"Step in there and save him," Shadow hissed at Metal, just as Haku squeezed between them.

"What's going on-" she stopped herself with a curse. "Metal, this might get ugly..." she breathed.

"The best I can do is closing the dining room at ten," he said. "I can't kick anyone out before then. Tell her that your break's at ten and you can chat then." She nodded and hurried over to Silver and Aurora.

"What about Silver?" Shadow asked.

Metal's red gaze fixed on him. "I'll talk to him and send him home before then." Talk to him? About how his bio-mom's family only sees Selene in his face and completely disregards the fact that he has no idea what his mother was like and is another person entirely? About how he's the last little player in this awful tragedy?

Shadow sighed and walked away, his headache dethroned by the pain in his chest.

"Hey, Metal," Silver asked as he slinked into the backroom, "Did you see that? What was with that orange hedgehog? Is she a friend of Haku's?"

Metal Sonic was sitting down like that hard inspector from one of the movies of Swim Night. "She's not a friend of Haku's. But... Silver, I need to talk to you about something."

Silver raised his eyebrow as he sat across the android. "Is this about my performance assessment?" But... I've only been working about an hour now... Did I do something wrong?

"No, but since you asked," Metal acquiesced, "you did very well. Considering that hiccup just now, you were very calm under pressure."

"So... what's this about, then?"

Metal Sonic's CPU whirred. "The woman you just saw who was asking for Haku is Selene's older sister, Aurora." Silver's fur prickled at the names. After last year... what trouble had he stirred up?

"She took her sister's death the hardest, from what I understand... and she's been looking for you ever since the autopsy confirmed she was pregnant."

He tilted his head. "So... where was she last year? Why didn't she show up?"

"I'm not so sure," the android admitted, "but she's not in the stablest condition."

"And she didn't recognize me from the news, either," Silver wondered. "Maybe she was away?"

"Maybe. But what's for sure is that she's looking for Selene's child."

Silver flicked his ear, "Um... you mean me?"

Metal buzzed a sigh, pointy metal fingers tapping together. "Well.. Silver," he began, "I know that that's what you've been hearing for a long time, but I don't think that's true anymore." The boy scooted his chair in closer.

"To the Phoenicias, you're Selene's son, and by blood you are. If Aurora's crazy enough, she'll want to go to court about custody over you. It's unlikely she'll win, though, no matter how hard she tries," he added when Silver stiffened up.

"Why's that?" he wondered after he sighed.

"People have to meet certain criteria if they want to adopt a child," he summed up. "In her current state, I doubt she'd be able to take you. But I'm getting off-track, here.

"What I'm saying is... you're not bound by where you came from. Just... look at me," he offered. "I'm a Badnik- a no-good android-copy of someone else. I was created to destroy Sonic the Hedgehog, and other than that, nothing else. I had to make my own purpose for myself to keep going."

Silver nodded slowly, but tilted his head. "I understand... but I am her son, right?"

"Well, from where I'm sitting, I'd say you're Silver the Hedgehog, son of Florence the Hedgehog and Vienna Sussiili, brother to Venice the Hedgehog. But that's not up to me to decide that."

He has a point... even if I wasn't adopted... Mom and Dad would still be Mom and Dad, because...

"I... I understand," he managed. "I guess I didn't get what you were saying before."

Though Metal didn't have a mouth, Silver could have sworn he smiled.

"So you haven't heard from Aurora today?" Helios asked his mother over the phone again. He was checking his wristwatch- around eight-fifty, now. Who knew when Aurora woke up, if she ever went to bed, that is.

"No, I haven't. Mr. Fukui called me earlier that she called him to ask about where Haku worked... then she hung up."

Helios sighed and rubbed his forehead. "Mom, she's going to go confront Haku about Selene and Silver. You'd better find her, before she does something dramatic." Theia thanked her son and hung up.

As soon as Helios put the phone down, it started ringing again.

"Did you find her already, Mom-"

"Excuse me," a mechanical voice buzzed. Oh, not a telemarketer- "Is this Helios Phoenicia?"

The golden-orange hedgehog tilted his head. The voice seemed familiar somehow... "Yes... do I know you?" he wondered.

"We met last year, at a little coffee shop. You wanted to talk to Haku about Silver."

"Oh- yes, you're that-"

"Your sister just came in asking for Haku. She doesn't look well."

Helios cursed under his breath. "Is she still there?"

"We'll be happy to stall for you."

