Eva doesn't belong to me. I wish it did, but I can't change that. I'm not making any money from
writing this. I wish I did, but I can't change that either.

I saw this tacked on to the end of a review, after one I had just givn for a Pen Pen humour fic:

'(Hey Derek, why *doesn't* someone write a serious Pen2 fic? Is that a challenge?)' - Worldmage

And I decided to give it a shot. I believe in trying to buck the odds when it comes to fanfiction
(clean lemons, sensible self-insterts, and all those other oxymorons), os here is what I believe to
be the first serious Pen Pen fic in existence. Enjoy.





Tears - Derek Zischke





He saw much. Much more than They understood he saw. He did not see them at Their best,
while they were taking praise and risking life for others like Them, no...he saw Them while they
were vulnerable, while They were not looking for Their own worth in Others, saving a world that
did not want to be saved. He saw them when they argued, when they fought amongst
themselves, when they angered.

When They slept.

When They cried.

The Girl often shed tears in her sleep. He had seen them on many occasions while he wandered
in the night. She lay in what looked like great turmoil, and often cried out meaningless words and
jangles of alien speech. The Girl had cried little when she had first arrived, but something had
happened to her; she had come to The House at one time, her eyes blank, her step low, her
head down. She hadn't seen a wall in plain sight of her, and she had hit it with enough for to
injure herself, but instead of noticing the pain she should have felt, she continued to walk. The
Girl then lay down to cry, and that was the last time he had seen her calm.

The Boy also felt some of The Girl's pain. He had seen that as soon as The Boy had arrived. He
was quiet, not at all like The Woman or The Girl, and on a small amount of occasions, he had
been able to hear (and, at one time, actually see as The Boy lay on the floor) The Boy whisper
more of the jangled tongue in his sleep. On that time he had watched The Boy, he had seen
tears form in his eyes as he slept.

First The Boy had had the Sickness. The deadly Sickness that seemed to eat from the inside and
make its way out. It could not be treated or cured, it just had to be survived. That Sickness had
then been passed on to The Girl, making whatever part of it she had already contracted much
worse. And now, The Woman, who he had thought unchanging in her ways, was beginning to
show signs of it. He had seen the tears in her eyes also, and he had only seen that of her very
rarely, when she was alone and after she had gotten loud. On occasion he had taken of the
strange-smelling liquid The Woman had stored, while he ate. It obviously did not have the same
effect on him as it did on The Woman, for he did not become loud and then morose. For it had
not infected him with the Sickness.

Perhaps this Sickness was a part of all of Them. Perhaps it was handed to them at birth, fated
that one day it would break Them down in a way that could not be mended, make Them hate
and ignore others like Them. Perhaps this was something all living things suffered from.

Perhaps this was even something he suffered from.



Misato walked into the kitchen in the morning, almost tripping over her pet penguin as she did
so. Although one of her feet clipped his back and the other came stomping down inches from his
beak as she tried to regain her balance, he didn't stir.

_Why is Pen Pen out here?_

She bent down to shake him awake, and as she got closer, she saw something that had formed
on his beak during the night, catching some light from the morning sun and reflecting it into her
eye.

A tear.

_Was he...?_

Misato stood, deciding to leave Pen Pen sleeping for the time being.







Derek Zischke

Zischke In The Jar Productions (c), 2000-11-14

http://members.optusnet.com.au/~lox18/Index.htm

deadmanseven@optushome.com.au



"Do you suffer from long-term memory loss? I can't remember..."

-Chumbawamba