Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

A bright blue blue streaked through Green Hill. Or, at least, what used to be Green Hill. The grayed landscape seemed to taunt Sonic as he ran past; a reminder of what he had destroyed. His mind wasn’t on that, however. Only one thought reigned.

“Shadow?!”

He had to be here, right? If he wasn’t in the void, and he couldn’t enter any shatterspaces, Shadow had to be here. Sonic didn’t want to think of an alternative.

“An eternity of darkness, that decays all life…”

No. Shadow wouldn’t be stupid enough to fall down there, right? Not after the last time…

‘Focus, Sonic!’ A voice in his head scolds. It sounded suspiciously like Shadow. Geez, these past few weeks are really getting to him.

Snapping back to awareness, he realized where his subconsciousness had taken him. 

The beach. Where all his friends’… ghosts were. The one place he didn’t want to be. The one place he hadn’t searched yet.

“Shadow?” Sonic calls out, hoping to hear the familiar deep voice of his rival turned ally answer him. Nothing.

“The forest is the most beautiful place on Earth!” Amy repeated beside him. Sonic’s heart clenches at the sound. Oh, what he would give to turn back the clock. He wished he could take everything back. Listen to his friends for once. It was too late now.

“Shaaadow!” Where was he? 

Emerald eyes sweep the area. No Shadow, no Shadow, no Shadow… 

There! 

Black and red quills peek out from behind a tree. Relief filled Sonic in an instant. “Shadow! There you are! Didn’t you hear me?” He said as he hopped over, giddy once more. “You’ll never believe what happened! I saw you, but not you— a different version of you! He had this really cool glowing arm!”

Shadow, in response, just stared past Sonic as if he didn’t exist. 

Something was wrong, horribly wrong. Did Shadow seem a little… transparent? Ignoring the pit slowly forming in his gut, Sonic reached over and waved his hand in front of Shadow’s face. “Shad—”

Suddenly, the ebony hedgehog shifted, and the words that came out of his mouth were unexpected. “I’ll do what it takes, no matter the cost.” Then he returned to the position Sonic found him in.

Sonic stared at him. One second… two… 

And realization hit him like a bullet train.

“No. No, no, no, no, NO! Y-you can’t… you can’t be…”

Sonic’s gloved fingers found themselves on Shadow’s face.

No reaction.

Sonic’s heart twists and his hand goes limp.

A forbidden tear traced down his cheek.

His breaths come in fast.

He stares into lifeless ruby eyes.

And whispers.

“You’re gone…”

Chapter Text

Atop Temple Mountain, there is a hollow. A hollow created by Eggman in his mad grab for the Paradox Prism. It was in that hollow that everything had started; the prism had been broken and the Shatterverse had been created from its remains.

It was in that hollow that Sonic had destroyed everything, everyone he'd ever cared for.

Sonic was there now, perched near the entrance, staring at the only remaining shard of the prism and remembering the many things had happened in this cavern.

It seemed like only yesterday when Shadow had led him here and a fight had broken out between the two of them. It seemed like only yesterday that Shadow had been okay.  

Why did things keep getting worse?

It was now that Sonic finally understood what Shadow had meant that day. Because now everything Sonic had ever known had been snatched away. Because Shadow was gone, the only thing left of him a mirage. And, spread out through the shatterspaces, three alternate, distorted versions of him.
Those versions weren’t real. They weren’t real like Shadow was— had been. They didn’t act like Shadow, they didn’t fight like Shadow. They didn’t know Green Hill like Shadow did, and they didn’t want to bring it back. 

Sonic wants Shadow back. He wants all of his friends, his real friends, back. He wants his home back, his life back.

Tears rolled down his face, dripping onto his lap. When had he started crying again? As Sonic wiped at his eyes in a futile attempt to stem his tears, the voices in his head stirred. 

 Stop crying, idiot.

 You should be fixing this mess.

(They sounded sharp; accusing.)

  You should have listened to them: Tails. Amy. Knuckles. Rouge. Shadow.

