Quick collaboration between myself and ArcaFeretory (aka reliquiaen). Yui's birthday is 3/30 and Mari's is (supposedly) 3/31. How could you pass up the opportunity?
"Happy birthday, Yui."
Her voice rings softly off the metal walls but other than that nothing happens. It's mostly silent, well okay, not silent. The entirety of the room seems to thrum softly, Unit 01 standing in its shackles rumbles quietly as it powers the Wunder. The sound isn't as loud as the cicadas used to be, but it fills her head with a similar sort of vibration.
Mari's hands tighten on the rail and she sighs heavily. Her shoulders dip but her eyes never fall from staring up at Unit 01's partially obscured face. Or rather, she's looking at the core set into its chest; glowing just a little, filling the space with a warm red light. After a moment, Mari crosses the walkway and her hand falls from the end of the railing. Her footsteps disappear into the emptiness but they feel heavy to her.
Eventually, she stops in front of the Evangelion. Up close, the light should be blinding, but it's not. Still, she scrunches her eyes shut and lets her forehead fall against the smooth surface. It's not cold, but there's no warmth to it either. Actually it sort of reminds her of LCL. Her nose twitches at the thought and she presses her palm to the core wishing there was something she could feel to make her believe Yui was still in there. Still okay.
Still alive.
Her hand falls and she tips her head another sigh she twists, her shoulder dragging on the surface and then her back is to the core. She heaves another great sigh and feels her legs give out beneath her, then she's sliding down until her butt hits the steel of the walkway beneath her. Mari pushes her hands against the floor, feeling the raised texture bite into her palms. It hurts just slightly when the back of her head hits the core. But no more than anything else hurts.
"I'm sorry I didn't bring you a cake this year." The edges of Mari's lips curve up; the bitter note in her voice betrays her otherwise cheerful look. "I had a mission today. I asked Misato to let me skip, but she wouldn't unless I told her why." Her laughter echoes across the empty engine room, bouncing off the steel railings and Unit-01's armor. "How could I tell her why? She'd stop me from coming down here, and - well." She chuckles, more serious this time, her fists scraping against the floor. "They just think I'm eccentric for coming down here so often. Because I like the qui-et."
They're wrong. Mari doesn't need to say that. Even Asuka, the closest person to her - the closest living person, Mari thinks - knows nothing about her true motivations. She doesn't try to hide them, letting a lack of knowledge obscure her intentions. And even if they knew, what could they do? The worst Misato could do is restrict Mari from coming down to the engine room and talking to a woman who Mari's not even sure can hear her.
A long breath leaves her lips, misting over into a silver cloud. It hangs before her face, then wafts away when Mari blows another, warmer breath at it. She tilts her head to the side, letting the red glare of the core shine into her lenses from behind.
"Is it quiet in there?" Mari asks. Of course she gets no response, but she closes her eyes and lets the humming of the Evangelion and the vibrations of the Wunder be her answer. It's been too long since she's heard Yui actually speak, but if she really tries, she can hear the Ayanami-type telling her to run.
What a pathetic last reminder of Yui. But since then, all she's done is run. Run from NERV, run with WILLE, and after every single mission run back down into the engine room to retreat from a world that she no longer recognizes, and a fight that shouldn't even be hers.
"They didn't even need me out there today," Mari says, picking up her previous line of thought. "They had Asuka. We got her back a week ago. Shi- your son, too, and another Ayanami-type." Another laugh bubbles up from her gut, hollow and fragile. "The Princess won't let her out of her sight, except for when we're sync testing. Which is all the time, now." Mari's fists unclench, fingers splaying out across the floor and playing with the patterns etched into the metal. "That boy that I told you about, that SEELE had? Kaworu? He's dead. Your son's taking it hard. And there was a new kind of EVA, that let two people pilot it, and that's what Misato's trying to get us to do. Kind of a lot to take in, isn't it?"
