Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

They had talked about the possibility of having children a few times in the past, once before Tom had even proposed to her. It wasn't all that surprising when one took the time to think about it—any long-time couple was probably going to be subjected to being questioned by relatives trying to gauge their interest in becoming parents. The first time it came up in conversation, they were still considerably young and dismissed it easily. It was so far off in the future that they had forgotten about the conversation a mere week later.

It came up again years later, when they were newlyweds. But Maddie was in veterinary school. Tom was a police officer. They were up to their ears in loans and what little free time the two of them had was often dedicated to each other. They found comfort in their movie nights. The regularity of each week was the only thing keeping them sane through their busy lives at that time. So the discussion of a potential future child was quickly postponed in favor of other, more timely matters.

Eventually, their lives did slow down again to a more manageable pace. They were happy and stable, content with their lives. Family members were asking a bit more frequently about if they wanted to have a child. But no matter what the circumstances were—whether the concern was time, money, their jobs, what have it—the two of them always ended up agreeing that they weren't ready for a change as dramatic as introducing a child into their family. Not just yet, they always decided.

The topic was forgotten entirely for about a year or so, as they were both preoccupied with their lives and the potential move to San Francisco. However, that would soon change when a particularly life-changing week was upon them: the week that Sonic, in every sense of the word, crashed into their lives suddenly and without warning.

A week earlier, Tom had stumbled across the kid hiding out in their garage. He had never expected to end up complicit in helping an alien creature evade the government, nor had either of them had any way of knowing that this little hedgehog would steal their hearts in the way that he did. Sonic was a mischievous rascal with a knack for sarcasm, but he was a sweet kid, too. One who loved living on Earth more than anything else.

After what was likely the craziest, most chaotic two days of their lives, both the young couple and Sonic were silently hoping that things would finally go back to normal.

—

Tom and Maddie both took off the next few days from work, anticipating what they'd need to take care of in order to restore the status quo. Their house was still full of bullet holes at the end of it all, and the various storefronts around the site of Sonic and Robotnik's final showdown had also sustained some serious damages. A few Green Hills residents were willing to help out with the repair efforts as much as they could, but there was still much to be done.

"I have to go block off the other end of Main Street," Tom announced as he headed for the door. "That way, they won't have people trying to drive through there while they're working. Wade's already on the other side."

Sonic appeared by his side in an instant, his eyes practically sparkling with eagerness. "I want to help!"

"Woah there, buddy, I don't think that's a good idea. Aren't you still a government fugitive?"

Sonic looked confused. "But Eggman's stuck in the mushroom world now. He's not gonna be bothering us anymore."

"That Robotnik guy was just one person. The U.S. government was what sent him to find you."

"We don't know if they're still after you or not," Maddie added on. "It would be safer for you to lay low for a bit and give us some time to figure out if anyone's trying to find you."

"But I'm the reason that Eggman showed up in the first place! I have to help, it's just what feels right."

"You literally just about got yourself killed. Nobody would blame you for wanting to take it easy for a day." Tom rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "And it's probably a good idea to give the general public a couple of days to process everything before you start running around."

"But I feel fine!" he argued stubbornly, despite his disheveled appearance. He was still covered in scuffs, and several of his quills looked like they had been broken during the altercation from the previous night. "They know I exist now, wouldn't it be weirder to hide from them like that?"

"It's just to keep you safe, kid." Kneeling down to his height, Tom placed a hand on his shoulder and offered him a sympathetic smile. "I know it sucks. It won't be like this forever, okay?"

"I…" He looked away, finding himself staring at the floor instead. "…Yeah…"

Maddie couldn't bear to see him look so defeated. She knew that all he wanted was to try to fix the things that he felt even the slightest bit responsible for causing. "You know, I was going to work on fixing up the house a bit. I can't do anything about the window on my own, but I hope to get started on patching up some of these holes in the wall. If you'd like to help me with that, Sonic, I can—"

"Sure!" Sonic agreed to her proposition so fast that she hadn't even had the time to decide what she was actually willing to let him help with. Immediately, he was rattling off question after question, his initial disappointment completely forgotten. "What are we doing first? How can I help? Where do I start?"

