Chapter Text
Abraham sat at his desk, gazing at the papers that Shadow had slid across to him. ‘…What is this, agent?’
‘My resignation.’
Abraham knew that, of course. He could read the words on the printout even though it was upside down. He’d wanted to hear the words come out of Shadow’s own mouth… and they’d come out quietly. GUN’s golden child and spitfire prodigy had vanished; the person who had taken his place was a stranger.
Shadow’s arms hung by his sides. He looked strangely relaxed. The desk was too tall for him to lean on its surface. The printout was badly formatted, as though he’d never used a word processor before. He’d always been out of place and out of time, so to speak. Abraham waited, expecting Shadow to launch into a tirade about his grievances with the organisation they both worked for, but he remained silent.
Abraham picked up the document and looked it over, gathering his thoughts. The sentences were basic, scattered with complex terms and random spelling errors. The content was the product of a mind preloaded with knowledge, damaged by intrusion, and deprived of education. It read as though an alien were trying to imitate how a human would write, which was bitterly ironic.
‘What brought this on, Shadow?’
Shadow’s eyes flickered. ‘Does it matter?’
‘Yes.’ Abraham put the papers aside, steepled his fingers together, and frowned. ‘One of my best agents is quitting with no notice. It matters.’
‘I’ve had enough.’ Shadow’s voice betrayed a hint of emotion – a faint crack – but then he composed himself once again. ‘Well?’
‘Well, what?’
‘Is that it?’
‘No.’ The furrows in Abraham’s brow deepened, and he said, ‘That’s not it. What about Rouge and Omega? You can’t expect me to believe that you’re abandoning your team.’
‘They’ll be fine.’
A sense of unease welled up in Abraham’s chest. It would have been so easy for Shadow to say, I’m not abandoning them, but he hadn’t.
‘Are you striking out on your own?’ Abraham asked, and his voice was sharp. ‘Or are your teammates’ resignation letters about to cross my desk as well?’
‘I don’t know.’ Shadow seemed disoriented. His eyes slid across the scattered stationery on the desk’s surface, barely able to focus.
‘…Look.’ Abraham reached beneath his desk. Shadow’s ears pricked up as he turned off the security cameras and recording devices in the room. ‘You’ve always known that leaving GUN was never going to be straightforward. You’re still classified as a weapon and a military asset. Your refusal to obtain citizenship and documentation will make this whole process a nightmare. So why bother with this?’ stared at Shadow in bewilderment. ‘Why not just walk out of this building and never come back?’
‘I…’ Shadow blinked several times. ‘I thought this was what you were supposed to do.’ He placed a hand on the table, pushing the papers forward. ‘Can I go now?’
Abraham steeled himself. He didn’t flinch easily. He’d worked as a GUN operative and military officer for decades. He’d seen some terrible things. But the image of Shadow – of all people – asking permission to leave as though he were a child in detention was so unsettling that he nearly recoiled. He took a deep breath, then refused to speak until Shadow looked him in the eyes.
‘What are you going to do if we let you go?’ Abraham asked.
Shadow scoffed faintly, and he smiled. He was still in there – that dry, bitter sense of humour – but it was like looking at a ghost. He rested one hand on the desk. ‘What do you think I’m going to do?’
Abraham watched him intently, looking over his steepled fingers. ‘…I think you’re going to walk out of this room, prise open the elevator doors, and throw yourself down the shaft.’ Shadow stiffened, and Abraham narrowed his eyes. ‘Or maybe you’ll go down to GUN’s shooting range and try to blow your head off.’
Shadow took a step back from the desk. His fangs flashed. ‘You’re a cruel bastard.’
‘I’m right, though.’ For a moment, Abraham regretted being so harsh, but he refused to feign ignorance or sugarcoat the situation. Especially not with how Shadow was acting. He had seen these scenarios play out far too many times before. Privates. Corporals. Sergents. They all put their affairs in order, and they’d seemed happier towards the end. But it wasn’t happiness. It was relief that it would all be over soon.
Abraham stood up, picked up the printout, ripped it in half, and dropped it in the wastepaper basket beneath the desk. ‘I’m not accepting your resignation, Shadow.’
Shadow’s hand twitched, clenched, then loosened. ‘I thought as much.’ He turned and walked off, trudging to the door of the office. He stopped on the threshold. ‘Not that it matters. It was just a… courtesy.’
Abraham said nothing, and the door clicked shut. He began to pace, leaving faint patterns in the sickly blue carpet. Then he picked up the handset on his desk and walked off with it, stretching the cord to stand by the window. ‘Evacuate the shooting range and lock it down. No one goes in or out without my credentials. Put Shadow under surveillance. And put me through to Rouge. We have a potential emergency situation with Team Dark.’
