Shadow of a Doubt

An Unexpected "Coincidence"

(Maria)

Maria sighed as Blaze and Amy laid out multiple dresses for themselves to chose from. She hadn't decided what to wear yet, as they hadn't thought to buy any formal outfits.

"So, I'm thinking the knee length hot pink with ruffles." Amy announced putting the other dresses away. "What do you guys think?"

"Perfect!" Blaze answered.

"Gorgeous, Amy." Maria agreed.

"I think I'll wear the red v-neck with the small fabric roses along the hem." Blaze decided holding it to her chest in front of the mirror. "What about you, Maria? What are you planning to wear?"

"I don't know. Maybe the light blue one I first tried on yesterday." Maria considered, taking it out of the closet.

"You look amazing in that one!" Amy exclaimed, overly excited. "So we'll all go off and get dressed and come back together for hair and makeup!"

Blaze and Maria agreed and went their separate ways. After getting dressed, Maria looked herself over in the mirror. She was quite pretty and couldn't help examining her eye colour. They were a dazzling blue and almost seemed to shine.

"You're quite beautiful, you know." Maria jumped. There, in the doorway, stood Blaze smiling kindly.

"Holy smokes! You nearly scared me to death!" Maria breathed, a hand over her heart.

"Sorry... it's true though." Blaze walked over to Maria and gave her a hug. "Even if you end up having a family, know that you'll always have a home here."

"I'll remember." Maria promised, returning the hug. Though she thought the comment random, Maria couldn't help feeling happy to the point of tears.

"Now, lets go get fixed up." Blaze took her hand and they headed to Amy's room.

After a lot of messing around, the three were ready for dinner. Blaze decided on a pale red eye shadow and red lipstick to match her dress. Amy wore light pink eye shadow with cotton candy pink lipstick and after much fussing they got Maria in a pale skin tone eye shadow and pale red lipstick.

As they got into the car, Maria's thoughts started to wander. I don't know if I should be doing this. I'll be intruding on their dates. A fifth wheel. Well it's too late to back out now...

They drove for about 10 minutes before turning into a side parking lot. The restaurant was a quaint, one story building with a small sign out front. It read 'D'nelb Avaj, Greek restaurant'.

"Nice place." Maria commented as they headed for the door.

"Yeah. Weird name for a Greek restaurant though." Blaze agreed.

"Come on. Let's go meet the guys." Amy said leading the way.

Inside, the place was like any other restaurant but had more of a couples atmosphere. A mahogany podium sat in front, and the walls were lined with booths as well as in the center of the room. Between the three rows of booths also sat a line of tables and chairs to fill the gaps.

"Table for three?" A green meercat asked, grabbing menus from behind the podium.

"Actually no, we have a reservation under Sonic the Hedgehog." Amy interjected.

"Ah yes, they mentioned some girls would be meeting them. They're seated right over there." He pointed over at a booth in the middle. Though most of the booth was out of sight, you could see three different sets of quills.

They walked over and stood at the end of the booth. To Maria's surprise, Shadow was seated across from silver and next to sonic. The three hedgehogs looked up and the blue and white ones smiled.