Nothing Will Ever Change That

Chapter 90: One More

A/N- This chapter was proof-read by Frost-Eva-04, thanks once again!

A/A/N- Okay, it was brought to my attention that the German was wrong… blame the damn online translator!

North Japan – 3:00 AM

"Just a little longer…" I was almost there. Thank God too; I was damn near about to faint from exhaustion. I knew Asuka wasn't going to let me sleep though; she wanted to get in there as fast as she could. Maybe I could convince her to let me sleep a few hours if I begged. Hopefully…

SEELE was coming into sight. It was a very large black building with a few of the NERV logos on it. As I drive, I see a motel… and I pull into the parking lot. I just couldn't go in there feeling like this. I bet I wouldn't even be able to walk too far.

"Asuka, wake up," I nudge her a little, "Asuka," she slowly raises her head and looks at me with those blank eyes.

"Are we there yet?" she rubs her eyes as she got up all the way.

"No… I just need a rest stop. Do you mind if I sleep a few hours? I've been driving all day, and I really need to sleep," without a word, she opens the door and steps out.

"Go ahead," she stretches her arms over her head as I get out, "Go check in and hand over the car." What?

"Asuka, what are you talking about?" she walks over to the drivers side and leans on the door.

"I'm not waiting. You can sleep all you want, now hand over the keys. I'm not waiting," I put the keys in my pocket, ending with a glare in my direction, "Look, if you want to just sleep, go ahead, but don't hold me back from doing this! You can either come, or have your precious little nap!" I begin to walk to the lobby.

"If I'm not mistaken, you were asleep far before me. Asuka, just give me a few hours," I hear her run up beside me, "All I'm asking for is a few hours, can't you just do this one thing for me?" she puts her arm out in front of me, causing me to stop.

"Shinji… I love you… but I'm not waiting on this…" I could hear her trying to repress her anger.

"Asuka, do you really think that I'd be this stubborn if I didn't need it? I have been driving all day, and I got up early. I physically can't make it in there. Please… just do this for me…" she lets out a long sigh.

"Fine… you got four hours…" she begins to walk again, "That's it. I will leave without you if you don't get up, got it?" we enter the lobby and get out of the cool night air.

"Welcome, how may I be of service?" the woman behind the counter looked half-asleep herself. She spoke in a monotone voice.

"Um… yeah, can I rent a room for the night?" she just tossed me a key.

"Just go ahead, forget about the pay…" I – of course – didn't argue with this. With a shrug, I walk back out of the lobby. Asuka follows a few steps behind me. The room number was written on the key – room 666… ah crap…

---

Inside Motel Room

"Okay, hurry up. You got until seven thirty, and if you're not up, I WILL leave." With a nod, I climb into bed.

"Thanks Asuka, really," I was literally asleep within a few seconds. I could not have possibly been more tired, my eye-lids felt like they were made of lead. Before I fell asleep, Asuka was sitting on the chair across the room, hugging the bear tight.

---

Morning – 7:30 AM

Apparently, the time to wake up was so etched into my brain that I did it without any push. I sit up in bed and stretch. That felt great! Sure, I could've still used a good four more hours, but hey, better then nothing.

"Okay Asuka, we can go now," I crawl out of bed and look around. Asuka wasn't in the small room… "Fuck!" I jet out of the room and see that my car was still in the parking lot. I still had the keys in my pocket, so I run over to the car and unlock it, hoping to catch up with her. When I sit in the driver's side, I see a note taped to the wheel. 'Shinji, I'm sorry… I couldn't wait. Don't worry; I'll take care of this. Please remember that I love you. Your friend, your lover, you wife, Asuka Langley Ikari' I feel a tear form in my eye as I rev the engine to life and speed off. "Fuck! Why couldn't you just wait four fucking hours!" both the heat meter and speedometer sky rocket. SEELE gets closer and closer and with a few minutes, I was parked outside of the building.

I reach into the brown bag – subconsciously noticing that her guns are gone – and grab my guns. I load them up as fast as I could, but with one hand, it took me quite awhile. About ten minutes I'd say. With the M5 hung on my back and the Tec-9 in hand, I leap out of the car and run towards the entrance. I immediately see two bodies lying on the floor surrounded by blood. I burst through the shot-lock door and look around. A good five men in front of me were lying on the floor, also surrounded by blood. A few of them still crawled around, obviously alive. I just ignore them and continue on my way. SEELE was basically one large hallway, now littered with bodies.

