expression;
“Of course I am! I’m finally out of the stupid old castle, and actually hanging out with people I LIKE.!”
He grunted and wondered if he was actually included in that group of people.
“You never did tell me if you believed me earlier. You know, about the whole Sonic thing.”
Shadow glanced at her from the corner of his eye and shrugged.
“It’s not that I don’t believe you Rose. You just interest me.”
“I don’t get it…”
He gave her a fierce sort of sideways stare, and grimaced at the ocean.
“You’re too friggin’ innocent Rose.”
“What? Heh. And here I was thinking you just hated me. Although I’m really not sure you don’t.”
She was surprised by his reaction; instead of his usual stony silence, he actually looked startled.
“Wait, what?”
Before she could answer though the door behind them opened, casting orange light from inside.
“Hey guys! What are you two doing out here alone? Come join the fun!”
That was Tails, who ran back inside followed by Cream.
“Heh. Funny how that keeps happening.”
Shadow stared at her for a moment then looked over the ocean.
“You can leave if you want”
“Huh? You’re not coming?”
“Nope. I’ve had enough excitement for a day.”
“Oh, okay. Night Shadow.”
She reached the door and before she went inside she glanced back at the black hedgehog, and she wondered what he was thinking now…
~~~~
Amy was the first person to wake up the next morning; the only noise she could hear when she woke were the sounds of the waves outside and below her and the soft breathing of Cream in the other bed of their shared room,
She laid in her bed for a long while, and stared off into space and she absorbed the peace and calmness of the vacation house. Finally her need for movement overcame her need for peace, and she raised to get ready for the day.
She gently slid open the door to the balcony, and breathed in the fresh salty ocean air. She decided to take advantage of the unpopulated beach.
She grabbed a towel, her beach shoes, and her after donning her white bathing suit set off for the beach.
She picked a shady spot under a tree and waded into the crystal clear waters.
She swam for some of the time: enjoying the sight of the multicolored fish, and the corals reefs, and the dived below to the ocean floor, letting herself sink to the bottom and laying on the ground, before she would run out of air, and pushed herself to the surface.
She was floating on the water, relaxing when she got the sensation of being watched.
She treaded water and looked around.
Ahead she could see a figure hidden in the shade of the trees. She squinted at the figured and laughed to herself; she should’ve known that he would be awake also.
She waved merrily at Shadow, who hesitated before nodding and leaned against the truck of one of the trees.
Shadow sighed to himself.
What was he doing?
He frowned at a little crab that was burring itself from the sand to move across the beach closer to the shade.
This was ridiculous. Just what - the - heck- was - he - doing!
He was feeling extremely frustrated, and not to mention flustered, as well as maybe embarrassed.
He felt his face flush uncharacteristically as he watched the pink hedgehog play in the water.
‘Stupid effing swimsuit!!!’ He thought as he ground his teeth and looked away.
He knew he was being ridiculous; it wasn’t as if he was new to the whole ‘sex’ issue.
He had been with plenty of women since before and after he became an adult. Even from the young age of 14 girls and even women swooned when they saw him; the handsome little lord. At age 16 when the hormones had kicked in he had probably learned more about the subject than he was suppose to, but that wasn’t necessarily his fault; it was the girls who sought out for HIM, and being a teenager he couldn’t be blamed for not refusing; it was simply a part of life. It wasn’t until age 19 that he acknowledged and executed more control over himself, and even then he was a man; he was bound to have a couple of ‘slipups’ every once in a while.
But even in his 20 years of life had he ever met a women, even though Amy was only a little more than a girl and not of age yet, who could cause THOSE SORT of feelings from something as positively simple as a GLANCE.
He glared to where Amy was innocently enjoying the beach, and he grimaced.
How unfair it all was. He was attracted to her. He had known that he was interested in her; but it hadn’t originally been in that way. At first he was interested in her because of the inability to get along with her. Then he had become interested in her because of the way she had changed.
Yes, Amy had changed a lot from the child she had been a few years ago.
And he was interested in not the fact she had changed, but of what she changed into.
He was interested because she was so different from the others.
When it came to other people, he never interacted; he observed.