 Nothing would have happened if they’d been in charge.

 This is all your fault.

(They… they sounded like his friends.)

 You took them us all for granted.

 You destroyed everything.

 Yet you call yourself a hero?

 Disaster.

 Disgrace.

 Failure.

 You

 Deserve 

 To

 Be

 Alone

  Alone.

“N-no,” Sonic whispered, his voice trembling. He clamped his hands over his ears and curled up tight. “S-stop. Please. I… I’m sorry. I’m sorry!” 

Tears streamed down his cheeks. He made no attempt to stop them now. He felt like he was suffocating; unable to breathe, or think. The shadowy cave seemed to press in on him. Everything seemed to fall away.

The voices grew louder, more persistent, filled with animosity and blame.

I know, Sonic wanted to scream.

I know it’s my fault. 

And I’m sorry. I’m sorry for what I did.

But sorry isn’t enough, is it?

I wish I could take it all back.

I wish I’d never known you.

Then maybe this wouldn’t have happened.

Then maybe things would be okay.

Then maybe you’d still be here.

And I would be the one to suffer.

I’m sorry.

So sorry.

……

Sonic had no idea how long he sat there for, panic rendering him immobile. He’d eventually cried himself to sleep, his friends’ hate-filled voices still ringing in his head. 

When he came to, Sonic felt… better, for lack of another term. The voices had receded, reduced to whispers that tugged at the back of his mind, urging him to hurry up and go. 

He felt numb, both inside and out, as he stood up and stretched. 

Sonic took one more glance at ghost prism, along with the yellow shard, before jumping out the mouth of the cavern. As he zipped down the side of the cliff, straining to build up prism energy, he whispered a promise to nothing and everything.

“I’ll fix my mistakes. I’ll bring this reality back. No matter what it takes.”

Chapter Text

It was over. It was finally over.

The last shard of the Paradox Prism snapped in with a magnetic pull, joining back with the other four. A burst of light and energy washed over Green Hill, restoring it to its previous form, full of life and color.

Relief flooded through Sonic and he let out an exhausted sigh. His limbs ached and his head pounded from everything he’d been through; he wanted to collapse, then and there, and take a nice, long nap. However, he still had other things to do; people— friends — to check on.

But when Sonic tried to move, tried to get out of that stupid cave, he found that he could barely take a step. Something was pulling at him, rooting him to the spot.

The Prism.

Panic coursed through the hedgehog for the umpteenth time and he struggled to get away, much to the distress of his already overworked body. He could feel the Paradox Prism tugging at his mind, his consciousness, and he understood, somehow. It wanted its energy back. The energy that Sonic had absorbed so much of, he practically lived off it. It wanted him.

No, no, no. Not right now. He wanted to— needed to— make sure that everything had worked out. He needed to make sure that they were okay.

But the prism only tightened its grip. Sonic pushed right back at it, unwilling to give up, even as numbness sank in and he saw his form flicker. Even as he felt the prism tearing at his mind, pulling his consciousness to shreds. He needed to know that they’d come back, even if it was the last thought to run through him.

Relief came in the form of a black and red hedgehog, who had evidently ran up Temple Mountain in a hurry, a golden trail in his wake. Sonic felt the tension leave him as he stopped fighting the prism and it eagerly unraveled his threads. His form flickered again, horrifying Shadow, who yelled something. It came through to Sonic garbled and incoherent, not that he cared much.

Shadow was alright. His friends would be okay. He’d done it.

Sonic couldn’t help the smile that graced his face as he flickered one last time, his body remaining translucent. Oblivious to Shadow’s approach, he shut his eyes as darkness took over his mind.

The last thought he had was that it was too bad that he never got to see his friends again.

Tell them I’m sorry, would you, Shadow?

……

When Shadow had come to, he’d been confused. The vivid colors of the landscape around him assaulted his senses. He’d grown too used to the desaturated ghostly version of home.

He hadn’t been the only one feeling lost, though. Tails, Amy, Knuckles, and Rouge were all collecting themselves, trying to figure out what had happened. The last thing that they remembered was Sonic launching himself at the Paradox Prism. But Shadow knew more than that.

