But something strange deep inside of me is happening…I feel unlike I ever felt…
And its making me scared…
That I may not be what I think I am…
Thanatos ~ If I Can't Be Yours"S…Shinji…please say something…please…"
The young girl held the boy as close as possible, and she cried.
For once she didn't have to act strong anymore, she didn't have to act superior, and she didn't have to pretend anymore…
Her torn plug suit left most of her body exposed the cold air that seemed to blow by every so often, but she was better of than Shinji…
The boy she held in her arms, who was probably already dead, had some of the worst injuries she ever seen, the arm broken at the elbow, the broken ribs, the cuts and bruises that were all over his body, and she didn't even want to look, much less think about what happened to his eye.
"…Shinji."
A breeze blew by causing the girl to shiver; she didn't take the time to think about shelter and she nearly forgot about food, but was it really worth living if she was going to be alone.
"No! I'm going to live! I'm…I'm not going to die!" Asuka all but screamed to the heavens above, she wasn't going to die in vain, and she didn't know what the hell Shinji went through but she was going to do her best to keep him alive also.
She checked his pulse, when she noticed the faint heart beat she lifted him up, not all the way mind you, but just enough to make sure she wasn't completely dragging him.
The pilot of Unit 02 took a few steps, and then a few more, testing herself making sure she could carry the boy without falling over. A small number of steps later and Asuka was on her way, every so often speaking to the boy to see if he regained consciousness.
She was sort of glad to be off of that morbid example of a beach anyway, but now that the areas she was walking through wasn't as wide open as the beach she was starting to feel a bit edgy.
___________________________
If I Can't Be Yours…
By Chibi Fenrir
Pre-reader: John Brown
Disclaimer: I don't own Neon Genesis Evangelion or the characters, and I don't own the song "If I Cant Be Your".
___________________________
It didn't take long to find an old house, although half of the house was destroyed, it was a few rooms left almost untouched. One of the rooms left standing just happened to be the bedroom in which a girl was doing her best to change the boy bandages, which she made from his own shirt.
She held the cigarette lighter that she found while looking for a place to stay, closer to his chest. It was a large purple spot in the center of his chest; upon closer examination she found that it was several of the purple spots around various places around his body, such as his hands, forearms, and of course it was more on his chest and stomach.
"…What happened to you Shinji?" the red haired whispered into the darkness around her.
Asuka didn't know what happened at all, all she remembered was the light from the 15th's attack and she didn't even try to think of how she ended up on the beach.
As if she was daydreaming, a random thought popped into her mind.
She had never really been this close to the boy before…
"…And I called him a pervert." She laughed at her little joke and started to prepare to look for the stuff they would need to survive.
Before reaching the door, another thought entered her mind, but it was nowhere as pleasant as the one before.
'What if I come back and he isn't here…'
It wasn't like she was depending on him, as a matter of fact it was vice versa, but she needed to know that she wasn't alone…as long as she wasn't by herself.
Asuka shook her head, clearing her mind of the vile thoughts, Shinji would be here when she got back, and she wasn't going to let him die.
"I'll be back…"
And with that she was gone.
~*~*~*~
"Hey Shinji! I got something for you!!" the female ex pilot said aloud as she dropped the bags of food and supplies she carried into the house, or what was left of it to be specific.
Asuka bought the cello into the room, half expecting a nervous thank you to come from the boy. It used to always be like that, before things started to go downhill, she would give the meek pilot of Unit 01 something, and he would always reply with a little smile and a nervous thank you. Only now that she looked back did she noticed she never said your welcome…
She lit one of the candles she just so happened to find in the store she got most of the food from. The small light source shone dim light around the room, almost as quickly as her eyes seen the bed, the candle feel to the old wooden floor and rolled into the trail of dried blood.
Shinji was gone.
~*~*~*~
She cautiously followed the trail of blood, being extremely careful not to lose sight of it.
Asuka looked up at the boy who was sitting on the beach watching the waves of LCL behave as the ocean. Considering his condition it must have been very painful to take more than three steps and he walked nearly half a mile…
"Shinji…" she whispered causing the boy to slowly turn his head, she discontinued her staring when she seen the way he was holding his eye, and she could still see the blood trickling between his fingers.