Relieved that the distraction had worked, Maddie couldn't help but laugh. "Well, we'll have to run to the store to get some supplies first—"

"We?" Sonic's eyes lit up again, brighter than before.

"We?" Tom repeated skeptically, raising an eyebrow at her.

She hesitated, glancing between her husband and the puppy-eyed hedgehog. "You can come along for the car ride," she decided.

Sonic pumped a fist in the air in rejoice. "Yes!"

"Maddie…"

She mouthed, "It'll be fine."

Tom let out a defeated sigh. "Whatever you do, Sonic, do not leave that car."

Maddie put a hand on his shoulder. "Hey, I'll take care of it from here. You go help Wade lead the repair effort, alright? We'll fix up the house. Unless you already have enough spackle to fix this mess."

He pretended to muse about it for a few seconds. "Hmm… you know, I can't say I've ever had to repair bullet holes before, so I think that's probably a no."

"Then let us take care of it, honey. You don't need to worry so much."

"Yeah!" Sonic chimed in, giving a thumbs up. "You can count on us, Donut Lord!"

"Okay, okay, fine. I'll see you two later then." He waved his goodbyes and headed out to his police cruiser.

When he had turned out of the driveway, Maddie looked back to Sonic. "Ready to go?"

"You bet!"

—

Considering there had been a duel between a literal mustache-twirling villain—one with an excessive arsenal of rockets—and a space hedgehog—one that could generate electricity and defy physics—that previous night, Main Street was looking pretty decent. When Tom hopped out of his cruiser and headed over to the section that had been at the brunt of the fight, he noticed right away that the volunteers had been quick to do away with the rubble that littered the street. Business owners were standing outside, discussing the events of yesterday with officers and city officials. Even what appeared to be a couple of government agents were still lingering around the site.

Wade caught sight of him and flagged him down, visibly relieved by his arrival. "There you are! Thanks for dropping by on your day off."

"It's not a problem at all. I can't help but feel that I'm a bit responsible for this mess, too, so it's only fair."

"How's the Blue Devil? Is he still around here, or did he ditch town?"

"Sonic? He's doing alright. He's with Maddie right now."

"Good, good. Not willing to show his face around here yet?"

"Nah, he feels a little guilty about the whole thing," Tom lied. "I'm just glad he's on our side. He may look like a cute and cuddly little guy, but he sure packs a punch when he's mad."

"I noticed." Wade couldn't suppress the shudder that came along with recalling the memories of the previous night.

"Has everything been alright out here?"

"Yeah, great actually! Supposedly, the government reached out to the Mayor. They're helping to cover the cost of the damages."

"You mean our taxes are actually contributing to something for once?" Tom joked.

"Well, yeah, sure. But I'm pretty sure they're just trying to blow this all under the water. Not one of these agents will talk about that Dr. Robotnik guy. I think they're trying to pretend he never existed."

"Huh. That's interesting." He wondered for a moment what that meant for Sonic. Were they no longer interested in him, or did they plan on erasing him, too? "Well, no reason to dwell on it. Let's get to work."

Wade nodded his agreement. With the combined effort of several officers, a couple of firemen, and the still-confused business owners, the group worked together to remove the last remaining broken items. Several of the store awnings were not salvageable and had to come down. Tom suspected that most of the lights on the street had probably been overloaded and burnt out during the fight, but there wasn't a way to test it during the middle of the day.

Despite the fact that the road had been cleared of debris, there were several cracks and fissures marring its surface. Tom almost swore he could see indentions in the pavement where Sonic's heels had skidded across the ground. It was the damage like this—the kind that was very difficult to correct—that made him so thankful that the fight had ended as suddenly as it had started.

Eventually, a big truck pulled up and parked alongside the building they were gathered in front of. They had come to replace the panes of glass that had been shattered, and so the crowd had to dispel and move out of the way. During this period of downtime, Tom's phone started to ring. It was Maddie. He excused himself before taking a step back from the store to answer the call.

"Hey, sweetie, what's up? I would hope that Sonic is behaving himself…"

"I'm still in the store right now. As far as I know, he should still be in the car."

