Things are moving right along quite quickly. No one but Shadow has come to Cream and Vanilla`s home to check up on Maria, which surprises Shadow as he was expecting that GUN would be interested in Maria as it was publicly said that she came from the Arc. Perhaps their recent missions have kept them too busy to pursue a sick girl? Hard to say at this point. But Shadow will have to go back to taking up jobs with them soon, as well as school. His recent mass purchases has chipped away at his money reserve he had been building up. Still plenty yet but he doesn`t want to wait until it runs out. What if an emergency comes up with Maria?

These purchases he has made are not for his own but more for Maria. She needs a place to stay without intruding in on someone else along with furniture to go with it. These things were quickly established, luckily. Now everything is ready for Maria to move out of Vanilla`s home.

Since Maria had been in a frozen state for 50 years, her body is still recovering from the extended time of lack of movement. She can stand up on her own two feet but walking great distances is still a challenge. Maria is getting better though. It is expected that within the next few days, she could walk the length of a grocery shopping trip without needing to sit down. In the meantime, her options are limited to either being carried or in a wheelchair while her body is rebuilding itself back up.

Not wanting to go with the wheelchair option, for many reasons, Shadow is opting for carrying Maria to their new home. He object the wheelchair for it`s lack of convenience and it being an obvious show of a problem with Maria which would make her a target for verbal teasing from others. At least with carrying, it could be passed off that she`s being spoiled or that he is being overly overprotective.

During these times of waiting for a home to be set, Maria and Shadow had little chance of actually conversing with one another. During the day, Shadow would be out busy getting everything ready. During the night, Maria would be asleep for most of the time. When she does wake during Shadow`s presence, it was very short lived and she would be back asleep. She is sick and her body is trying to fight it off as best as it can with it`s hindered state. As a result, it is taking quite some time for the illness to go away. But Maria had been awake long enough to know that Shadow is still there to be with her and isn`t going to leave her behind.

During these short spats of conversation they managed to have, Shadow had not mentioned the new home at all. He wanted it to be a surprise for Maria. He informed Vanilla ahead of time of him taking Maria so she wouldn`t worry over the girl`s sudden disappearance.

Shadow has it all planned out and he is executing it tonight. It`s in the dead of night where very few people are out. This would make it much easier to move on quietly without disturbance or interruption. Maria is asleep with a blanket wrapped around her, a section over top of her head giving her a sort of "hood." Shadow emptied his messenger bag of school supplies earlier so he could fill it with Maria`s clothes. It`s packed tightly but he manages to get it all fit in there. The messenger bag is slung over his shoulder as he carries Maria down the street. He isn`t running, that would risk too much of waking Maria though the slow pace of walking is a bit of a drag.

Finally, he comes to the building of destination. It`s a very tall condo building with numerous floors to it. Each floor contains 4 different condos each with their own family. It`s not as tightly packed as apartments but the building is just as high.

Shadow pushes his shoulder into the front door to open it and goes inside with Maria in tow. Then begins the long ascending of the stairs. There is an elevator but it`s currently under some repairs so it`s not available for use right now. The stairs are in an almost spiral pattern so that makes it faster and easier to get to the upper floors.

It`s not the tip top floor of the building but it`s close to it. Shadow stops at one door and readjusts the way he is holding Maria so that he can hold her with one hand. The now free hand pulls out the key and unlocks the door. Shadow goes inside and closes the door behind him then locks it right afterwards. He readjusts how he`s holding Maria again back into the bridal style that he had been carrying her. Taking a moment to check on her, Shadow is relieved to see that his readjustments of her hadn`t woken her.

All of the rooms are dark right now with it being night time and Shadow isn`t turning on any of the lights. He walks through the living room silently and enters the bedroom. This is a single bedroom condo he had chosen. Not that much space is needed for them anyway, especially with him suspecting that Maria would want to be out a lot to see the world.

The bed is queen size bed. The frame is made of wood and is black coloured. To top it off, the bed is a canopy. It doesn`t have any of the curtains that many canopy beds have, it`s just the frame. But the way the frame is designed, it looks lovely the way it is. It isn`t any girly type of bed and would suit both Shadow and Maria`s tastes.

The curtains are covering the windows which would be good for when the sun rises so that it`s rays would be blocked. There is a dresser beside the bed. Like the bed, it`s made of wood and black in colour. It`s a long dresser, more long than it is tall. A tall mirror sits on the back of the dresser. Shadow can`t be sure if this is what Maria would like, but he knows that Amy and Rouge have one like it and he follows the generic idea of what girls seem to like. On the dresser sits a digital alarm clock. Currently it is reading the time at after 1am. Across the room from the bed, where the foot of the bed points to it, a small entertainment centre sits. It`s about as tall as the bed`s foot board is, again, black in colour and made of wood. Like the dresser, it`s more long than anything else. There is a flatscreen tv sitting on it, all set and ready to go. With Maria still sick, it`s expected that she`ll many a day in bed like she did on the Arc. The tv would provide some boredom relief for her. The closet is already set with Shadow`s clothes, most of them hung on hangers. Small things like socks and boxers are put away in some drawers of the dresser.

Shadow carries Maria to the bed and stops beside it. He lowers her down onto the bed mattress, again moving carefully and not too fast so that Maria won`t wake up. He wants it to be a surprise when she wakes up. In fact, she will have a lot of surprises tomorrow, which will be the official start of her new life. He sets Maria on one side of the bed so that the other side will be open for him. Her head is laid on the pillows at the top of the bed. Shadow will leave the current blanket wrapped around Maria instead of removing that to tuck her under the blankets that cover the bed mattress. He makes sure that she is laying on her side on the bed.

With Maria set just so on the bed, Shadow circles the bed to the other side of it. He sits on the edge of it and removes his shoes from his feet. Then he sets the messenger bag on the floor, deciding to put Maria`s clothes away in the morning rather than right now. He is excited to have her under his unofficial custody and she will be in his sole care now. No more having to leave her alone or worrying about authorities seeing him with her. Leaving his clothes on except for the hover shoes, Shadow lays himself on the bed beside Maria. He moves carefully knowing his movements would shake the bed.

Successfully laying on the bed without disturbing Maria, Shadow rolls himself onto his side to face her. He reaches an arm forward and starts to snake it underneath Maria. He stops moving when Maria begins to stir in her sleep, worried that she is going to wake up. To his relief she does not wake up. Shadow finishes moving his arm underneath Maria and when he reaches his goal, his hand lifts up to touching her back. His other arm moves over top of Maria and both arms work together to pull Maria closer up to him. Now that he is hugging Maria into him, Shadow begins to relax a little. He does not worry about covering himself with any blankets; his clothes will do fine to keep him warm enough through the rest of the night. He settles his head over top of Maria`s so that her head is laying against him, tucked just under his chin. A contented sigh escapes Shadow before he tries to get himself to fall asleep. It is a bit of a struggle to actually do it but Shadow does eventually join Maria in sleeping.

Been some time since he actually slept in a bed...Last time was when he was on the Arc those 50 years ago. Shadow doesn`t sleep much being the insomniac that he is, his body doesn`t really call for it. But hopefully this time, his dreams be lacking the nightmares as Maria is back with him. The nightmares he had were about "the incident" being replayed over and over. It was pure torture and had beat down on his emotions and mentality. There were many a time that Shadow strived to avoid sleeping to save himself from the nightmares that had continued to plague him. But now...

She is back.

Comments

To leave a comment, you must be logged in.