Not soon afterwards, she was standing before the pilot. Asuka looked down at the shivering boy, who did bother to try to warm himself.
He looked like he didn't care anymore…
"I'm sorry Asuka…"
The girl sat on the cold wet sand and turned towards the boy, "For what?" she asked, of course he couldn't be talking about where they was, he couldn't have control over that.
"…This is Hell…"
"Of course it is Shinji!! Look around we are in the middle of~~
"No…this is Hell…" Shinji interrupted, the look in his eyes made Asuka's very soul shatter, it was like looking at a person who knew they were going to die, like a women disarming a bomb when she realizes she cut the wrong fuse, and like a boy whom foot got stuck in the railroad tracks.
Shinji tried to stand up only to fall into Asuka's arms, she didn't notice he was crying until his tears ran down the rubbery material of her plug suit into one of the places without covering which just happened to be her elbow in this case.
"…I swear I thought you was dead Asuka…I didn't mean to bring you here…I swear I didn't…" he sobbed still clinging to the confused girl, "I didn't mean to bring you with me…"
Despite his injures, the girl held the boy close, "Shinji…I…I don't understand…"
After a while the boy regained his composure, but still stayed in Asuka's arms, "…Rei told me to make a choice. I choose for everybody to live, but in turn I had to go to…Hell~
"What in the hell are you talking about?!" Asuka interrupted nearly screaming, she guessed that from the beginning that they…lost to the Angels, but she didn't have any idea what Shinji was talking about, "Explain from the beginning."
"…After you went into a coma, Nerv was attacked…" The boy took in a breath but winced when the pain came back from the ribs, "They placed you in Unit 02 and put you in the lake in the center of the GeoFront. …When I got out of the cages, the Eva series was already released…" he took time out to rub at the tears building up at the corner of his eye, "…They ripped your Eva apart…it even went berserk at the end…but…"
He turned to Asuka who started him directly in the eye, the staring contest continued till the girl sprung up to her feet and was just inches away from Shinji's face, "My Eva wasn't a monster! It was just a machine! It was just a damn machine!" She couldn't say why, but the fact that her Eva was like…Shinji's made her enraged.
The yellowish blood of the Angels washed upon the shore of the beach, and the wind continued to blow by every so often, but the two pilots stood staring at one another, both waiting for the other to make a move.
"…So this is Hell, I always thought it was flames and screaming, but its just desolate and cold…" Asuka turned towards the boy who was laying face first in the sand.
"Shinji!!"
~*~*~*~
"Shinji, why didn't you just tell me?" she changed the makeshift bandages with the new ones she found at what was left of some drug store, she wasn't a doctor but she learned enough in college to at least take care of the boy…but for how long…
"I…I didn't want to bother you…you been through enough already." The boy meekly replied, Asuka pulled off another bloody cloth and applied the alcohol to make sure the wound didn't get infected.
"It's just the two of us Shinji…and right now you can't take care of yourself…just tell me. Okay?
It was something about the way she said it, or maybe the smile on her face that made Shinji feel at ease, he never seen her look so…carefree.
"…Shinji I'm sorry…for the way I treated before..." the girl picked up his arm so she could bandage his ribs, "…Its just something that happened in the past that made me…have a sort of barrier around myself…"
He didn't notice she was shaking until he just so happened to take a glance at their conjoined hands, "Asuka its ok…I understand."
She squeezed his hand tighter, "No you don't understand Shinji!! You put up with it for the whole fucking year! Everyone else just ignored me, overlooked me…or just didn't care. Why didn't you act the same way!" the roll of bandaged dropped and fell onto the dusty wooden floor…
Shinji used most of his energy to sit up and turned towards the girl who was in his opinion almost on the brink of crying, "…Because I do care…"
"Why wont you be with me! Why didn't you try to love me?" the boy laid back on the bed, Asuka climbed on top of the dirty bed and also on top of the boy, who refused to look her in the eye, "…Why…"
"…I never said I loved you Asuka…"
"What is that suppose to mean!"
The boy tried to turn on his side, but the weigh of the girl on top of him stopped him from moving, "…Nothing…"
She grasped his shoulders and shook the boy under her, "Don't tell me that shit! How can you 'care' about me but not love me!! You loved Misato and Rei!"
