DreyonLegacy: Why must you always write such dirty—
Layra-chan: Maybe I'm trying to send a message here. Maybe I want something, and someone isn't noticing.
DreyonLegacy: Maybe you're just trying to be annoying.
Layra-chan: That too.
DreyonLegacy: *sigh* Layra-chan, please, just…quiet.
Disclaimer: Eva not mine, once again, thanx to psyanchosis for the inspiration for these two chapters.
Fourth Impact
Chapter 42: Aftermath
Shinji woke to the sound of crashing. He turned, pulling out of his wife's arms. Walking into the command center he saw that someone had knocked over the guitars. That same someone was crouching holding her head and muttering. One last rub at her purple hair and Misato got up, searching blindly for a drink.
She stumbled over to the refreshments table and grabbed the rest of the wine, downing it in a prolonged gulp. "AAAHHHH." She yelled, waking up.
Shinji looked around. Takoru and Lilliko were already up and about, chuckling about something. Ritsuko was sitting on a blanket, Maya's head in her lap. The other two bridge-bunnies were still out cold.
He turned to see Kaoru carrying Rei out into the main control room. Rei still looked drunk, and her hair was wild. Lilliko ran up to them, planting a kiss on their cheeks and giving her father a knowing wink.
"Morning, Lilli-chan." Rei said sleepily. "Where were you last night?"
"On top of Melchor." Lilliko replied. "And you, mother?"
Rei blinked. "I'm…uncertain…" she turned to face her husband, who simply grinned and winked at his daughter. Rei sighed and placed her head against her husband's chest. "Irrelevant."
"Good morning, Shinji-kun." Kaoru set Rei down in a chair and stood next to Shinji.
"Good morning." Shinji replied. "Have you seen Misa-chan?" Kaoru chuckled softly.
"She's with Adamu in the cages." He told him. Shinji's eyes widened. "They've been in there since two o'clock last night."
"Oh no." Shinji hurriedly shook his wife awake. She batted him away, then slowly opened her eyes. "Asuka-chan, we have to go find Misa-chan and Adamu-kun, and quickly."
"Why?" Asuka asked him. "Let them have their fun." Lilliko burst out into raucous laughter.
"Asuka! They were drunk and without supervision! What if something happened?"
"Given how much she drank, I'd be more worried if something didn't happen." Asuka sat up, wiping the sleep from her eyes.
Shinji stood up. "I'm going to go find them. I have a very bad feeling about this."
Asuka slowly got to her feet and walked into the main room, greeting Rei and Kaoru. "I see you two had as good a night as I did." Rei smiled and nodded. "Now to go see if I can say the same for my daughter."
Adamu stirred as Shinji entered the cages. He slipped out of the blankets he had gotten for Misa and himself during a rare moment of sobriety and stood up to confront Misa's father.
"Sit down." Shinji said coldly. "We need to talk." They moved away from the spot where Misa was still sleeping and got comfortable. Neither of them bothered to mention Adamu's lack of a shirt.
"We didn't do anything drastic last night." Adamu said, trying to head off the conversation. "We played around a bit, but nothing happened."
"That's not quite the point right now." Shinji told him. "What I want is for you two to stop before something does happen. I thought it was bad when you two were a supposedly couple, but then you told everyone that you were just faking it, and so I ignored it. Now, however, it appears that your lying has yet another layer to it."
"I fell in love with her while we were pretending to be a couple." Adamu replied softly. "I wanted to keep going the way we were. No one regretted it more than me when we revealed that it was a hoax." He nodded as Asuka silently sat down beside her husband. "I just wish I knew how she felt."
"Does she know how you feel?" asked Asuka. Adamu shrugged nervously.
"She might. She knows that I'm attracted to her physically, but I'm not sure if she knows that I love her." He sighed.
"I got her another present, one from me personally. Actually, I got two, one for if she did say that she loves me, and one for if she didn't. But I still don't know. Last night she said that she loved me, but we were drunk, so I can't trust what I heard."
"I need an answer, any answer. I wanted to express my feelings for her in a way that I could never accomplish with words, but I didn't know how she felt about me."
Misa woke up to feel a strange emptiness beside her. She shivered involuntarily as memories of gentle warmth beside her fled in the cold of morning. Opening her eyes a crack, she found herself staring at her parents talking to Adamu. They were sitting just within listening distance of her, oblivious to the fact that she was awake.
