Creative rights for Neon Genesis Evangelion and its characters belong to its original creators and copyright holders.

I hold no creative claim over the series and do not profit in any way.

Neon Genesis Evangelion: Solace

Part One - Is This the Place That I've Been Dreaming Of?

The calm he felt...was different. Shinji s eyes were closed, still unsure of what to do with themselves. He began to recollect his thoughts. "Am I...back?" He lifted a hand and gingerly touched his face. Confirming the physicality of the situation, Shinji opened his eyes to the new world around him. Sitting up to take in the surroundings, he realized he was alone on a shore. The tide lapped up against his ankles. Water. Just water. "How...," Shinji whispered to himself, confirming he can still talk. "How long has it been?

The sky was an odd hue of red. Blood? No. LCL? Maybe. A red band streaked across the sky. Everywhere he turned, there existed an air of emptiness. "No, not emptiness," he thought. "It's...peaceful. I'm alone, but...not really, I think." Shinji struggled to put what he felt into words, even to himself. To the distance, he could see the remains of what was the Third Impact and the Human Instrumentality Project. His memory began to return to himself, bit by bit. Large chunks of the giant form of Lilith were scattered here and there. Or was it Rei? What was she really? He felt ashamed thinking of the large bits as simply pieces of Rei. Some part inside him knew that the petrified remains were not Rei, at least not anymore. What happened to her? He never truly understood her as much as she understood him, and a tinge of sadness reached his heart.

"I never understood...anyone. I was so busy worrying about myself and how people understood me. I don't think I even thanked Rei properly in the Instrumentality." His old ways of distraught were beginning to surface, but as he noticed this Shinji took a deep breath and tried to calm down, little by little. He didn't come back to Earth to think like that again. "Rei...Yui...they brought me back because I was ready to move on; I need to move on. I remember now. And Kaworu gave me the same advice too." Shinji didn't know what was to come next in life, but for now he just wanted to move forward, somehow. Step by step, whatever it would take. "I...mustn't run away."

He wasn't even sure where he could run away now, anyways.

Shinji focused and tried to figure out what was going on, contemplating on what he knew about his current situation. "I am alive. I am back on Earth, in what looks like Tokyo-3, or what's left of it. I do not know if anyone else is here. Third Impact and the Instrumentality Project degenerated all of the AT fields releasing the binds that hold a person's soul to a physical form. Everyone's souls were then bound together in the Instrumentality, in what was supposed to be the evolution of mankind and the pinnacle of humanity. I refused that evolution, and broke open whatever it was we were in, and now I am back in my physical body."

"Was it 'we' though, that I saved?" The nightmarish thought that somehow he acted only for himself and he alone resides on Earth crossed his mind. It was almost too much to handle. "What if I am the only one left?"

"No, Yui, Rei, they said something. What was it..." Shinji thought back to his time in the Instrumentality. It felt like he was in it for an eternity. There was no sense of time. No sense of being. There was simply...existence. "What did she say..."

"Anyone can return to human form, as long as they are able to imagine themselves within their own heart."

Shinji couldn't help but smile to himself as he remembered Rei's words. It felt like the first time he was able to smile in a long, long time. "Then there's still hope others will return. Kensuke, Shoji, Misato...Rei...Asuka-"

As he thought of Asuka he choked up. Nothing he could do could stop the slow, warm stream of tears from beginning to bead and trickle down his face. "Asuka...I...," he could not finish his thoughts. He couldn't finish thinking that if he was strong for her like she was always strong for him then maybe he could have saved her against the MP Evas. He couldn't finish thinking that her, along with Rei, were the only ones to ever share the experience of piloting the Evas for as long as he has. He couldn't finish thinking that he found a friend. He found...love? If it was love, then why couldn't I act? Dammit..."

"Asuka...please come back..."

Wiping the tears from his shirt, Shinji began to walk along the shoreline, trying to figure out his next step. He stuffed his hands in his pockets, and felt the wooden cross Misato had given him. She was his first friend when he arrived in Tokyo-3. In fact, she was the first connection he ever felt in his life from since the time his mother passed away. Looking back, he realized how lucky he was to have that sort of bond with someone like Misato. She showed him a part of her life that she showed no one else. To nearly everyone at NERV, she was the professional Major calling the shots on the operations. To him, she was more than that. She was human, in every sense of the word. She had her own flaws, her own spots of perfection. She was family in a time when he had none. She could be annoying, and even overbearing. But if there was one thing he had learned since he first stepped foot into Tokyo-3, it is that nothing in this world was truly perfect. To be perfect is to denounce the human ability to improve and learn. With that thought in mind, he thought about his last memories of Misato. To the very end, she looked out for him. "From when she saved me from execution all the way to that last kiss by the elevator, she wanted my safety above all things, when I couldn't provide even for myself."