"I have my doubts."

She laughed. "Is he always this excited about everything?"

"Yeah, seems like it. Even the most mundane things are fascinating to him. I'm not sure how he has that much energy."

Her voice faded out for a moment as she spoke with someone else, before she returned to her phone. "Anyways, I was just about to head back home. But I figured that I should probably pick out some paint for the dining room once we're done fixing it. If you don't have much of a preference, that is."

"Sure. Makes sense."

"So you don't mind what color I choose?"

"I trust your judgement."

"Alright. How are things going out there?"

"Pretty well, actually. The volunteers have gotten a lot done."

"That's good!"

"Yeah, they've even got all the windows replaced now and everything. We've got to get them to do ours next."

"Ugh, expensive…"

"Says the lady who's probably got the entire shelf's worth of spackle in her shopping cart."

"I'm not the one who let a robot with a turret gun into our house," she tittered back playfully.

"I didn't—ugh. You're forgetting who the real guilty party is here."

"Oh, did you mean that cute little hedgehog?" She asked the question with feigned innocence, and Tom could clearly hear the dramatic tone her voice had taken on, even through the phone speaker. "How could someone so adorable be responsible for such a thing, hmm?"

"How dare you."

"Hey, Tom?" Wade called from his place near a light post on the other side of the street. Its shape was slightly distorted, bent into a very small but still noticeable c-shaped curve. "Do you think this looks bad enough to warrant fixing? I could call it in, but… I don't really know how to explain this."

From looking at it, Tom suspected that Sonic was probably partially responsible for the warping. He had used a lot of the nearby architecture as launching grounds for his attacks, and it showed. "I better get going," he told Maddie. "Important, off-duty police business and all that."

"Okay. Good luck with your repairs, honey."

"You too. Just keep an eye on the kid, alright?"

"You know, it's sweet, the way you worry about him."

"I'm just doing what's right."

"Yeah, yeah. Okay, goodbye. Love you."

"Love you. See you soon."

—

Surprisingly, when Maddie returned with her purchases, Sonic was actually still inside of the car, studying the dashboard and its various buttons with an intense stare. What was not so pleasant was coming back to find that the car alarm was going off. For how long, she had no idea, but she certainly had an idea of what—or who—had probably set it off. She turned off the alarm with her key fob, and that prompted Sonic to look up and see her. He waved to her, and she offered a little smile back despite it all.

When she unlocked the trunk, he clambered into the backseat and peered over the headrest, watching her move each bag into the car.

"That's a lot of stuff," he commented.

"Yeah, well, there are a lot of bullet holes in my house," she replied back.

His ears flattened shamefully. "I'm… I'm really sorry about that…"

She was surprised by how genuinely regretful he sounded. "Hey, don't worry about it. It's not your fault." He shrugged—not really in agreement, but acknowledgement more than anything—and so she tacked on, "There's nothing that an excessive amount of tackle, sandpaper and paint can't fix."

Evidently, it worked, because he cracked a grin. "Sure."

"Alright, let's get out of here." She pulled the trunk shut and made her way around to the driver's side door.

Immediately upon starting the car, the wipers started to move and the air conditioner kicked on at full blast.

"Oh, so that's what that thing does," Sonic observed, looking at the stick that controlled the wipers.

"I see you had fun in here," Maddie laughed, quickly fixing the settings he had changed and checking over the dashboard to ensure that nothing else had been messed with.

"So many buttons, how could I not?" He kicked his feet up on the dash. "By the way, I had no idea cars could make so much noise. Can't say I'm a fan. Who designed them like that?"

She narrowed her eyes at him. "So you did try to leave the car, then…"

"Wh—no!" He huffed defensively. "I—obviously not, those two things are entirely unrelated."

"They really aren't."

"How would you—"

"If I lock the car while someone's inside it, and they manually unlock the doors and try to open them, it sets off the alarm. It's an anti-theft measure."

Sonic had raised a pointer finger and was ready to deny her claims, but after that explanation, he couldn't seem to come up with so much as one excuse. He brought his knees up to his chest, looking out the window.

