Chapter 1


Kensuke Aida sat with his head in his hands, the cracked screen in front of him showing the shattered remains of the escort fleet as they orbited around Earth. Every so often, a chunk of debris would re-enter the atmosphere and flare up in a brilliant shower of sparks before quickly fading away.

Behind him, Asuka and Shinji lay curled together on one of the gravity couches, Toji and Hikari on the other. He didn't need to look at the cctv monitor to know Rei and Kaworu were doing the same, albeit in more private quarters.

A small alarm alerted him to another failure, this one a minor subsystem pertaining to the recycling of the atmosphere aboard the ship. He silenced it with a flick of his wrist, the couples behind him barely stirring.

He leaned back in his chair, once belonging to the captain, and stared at the ceiling.

Christ... What a fuck up..., he spoke quietly.

"Ken? You say something?," Hikari asked, lifting her head from her nook in Toji's shoulder, her voice tired and thin.

"Nope," Kensuke lied, his hands hanging limp at his sides as he continued to stare upwards.

"Oh..." she replied, "How much time do we have left?"

He shot a quick glance sideways at the bright red panel flashing to his right.

"'Bout an hour of air, and then another 30 minutes until the core goes critical, I'd say."

Hikari nodded slowly, a motion unseen by Kensuke. She said nothing else as she laid back down and buried her tear stained cheeks into Toji's shirt. The boy instinctively tightened his grip around her chest and pulled her closer.

He whispered to her as she began to sob quietly.

Kensuke reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the photo. He rubbed his thumbs over it a few times before putting it back.

Mari... Please forgive me...


So, I have a terrible habit of getting story ideas when I'm still in the middle of everything else. This is an example of that.

Like "Changes," I have no idea when this will be updated next. I do know where it's going to go, though. So there's that...

Any who, lemme know what you think. You guys tend to be pretty approving of my work, so I hope this story will stand up to your expectations of me.