The Prism. Shadow had realized with a start. If he and everything else was back to normal, then Sonic must have fixed it. 

But where was Sonic? He’d assumed that the blue hedgehog would’ve been here already, given his supernatural speed, and be yammering to his friends with that annoyingly chipper voice of his. Unless…

Unless something was wrong. Shadow couldn’t think of another reason Sonic wouldn’t have rushed right back to see his friends. He’d turned to look at the cloud ringed peak of Temple Mountain, worry building in his gut.

Rouge had approached him, saying something that Shadow tuned out. “I think something’s wrong with Sonic,” he’d muttered before firing up his air shoes and speeding towards the place where everything started.

.

At the top of the mountain, Shadow peered into the cavern. The first thing he laid his eyes on was the Paradox Prism, now complete once more. The next thing… Sonic, standing right next to the giant crystal. 

He looked terrible, nothing like the hyperactive hedgehog he’d come to know. There were bags under his eyes, his quills were unkempt, and his blue fur was no longer as vibrant as Shadow remembered. Pain was etched into his every feature, and he was breathing heavily, seemingly struggling against some invisible force.

But as soon as Sonic laid eyes on Shadow, he relaxed. Then, to Shadow’s horror, his form flickered to translucency, much like his own had before. Suppressed memories came flooding back: a numbing feeling, a splitting headache, panic as he realized what was happening, and acceptance when he found that he was no longer able to escape Ghost Hill. 

Shadow shook it off and called out Sonic’s name as he scrambled to get down to him.

This couldn’t be happening. Could it?

Shadow stopped just a couple feet in front of Sonic as the latter shifted to ghost completely. A single tear slipped out from beneath blue eyelids and Shadow brushed it away. “Sonic?”

Sonic’s eyes opened, revealing dull emeralds that held no life. He stared at nothing as Shadow took a step back. Then another, and another, until he was pressed against the cave wall. Never did he take his gaze away from the ghost that now stood by the prism. 

No. The prism was fixed. Everything was supposed to be okay.

Against the short breaths and rapid heartbeat that rang in his ears, Shadow heard the sound of a plane engine. Tails’ voice called, “Sonic?! Shadow?!” It was followed by a series of gasps as the friends were met with the same sight that had greeted Shadow earlier. 

All four of them rushed to Sonic’s side, with Tails being first. Shadow made no move to stop them. Before any of them could say a word, however, as if on cue, Sonic’s form shifted and he spoke the phrase that he would repeat for eternity.

Just two words, yet it hurt Shadow in a way he’d never felt.

“I’m sorry.”

Chapter Text

Nothing.

There was nothing. He was nothing but a tiny consciousness, surrounded by an endless sea of darkness.

Well, conscious may not be the right word. He was barely aware.

How long has it been? Seconds? Minutes? Days? Weeks? Months? Years? 

He didn’t know. Didn’t know how or why he was here, just that he was here.

And there was nothing here.

……

But then… then…

A light.

It was small, but against the eternal void, it may as well have been everything.

More came after.

Light wove through the darkness like ribbons, drifting past him, each one bringing something; a feeling, a memory, a whisper, a question.

There were many ribbons now. He reached for them.

But the void seemed reluctant to let him go, pressing on him, pulling him back. 

He reached anyway. There was something there, and he wanted— needed— to know what. 

There was someone there, he realized. Who?

Who? Who? Who? The ribbons whistled as they passed, faster now. The glow was growing steadily… but the void was stronger. Light couldn’t fill the endless void. Not without help.

He drifted over and reached for them— it— the point where everything started, a swirling pit of light. You. You. You. It murmured.

But who was that, exactly?

There was noise coming from it, from the other side, indiscernible, but growing louder, clearer, flooding his senses.

He touched the light.

Warmth. Blurry memories, at the same time, crystal clear. Happiness, sadness; worry, and relief. Everything washed over him at once.

“…Sonic!”