It took Misa, with her half-asleep mind and barely open eyes, a while to realize that Adamu was topless. It took her even longer to realize that she was too.
Stifling an indignant scream, she listened to the conversation in hopes of finding out what had happened the previous night, and how she ended up the way she was.
"I need an answer, any answer." Adamu was saying, his back to her. "I wanted to express my feelings for her in a way that I could never accomplish with words, but I didn't know how she felt about me. If she really loved me or not." He pulled a silver-chained necklace out of his pocket. "This was for in case she didn't." Shinji took it from him to examine it. A silver cross with a ruby in the center hung from the chain, almost a homage to Misato's lost necklace.
Misa sucked in a breath at what he pulled out next. "And this was for in case she did."
"Don't you think it's a bit early?" Shinji asked him harshly. Misa cursed her father for being so protective.
"I love her." Adamu told him. Misa felt her face grow warm at his admission. "I love her, and if she loves me back, then I want to make sure that we have something from each other, some promise. I could die defending her. The attacks are getting stronger and harder. I'd rather die with the pain of having left a wife behind, than to go on not knowing."
A heavy silence descended, Adamu's rare eloquence leaving everyone stunned. "Can I see the ring?" asked Asuka. Adamu handed her the box. Misa heard her mother gasp in delight. "Adamu, it's beautiful." She looked up at the boy. "Perhaps this makes up for you being such a pervert."
Adamu mumbled something that Misa couldn't hear. Her mother laughed. "Don't look so upset, I was joking. You have my full approval if you're willing to spend this much on my daughter."
Misa sat up, startling all of them. "I want to see it." The three of them turned in shock to face her. "Adamu-kun, I want to see it."
"Misa-chan!" her father exclaimed sharply. "You're not dressed."
Misa rolled her eyes. "Everyone here has seen me before. I want to see the ring."
Adamu scooted over to her, giving her the ring box. She opened it and cradled it in her lap, staring at the ring. Adamu kept trying to examine her face and watch the box without looking at the space between the two objects. His blush betrayed his failure.
"It is beautiful." A blood-red ruby surrounded by little sapphires in a gold band. "It's the exact color of my core…" And the sapphires matched her eyes. "Adamu-kun…"
He looked away. "I'm being too forward, aren't I." He said, sounding nervous. "You were drunk last night, I shouldn't have taken advantage. You ought to hit me again—"
She put a hand lightly on his cheek and turned his face so that their eyes met. She could feel his core pulsing in time with hers as all of his suppressed emotions surged to the surface, filling his mind with turmoil and his eyes with tears.
It is said that the eyes are windows to the soul. Misa pushed her powers forward to use his eyes to examine his heart and mind as well. She pushed past the layers of cold and found the real Adamu she had glimpsed before, the scared, brokenhearted child. The real Adamu, a kind, caring boy who only wanted to be loved, but didn't know what he wanted or what it meant, who was trying vainly to return to the world of human emotion after shielding himself for so long.
He had saved her life so many times, saved her from harm at the risk of his own life. He had always helped her when she needed it, comforted her when she was sad, talked to her when she was lonely.
He had always been there for her. Why had she not seen it before?
She leaned forward shyly and kissed him, a long, lingering kiss, expressing emotions that words could never describe. He tried to pull back, once again trying to deny his feelings, but she held on to him, not about to let him go so soon after finding him.
Eons later, she pulled back and smiled into his eyes, taking the ring and slipping it on. "Adamu-kun, this is the best present I ever got. Don't you ever leave me." She kissed him again, and this time he returned it.
She cut the kiss off as a wild whooping came over the PA system. "Go Misa-chan!" Shouted Takoru's voice as Shinji sighed in defeat.
"Get a room you two!" said Lilliko. "Or at least put some clothes on!" Adamu and Misa both blushed. "As much as we're all enjoying the view…" Misa grabbed the sheet and wrapped it around herself, sticking her tongue out at Lilliko.
And Adamu laughed. For the first time in a long time, he laughed.
AN: How sweet. How touching. Layra-chan will be sugar-high for the next two days. Not that she wouldn't be anyway, but still…
Anyway, this is the reason that the 'fluff' in the last chapter was strange, to say the least. It was more randomness than romance.
That's a good line. I ought to use it somewhere else.
Sorry for any spelling/grammatical errors. I have no pre-reader, and Layra-chan doesn't like spell-checking, so basically I can only fix the things that I notice personally. So, if something is spelled horribly rhonng, sorry.