The dining area was empty besides Aurora and Haku; the former looking like a grim head of security, with her hands folded, shoulders squared and her face stern. Haku popped another kkultarae in her mouth as Aurora took a strained, deep breath.

"So what's all this about? I thought I already had this conversation barely half a year ago," the gray hedgehog began.

"No, you had this conversation with my parents," Aurora grumbled. "You're going to have it with me now, and I want the truth."

"I told the truth," Haku lied through the sugary treat.

"You told them you never saw the hedgehog but you were entertaining him in your kitchen," Aurora countered, narrowing her eyes. "The truth. What happened to Selene sixteen years ago?"

"She ran away from your family. Started a new one, but didn't make it," Haku sighed. "What more do you want?"

Aurora stiffened, and then stuck out her lip. "You wouldn't understand," she growled.

Haku quirked her eyebrow, wanting to huff- like you would understand as well as I do. You didn't really care about her.

"You know about the father, don't you," Aurora hissed. "Tell me about him, now."

"Why should I do that?" Haku huffed, crossing her legs again. ETA on Helios was ten minutes, at most... she had to stall without making Aurora more upset than usual... Might as well.

"Fine... I didn't know she'd ran away until me and my boyfriend were leaving for Allodole. We were driving around the city when I saw her with a suitcase all by herself."

"A suitcase?" Aurora echoed... "but... there wasn't anything missing from her room."

"It was filled to the brim with money," Haku continued. "She was just wandering around with it. We stopped her and got her to come with us to Allodole."

"Instead of turning her around to us?" she grumbled.

"She's tried suicide around four times over in your care," the gray hedgehog countered. "I figured harboring a runaway was the lesser of the two evils.

"We took her to our hotel and she stayed with us during our vacation there. Then she decided to live with us for a bit... that's when she got pregnant."

Aurora furrowed her brow. "You mean she lived with you, and you don't know who the father is?"

"I was running the coffee shop with my boyfriend, and it wasn't like she could tag along with me. She needed space, and she could've met up with anyone- every Friday or Saturday we'd go to a local bar and I'd get plastered, so maybe that's where she met the father, I dunno."

Aurora's face was pursed and she took a strained breath. "I don't believe you," she growled. "You know something."

The door opened and someone stepped in, making Aurora freeze up. Confusion flashed across her eyes, and her eyebrows twitched.

"Aurora," an exhausted voice sighed, "what are you doing?" Haku turned her head to see a golden hedgehog with a twinge of orange and spiky hair.

"Hey, Helios," she greeted. "Long time no see."

"What are you doing, Aurora?" Helios repeated out of earshot of Haku. He put a hand on his head as he sighed. "Don't tell me you're going after Silver, too."

"Who's he?" she wondered- and her brother held his face in his hands. She didn't even know the kid's name.

"You can't wrench him away from his family, Aurora," he mumbled. "He's happy- that's what Selene would have wanted."

"What do you know about what Selene would have wanted?" she said, puffing her chest. "What if she didn't want him? What if the father-"

"I know more about her than you do," he hissed. "I was her big brother. I was supposed to keep her safe... But that's in the past- you need to let her go."

"Not until I find out what happened to Selene!" she spat. "I have to find the father-"

"Why do you need to know, Aurora?" Helios barked. "Why can't you just let them be?"

"Because she's still here," Aurora hissed. "She's a psychic, remember? She's still with us... we just need to find her-"

"She's dead, Aurora," Helios growled. "Dead is dead- she can't be here."

Aurora bit her lip, shaking her head. "No, you don't get it- I need to find her and talk to her-"

"And how exactly are you going to talk to her?" he sighed. "Are you going to ask Grandma how to crossover and back?"

"No... I'll use this," she said, pulling out a wooden board and planchette. "I just have to have more people close to Selene... like her son. That's why I have to find them..." She shoved the board and planchette back into her bag and went back inside the coffee shop. Helios only sighed and dialed his parents to tell them that their daughter had fallen down a rabbit hole to the center of the earth.

Aurora had sat alone, in between a fire hydrant and a light pole, legs crossed and hands on a board with a planchette in the center. The snow had melted away, and there was still scratches on the sides of the post.

"Is anyone there?" she asked, visualizing a gray shape as she stared at the planchette. Nothing...

"Is anyone there... who will talk to me?" A breeze stirred the planchette, but it stayed still.

"Please... I need to speak to someone who died here... is she there?"

After what seemed like an hour... the planchette glided over to one word.

NO