Abraham leaned against the glass, winding the coiled cord around his fingers. He could already see countless scenarios unfolding before his eyes, and he didn’t like any of them. Shadow’s living quarters in Team Dark’s flat were full of firearms and explosives. He could use Chaos Control to put himself in harm’s way at a moment’s notice. He was immortal, but not invulnerable.
Shadow was a tenacious, stubborn bastard. If he truly wanted to die, then he would give it a damn good go.
Abraham felt a twinge of guilt. He had wanted to believe that Shadow was all right – that his mental state was improving as time passed. But he also knew that there were countless factors that could have coalesced to push him over the edge. Memories, trauma, grief, chronic pain, injustice, solitude, immortality, and suffering. All of it brewed behind a facade, but the facade was a dam, and the dam seemed like it was about to break.
‘Sir? Rouge is away on personal business and is uncontactable.’
‘Of course she is,’ Abraham muttered. Rouge was one of the only people that Shadow cared about. No doubt he would try to protect her from the fallout of his actions by making sure she would be off-base at a time like this. ‘What about Omega?’
‘He’s been deployed to one of Eggman’s bases. We won’t be able to retrieve him for several days—’
‘Damn it!’ Abraham began to pace again, and the movement pulled the handset off the desk. He yanked on the cord aggressively, untangling himself. Omega had been designed to protect and restrain Shadow, and his absence could result in a catastrophic outcome.
‘Sir?’ The comms operator’s voice was strained, and Abraham’s posture snapped straight. ‘Our security staff have lost track of Shadow. He’s not appearing on any of our feeds. And the feeds for the shooting range have just gone down.’
Abraham’s blood turned to ice, and he clamped a hand down on the back of his chair. ‘Then you need to get trained operatives in there immediately.’
‘Commander, you just locked that facility down. That means none of us can get in there without your credentials—’
Abraham bolted from the room, and the phone hit the desk with a sharp crack. The hallway felt far too long, and even a dead sprint felt far too slow. He mashed the button for the elevator, and when it didn’t arrive quickly enough, he shouldered through a fire escape door and took the stairs two at a time.
The world became a blur of metal and concrete. How could he have been so blind? Shadow could teleport inside any room, even if it were a locked vault. He cursed himself, spitting expletives as he clattered down the steps. His very efforts to assess the situation may have put Shadow in even more danger. Why had he mentioned the shooting range, of all places? No, he knew why – because it was one of Shadow’s favourite haunts, and so it had been at the front of his mind when thinking of a worst-case scenario.
Abraham bolted down a dimly lit corridor, shoving his way through the crowds of confused soldiers and operatives who had just been evacuated. He slammed his access card into the reader and dragged it downwards, typing in a passcode with shaking fingers. His ears were ringing. The shooting range was perfect, come to think of it. Shadow probably would have gone there even if Abraham hadn’t mentioned it all. It was a concrete vault, hidden from view. Omega and Rouge would never have to see their teammate die—
Abraham shouldered through the door, and it slammed shut behind him. The armoury and safety officers’ desks were empty. Weapons lay abandoned on the floor and in the booths.
He could smell gunsmoke.
Abraham strode through the door, scanning the booths. Panic rose in his chest. His shoes clicked on the concrete. He knew what he was looking for; he just didn’t want to see it.
Shadow’s favourite booth was the one on the far left. The concrete in front of it was scuffed from how often he’d walked on it with his metal shoes. A battered ammo box sat on the shelf. The lid was open. Abraham had lost track of how many times he’d stopped by and seen Shadow standing there, holding his Colt 1911. He always stood motionless, with both eyes open, aiming at someone that Abraham couldn’t see. Maybe it was the soldier who had killed Maria. Maybe it was Professor Gerald. Maybe it was Black Doom.
This was the only place that Abraham had seen Shadow smile. A bittersweet, crooked grin, one fang chipped from a recent injury. Now Shadow lay on the concrete in a pool of his own blood, and his gun lay beside him. His eyes were closed.
Abraham walked over. He felt lightheaded. He knelt beside Shadow. Warm blood soaked the knees of his trousers. It poured from the bullet hole beneath Shadow’s chin, overflowing with every spasm of his heart, staining his white fur, spreading across the concrete. Abraham was already assessing the damage, scanning the fur between his ears for an exit wound. There it was – dark and torn – and the bloodied bullet lay far away.
