Hi there! Small, fluffy one-shot about the other, non-religious meaning of easter. Set in Shadow's childhood aboard the ARK. It's part of my more epic retelling of the whole thingamajig, 'Life could have been so different', but this one stands well enough alone. Please enjoy. :D

(For the readers: set loosely somewhere in between Shadow getting his shoes and GUN carrying him off as a weapon. Happy childhood ftw!)

Easter in SPACE!

by Taranea

"But grandpa!"

Professor Gerald Robotnik sighed. He was a genius with an IQ of 300, and had already solved countless scientific problems that just about baffled every other scientist. Yet, his entire brainpower was pretty much useless when it came to thinking up a reply to 'But grandpa!'.

"Maria, look, I already told you I have no-"

"But we need a third player for Monopoly! Otherwise it's no fun!" the blonde girl complained, holding out the box with said game where she stood in the doorway of the lab of the old man.

"…you can even play as the hat, if you want to."

"Maria, grandpa has some very important research due for nexth month and is very sorry he can't play, not even as the hat. Go ask the son of the GUN General if you need a third player," Gerald sighed and waved her off, his forehead in his other palm.

"Ask him?!" Maria gasped as if her grandfather had just suggested she should exchange the hotels for cockroaches. "But he and Shadow hate each other!"

"Yeah, because that creep always cheats!" interjected the third person and only non-human present. The young hedgehog had his arms crossed in front of his chest and hovered agitatedly on his skates. "Nobody wants to play with him, professor!"

Gerald took a deep breath and once again wished he could remember just when exactly his research project had also become the best friend of his granddaughter. Then again, he would be lying if he said he didn't also harbor a soft spot for Shadow…

"Maria, Shadow. Please go. I don't have time for games. I need to finish this paper to send it to Station Square University, and it has to be perfect. No flaws. So, I want you to leave. Now!" he snapped the last sentence, almost glaring at them.

Maria suddenly looked crestfallen and Shadow's ears had folded against his head – usually Gerald was a very kind person, so even a few harsh words from him could make the children feel awful.

"Let's go, Maria. I really don't think we should bother the professor right now." Shadow had taken his friend's hand and was trying to drag her away.

"Yes, we'll leave. Sorry, grandpa." She bowed her head in apology one last time, then quickly departed with the hedgehog.

Left behind was an old man, who not only felt terrible for lashing out at his two charges, but also knew that his current level of stress was behind it and ruining his health as well. Sighing, he sviwelled around to his cluttered desk again, cursing under his breath when the papers he needed were missing again in the chaos.

xxx

"Huh. So, what should we do now?" Shadow asked, somewhat subdued as they were both walking along the corridors of ARK again. "Monopoly really isn't that much fun if we're only two…" the hedgehog was trudging along beside her, not even bothering to skate, and even if Maria thought he looked just too cute with his drooping ears right now, she would much rather have seen him smile.

"Why hello, what are you doing here?" a voice suddenly interrupted their thoughts and both Shadow and Maria looked up to see a grinning Nate. The head chef of the spacestation's kitchens, a small, middle-aged afro-American, cocked his head in interest. "I know you often wander into my little realm here unannounced, but it's the first time you do it with such glum faces. What's the matter, has one of my assistants burned your dessert?"

The girl and the hedgehog looked at each other, surprised. They hadn't even realized up until now that their feet had taken the familiar path to the kitchens and therefore only managed two sheepish grins when Nate asked them again.

"Well, uh, we were kinda down when the professor didn't want to play Monopoly and now we don't know what to do, really…" Shadow replied amiably. The chef was one of the few people who treated him not like an experiment but like a person, and one of the few who didn't freak out when he suddenly spoke.

"Didn't want to play Monopoly?" Nate shook his head in mock disbelief. "What a crying shame. So you don't know what to do with yourselves now and this is why you're keeping a poor cook from his work, yes?"

"We didn't keep you from your work, you talked to us-" Shadow began, frowning, but Maria quickly interrupted him.

"Yeah, and we're really sorry Nate, but maybe you'd have an idea what else we could do? I mean, we could always help you with cooking, y'know?"

"Not after last time, thank you. I think there's still pancake pieces on the ceiling somewhere. But maybe you'd like to paint eggs?"

"Paint what?" Shadow now looked at the human as if he might have accidentally lost his marbles in a casserole, but Maria's eyes had lit up.

"Of course! Shadow, today's Easter Sunday!"

"Ooookay. Weird human thing. I get it."

"Oh yes, Nate, we'd love to! Can you maybe get us some?" the girl asked the man, who vanished smiling behind some counters. "No, Shadow, it's really fun!" she then went on, turning once more toward the hedgehog, "I had nearly completely forgotten it, with all the seasons missing up here, but today, you, err...are supposed to paint eggs and then hide them. Everyone one Earth does!"

"…remind me why you want to go to that planet again?"