The others he observed as though through a magnifying glass; he saw all the little things that made them unsatisfactory: their spitefulness, their greed, their unrighteousness; and seeing their flaws he felt if not superior, then at least they were all in the same boat. Just another soul as ugly and retched as his own.
At one point a few years ago he had looked at her through that same magnifying glass and had seen an annoying, obnoxious, antisocial child; but even then he didn’t find himself feeling self satisfied. Despite those flaws, she was still purer than himself.
And now he couldn’t even find the same flaws he had back then: she had over gone some sort of transformation; she was no longer annoying, she was no longer obnoxious, she was no longer antisocial.
And now she was purer than ever.
He grimaced.
It irked him.
She was faultless. She was untouchable. She was perfect.
No, she was more than just that.
There was something else that radiated about her; but what was it?
What was it that made her glow with that unbounded happiness, and be so genuinely kind ever those around her; including the people she had grudges against; or should have.
He had seen her when she sacrificed the time she would have enjoyed with Sonic, to cheer up Sally. And he couldn’t understand it; 4 years ago wasn’t it her who had felt heart broken and rejected seeing the two of them together?
And that was another matter altogether. He couldn’t understand exactly why the idea of her attempting to steal her child-hood crush from the spoiled little princess irked him so greatly.
Truthfully; he really didn’t care much for Sally; he saw her as obnoxious and rather vain. That wasn’t to say she wasn’t intelligent and all that; but he didn’t see her as perfect as everyone else did.
So it wasn’t about Sally, so what was it? He knew at the time he had felt almost angry when they were acting so closey-closey.
So now he was left even more flustered. There were just too many twists and turns in this whole Amy business: on one hand he wanted to find out weather or not she was really as perfect as she seemed, on another hand, if she really was that perfect, where her innocence came from, and again on another hand he had to deal with the more ‘physical’ part of his interest.
He sighed as his mind brought him back to that side of the matter. He glanced over the water at her and again found himself flushed at the visions that popped into his mind at the image of her in her little red bikini.
He became acutely aware, AGAIN, of puberties changes in her appearance, from her breasts down to the curves or her hips.
How he would like to simply go over there, drag her back to the forest behind him, and have his way with her, he thought perversely. Then he realized just what he was going and mentally punched himself in the face.
He kept thinking that he should simply leave and get rid of this new temptation, but something within himself didn’t want to move.
‘What a predicament to be in’ He thought.
For the rest of the time he tried to stop looking at her. He tried to keep his eyes closed. He tried to pretend she wasn’t there. But the more he reminded himself not to look, the more often he would want to take a peek.
At some point the realized with disgust for himself, that whenever she would dive under; until she would come back up again he would hold his breath.
There was one awful moment when she disappeared for longer than usual. He had sat up straightly and frowned scanning for her over the water. He had almost got up to swim in and find her, when to his relief her head popped out of the water.
He frowned as he realized she was staring at something, then to his surprise she started to swim back to shore excitedly. He got up to meet her.
“Hey Shadow! Guess what I found!! it’s a cave, over there behind the cliff!”
He shook his head. He should have known.
“Can we go look in it? Pleaaase Shadow~!”
He sighed and looked up the cliff and he almost chuckled at what he saw up there.
“It seems we will have to some other time Rose, looks like your friends are calling you.”
He pointed over her shoulder where she turned to see Cream and Tails waving down at them.
“Hi Amy, Hi Mr. Shadow!”
Said Creams soft high pitched voice.
“I Guess your right.”
She grabbed her towel and they made their way up the steps to join the others.
There was plenty of talking and laughing, and bit of excitement as Knuckles and Sonic got into another fight.
When everyone else was halfway finished, she noticed as Shadow, who had been standing in the corner watching everyone eat, slid out of the kitchen and headed out to the garden.
She finished munching on her apple, and while everyone was being preoccupied by a particularly funny story by Rouge about their red echidna friend, she slipped out of the room silently, and decided she would stalk Shadow for a while.
‘I know she’s following me. But just what is she doing’ Shadow thought as he examined an exotic looking plant in Sally’s garden.