Just as Abraham touched his neck to check for a pulse, Shadow’s eyes flew open, and he gasped in panic. Each breath sounded like a wet rasp. His eyes landed on the pistol lying beside him. His finger twitched, and his hand inched across the floor. Abraham snatched the gun from his reach and ejected the magazine, tossing both away.
‘Commander—’ Shadow began to cough. Blood spurted from his mouth, and the whites of his eyes flashed.
‘Easy.’ Abraham shot a glance at the security cameras, then at the door. Shadow was in critical condition, but if he tried to bring some of GUN’s medical officers into the room, it could make Shadow panic even more. He was already conscious and coherent. It was a miracle, or a cruel twist of fate. He was stable… at least for now.
‘Why didn’t it work?’ Shadow’s voice was so quiet that Abraham could barely hear it. Abraham’s head snapped back around. Shadow was making no effort to stem his bleeding. His words bubbled, slick with fear. ‘I should have died instantly.’
‘You can’t die, Shadow.’ Abraham placed a hand on his shoulder. ‘Even though you seemed to believe otherwise.’ His gaze unfocused as he tried to wrap his head around the medical anomaly lying in front of him. ‘You must have reflexively healed yourself, even though you didn’t mean to.’
Shadow froze. Then he tried to lift one hand – maybe to reach for another gun, hold his wounds, or cover his face – but he couldn’t. Depending on how much brain damage he had sustained, he may have been semi-paralysed. He laughed. The choked gurgle echoed off the walls. ‘Damn it. I can’t do anything right. I couldn’t cure her. Couldn’t save her.’ Shadow closed his eyes, and unshed tears brimmed beneath his lashes. ‘C-Couldn’t even kill myself.’ He was shivering uncontrollably. Maybe it was a seizure, or maybe he was in shock.
Abraham remained silent, working the fastenings of his uniform jacket with shaking hands. He shrugged the heavy garment off and draped it over Shadow’s body. The blue-grey fabric began to turn crimson. Abraham hesitated. Then he unbuttoned his shirt, took it off, and bundled it up, carefully placing it beneath Shadow’s head.
Shadow’s eyes flickered open, and he stared at Abraham in bewilderment.
‘What?’ Abraham asked. He glanced down at himself. His white undershirt exposed bare arms covered in countless scars. A battered dog tag hung from his neck.
‘Never seen you out of uniform,’ Shadow murmured.
‘I’m hoping this will be a one-time occurrence.’ Abraham got off his knees, sitting beside Shadow instead. ‘…What happened?’
‘I shot out the camera lenses, and then—’
‘No. Not that.’ Abraham rested one hand on Shadow’s shoulder. ‘What brought this on?’ he asked, repeating the same question he had asked only a few minutes ago, but with a far less steady voice.
Shadow didn’t answer at first. His breathing was shallow. ‘…I’m tired. I don’t want to do this anymore.’
Abraham could ask what this meant, but he didn’t need to. He and Shadow had gotten on better terms over the past few years. They rarely ventured outside their roles of superior and subordinate, but there were a few exceptions – meeting Abraham’s family, drinking on the anniversary of Maria’s death, and conversations in his office. Shadow wasn’t talkative, but Abraham didn’t need 20/20 vision to see that he was becoming more bitter, more tired, and more frustrated as the years went on.
‘I’ve always wondered if I could die.’ Shadow’s voice was a thin whisper. ‘I thought I’d have to live forever while wondering if a single bullet would be enough to kill me. But now I…’ His chest heaved, seizing beneath the blood-soaked fabric. ‘Now I have to live with knowing that I can’t die even if I want to.’ He forced himself to sit up. The jacket fell around his waist. Abraham steadied him, holding him by the shoulders. Shadow stared at nothing, worlds away. He looked haunted.
Abraham hesitated. His dynamic with Shadow had always been complicated. Most of the time, Shadow acted like he was Abraham’s equal in age and experience, aged by years that he had never got to live. He was an adult in many ways, but occasionally, Abraham caught a glimpse of a different side of him – a traumatised teenager who was afraid of life and death alike.
Abraham leaned forward. He draped his jacket around Shadow’s shoulders. Then he took Shadow into his arms and hugged him. Shadow choked. Abraham braced himself, wondering if the hedgehog would try to bite or scratch him. It wouldn’t surprise him in the slightest. Shadow resisted at first. But then he slumped against Abraham’s chest and closed his eyes.
Abraham let out a breath that he didn’t know he’d been holding. He loosened his grip, holding Shadow’s back with one hand. His fur was matted with blood. His quills weren’t as sharp as he had expected. He seemed smaller, more fragile. Even though Shadow didn’t age, they had all been young once – him, Shadow, and Maria.