That's an understatement: the past two weeks have been more than a lot, with one week being nothing but constant sync tests and maintenance on Mari's Unit-08, the lone surviving WILLE Unit. But before that, there was searching for Asuka and, Mari suspects, a parallel search for the Third Child that took an unspoken priority over finding Asuka. After all, NERV couldn't start an Impact without a proper trigger.
If only Mari had put the same effort into trying to find a way to bring Yui back. If she'd tried harder, maybe there would be a point to making a cake every year. One she didn't have to eat alone.
"The best part is... it reminded me of you." She leans back, looking up at the mass of purple and green armor, and pats the core beside her head. "Just a few differences. Four eyes, four arms- you might've seen it. Can you even see out of this room?" Mari exhales again and shakes her head. "Don't answer that." For if she did, and if the answer was 'yes', then Mari would have to explain a hundred battles in which she gripped her control sticks, pleading to be allowed to see Yui again and the nights spent awake in her room looking up at the stars and wondering which one was really Unit-01.
"Yui?"
Mari doesn't continue for a long time. If Yui had actually been there she might've given her a funny look or bumped her shoulder or made a joke about 'finishing what you start'. But Yui wasn't there. Mari's shoulders shake a little and she blinks furiously, denying the tears that threaten to fall. She won't cry, not here. Not on Yui's birthday. (Although it wouldn't be the first time. Or the last.)
Eventually she sucks in a deep breath and shudders as it tumbles free. Slowly, she brings her knees up to her chest. "Will you…" She can't get the words out. Her glasses tilt a little across her nose when she tips her head sideways. "When this is all over," she tries again. "Will you come back? Can you? I'm sure… I'm sure your son would like to meet you."
She leaves unspoken how desperately she needs Yui. It doesn't need to be said, she doesn't think. Not really. Honestly, Mari has no idea how she's made it this far without her. But she has and that's got to count for something. She draws in another shaky breath. Again, when it oozes between her teeth it creates a little cloud of mist in front of her. This time she lets it dissipate on it's own.
"I miss you."
And that's it. The tears leak free and slide across her cheeks and Mari gasps in more oxygen even as she fights the need to let it out. Her head hits the core again as she throws it back, hair falling all in her eyes in that way Yui always hated. She puffs air up to blow it away and ends up hiccuping as she realises what's going on. Her chest feels way too tight.
She sobs. Just once and then clamps down hard on it. Her fingers push her glasses up out of the way as she scrubs at the tears.
Somehow, the last of her tremulous tears turn into a bitter laugh. She stifles that too. Laughter would probably be healthier in the long run, but it feels so inappropriate. Especially when she's more or less sitting in Yui's tomb.
The thought catches in her ribs again.
Fingers scraping on the floor she lurches upright. For a second she lets her weight rest against the core and silently imagine that it is, in fact, Yui she's leaning into. She turns her face into the hard surface and that's all it takes to remind her of reality. There's nothing even remotely Yui about it. It's not soft or gentle like she was; it smells nothing like how Yui did - but most of all, it's cold.
So Mari steps slowly away from the core, fingertips glued to the soft red until the very last. She pauses then, eyes still fixed on it as she tries to compose herself. Evening out her breathing is always harder than wiping away the last of the evidence regarding her ill-timed tears. She manages though. Like always. And then her feet are taking her away and it settles in between her lungs that another year has passed without Yui in it.
As she turns away again, she feels the ship shudder beneath her. A turn of the rudder; a shift in the flow of power from Unit-01, it doesn't matter. If Mari looks back, she knows she won't be able to leave, and if someone finds her down here in the morning they'll probably keep her from returning again. She swallows past the tightness in her throat, pausing with her hand on the stair railing. Her eyes are fixated on the door, just open enough that she can see the red light permeating the room and pretend it's the core itself in front of her. Pretend that it's Yui she's reaching out to, and not the exit. She fumbles forward, eyes still nearly shut, until warmer air hits her face and the engine room is to her back, and finally she can whisper to herself the words she had hoped to hear, just as she hopes every year.
"Happy birthday, Mari."