The void shattered.

……

It had been Tails’ idea: Use a chaos emerald to funnel the prism’s energy into Sonic’s ghost, hopefully reviving him. And of course, of course he had to drag Shadow along.

It was fair, he supposed. He knew the most about the chaos emeralds out of everyone. But he didn’t mean he wanted to be here.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to help bring Sonic back. For as annoying Sonic was, he was fun to fight. And he had fixed his mistakes, hadn’t he?

And maybe Shadow cared about the blue hedgehog more than he’d like to admit. Maybe he wasn’t willing to accept another permanent loss.

Shadow just didn’t want to be here, standing in this cavern, two weeks after Sonic’s… sacrifice, listening to his ghost emptily apologize over and over and over. It was torturous.

Especially as Sonic’s group of friends stood by silently and watched him try and fail to do anything, clearly feeling the same.

The chaos emerald in his grasp glowed hot, pulsing in time with the Paradox Prism. Shadow took in a deep breath and gritted his teeth before holding the emerald out and trying again. Arcs of energy came off the Prism in waves, funneling into the emerald and concentrating into a bright beam that zapped Sonic’s ghost. 

Once again, pressure built up and Shadow involuntarily tensed, a numbing feeling quickly spreading across his arm as he fought to remain in control. Several seconds later, a new record, he gasped, “It’s not enough.”

“No. It has to be. It has to work!” Tails cried. “Please. Come on, Sonic!”

As soon as those words left his lips, a deafening crack sounded as an explosion of light blasted everyone back. Shadow slammed into the stone base on which the Paradox Prism sat, a groan escaping before he flipped to his feet, the experience bringing back all too familiar memories, right down to the shattering sound that rang in his ears.

Thankfully, nothing was wrong. Quite the opposite, really. The Prism was still intact and beside it, Sonic, now on his hands and knees, chest heaving as he gasped for air.

It worked. It actually worked.

Shadow walked over and offered him a hand. “Welcome back, idiot.”

Sonic didn’t respond, peering at Shadow with a blank, unreadable expression resting on his face. It unsettled Shadow, who would’ve thought that he was still a ghost if it hadn’t been for his eyes, once again holding the spark of life. 

Breaking his gaze off the other’s, Sonic tentatively took Shadow’s hand, and the latter yanked him to his feet. Standing on shaky legs, emerald eyes met ruby again and Sonic opened his mouth…

Only to be tackled immediately by a flying blur of a fox. Shadow smirked as the two went down from the sheer force of the impact. He stood back and gave them space. “Sonic!” Tails cried joyously, wrapping his arms around the blue hedgehog and nuzzling him. “You’re back!”

Sonic just peeled Tails off him, much to the latter’s confusion and dismay. However, the hedgehog didn’t let go, instead gently running his fingers along the kit’s face, staring at him with something akin to wonder. “Tails.” He murmured, his voice cracking. “You’re real.”

“Of course I’m re—” his words cut off by Sonic pulling him in for a tight hug. He looks as if he’s afraid Tails would disappear should he let go. Which, given everything that happened, wasn’t too far fetched. The fox, unsure of how to respond to this unexpected reaction, hesitantly rubs his back. “…Sonic?”

Sonic just squeezed tighter. “I… I’m so sorry,” he whispered, missing the way everyone flinched at those words.

“Please never say that again.” Shadow said bluntly, earning him a confused look from the blue hedgehog. He didn’t bother explaining. If he heard that damned phrase one more time, he’d snap.

Amy, who’d walked over from where she’d been flung to, shot Shadow a pointed look before kneeling down beside the two brothers. “Sonic, there’s no need to be sorry,” she said, patting his shoulder gently. Sonic didn’t seem to agree, something coming over him as guilt flooded his features and he pulled away from both her and Tails.

“I… I…” he stuttered as he scooched back, quickly bumping into Knuckles.

“Where do you think you’re going?” The echidna grunted, reaching for Sonic’s arm only for him to grasp empty air as the hedgehog dodged his attempt. “Hmph. Don’t be stubborn now.”