Shadow opened his eyes. His gaze landed on Abraham’s collarbone, then travelled upwards. His pupils turned to pinpricks. Abraham knew what he was looking at. His neck was encircled with ligature marks that had faded and stretched with age. He was always in uniform, so no one ever saw them.
Abraham rubbed his neck with one hand, feeling ghostly rope burn around his throat. As a teenager, he’d come to the conclusion that he would never be able to avenge his family or outrun the shadow of his past. He’d tried to hang himself, but the rope had snapped, and he’d nearly broken his back. He’d lain where he’d fallen, cursing God for keeping him alive.
And so, if he couldn’t have relief, then he wanted revenge. He’d pursued vengeance blindly, climbing the career ladder at GUN until he was standing at the top with blistered palms. He’d shut his eyes to the warning signs that not everything at the organisation was as it appeared. He’d tracked Shadow down, only to learn that he wasn’t a monster after all. He’d also learned that the people responsible for his family’s death were long since dead. He’d wasted 50 years of his life chasing shadows, and his new family – his wife and children – had been forced to bear the burden of his obsession. He’d spent a lifetime building and leading the organisation that had killed his parents, and for what?
He could still remember how the barrel of the shotgun had tasted. Bitter and metallic.
The guilt and shame had been more than he could bear. He’d even tried to persuade himself that his family would be better off without him. But they would never understand his reasoning if he didn’t live to tell them. So he put the shotgun down and began to put his family back together, piece by piece.
Abraham looked down and fought the urge to tense up. Shadow’s gaze was always intense, but the way his crimson eyes were fixed on his neck was unnerving. ‘What?’
‘What happened?’
Abraham grimaced. It was fairly evident that he’d tried to hang himself, but Shadow might not know what the scars meant. ‘I had a run-in with a noose.’
Shadow lowered his head, and his shoulders tensed beneath Abraham’s hand. He refused to tear his eyes away from Abraham’s dog tag. He must have read the inscription a dozen times over by now. ’A gun would have been more effective.’
‘You’re hardly a convincing testimonial.’
For a second, Abraham wondered if he had crossed the line, but Shadow let out a weak chuckle. Then his smile faded. ‘I don’t want to live forever.’ With each word, his shoulders curved inwards, as though he were disappearing. ‘But I don’t have a choice. Other people can choose to die, but I don’t even have that.’ He lowered his head, hiding his face, and his ears brushed the scars on Abraham’s neck. ‘I don’t want to live for other people, and I don’t have anything else I want to live for.’
Abraham caught a glimpse of his eyes. He’d only seen that kind of sadness in the mirror. He hardened his voice and said, ‘I’m not giving you permission to kill yourself, agent.’
‘I don’t need your permission. Besides. Weapons can’t kill themselves. They can only malfunction.’ The ensuing silence pressed down, threatening to suffocate them both.
Abraham wrapped his arms around Shadow tightly. The hedgehog began to resist, but he didn’t care. His arms were plenty scarred already. A few more wouldn’t make a difference. ‘You listen to me,’ Abraham said, and his voice was harsh. ‘You can look for a way to kill yourself once Rouge and I are both dead. That girl adores you, and I refuse to let you die on my watch.’
Shadow’s claws protracted, sinking into Abraham’s skin. ‘You can’t stop me, Commander—‘
‘Even if this is inevitable, I can still forestall it,’ Abraham growled. ‘I don’t care whether Sonic and Maria are the only ones who can talk you down or call you off. I can still attempt to make you see reason.’ He sat back, clamping his hands down on Shadow’s shoulders until his bones creaked. ‘The events that took place on the Ark have claimed enough lives. Don’t let them claim yours as well.’ Abraham’s grip slackened. He could feel a foreign burning sensation behind his eyes. ‘For better or worse, you have a very long life ahead of you. You have an infinite number of second chances.’ His voice cracked, and his ramrod-straight posture finally crumpled. ‘I’ve wasted more than half of my life chasing shadows, but you still have a future. You can still make a life for yourself. It’s not too late—’
Abraham cut himself off, fighting to maintain his composure. He choked down the lump in his throat and coughed sharply. He’d gotten too emotional. He’d also started talking about himself, which was beside the point.
Then he felt something. Shadow leaned forward, nestling into him like a feral animal finding shelter for the first time. His claws worked, threatening to pierce skin and fabric alike. Then Shadow – GUN’s strongest weapon and most hardened agent – buried his face in Abraham’s shoulder and broke down sobbing.