He glanced out the corner of his eye at the pink hedge-girl who was looking around at the different plants with innocent content. He noticed with a jolt that at least she had gotten rid of her bikini.
He glanced back at her one more time before he decided he couldn’t stand it.
“What do you want Rose? Got bored of your little friends?”
She looked over at him before replying,
“No, I’ll never get bored of my friends; I’m just talking a walk.”
He looked up at her suspiciously.
‘She probably just doesn’t want to see Sonic and Sally smooching it up’ He thought bitterly.
She watched in wonder as he frowned at the big flower angrily. She couldn’t think of anything she’d said to make him angry. Actually, she thought, he always seemed down about something. She had never actually seen him smile before… sometimes he would give a smirk, or a sneer; but he never actually seemed happy about anything.
“Hey shadow?”
He grunted. See; not happy.
“How come you never smile?”
“What?”
He looked stunned, as if that was the last thing he would think of her saying.
And it probably was she thought ruefully.
“Well, you always seem down I guess… So I was asking why you never smile or anything…”
He stared at her with the expression appropriate for seeing a person grow an extra head. Then he looked frowning as though concentrating.
“… I guess I never have anything to smile about…”
He quirked a brow deep in thought.
“Really? But how can you never have anything to smile about?”
He frowned at her.
“I just don’t.”
With that he turned towards the path and started to walk away.
Amy hesitated, her expression concerned, before running to catch up with him.
“Stupid tall person” She muttered.
“What?”
“I said ‘Stupid tall person’. You walk too fast”
He smirked and looked on ahead, and to her relief she noticed he had stopped walking quite as quickly.
Maybe there was some hope for him yet.
The walked through the miniature jungle, talking about life, and when one of them would come across and interesting one, a plant.
At one point Amy had stopped walking and stood in place staring at something.
Shadow, realizing she was no longer in his presence turned back and approached, and tried to find the thing she was looking at. He frowned at he saw an ordinary tree, and wondered if that was what she was really looking at so intently.
“Amy? What are you doing”
She didn’t even glance at him, instead she glared hard towards the tree and said something that almost made his mouth drop to the floor.
“I’m trying to decided weather or not I should climb that tree.”
“What? Seriously?”
“well yea, it’s perfect for climbing. But sigh… climbing trees is so ‘unladylike’”
She frowned harder and then looked around as if to see if anyone was watching, then she walked quickly to the trunk of the tree and examined it’s branches.
Shadow, not knowing exactly how to respond simply followed her standing under the tree of her interest.
Then she started to climb. She grabbed two of the branches and put her foot on another heaving herself up, and she continued one, hand, hand foot, heave.
Shadow stood under, awestruck and a little concerned.
‘This girl is simply amazing’ He though to himself, rather amused by the situation.
Very soon she was at the top of the tree, sitting on a fork created by the trunk and it’s branches. From where she sat she waved down at Shadow.
“Hey Shadow, you should try this!”
“Say what?”
“Aww, come on Shadow! It’s fun! And the view is so amazing!”
He was startled to say the least. Her she was asking him, an adult Knight, to climb with her, a Lady, up a tree.
He sighed.
Amy Rose was really a character.
He glanced around and made up his mind.
He quickly followed her example, and climbed with the graceful precision of an athlete.
Soon he was up there with her, and he settled on another branch, amazed; the view really was just as good as she had described it. You could see over the walls of the house, and passed the jungles, all the way to purple mountains on one side obscuring their view of the world in front of them, and to the left was the ocean, sparkling in the sunlight.
“Isn’t it just beautiful Shadow! I could just stay here for the rest of my life!”
He glanced at her, taking in the smiling face, and the bright light that made her green eyes just glow with excitement and wonder.
“Yes… yes it is”
They sat their for a while, taking in the breathtaking beauty of the world around them. That seemed to be their relationship: a couple of people just spectators, observers of the rest of the world. Only, where he was content with staying still and observing form a distance, she was just like a curious child: wanting to touch and experience everything half of the time, only content with watching when that was her only option.
Shadow felt very comfortable up here: this wasn’t his first tree climbing adventure. Since he was a kid he had made a game of jumping form tree branch to tree branch. His mother had once thought it was dangerous, but he always felt comfortable with heights. He remembered scaring her once when he had actually jumped from twenty feet off the ground and landed perfectly without injuring himself, but he stopped showing his mother this ability after he was punished.
