Chapter Text
"The trouble is, you think you have time.” – Gautama Buddha
The future wasn’t so bad, nothing at all like what Silver had warned them of. The worst part was that the items Shadow had kept from Sonic, Amy, Rouge… they’d weathered more years than they were meant to and he still didn’t have it in him to replace them. So he typically avoided his reflection in shop windows, choosing to believe Sonic’s red scarf wasn’t so tattered, that the satchel from Amy hadn’t been repaired four times too many, that the gold earrings Rouge had gifted him weren’t so tarnished.
Typically.
But something about the small town and its quaint shops drew him in. Something had him looking through windows like there might be more than a sidequest for a stray NPC he’d surely forget.
And it was a confectionary, funnily enough, that had him seeing double, doing a double-take – because there, cutting up a chocolate covered apple for a mom and her kids, was Silver the Hedgehog. In his 40s by the grizz of his muzzle.
He was already so late.
Shadow stood at the glass long enough to feel foolish about it. Long enough to watch Silver laugh at something the little one said, head tipping back, easy and unguarded… so unlike how he’d been in 2006. So unworried, quills groomed back, eyes bright like they hadn’t known war or famine or – or Shadow guessed that should have been a given.
It’s not like they were living separate realities.
Long enough that Silver, by some instinctive awareness, looked up.
Found him immediately.
The chocolate apple stayed on the cutting board. The mom said something Shadow couldn't hear. Silver held up one finger – one second – and then he was moving, pushing through the side door of the shop, and Shadow had approximately four steps worth of time to decide what to do with his face before Silver was standing in front of him on the cobbled stone with chocolate on his apron.
“How?”
“I’m immortal.”
“Did you mention that before?”
“Must not have been time to with you convinced Sonic was your enemy.”
“How is he?”
“Not immortal.”
“Oh,” Silver received, unsure if he’d stepped in something hard. And it wasn’t that it wasn’t hard, it was just that Shadow had had 300 years to process what was hard about it. And really, he was just grateful Sonic had been able to course-correct him before he spent eternity dreading it. Love was funny, like that.
"You never told me what year you were born," Shadow replied instead, genuinely frustrated he hadn’t known when to even begin looking for the other hedgehog. Someone you knew was someone you knew.
“Must not have had time to with you knocking me senseless,” Silver quipped back. “But I’m more than old enough to grab a pint at noon. How about I close up early and we find a booth. I’d love to hear how their stories ended.”
And that… that sounded pretty nice.
No one had asked about Shadow’s friends in a long time.