"…I don't love anybody anymore…" Asuka released the boy shoulders and slowly lifted herself off of the boy. Out of all the times she knew the boy she could never really said she knew Shinji, every time she expected him to cry he fought, when she thought he was about stand up for himself he would run, but this was one of the times when she felt like she didn't know anything about him.
The female pilot walked on the old wooden floor to the candle, the wax ran down the side of the vanilla scented candle onto the broken table, that Asuka managed to fix temporarily. She was sleepy and it seemed her companion was already asleep; Asuka blew out the candle and carefully lay on the side of Shinji.
"…I really did used to hate you Shinji…"
"…You are talking like you are dying…" the boy whispered, alarming the girl who thought he was sleep.
"You said yourself that this is Hell…" she fingered with a strand of her golden red hair that seemed to lose the glow it once held.
"…I don't know, I really don't know if we are alive or not…but I'm sure that this is Hell. Cant you hear the screams of the dead in wind, and it probably rains blood or something. …As long as everybody else had another chance." Shinji laid on his back and looked at the ceiling of the bedroom, for a second he looked at Asuka, who just so happened to be doing the same thing.
For some reason she laughed, she found this situation kind of funny, she was in Hell, yet it wasn't any flames or little red demons running around with tridents, but it was cold and barren, like a frozen desert. And that wasn't even the half of it; she was stuck here with Shinji who will probably be forever tortured because he made the choice of letting people who let him down his whole life live. She had to ask at least one question, just to make her feel good for that one more minute…
"Even for your bastard father?"
"Y…Yea, he probably wouldn't be so…cold if mother didn't die…" Shinji closed his eye trying to picture Gendo being nice only to fail…rather horribly.
She would have to admit for the first time she felt…awkward speaking to someone she was just screaming a few hours prior, "…Good night Shinji."
"Sweet dreams Asuka…"
It was something about the sincere way he said it that made it sound so familiar…
~*~*~*~
In the darkness of night, as the pilots slept and the stars loomed over what remained of Earth, a figure that seemed to be created from light moved across the sea of LCL.
That figure was an Angel, the first to be exact.
He was finally free, but to what avail, what havoc could he cause now, where was the heavens he oh wanted to see, the gardens he wanted to live in.
Adam increased his AT field as far as it could go, dividing the sea LCL, yet all was in vain.
Nothing of worth remained, where was his Eve now…his children…now gone.
He expanded his field to its greatest extent, the barrier of his heart and mind extended to the sky above and the bedrock below, the clouds were parted by his rage, and the sea exploded, causing the blood of the Angels to fall upon the being like a morbid rain
He suddenly stopped. What use was it to destroy an already destroyed planet?
Everything he did was in vain, was he suppose to feel 'happy' because he was free, or 'sorrow' at the defeat of his children who tried so hard to save him, but the thoughts felt so alien to him…
Only one option was left…one chance to reclaim the glory he once treasured, one way to honor his fallen children.
The lone Angel walked to dark sphere from which evolved life, the manifestation of Lillth.
He would get his revenge…
~*~*~*~
"That didn't take as long as I thought it would…"
Shinji stood before the he made for a single person, and that person was Rei Ayanami…
The only person who wouldn't be given a new chance at life, besides himself and probably Asuka, in order to release the souls so they could find new bodies to inhabit, the carrier of the souls would have to die.
As the boy stood before the sticks arranged in a way that spelt out her name, he found it so ironic that the warmest smile he ever seen seemed to be plastered across her face just as he stuck in the lance between her eyes.
The greatest sacrifice…wasn't that of life, but that of the soul. The reason the albino pilot of Unit 00 wouldn't get a second chance was simply because she didn't exist anymore…
When Misato died, her body was torn apart, but her soul still lived on…that is why Rei appeared before her. It was the same for everybody else, except for Asuka…
He couldn't figure out why she didn't, and it was for that reason he didn't know if she was dead or not. Shinji for one did see Ayanami the first time he came to the city, which was, to him anyway, a prediction of his death.
Shinji sighed; the blue haired pilot left more questions than she answered…
The crucified Eva series around the boy only reminded him of the Third Impact.