After a while their friends had decided to start searching for the pair. From their perch they heard the voices of Tails and Cream calling their names, and it was then that they decided it would be best to leave.
Amy made to start climbing down, but Shadow took hold of her arm, and swung her around behind him.
“Hold on” he instructed her.
She rapped her arms around hid neck from behind, and with her knees held onto his sides, and then she had to grasp him more tightly, as off he went, jumping down from one branch to another.
‘She’s surprisingly light for a woman’ he thought, as they retched the ground.
She scrambled off his back, exhilarated from their decent.
“That was so cools Shadow!”
He smirked at her and led the way back to the others, who were sitting outside on the steps to the garden talking amongst themselves.
“So! What’s the plan for today” Sonic asked loudly, grabbing the attention of everyone around him.
“Well, I want to go hiking” said Knuckles
“I just want to run and explore” Sonic said impenitently.
“Ohh~ Exploring sounds like fun! Right Tails” Chimed in Cream.
Sally had grabbed onto Sonic’s arm in an unspoken answer.
Amy was starting to think this whole vacation was becoming some sort of group dating. Knuckles and Rouge were eyeing each other expectantly, Cream and Tails were talking excitedly about what they might find on their adventure, and while Sally was clinging to his arm Sonic was scratching his cheek and looking away embarrassedly. All who were left were… Amy and Shadow.
‘Cough cough, Awkward’ She thought.
It suddenly dawned on her that she had been spending a lot more time with the black hedgehog than she had initially expected.
She had been surprised when they had first seen each other after all this time. As children she distinctly remembered him being a nasty little jerk face with a bad attitude and a hot temper. She had actually thought he hated her a little. That was why she had been reluctant to go on this trip is he were there. She liked making friends; not dealing with enemies.
But yesterday instead of the constant arguing and bickering and dirty looks and maybe even violence she had expected, they actually got along quite well, even if it wasn’t the buddy-buddy type of relationship she had with the others.
She realized with a jolt she felt different around him than with the others.
At first she had been more self aware; she kept quiet and didn’t do anything immature. She stayed calm and controlled her small impulses to so do anything more exciting.
But that had been at first.
This morning she had decided to take a chance at being more herself, and she was pleased when he didn’t sneer at her and call her childish; instead he had even joined her in her tree climbing adventure! And that was something she could have never foreseen.
This was Shadow after all; he was anti-social, quiet and impassive. So what had cased him to drop his usual superior attitude, and join her?
She was quite confused about it all. Like why it was their old hate-hate relationship had turned into a friendly companionable one. Or how come She felt so unsure, or why she cared suddenly about what he thought about her. And… she couldn’t explain the weird
Smothering feeling in her chest when he looked at her. She glanced up to see that even now he was looking at her, with the most unreadable expression on his face.
She quickly glanced away and she felt her cheeks heat up.
‘Oh great, now I’m blushing~!’
The group left the house excited for another day of adventure.
When they got to the entrance of the jungle they split up into their pairs and set off on their own ways.
There wasn’t very much conversation between the two hedgehogs and Amy and Shadow walked on past the different plant species.
To the both of them the other seemed to have a lot on their mind; they would glance at each other often and drop the gaze when theirs met.
Eventually though, Amy started to get a bit bored of walking silently.
It even went to the point she started to block the feeling of self awareness to do something exciting.
Once she found a small little borrow of an unidentified animal, and she started to poke into it with a stick, until Shadow told her, amused, that they should probably continue walking. As they rested for a few minutes she made a game of stacking rocks on top of each other until they fell. Shadow even surprised her by playfully knocking them over himself at one point.
He sneered at her pouty face and she brightened up immediately
After that they started to talk normally; again about life.
Amy learned that Shadow, despite the usual idea of him being less brainy due to his quietness and temperament, he actually was a bit of a scholar.
He learned that Amy was also more intelligent than she led on when they were able to have a deep discussion about the workings of Shakespeare.