"You know, it would be good for you to listen to us every now and then. I'm not saying that we're right all of the time, but we've been around long enough to have a good idea of how the world works."

He furrowed his brow, grumpily crossing his arms and slumping into the car seat. He grouched under his breath, but Maddie could still hear exactly what he said. "Thanks, but I've taken care of myself plenty fine for the past ten years…"

She stewed on her next words for several long moments, thinking about them carefully. Her initial impression of the retort was ungratefulness, which angered her. He had no actual obligation to stick around, and so his attitude and the way he flat-out ignored the rules they were trying to set out for him—for his own safety more than anything—tempted her to call him out on it. It wasn't fair to villainize them when they were trying to let him feel included.

But as she drove and she thought about it more, she realized that no, there couldn't have been any sort of intentional selfishness in those words. He didn't know what it was like to have other people so concerned with his wellbeing, after so many years of watching humans from afar. Of course he would find it confusing and irritating when someone came along and treated him like they thought he didn't know how to look out for himself, or that he was wrong about his own self-judgement.

Maddie didn't know how to counteract the wave of guilt she was suddenly hit with, so she decided to ignore it. She exclusively turned her attention to the road in front of her, only glancing sideways at Sonic once. "Can you put on your seat belt, please?"

"Yeah, okay."

—

The uncomfortable silence of the car ride home was almost immediately forgotten once they stepped back into the Wachowski household, sporting an impressive collection of home improvement gear. Sonic looked so excited to help out with the repairs that he was practically beaming ear to ear—quite impressive for a creature with ears on the top of its head.

"You can set that can of paint down in here," Maddie instructed, leading them both into the dining room and nodding at the corner of the room. "We won't need that for the work we're doing today."

He quickly set it down. "Why's that?"

"Well, this is a slow process," Maddie warned. Sonic let out a comedic groan, which made her chuckle. "Yeah, I know, it's the worst."

"You didn't tell me it would be slow…"

"But it has to be done." She beckoned him closer as she kneeled down to one of the lowest holes in the wall. "Here, let me show you how to do it. It's not too bad once you get the hang of it."

In a fairly efficient sequence of events, she got out a palette knife and a tub of spackle, threw down a glob of it on top of the hole in the wall, and smeared it out with the knife until it was flat and had concealed the hole.

"You make it look easy," Sonic murmured, staring in awe at the spot where the bullet hole had disappeared.

"When you run a vet's office, you have to patch things up yourself from time to time. Animals can be a little destructive." She felt like that last sentence was now just as applicable in her own house.

"So that's all you have to do?"

"Well, not quite. This is just step one. It has to dry before we can sand it down, and we'll likely have to do another layer or two before we can paint. Not to mention that these need to be patched from the outside, too."

Sonic peeked through one of the bullet holes, seeing that, yes, it did in fact reach the outside world. He thoughtfully hummed, but didn't say anything else. His gaze wandered around the room listlessly, absorbing in all of the details.

"Do you want to try—"

"Oh no!" He suddenly cried out, turning his attention to the short table that was placed beside the window. "I-I didn't even realize that your pictures got broken, too..."

Sure enough, when Maddie looked close enough, she saw that the frames had not been fortunate enough to evade the turret fire. It was something that she hadn't actually noticed until he pointed it out. Oddly, Sonic looked more distressed by that knowledge than she felt, and she had been the one to put those frames together in the first place.

"They're just photos. We can get them printed again."

"A-are you sure? Because I really didn't mean to—"

She reached out and took one of his hands with her own, prompting their eyes to meet. "Sonic, it's okay."

"It is?"

"Let's just focus on what we're trying to fix right now, okay? We can take it one step at a time. Just focus."

"Okay…" He took a deep breath and slowly closed and reopened his eyes. With his timidness apparently gone—or at least partially forgotten—he concentrated his gaze on the palette knife in Maddie's hand. He didn't even dare to blink. "Alright… I'm focusing."

Maddie couldn't help but laugh at his antics. "You're awfully silly, you know that?"

He grinned cheekily. "I pride myself on my sense of comedy."

