*Sonic's POV *
"Let's watch a movie." Maria said as we walked inside my house together. She immediately started looking around, I guess in her future, we lived at Shadows house.

"Sure. Hey, I meant to ask you something earlier." I said as I walked to the couch and sat down. She immediately walked to the kitchen and started looking for snacks and got everything ready. I chuckled softly as she walked to the living room with 3 bags of chips, a box of cookies, a bowl of popcorn, and a 12 pack of drinks. "I don't think we need this many snacks."

"You can never have enough." She giggled. "What did you want to ask me?"

"Oh. Right. About Metal. When I met you, you apologized to him for destroying him. How come?" I said as I grabbed the remote and passed it to her so she could pick a movie she liked.

"Metal is a friend in the future. You found him one day and talked to him, you showed kindness to him like you always do to everyone and he decided to join you. You had fights with Eggman over him, and now he lives in the future with Uncle Tails in his lab. He followed you and Uncle around and helped you and Shadow keep me safe while I grew up." Maria said as she picked a comedy movie and sat beside me, resting her head on my shoulder.

Halfway through the movie, Tails barged into the house shouting but not looking at us. Maria tensed up and sat right up when she saw him. She didn't try to hide since she was as confused as me. "I feel like a complete disaster! My lab is a mess because I can't seem to make my invention turn on! I don't know what I am doing wrong. I need something to eat and since you always steal from me. I came to steal from you. What do you have?" He started going through my fridge and finally turned around when he found leftover pizza. "I am -" He stopped when he saw us.

He looked at me then at her, his mind I guess was trying to figure out where she'd seen her before. I panicked and threw a blanket over her as if that was going to do anything.

"Wait. Isn't that the girl Silver is looking for?" Tails flew to us and removed the blanket from her. "What is she doing here? Are you on a date? What's going on?" Tails asked and took out his phone. "Why haven't you called Silver?"

I snatched his phone away and threw it without thinking. He looked at me in disbelief. "Shoot. Sorry." I chuckled and shrugged. "You can't call Silver." I looked back at Maria, unsure of what to say.

"Why is she here?" Tails asked again. "Who is she?"

"She is -" I stopped and realized there was nothing I could say where he would understand, so I decided to go with the truth. "She is my daughter."

"She's - what? Oh. Wait. What?" He shook his head confused, then looked at Maria. "Oh. That's why Silver is looking for you. What's going on?" He was surprisingly taking it better than I thought he would.

"It's complicated. For now, I am just staying here until I am gone." Maria said as she patted the spot beside her for Tails to come join us.

"Wait. She looks like Shadow. Does that mean?" Tails said as he walked to her and looked her up and down.

"Unfortunately, yes." I rolled my eyes.

"Do you have the same powers as him? How does that work? Whoa, you look just like them. How old are you? You look like my age." Tails started asking her questions.

"Actually, bud. Maybe you can find a way to help us. She's going to disappear if we don't find a way to help her." I explained the entire situation to Tails. He was quiet and lowered his ears when I finished explaining.

"Unfortunately, there's nothing I can do here. Even if you did find a way for Shadow and you to get together, she would still disappear. It would create a different timeline, and it wouldn't be this Maria anymore but a different one. Does that make sense?" He said, and Maria nodded, but I was still confused.

"I kind of already knew that. Silver tried explaining it to me before, but I just wanted to believe there was a way to save me. There is no way I survive this, I've already changed the past by coming here that the future I belong to is probably already gone." She explained, my ears dropped.

"All you can really do now is keep her company." Tails sighed.

I looked at Maria and pulled her close, then hugged her. I had lost lots of people in my life, but somehow, the thought that I would have to see Maria little by little disappear was breaking my heart.

"I need to tell Shadow about it." Maria said while standing up. "Can I borrow your phone?" I nodded and handed it to her.

*Shadow's POV *
Maria had called me to say that the twin tailed fox found out about her. I wanted to kill Faker for being so reckless and wanted to tell Maria to come and spend the night here but I was currently talking to Rouge. The fact that the fox knew and she didn't was bothering me so I decided to tell her as well after we talked about the accident.

"So Sonic and you were supposed to end up together?" Rouge crossed her arms. "I see it." She chuckled.

"What?" I raised a brow.

"Well, come on, Shadow. We both already knew that you weren't into girls. Sonic was always around, always bothering you and you always ended up getting mad once you were alone that you couldn't let yourself be nice to him. It kind of adds up. I'm actually surprised I didn't think about it before.  You two would make such a cute couple." She smiled.

"You're insane." I rolled my eyes.