He also learned that her parents, even though they were nobility of Acorn, her mother descended from Mercia, while her father ‘s were from Leung Kar.
They had had no idea just how long they had been walking, but it really didn’t matter, they were really enjoying themselves.
Then something very unexpected happened.
Amy could see a clear space from where they were walking, and feeling the need for some excitement she decided she would challenge Shadow to a race.
“Peh! You don’t truly think you can beat me in a race do you?”
She huffed and put her hands on her hips heatedly.
“I bet I can!”
He smirked evilly. There was no way he could lose to this girl, running was his domain.
“We shall see then Rose”
They stopped walking, and lined up.
“Okay, the finish line is that clearing up ahead”
He nodded smirking, this would be too easy.
“On your mark,”
They crouched, ready to shoot off at a moments notice,
“Get set”
They glanced at each other, and glared at each other playfully.
“Go!”
And off they went! Two flashes, one of pink, and one black, speeding down the path in front of them!
They dodged the low hanging branches, and sped up, neck and neck, then Amy started in shock as she realized he was only going faster, he was a foot ahead…
And then without warning he stopped directly ahead of her skidding to a stop and turning, but she didn’t have time to brake!
With a crash she ran right into him, and with a sinking feeling realized just why he had stopped, unfortunately the clearing wasn’t as flat as she had thought!
In slow motion they started to fall, and then they were rolling quickly down the small hill. They shut their eyes as the world spun upside down and around, and then the spinning stopped, and they landed right in front of another stretch of trees. HYPERLINK "/index.php?title=Leung_Kar&action=edit"
It took a moment for the world to stop spinning, and they opened their eyes and then time froze again.
As Shadow stared down into the green eyes of the pink hedgehog his mind went blank. He couldn’t focus, he couldn’t put two ideas together, all there was, was the strangest feeling he has ever felt. It was a warm fuzziness that took over his consciousness. He couldn’t even acknowledge what he was doing, but slowly, painfully their faces moved closer, their faces were barley an inch apart, their eyes closed partially the dazed look never leaving them, their lips were so very close, they couldn’t even breath…
But then with a jolt their minds began to work again. Their eyes widened and Shadow pushed himself from over her, scratching his nose, unable to meet her eyes again and trying to ignore the blush that crossed his face.
Amy was in just as much shock. She looked down at her dress, shaking the dust off it her face flushed.
‘What the heck was THAT!’
Their minds were in a sort of embarrassed turmoil.
‘I almost kissed her…’
‘I almost kissed him…’
They glanced up at each other and their wide eyes met, but they looked away just as quickly.
Shadow coughed, and although she didn’t look up her ears directed towards the sound.
“So, um, I guess we should get going.”
“Um, Yea”
They lifted themselves up and started on their way, in an embarrassed silence.
Amy felt her brain working over time.
‘He, almost kissed me… it almost happened… our lips almost touched… this is… oh my gosh…oh my gosh… why… how did this happen…’
She tried to excuse it as they were both dizzy from their little ride, and just got confused…
‘yea that’s it, it was all just a misunderstanding… right? I mean, he cant possibly… like me… that’s outrageous… this is SHADOW we’re talking about… no… he cant like me… it was just an accident…’
‘But do you want it to be?’ Came a voice in her head. It echoed around her brain.
DID she want what happened to be an accident?
Maybe… maybe she didn’t…
She glanced over at the black hedgehog through the corner of her eye. He wasn’t looking at her, he seemed preoccupied by his own thoughts. There was a frown playing on his face and his cheeks still looked flushed.
What was he thinking?
What did he think of her now?
Did he hate her? Now that they had just started to get to know each other on a friendly level?
She didn’t want him to hate her… if he hated her… then…
She felt the water ducks of her eyes move slightly.
‘What was wrong with her!’ She thought, kicking herself mentally.
Why should she care if he hated her or not…
She sighed inwardly, even if she didn’t know why, she DID care if he hated her…
She…wanted him to like her…
She rubbed her neck nervously.
No, that wasn’t just it… what happened just now… she didn’t want it to be an accident… she, very confusingly, almost… regretted that it didn’t happen…
She didn’t know what the heck to do now… she… she liked him…
She LIKED Shadow…