Shinji knew what he wanted to do. He began to collect pieces of scrap wood along the shoreline, and upon finding what seemed to him a suitable spot, began to construct a memorial cross for Misato. As he tore at the grass for stems long enough to knot the makeshift shrine together, his mind drifted to reminisce about Misato again. As he began to do so, he felt himself tearing up again, but willed them to stop. That was not something that came easy to him. At least, not the old him. "Crying is not how I want to see Misato remembering me as. She needed me to be strong, too. They all did. I want to be strong now, for her memory's sake." With a sense of renewal, Shinji completed the cross, and draped Misato s necklace over the top. Standing, he looked down at the memorial. He didn't know what was traditional for these sorts of things; they didn't have a proper service for his mother and he could hardly count visiting her grave with his father as traditional either. Something inside him told him this is when you say goodbye to people, but that did not seem like the proper thing to do.

"Misato...this isn't goodbye. Not really. You...you still owe me, remember?" That Misato died that day, he was sure of. But something told him there was more to her story. He wasn't ready to say goodbye yet. Not when he hadn't even tried to understand what the world was going to be like now. If there was even the slightest chance that he could bring back his friends, he would commit every bit of his strength to it.

Shinji's stomach growled. "I may not understand what this new world is going to be like yet, but whatever it is I still need to eat." His newfound strength began to clear his thoughts a little. "The shelters...the shelters will have food." Trying once again to figure out where he was, he looked off to the skyline, trying to imagine what this place used to look like. A picture slowly began to form in his head. "This shore is from the crater made when Rei self-destructed her Eva against that angel. That must mean I am more or less at the edge of the city. There should be a shelter somewhere..."

Sure enough, a short walk found him at the exposed wall of one of the city's many shelters. Walking along the edge, he found the door and entered. The inside was empty, albeit for clothes. "Not just clothes...outfits?" The clothes were arranged as if people had been wearing them, and then simply disappeared. Was this what the Instrumentality did to people that were here on Earth? Souls, people, just vanishing...it was unreal. It unsettled him that the mechanisms that he, either directly or indirectly, helped instigate were the cause of all of this. The scene continued to work on his mind. There wasn t even a drop of blood anywhere to hint that at one point there were living, human beings in this room. Nothing was here but the lifeless clothing and a film of dust. Moving through the clothes carefully, he found a storage room with perishable goods. The room was messy, to say the least. The shelves were hanging half off of their supports, the precious cans of food lying around the room. Shinji expected as much. The world must've been in a panic with everything that was going on. It came to no surprise that people would have been looting the shelters on their way to escape the city. But where would they have escape to anyways? "They wouldn't have possibly known that this was going to happen. No one did."

Shinji counted the cans. "Enough for...a week. Perhaps a little longer if I can ration them properly. At least there is a water filter here. I can get water from the lake." Shinji sighed, and decided that would have to do for now. He didn't have the will to walk around and look for more shelters. The strange sight of the discarded clothing was disturbing enough for him in that small shelter. He couldn't imagine what the rest of the city looked like. He needed to move forward, no more running away. But that was an obstacle he would tackle later. Besides, he didn't even know for sure if the other shelters still had food. They could be looted as well and in an even worse state, considering how this shelter was on the outskirts of the city where barely anyone lived anymore. Shinji sighed. "I mustn't run away. This is my current situation. This is reality. I cannot run away from it. I mustn't."

A week passed. Shinji began to cut down on his meal sizes. "Two more days. I have enough for two more days. Dammit, Asuka. Where are you? I need you. I know you can come back. Please..."

Two days passed. Finding himself out of food, Shinji set off to try nearby shelters for more food. At each shelter he found, nothing was waiting for him but the abandoned outfits of people that used to be there. "Nothing...nothing is here. I...I can't believe it. There must be more. This is the reality I chose. Anywhere...anywhere can be paradise as long as I have the will to live. I just need to will for it a little longer...someone will come. Asuka, Rei...somebody!"

Three days passed without food. "Someone...someone will come. I am alive...I will always have the chance to be happy!" The image of all his friends raced through his head. Everyone he had ever known, he tried to think of. Rei, Misato, and Asuka he thought of multiple times. He thought of Asuka more so than everyone else. The snobby, always-needs-to-win Asuka was dominating his thoughts now. He couldn t lay a finger on what was it that kept her in his thoughts. All she ever did was accuse him and lay blame to him and his actions. But something peaked in his mind; some hope that she wasn t as cold towards him as she always tried to appear to be. He knew he felt something for her. She was his first kiss too, regardless of the strange circumstances that brought about it. She claimed it was out of boredom, but maybe there was something more. He wished her to back, if only to know the truth about her feelings, to know if his own feelings, whatever they were, were in vain. As he dwelled on these thoughts, Shinji felt like he was beginning to understand Asuka a little more. It crossed his mind that maybe she too was hiding her feelings in some way. He smiled at that notion, and realized how much he was thinking about her. "Even in my own thoughts, Asuka wins over all. She would be happy to know that..."

