The big, gentle, blue eyes belonging to Maria sleepily open half way. She is waking up early in the morning after sleeping all night long. She`s feeling better today health-wise than what she did the previous several days. This would mean that she has finally recovered from being sick and perhaps she could get out of bed. She certainly feels like she has the energy to do so. But something else has caught her attention.

Right before her is another person! Coming face to face with a white button shirt being partially covered up by a blank jacket, Maria moves her head to look upwards to the person`s face. A smile forms on her face as she sees that it`s Shadow. Having noticed that she`s awake, Shadow has moved his head a little to look down at Maria, who`s head is still tucked under his own. Being able to see Shadow while she`s awake and mostly well makes it feel like Maria is seeing him for the first time in ages. She worms her arms out from inside the blanket and wraps them around Shadow, giving him a big hug. Since his arms are already around Maria as they had been all night long, Shadow, in response, tightens his hug on her but just a little.

Maria gives Shadow a very quick nuzzling before she lifts her head back up to him. An obvious happy smile is visible on her face,"Shadow, I`m so happy to see you."

"I hope I can make you even happier...Because I have a few surprises for you today."

"Surprises? For me?"

"How would you like to live on Earth?"

Maria`s face lights up at the question,"I get to live on this planet?"

Shadow raises a hand to gesture to the room that they are in, which is still relatively dark from the sunlight being blocked by the curtains over the windows,"This is our condo, for us to live in."

Maria gives Shadow another tight hug, though it`s not tight by normal people`s standards. She lacks the strength so even her tight hug feels soft. Bearing the biggest smile ever, Maria is quite excited to say the least,"Oh, Shadow, this is so wonderful! You got us to Earth and made it so that we could live here! Thank you so much, Shadow...You`re such a wonderful person..."

Only Maria could call Shadow wonderful. Everyone else has had other adjectives for him, most of them being not so nice. It thrills Shadow to see that Maria is happy with what he`s done. He returns the hug to her and says,"Here, why don`t you get a bath and I can give you a tour of the city?"

"Ok!"

Maria releases Shadow and works the blanket off of her to give her freedom of movement. She rolls over to the other side and tries to sit up. It`s proving to be a bit difficult to do so Shadow sits up behind her and helps her up. Now in a sitting position on the bed, Maria swings her legs over the edge of the bed and sets her feet on the floor. Moving quite wobbly, Maria stands up on her feet. Shadow watches her carefully, looking for any signs that she may fall. Maria steadies herself and is ready to walk.

Shadow gets himself out of bed and shows Maria where the bathroom is. Inside the bathroom is a closet. Shadow opens it and pulls out one of the towels. There are two colour choices currently, blue and black. Shadow chooses one of the blue ones and sets it on the side of the sink. Maria is taking a moment to look around the bathroom to familiarize herself with it. Shadow heads towards the door to leave Maria to herself for her bath. But he pauses as he passes her and takes a hold of her hand. When he does so, Maria turns around and looks back at him. Then Shadow says to her,"I will be getting things ready in the bedroom if you need my assistance."

Maria smiles up to him,"All right. Thank you, Shadow."

She steps up closer to Shadow and stands up on her tiptoes. With a quick pack on the cheek, Maria turns back around to start getting the bathtub set and ready. Shadow watches Maria a moment, his expression not so hard looking after that show of affection from her. The need to go back to the bedroom to put her clothes away disappears for a moment or two, wanting to just keep Maria in his field sight. But then his eyes widen a little and he quickly turns around and exits the bathroom when he sees Maria beginning to unzip the back of her dress.

The bathroom door is left open in case a problem comes up and entry could be quickly gained. Shadow goes back into the bedroom and locates his messenger bag. He pulls out the dresses, skirts and shirts and hangs them all up in the closet. Her small things like socks and underwear go into the drawers of the dresser. Looking at the amount of clothes she has, a week`s worth, Shadow wonders if she would need more clothes. She is a girl, she probably would want a lot of clothes on hand.

Then Shadow straightens up the bed a little. It hadn`t gotten too messy during the night since the blankets weren`t used. He picks up the blanket Maria was in which has wrapped her up like a burrito. As he picks it up, his jacket he left with Maria falls out and drops on the bed mattress. Shadow stares down at the jacket for a few moments. That`s right, he had forgotten that he left the jacket with her. This would mean that every night she slept with his jacket. For now, he will leave the jacket on the bed; most likely Maria has developed an attachment to it due to this mess that he had to be separated from her. Shadow folds up the blanket and sets it to one side of the bed.

The clothes are taken care of, so Shadow goes into the kitchen after taking a pill bottle out of his bag. He sets the pill bottle down on the counter and gets a cup of water ready and sets it by the pill bottle. The bottle has Maria`s medicine to help manage her NIDS. She will need one pill per day, everyday.

The sound of Maria exiting the bathroom comes up followed by the soft sounds of her walking carefully across the carpet in the hallway to the bedroom. Shadow remains in the kitchen to continue to give her privacy,"I`ve put your clothes away in the closet and the dresser."

Maria calls back from the bedroom,"Thank you, Shadow."

Shadow patiently waits for Maria in the kitchen. There is no rush today, it`s still quite early in the day. He will have another surprise to reveal to her later on. He hopes she will be pleased with it though he isn`t sure of how she will feel about it. Shadow turns his head to look at Maria`s medicine bottle and begins to wonder if there is some way that he could cure her from this disease. He was supposed to be a cure but unfortunately the professor was disposed of before his research could be finished. Shadow isn`t as good at medicines and such as the professor was but he certainly is going to try. What was in Gerald`s plan to cure her?

Hearing Maria enter the kitchen, Shadow turns his head to look at her. His mood turns a little somber seeing Maria while thinking about Gerald and curing her. She doesn`t know what had happened. Soon, she`ll be asking him where her grandfather and everyone else were. Shadow will have to face telling her but not now. Not yet. She`s happy and Shadow doesn`t want to take that away from her. He`ll wait for the right time to tell her.

The outfit Maria has chosen for the day is a simple one. With her signature headband set in her golden hair, Maria has on a blue dress to match. It`s a simple dress, sleeveless and reaches down to above her knees. There is a white ring around the bottom of the dress, keeping it from being too plain looking. Maria`s shoes bear no heels. It is difficult enough for her to walk in her condition without heels throwing her balance off even more than what it is on it`s own. These shoes slip on easily on the feet so there are no laces or straps to deal with. It`s all so simple, but in Shadow`s eyes she looks beautiful nonetheless.

Maria steps up to Shadow and happily verbalizes to him how she is ready to go. First thing`s first though. Shadow passes the cup of water to Maria, takes a pill from the bottle and passes that to her. Maria feels a little sheepish about forgetting her medicine and proceeds to down the pill down with the water.

With that short but very important step taken care of, the emptied cup is put in the sink to be washed later on. The two of them exit the condo together. The elevator is still under repair so Shadow takes up Maria in his arms and carries her down the stairs.

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