"Oh, come on!" Maria playfully shoved the smaller hedgehog, "Stop pretending you think my home is a nuthouse. I know you're actually interested, too, I saw your tail wagging!"

"It didn't!" Shadow (who had just stilled said appendage) protested, "…but as long as there's nothing else to do, we might as well," he said, turning his nose up in a failed attempt to regain some dignity.

"Great." Maria, beamed as Nate had just returned carrying some eggs and painting tools, "Thanks a lot, Nate. Come on, Shadow, let's paint them in my room."

"And try not to break –! Never mind…" Nate just shook his head as he watched the duo departing, an overenthusiastic Shadow having tried to juggle the things and promptly dropping one.

"I swear, these two will be the death of everyone on the space station yet…"

xxx

"Okay. So, we paint them and then we hide them. Why? Is there some sort of spring food shortage on Earth?" Shadow asked, scrutinizing his own white egg between to gloved fingers as if there might pop out a chicken at any moment.

"Nope." Maria smiled, dipping her brush into some red paint and carefully drawing on her own one, "We do it to imitate the Easter Bunny. You hide the eggs for your…family and friends."

Anyone but Shadow might have missed the small pause and little falter in her smile here. Not many knew that Maria still missed her parents a lot – the girl with the immune-defiency had been taken from her home when she was only four years old and spent times in and out of different hospitals and sterile quarantine centers. Eventually, they had brought her up here aboard the ARK, where she had her grandfather, but not much other company...until Shadow was created, that is.

Plus, even if Gerald tried to be a good guardian, the old man was still very busy, as the previous episode had just shown. So, her hedgehog friend was quick to distract her again with some other thoughts. Maria wanted Shadow to be happy and it was just the same in turn.

"Easter Bunny? That some extremly short-lived rabbit?" he asked, one eye ridge raised and the girl had to chuckle.

"No, more of a made-up legend telling of a hare that, y'know, lays eggs and hides them for kids to find."

"A hare? Laying eggs?"

"Yes, well-"

"Maria, I'm a genetic experiment 'born' with the help of a fake Chaos Emerald and spent two years before that floating in a tube, but even that is not as far-fetched-"

"I told you, it's a legend, okay? Anyway, the whole point is to have fun painting and hunting for eggs."

"Earthlings are odd," Shadow shook his head again, now returning to his own egg and applying a layer of pink paint, "I actually think they just made up that holiday to have an excuse for being weird."

"Well, actually," Maria had stopped painting red stripes on hers and now tipped the end of her brush against her chin, "I think there's something religious behind that celebration, too, but the computer learning programmes grandpa got me have much more emphasis on science than on culture…"

"Religious people celebrating an unnatural bunny with a disturbing tendency to hide its own kids for sport?" Shadow asked dryly.

"No!" Maria knew that the hedgehog was just teasing her because he was curious himself, but sometimes the Ultimate Lifeform could drive you up the ultimate wall.

"No, it's more like…" she searched for words, cursing herself for never looking up the subject properly, "…basically, I believe it's celebrated that somebody holy and innocent got viciously killed by a mob…"

"What?!"

"No, no, no! Sorry, Shadow, I think I'm right now screwing this up royally. We'll look it up later, okay?" Maria shook her head in defeat as a (now slightly confused) Shadow returned to his painting again.

It wouldn't have been the first time that she explained something incorrectly to the hedgehog due to her own limited knowledge and the results were often more than embarrassing. She didn't even want to remember Gerald's face as Shadow had asked him one year ago why Maria insisted that his parents were a bird and a bee. Trying to tell the young hedgehog of a Resurrection concept would surely result in him bringing that awful 'Night of the Living Dead' movie up again that her grandfather had discovered them watching and chased them out of the room before the good bits came.

xxx

"So, uh, can you at least tell me where we'll hide them?"

"Huh?"

"I think maybe the power plant area would be a good idea, nobody would find them there."

"Yes, that's because you can get killed in that room, Shadow. The idea is that people find the Easter eggs without serious injury."

"Again: weird."

"We'll hide them in the plantation room. And by the way, I've finished mine!" she said, holding her own creation up, grinning.

Shadow looked up at the egg. It was black, with red streaks plus a white spot in the center. It was also a very unfriendly egg, scowling at everyone with crimson eyes.

"Isn't it almost lifelike?"

"…you're sooo dead."

It was a good thing Shadow's fur and Maria's dress were washable, because after the playfight was over, the two (and the room) looked more like an all-out paintball tournament than anything else.

"Cease-fire?"

"Agreed."

Shadow picked himself off the floor and tried in vain to wipe at least his chest fur-patch clean. That would probably mean a bath soon. The hedgehog shuddered.

"Since you had to attack me for my artwork, what have you got that's so great?" Maria asked as she had got to her feet herself, a challenge beneath that grin.

"Here," Shadow simply said, holding up his own egg. It had a pink foundation, and the hedgehog had also drawn little pointy ears, a broad nose with two black dots for holes, small eyes, and a little tail curled up into a spiral.