"Well, after we finish this, you can be proud of yourself for doing a good job." She pulled her hand away and moved to offer Sonic the materials she was holding. "Do you want to try?"

Resolving to take another breath, Sonic took the spackle tub from her cautiously and, with careful patience, he attempted to repeat what he had watched Maddie do just a moment earlier. She ended up having to help guide his hand while he tried to smooth out the layer, but by the end of it, she was rather impressed by his handiwork.

"Not bad."

Sonic anticipated her saying more. "But..?"

"No buts. For a first attempt, that's pretty good."

"Yeah, but you still had to help me."

"Not everyone can be perfect, Sonic. You don't have to do everything all by yourself, you hear?" Maddie knew that the sentence could apply to a lot of things, but she silently hoped that he would take her words seriously. She hadn't known him for all that long, but she could tell that Sonic was the kind of person who bottled up most of himself. Behind that cocky and confident façade was an unsure kid who was afraid to ask questions or make so much as a single mistake. What had caused this fear of vulnerability, she wasn't sure, but she figured the least she could do was show him that it was okay to make mistakes from time to time.

"Yeah, yeah," he said, waving her off.

"I mean it, mister. You wouldn't learn anything new if you never tried."

"Yeah, I know."

She sincerely hoped that she was getting through to him. Seeing as the conversation likely wouldn't go much further—it seemed like he didn't like to talk about himself when he thought he was doing something wrong—she decided to move on. "How about this? You start at this corner over here, and I'll start at the other end. If we divvy up the work, I think we could get through it a bit faster. It would probably be a bit easier for you to be in charge of the holes along the bottom of the wall than for me to try to do it."

He was more than eager to direct the conversation elsewhere, and a smirk returned to his face. "Well, I suppose I can ignore that not-so-subtle jab at my height and accept your request for my help."

The playful banter quickly lightened up the mood of the room, and soon after, they were quick at work. Maddie noticed that there was a chain of bullet holes up near the very top of the wall, so high that they would even be out of her reach. She wasn't entirely sure how they were going to deal with that, but there were a lot of things that they didn't have the time or budget to fix right away. So what was one more?

After a long period of quiet concentration and comfortable silence, Sonic spoke up. "You should know that I am a fantastic interior designer."

Maddie decided to entertain the conversation topic. "Oh, are you now?"

"Yep. My cave is a staple in modern design. The world just doesn't know it yet."

She shook her head, laughing. "Yes, because you've obviously had the budget to put towards your home interior."

"You guys seriously underestimate the power of living off of the land! Well, that, and maybe a few things I borrowed from people."

"'Borrowed?' That sounds more like stealing."

"It's only stealing if you have no intention of ever giving the things back. And besides, I only borrow things from people who I know won't miss whatever the stuff is! They probably would have said yes anyways, if I'd asked."

"Sonic!" Maddie laughed. "I'm seriously starting to wonder if all of the missing item reports Tom has received over the years are because of you."

"It's for a good cause," he defended—though he wasn't too adamant about it, because it was clear she wasn't mad.

"All for interior design, though? For this cave of yours?"

"You wanna see it? I could take you there."

Maddie considered the offer for a moment. It seemed like it was an unlikely occurrence for the hedgehog to open up to her in this way. There was the curious voice in the back of her mind that was trying to egg her on, and the compassionate side that urged her to go, out of worry for the kid's wellbeing. She still doubted that his years of living alone had done anything good for his health, even though he appeared to be just fine. There was the chance that seeing what his living conditions had been like would give her a better window into his past and why he was acting the way that he was.

It didn't take her much mental deliberation before she came to a conclusion. "Tell you what: if we get done spackling all the holes in this wall, we can take a break and go visit it."

His eyes lit up delightedly. "You're on!" Apparently he decided to take her words as a challenge.

"Wait, and no rushing!" she exclaimed, having realized her mistake. "You have to do a good job!"

Thankfully, she was just barely quick enough to prevent a disaster. Sonic found her distress hilarious, and for that she made him promise to take his time.

Notes:

Like I said, this was only the first half. Second part is in the next chapter. I don't know how or why this one-shot got so out of control, but it did :)