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Rouge wasn't a sentimental woman, especially not for the time that came before she'd found her team. And yet, sitting on their shared couch, staring out into the night sky, she couldn't help the pang in her heart. Tonight was another full moon—at least it was supposed to be. The moon would never truly be full again. Most of it was still intact, but the perfect circle ruling over the night had been irreparably broken. Its own debris floated close to it, small specks of light that would never return to the place they'd been supposed to be in for eternity.
"You look melancholy today," Shadow suddenly said from right behind her and she almost flinched.
"You know how it is," she sighed, "Mourning the inevitability of change and all."
"What?" he asked, much less eloquently.
"The moon," Rouge nodded towards the big window that dominated the right side of their living room.
Shadow followed her gaze. "What about it?"
"Remember the Eclipse Cannon?" she asked.
Rouge could watch as Shadow's brows furrowed in confusion and, a moment later, his shoulders sagged. "Right. I keep forgetting it wasn't always…"
Every child born after that fateful day would only see the whole moon in pictures their parents had taken. In a few generations, those pictures would only be viewed in some textbooks as this alien moon became the new norm. Shadow hadn't been born afterwards, though. It should've been visible from the Ark, and he'd definitely spent a few days on Earth before everything. "You've never seen it before?"
He sat down next to her. "I saw it with Maria, but… down here, it's different. The perspective is off," he shrugged, "I didn't pay attention to it once I woke up."
Of course he hadn't. If she'd been woken up with nothing but the memory of her best friend dying by Eggman of all people, she wouldn't have cared a ton about some random thing in the sky either. Especially not with everything else that had been going on at the time.
Rouge pulled her phone out of her pocket and scrolled through her gallery. Occasionally, she liked to dabble in photography—nothing award-winning, but some moments were beautiful enough that she wanted to keep them—and sure enough, she found some images of the old night sky. Not nearly enough, but it would have to do.
"Here," she handed her phone over.
He stared at the pictures and, watching the way he all but sunk further into himself with each passing moment, Rouge wondered if she'd made a mistake in showing him. He'd been involved in it even more than she had, it wouldn't be surprising if—
"It used to be so beautiful," Shadow interrupted her thoughts, eyes still trained on her phone, "now it's just… broken."
"And yet it's still up in the sky, doing its thing," Rouge continued for him.
"It's an eyesore," he forced out, much more emotional that he should've been, "I don't understand how people can look at that when they've lost this."
Rouge had known Shadow for long enough to know perfectly well what he was doing. That only made picking the right words harder, though. "Don't you think you're being a bit hard on it?" she tried.
"It's the truth," he half-answered her question, "It's ugly and broken beyond repair and I don't—"
She grabbed Shadow's face with both her hands and turned his head towards hers. He stopped and stared at her in surprise, an emotion that undoubtedly was mirrored on her face. Only way out now was to continue whatever she'd started. "You're beautiful," she told him and promptly he looked elsewhere, "and you're not broken."
After a moment, she let her hands fall away, but Shadow stayed as he was. "You better get that into that thick skull of yours," she said into the resulting silence.
He stayed quiet.
They were still figuring all of this out. Their teammate turned roommate situation, emotional vulnerability, who'd get the first trauma bingo. She'd definitely just scored in the 'pushed one of the others too far too quickly' category.
Shadow never liked talking about his own issues. Instead, he did stuff like this and Rouge was left to figure out whether he was trying to work through something or if he genuinely just cared about their water pressure or cardinal directions a lot. If she didn't, if she broke the facade and stopped pretending like she was still talking about whatever inane object he'd used as a cover this time, he'd do exactly this: get quiet and leave.
Except, he hadn't left yet.
"I mean it," she continued eventually, slowly testing the waters of whatever this was, "Sure, you're rough around the edges, but we all are."
"Feels different for you," he replied tentatively, "I can't hide it."
Last week—microwave, food that made just the wrong noises, chaos spear, trip to the nearest electronics store—still hadn't left him, it seemed. It hadn't been the first time, and Gaia knew it also wouldn't be the last. She was annoyed about it, yes, but it was hardly a big deal.
"You don't have to," she said, "At least not around us."
She took another glance at him, and he still didn't seem all that convinced.
"Besides, as much as I love polished gems, the imperfect ones will always be my favorites," she tried again, putting a layer to hide beneath back over this whole conversation. "They always tell more of a story."
Shadow shifted around, and Rouge mercifully didn't look at him. "Some stories should be forgotten."
"Not when those stories contain one of the few people I care about," she shot back, maybe a bit harsher than intended.
"Look," she sighed, "The moon might have changed now, but that doesn't mean I don't like it anymore. What happened to it is hardly its own fault."
He seemed to have run out of counterarguments.
"Shadow," she decided to take a plunge back into the earlier waters and interlaced her fingers with his, "I'm saying this as your best friend: You're not broken. You're beautiful, and a good teammate, and…"
She was glad he'd stuck by her side through all of this. She wasn't used to people doing that.
People were messy, and complicated, and Rouge had been burned enough times long ago. All her life, she'd fought for herself because nobody else ever had. She'd pulled herself up. She'd taught herself how to lie and steal and infiltrate and use her knowledge and words as weapons. She'd built her own life from the ground up and never needed a hand. It had been fine. The pang in her chest whenever she saw friends sticking together or groups of people looking out for one another could be ignored easily enough.
Then, Omega and Shadow had wormed their ways into her life and now the thought of being on her own again hurt worse than a knife wound.
He squeezed her hand.
"I know that," he said, sounding like he was trying to convince himself. "Still, the reminder is welcome."
"That's what friends are for, huh," Rouge said, half to him, half to no one in particular, "To remind you that you're more than the bad shit you went through."