“Yeah, hun. You’re not worming your way out of this one.” Rouge added as she fluttered over. “No one’s gonna hurt you, Blue, calm down.” 

There was panic in Sonic’s eyes now, his pained expression greatly contrasting the blank one he’d worn moments earlier. All of his friends were now surrounding him in a tight circle. Amy scooted closer to him. “It’s alright, Sonic. I know you’re not one for touchy-feely talk, so I’m going to say this: Whatever you’re sorry for, we forgive you, okay?” 

A chorus of agreement followed those words. Sonic could only stare at his friends in disbelief. “Just like that?” 

“Of course. Everyone makes mistakes, after all,” Amy replied. She reached for Sonic’s hand, only for him to jerk away. 

“No. I-It wasn’t just a mistake , Amy.” Sonic choked out, his voice shaking just as much as his body was. Tears leaked out of his eyes, prompting him to bury his face in his hands. “I-I broke the world. I broke you. And everyone and everything else. Reality was in pieces, Amy. You can’t… you can’t just forgive that. You can’t!” 

“Sonic—”

“Why not?” Shadow said, interrupting Amy. He couldn’t stand anymore of this… this… nonsense.  

Sonic looked on the verge of a panic attack, but he still peeked at Shadow through his fingers, indicating awareness. So Shadow continued. “Why is it so unforgivable? You forgave me, didn’t you? You gave me another chance after everything I’ve done, and what did I do? I threw it back in your face and beat you up after giving you the most life-shattering news you’ve ever heard. And yet you still risked your life to save me, were still so eager to work with me, not ten minutes after.” Shadow stopped right in front of Sonic and crouched down to face him. “I should be asking you for forgiveness, not the other way around. So stop with the depressing attitude. I didn’t go through all the effort to bring you back  only for you to act like I wasted my time.”

The room was silent for a few moments more. Sonic’s emerald eyes glistened, glued to Shadow’s serious expression. Then, suddenly, he reached out and wrapped his arms around Shadow, pulling the ebony hedgehog off balance into a tight hug. “ Mmph. Okay, I-I’m…”

“Don’t say it.” Shadow huffed, awkwardly patting the hedgehog’s head, pretending not to notice the tears that seeped into his fur. He’d never been one for hugs; it was a bit too intimate to him, but he made an exception this time.

Then Tails came over and looped his arms around Sonic’s torso, deciding that actions would speak louder than words. The rest of his friends followed suit, forming what was essentially a cuddle pile with Sonic, still clinging to Shadow, in the center.

Shadow had never been in such a situation before. He felt himself feeling awkward surrounded by such a tight-knit bunch of friends he was not a part of. However, while part of him screeched to pull away, he found that he didn’t really mind. Subconsciously, he put his arms around Sonic, right on top of Tails’ hands. The blue hedgehog proceeded to sob, making everyone squeeze tighter in a silent urge for him to let it out.

Eventually, sobs turned to sniffles before dying down completely. Not once during that time did anyone back out of the group hug, the promise that they’ll be here unspoken, but not unheard. Only when Sonic’s breathing shifted into the tell-tale steady pattern that came with sleep did Shadow let go, prompting everyone else to do the same. 

Shadow carefully picked Sonic up in a similar fashion to how the latter had carried him out in the void. As everyone headed out, the setting sun bleeding orange through the mouth of the cave, Shadow looked back at the Paradox Prism one last time, remembering how everything started.

A lot had changed since then, most of all Sonic, who seemed to have gone through hell and back to fix things. He would have to tell his tale when he woke up.

Shadow shifted the sleeping hedgehog in his arms and pulled out the chaos emerald, uttering a quiet “chaos control” and probably startling Tails, who had come back into the cave for him and Sonic.

He took off the instant he reappeared at the foot of Temple Mountain, heading for Tails’ Lab. Careful not to jostle Sonic, he zoomed past the vibrant landscape of Green Hill, appreciating it for the first time since it all came back.

It felt good to be home.