"A pig-egg?"

"I'll call it Vincent!"

It is safe to say that humans can't actually 'sweatdrop', but Maria came pretty close.

xxx

"So we hide them here?" Shadow asked a little while later, as they had made their way to the plantation room, which was a sort of recreational area for the staff aboard the ARK.

It was basically a park consisting of meadows and trees, with a complicated hydroculture system underneath to nurture the roots of the plants. Overhead span a huge window showing the endless night of space, dotted with stars. Right now there was nobody about save them, since painting the eggs and getting clean afterwards had taken up so much time that it was already late evening.

"Yes…" Maria replied, but it was hesitant. Shadow cocked his head, worried.

"Something wrong?"

"Well…" she looked away. "I'm worried about grandpa. The stress is just eating him up, but as long as he refuses to leave his desk we can't even help him to lighten up a little."

Shadow suddenly gave her a mischievious grin.

"…you absolutely sure about that?"

xxx

Gerald was ready to have a nervous breakdown. The papers. He had just gone away for a bathroom break and now the papers were missing again! And his head was splitting apart with the ache of working an entire day without pause…but the perfectionist in him wanted the thing to be flawless, and that took time, so he would force his body to work through the entire night, dammit!

Sighing in irritation, the scientist started to look around his desk again, as suddenly a whooshing noise mad him swivel around. Nobody there – but one of his lost papers lying on the floor instead! Gerald walked over to it and picked it up.

"Odd…" he mumbled and his eyes widened a little as the old man suddenly saw even more pieces of his missing manuscript, all of them further and further down the corridor, almost like a trail…

"This better be not some kind of joke," he muttered under his breath but went along anyway, bending down to collect the papers with small grunts. Jesus, that was starting to feel like some Easter egg hunt…

Easter! Gerald suddenly felt a sting in his heart. Today was Easter and he actually had wanted to make some time for Maria and Shadow for once…and instead sent them away like always.

But he'd wanted his work to be perfect. It had to be, right?

Slightly torn and feeling more than guilty, Gerald continued following the trail, walking through the dark corridors of ARK. It went on and on, until finally…

"The plantation room?" the old man stepped on the grass frowning, wondering what on Earth was the meaning of the whole thing.

Suddenly, though, his eyes focused on the small item lying on the ground in front of him and his face broke into a curious smile. It was a nest, a small nest cushioned with some moss and inside it lay two eggs with a letter. Still alone, he opened the thing and squinted to read it in the twilight. There were a lot of words crossed out and written anew. Indeed, it was still readable if you tried, but seemed as if two people had attempted to write that letter at once...

"Dear gra-

Dear Profe-

Dear Professor grandpa,

Happy Easter! We wanted you to have something nice for today, so we decided to give you our eggs instead of hiding them in the power plant area."

Here was the point where Gerald became slightly worried. But then again, the power plant area was hopefully locked off?

"The eggs are painted after Shadow and me. Shadow originally had drawn another one, but then he wanted to make one of me, too, so he dropped 'Vincent' and made a new egg to get revenge. I swear, if he doesn't stop his little vendettas soon, he'll get into trouble one day…"

Now the old man looked at the two eggs more closely. One of them was indeed red and black, while the other one seemed a mixture of blue and gold…as he narrowed his eyes and shifted his glasses, he discovered that someone apparently had drawn a giant moustache into the face of the egg-Maria. Now the scientist was left wondering what exactly went through Shadow's head each day.

And..."Vincent"?

"Anyway, we hope you had fun on our little 'Egg-hunt' today and maybe could unwind a little. We're already off to bed (I took Shadow into my room, is that okay?) and I hope you're not too mad that Shadow stole your research papers for our trail. He's become really fast, did you notice? Oh, and you still need to explain to us the meaning of Easter. Shadow by now thinks it's about…actually, I better don't tell you. I found out tonight about the religious meaning already, but what's with the eggs?

Good night and till tomorrow,

Maria and Shadow"

Gerald had started to chuckle. He already felt the entire fatigue of this day washing away and his back straightened as he stretched and smiled.

He wouldn't finish the report today. It was already pretty good, anyway. Maybe it didn't need to be perfect, he thought. He once more looked at the eggs. The painting on them was by no means very accurate, and the colours were definitely smudged, but still…it hadn't been drawn by a computer but by living hands, and right now Gerald thought it was in its imperfection beautiful all the same.

He suddenly decided that he wouldn't finish the report tomorrow, either. No. Easter Monday would be spent with Maria and Shadow, playing Monopoly as the hat. A very fine example for the other meaning of Easter, Gerald thought.

"Because, you see, my two young ones…" the scientist muttered into the darkness, smiling, "Eggs, spring, and young rabbits…Easter is a celebration of life."

Fin

wheee, mushy drabbly one-shot because I'm missing Sonic Easter fanfics. Message: Life may not be perfect, but is a reason to celebrate all the same. :D

Happy Easter, everyone!