It was Saturday... Shadow had awoken with a unpleasantly foul mood.

"Shadow," Maria called "Breakfast is ready."

Maria has taken care of Shadow since his mother died and his father, soon after, disappeared with no trace. He adored her. She was the only person he could say he loved and knew he was receiving love back.

He meekly sat at the dinner table.

"I'm here," He announced, his ears down. Maria smiled at him and set a bowl of oatmeal, fruits, and a cup of orange juice in front of him.

"Eat up!" She said happily and hummed away.

It's been 6 weeks since his first week of pre-school. He despised it, but what he despise most was being away from his friends. Amy had made up with Sonic, and he became her 'best friend' again, which he corrected her in saying quiet loudly: "No, Amy. You're not my best friend, you're my girl."

Shadow had growled lowly to himself and wouldn't talk to Amy for two weeks. Then, when he got tired of Rouge calling him the word "jealous", he finally spoke to her, apologizing for her puffy eyes.

Even though he and Sonic somehow met ends and became friends, they were never close. Instead Shadow had bonded with a silver hedgehog, who ironically went by the name, Silver.

Silver reminded him solemnly of Maria. His calm and kind nature, his soft smiles, and even softer laughs. When Shadow first saw him, he was sitting awkwardly by himself in Shadow's corner.

Shadow had just came from timeout for calling Sonic a "faker", a word Mrs. Vanilla said she would not allow to be said in her pre-kindergarten class. He promised her that he would never say it again, and she patted his head with a smile and told him he could go back to playing with the other kids.

Shadow 'hmph'ed and made his way to his favorite place: Sitting beside Amy and Rouge in their corner. But instead of seeing the cherry-pink hedgehog and ivory colored bat, he saw a rather uncomfortable silver hedgehog sitting their place.

"What do you think you're doing?" Shadow had asked him.

He hadn't move, but after a while he looked up nervously at him, but didn't say a thing.

Shadow growled in irritation, "Hey! Are you deaf or something?!"

The silver hedgehog looked as if he were about to burst into tears.

When the boy still hadn't answered any of his questions, Shadow sat beside him grumpily, 'til the boy got up and slowly walked to one of the play areas.

Later in the day, he found the same hedgehog with Amy. He was doing something strange with his hands. Amy tried coping him. He chuckled a little and repeated the hand motion slowly; this time he spoke, softly and uncertain, "Hi, my name is Silver."

Amy did a similar motion but it was different at the end. Silver smiled, "Nice to meet you, Amelia."

"You really are deaf, aren't you?" Shadow asked.

"Shadow!" Amy scolded "That's not nice!"

But Silver had slowly smiled and said, "A little..."

Shadow was pulled out of his somewhat pleasant thoughts by the sound of a bell.. the door bell.

He heard the front door open and Maria's welcoming voice. "Come look Shadow