Abraham gritted his teeth, allowing himself a weary smile as Shadow’s tears soaked his shoulder. It was a small victory, albeit an ill-defined one. He could see Shadow’s wounds healing in real time, like a sped-up time-lapse. It was a bitter feeling to know that he was better equipped to help Shadow than he had been to help his own children when they had been in a crisis, and that was saying something.
‘You’re going to be all right,’ Abraham said.
Shadow tightened his grip, and his breath rasped. ‘H-How do you know?’
‘Because I’ve been here before.’ He stiffly patted Shadow’s shoulder. ‘The pain dulls. The memories fade.’ Then he loosened his grip and said, ‘It gets easier. I promise.’
Shadow blinked rapidly, refusing to look him in the eye. ‘…I’ll hold you to that.’ He slumped forward, turning very pale. ‘O-Oh.’
Abraham’s pulse spiked, and he lay Shadow back down, this time on clean concrete, covering him with his bloodstained jacket. ‘Can you accelerate your healing?’
‘It’s just blood loss.’ But Shadow lifted one hand, grasping the lock of his inhibitor ring. His face twisted. Unfastening it was a choice. Living was still a choice. He could choose to merely exist, drifting along until he decided to attempt to end his existence once again. But he unfastened the ring, and his arm fell back to his side. The air crackled with electricity.
‘What now?’ Shadow asked. His words were slurred. He almost sounded drunk.
Abraham was quiet for a moment. ‘One of two things. We fully disclose that you attempted suicide. GUN will designate you as a psych risk. They’ll either stage a psychiatric intervention, try to put you back in stasis, or do nothing as long as your combat abilities remain unaffected.’
‘Sounds like a great time,’ Shadow said, and he coughed weakly. ‘What’s the other option?’
‘The other option is that this remains classified, and we only tell enough people to get you patched up and back on your feet.’
Shadow touched the wound in his throat, assessing how fast it was healing. ‘Why the hell is option one even an option?’
‘Do you really want to allow people to look away from this? To pretend that you’re all right?’
Shadow faltered. ‘I don’t really care.’ Panic flashed in his eyes. ‘But I don’t want Rouge and Omega to find out.’
‘They deserve an explanation, and they’re the only two people you trust.’ Abraham heaved a sigh and said, ‘Though it might be able to wait. We can’t get hold of Rouge, and Omega will only return once his mission is complete.’ He fought the urge to chide Shadow and said, ‘You planned this, didn’t you? You made sure they wouldn’t be here.’
‘They’ve always been good to me. I just wanted to protect them.’
Abraham got to his feet, biting back a curse. His knees certainly weren’t what they used to be. ‘Also… Once you’ve gotten medical care and been cleared to leave, you should leave headquarters for a while.’
Shadow stared up at him from the floor, surrounded by scattered guns and bullet casings. He looked lost. ‘But I don’t have anywhere else to go.’
‘Yes, you do.’ Abraham turned away, busying himself with checking and shelving the scattered weapons. The last thing he needed was for Shadow to make a last-ditch effort to die. ‘My wife and I live on a property in the Central Valley. It’s only an hour or two from here. It’s quiet, secure, and I keep the few guns we have on the premises in a locked safe. You can stay with us for a while.’
‘Why?’ When Abraham turned back, Shadow had a bewildered expression. ‘Why would you do that? Doesn’t she hate me?’
‘She doesn’t hate you,’ Abraham said, walking over to the door. ‘She hated the person I became because of what happened on the Ark. She… She has a lot of compassion for people who have been broken by their circumstances. I would know.’
Abraham held one hand over the phone at the range’s desk, waiting. Shadow nodded once, wincing at the movement, then closed his eyes. Abraham fell into the chair behind the desk and tucked the phone against his shoulder, putting himself through to his second-in-command. It occurred to him that the entire headquarters might be in uproar behind the blast door, and he would have had no way of knowing.
‘The situation is under control.’ A burden left his shoulders as he said the words, and he sank into the cracked leather. ‘I need biomedical officers with top-level clearance to report to the shooting range for triage. This incident will be classified. Nothing leaves this room.’
After a few more instructions, Abraham put the phone back on the hook. Shadow lay still. He hadn’t moved. He had almost disappeared beneath the jacket, and Abraham felt something twist in his chest. Shadow had nearly disappeared for good this time. He wanted to get Shadow out of here. Out of this shooting range, out of this building, and out of this city. There was a life to be lived beyond the walls of GUN’s headquarters… but Abraham would have to prove it to him.