"Hey Shinji!! I fixed the oven!" For some reason the voice of Asuka lifted his spirits, it was probably due to her cheerful tone held in her voice, but it made him feel…happy, to at least a small extent.
The red head in question emerged from out of the broken house they occupied for the last few days, and she marched up to the boy with a plate of beans and a fork. Although neither of them liked the beans, it was the only thing they could find eatable that wasn't spoil, and besides they had about eight boxes of the stuff…
Shinji picked up the plastic fork and stabbed the beans one by one placing them in his mouth while Asuka did the same, "…I wonder what we will do from now on?" the boy dropped his fork and turned to the girl with the dreamy look on her face, he envied how in a situation such as this, she could have a smile that big.
She gazed at the stars that looked down on the Earth; they stood in space like they were the moon's army each of them different, some of them dimmer than others, while some were brighter than the sun. This was the second time either of them beheld a site so…breathtaking.
Asuka sat the plate on the side of her and laid on the ground and kept staring at the night sky, but Shinji continued to stand, "…I guess will just have to…go on for a long time…"
"…I know we are going to be here forever…"
Shinji put his hands behind his head and looked up, "…You remember that day you were mad because you couldn't find your sync chips?" Asuka slowly nodded her head recalling the day she nearly broke Kensuke's nose because he made fun of her when she had her hair down, "…I hid them from you because you stepped on one of my SDAT tapes."
Both of them laughed out loud, after a while Asuka was the first to come down, "You know that time that jelly where on your headphones and you nearly went deaf from rinsing your ears out? The boy shook his head up and down remembering the way Misato laughed at his ordeal, "I did that and put jelly all over Pen-Pen so you would blame him."
And once again they both laughed, and the night went on exactly like that, one would tell an embarrassing story and at the end both of them would laugh. A few hours later, both of them were both on the bed, which Shinji managed to clean before he made the grave for Ayanami.
As he lay with his back to the bed, he just happened to notice a hole in the ceiling, and at the same time one that went through the roof. Upon closer inspection, he observed her could see the night sky through the hole. Although the stars weren't visible, he could see clouds, which looked like thin puffs of smoke, slowly pass by in the burgundy sky.
…It made him feel at peace.
"…Hey Shinji…" a quiet voice on the side of him whispered, but it didn't at all rouse him from his tranquil mood, "What were you going to do when you got older…you know after Eva?"
The boy in question turned towards Asuka, who seemed to be closer than before, "…I don't really know…I was just thinking about trying to survive…" he paused gathering his breath and thoughts together, "…I…I probably would have been a artist or something…I'm to stupid to be a lawyer, and I'm not really as good at the cello as I want to be…"
"…Your not stupid…"
Now that did wake him from his calmness.
Of all the people in the world, he never, as a matter of fact never ever expected Asuka Langley Soryu, the one person who called him an idiot on a daily basis, to say those words.
If you didn't count the howling wind, or the often creaking of the bed, it was complete silence.
He sat straight up in the bed and turned wide-eyed to the girl beside him, "…Asuka…" he softly said, when he didn't receive a response he simply assumed she was all ready asleep.
He sighed, rather loudly to be exact, "…Sweet dreams, Asuka…" he pulled the cover over her and then over himself, as he got comfortable he finally closed his weary eyes and prepared to have another one of those nightmare involving…the invasion.
Not long afterwards the only thing that could be heard was soft breathing of the children who shared the bed.
"…Sweet dreams, Shinji…"
______________________________________
Yes, I am still alive…~_~
This is originally supposed to go to Asuka's Notebook, but I don't think its that good, so depending on the amount of reviews, I'll see if I would turn this chapter and the one that goes along with it to the site, or exchange it with another story that is in the making.
Like you should have noticed above, this is only the first chapter.
I bet most people want to beat me for not updating Blame yet…^_^
For these past few months I have been writing a story for a contest, to get to the point it's about fics without any Shinji/ Female-pilot parings.
I know how it feels to be waiting for updates…-_-'
Remember this story depends on reviews.
Once again many thanks to those who read, and many many thanks to those who read and reviewed…^_^
Chibi Fenrir