Two more days passed without food. He had attempted eating the roots and vegetation around him, but most of what he found was burnt or dead from the Third Impact. Shinji was spending most of his time now lying on the shore where he awoke, lost in thought. He thought about how cruel life is. He was given the opportunity to live again. But, there is nothing here though to live off of. Or with. His mind raced back to that cruel vision, where he strangled Asuka. It was his last memory of her, real or not, and it began to anger him. "Asuka, the girl I...who...what..." the hunger was fogging his mind. The fact that he was still by himself fogged it even more. "Asuka...choked...no...something else..."

It had been a week since Shinji had his last proper meal. Shinji lay idle on the shore, too weak to do much more than drink from the filter he had by the water. It was the only time he would move. His mind was nearly gone. Nothing was stopping him from anything. Anything would be better than the nothing that was filling his psyche. His mind was reaching its tipping point, and he fell into what he imagined to be a bout of rage. "Asuka...Asuka! ASUKA! LOOK AT ME! ISN'T THIS WHAT YOU WANTED FROM ME! TO FEEL WANTED? HERE I AM. I WANT YOU BACK ASUKA. I NEED YOU BACK!"

Shinji didn't know if he was even yelling these thoughts, or if it was only his imagination. His eyes began to widen in fear.

"Alone...I'm...alone again. Nothing has changed. Nobody...nobody wants me..." The mental strength he had mustered up since he woke up on this shore was waning. He could feel it, as with the feeling that there was nothing he could do to stop it...

And then, a sound. A single splash unlike that of the natural movements of the lake. Someone was here. It was just enough to break through his psyche, if only for a little bit. Shinji turned to the source of the sound. His neck felt sore and weak.

Rei.

Rei Ayanami.

Rei was there, on the shore. She was floating over the water, staring at him.

Shinji blinked, and Rei was gone. Shinji's mind fought itself to think straight again.

"Rei...was here..." Shinji tried to sit himself up. His body ached as gravity threatened to pull him back down. He was losing weight, and his muscles were getting weaker. It would only be a matter of time before he-

Something in the corner of his eye caught his attention; he was not alone on the shore.

Shinji completed his turn and there lie Asuka. Bandaged and lying still on the shore right next to him. Asuka Langley Soryu, the girl that meant so much to him, even if he did not have the words to describe what exactly she meant to him. The girl he needed most.

Shinji's eyes widened and his mind cracked. Before he knew it, he was on top of her, his hands wrapped around her neck. His mind was racing, trying to figure out what was going on. What was wrong, what was right. What was reality, and what was something else. "Asuka...," his hands gripped tighter. "Asuka...," his whole body was shaking, as if his mind was no longer able to contain itself within his brain and was utilizing every fiber of his person to work, using all of his will and soul to understand. "Asuka..."

Asuka raised her bandaged arm, and laid her hand softly against Shinji's cheek. Her bandaged hand stroked his cheek ever so slightly; if it hadn't been so long since he had felt the touch of another he wouldn't have even noticed the subtle movement. But he felt every nuance of her fingers gliding across the rough pores on his dirty face like silk. The touch, the feel of another human, the confirmation that he was not alone, caused him to freeze instantly. Her eyes fixed themselves on his own. Shinji felt like he was going to shut down. Her eyes...they were beautiful. More so than he ever remembered. Her blue eyes cast themselves as amber from the still smeared sky. Her eyes pierced his mind, wrapping it in their gaze. It felt as if her gaze was ready to squeeze his very existence harder than his hands across her throat.

He was no longer alone.

All at once, his body and mind came to terms with the situation. "In front of me is Asuka, and I am choking her!" Realizing this, his hands relaxed, still holding on to her, not wanting to let her go lest she disappear. Shinji began to cry right there on top of her. He made no sound, trying to maintain his composure and to prevent from breaking down altogether. "I...," Shinji thought to himself. "I am going to be strong for you now Asuka. But, let me cry for you, this one time." His warm tears dripped off of his face and landed on Asuka's cheeks where they began to stream down. His tears became hers. He moved his hand to the unbandaged side of her face. Smooth as silk, just like the hand on his own face.

Asuka let her arm rest again beside her, and began to breathe again. She was back on Earth. On top of her was Shinji. The boy who meant so much to her. The boy she...there was no word for it that she could say for him. This was not her expertise. But she did have the strength for one sentence before she would let herself succumb to the tiredness cast all over her. She smirked to herself at the thought of what she was going to say. Warmth filled her body that had felt so cold for so long.

"How disgusting."

A/N (If I ever make edits, look here for the changelog in each chapter!)

6/4/2012

Hello everybody! My name is Ryan, and this is my first piece of writing in nearly two years. I've always been a grateful reader and as of late have not had the time I would like to spend writing pieces for all of the series that I love. I'm hoping to make time from now on though. This short one-shot is my retelling of the ending scene of EoE, a sort of look at what sort of things might've been going through Shinji's head at the time.