I eventually come to a fork, and basically chose by random. I go right and see about twenty men storming down the hallway… damn it! They all raise their guns and fire randomly. I leap back behind the fork as I see concrete fly from the walls. With the Tec-9 in hand, I peek around the corner and fire about fifty rounds. I see five men fall to the floor and a couple yell in pain. With a grunt, I drop the Tec and grab the M5. I leap from outside my cover and fire at them. Most would have said that I was firing at random, but in truth, every one of my shots hit their target. Two years of piloting Eva sure did a number on my motor skills. When they all fell to the ground, I realize that this couldn't have been the right way. I run back to the other hallway and instantly see a hallway filled with bodies. After I scan the hallway further, I see Asuka in the distance holding a man up by his neck pinned up against a wall. She had the barrel of her Tec-9 shoved in his mouth and she was yelling.

"Tell me who the fuck killed my baby!" the man had flailing arms and legs. When I got closer, I saw that Asuka was crying quite a bit. With a loud scream, she emptied a few rounds into the back of his neck, sending blood spraying onto the wall. The thrashing stopped, and she let go of him, letting him fall to the ground. She turned her head and looked at me with teary eyes. Slowly, I walk over to her and hug her tight.

"God… don't you ever do that again… I thought I lost you…" I feel tears run down my face. She begins to sob into my chest. I put my hand on her back and try to comfort her, "Are you okay?" she looked up at me with red eyes and shook her head.

"No… my arm…" I look down onto her left arm and see a steady river of blood running from her shoulder. It was obviously from a bullet.

"Okay, hold on," I let go of her and take off my shirt. Carefully, I wrap it around her wound, "Brace yourself…" with a quick tug, I tighten the knot as hard as I could. She lets a loud scream and grabbed her shoulder, "Sorry, had to stop the bleeding."

"It's okay…" she had her eyes clenched closed in pain. I take her back into a tight embrace and shed a few tears myself. She pulled back and looked up at me with a smile. In an instant, she leaned forward and kissed me deeply. She wrapped her arms around my neck and I did the same to her waist. It's been too long that I've gotten any contact with her, let alone this, so I melted into it right away. Out of nowhere, she pulls back and screams into the air. With wide teary eyes, she slid down to the floor. She was lying on her stomach and I saw that she had a large red spot on her lower back. I look up to see a man standing there with a gun in hand.

"You son of a bitch!" I jet towards him as fast as I could and tackle him to the floor. With a last effort, he fires a round at me, but I put up my hand and block it, "What the fuck was that!" I trust my hand into his face and wrap my other hand around his neck. His arms and legs flailed until – after thirty seconds – he went limp. I get up and empty my clip onto his body. I run back over to Asuka and pick her up. I could still feel a pulse, but she was bleeding too badly for me to help her. I jet back to the car and get to the nearest hospital. She was unconscious, and to make matters worse, the traffic was bumper to bumper.

I grab one of the guns and fire into the air. Cars instantly scattered and basically made a clear path. A few were in accidents, a few were even off road, but frankly, I couldn't have cared less. I flew down the street and to a nearby hospital. I run in with her in my arms screaming for help.

"Hey… She needs help… she's been shot…" I was so out of breath, I could barely talk. A nurse comes running over to me with a stretcher and I set her down on it. Without a word, the nurse runs off with Asuka into the ER. Within a few seconds, she comes back out with a panicked look on her face.

"Is that Asuka Langley Souryu?" I nod, "Damn it…we can't do anything. You're going to need to get NERV down here to operate on her. All hospitals in Japan were specifically told that if any pilots were to come here we weren't allowed to treat them." What the hell kind of rule is that!

"You're fucking kidding me! She's in there, damn near bleeding to death, and you won't help her?" she bows her head, "Fuck!" I considered simply getting out one of the guns and forcing them to help her, but I just couldn't bring myself to do that. If I did, then they'd know that we started all of this. With an unsteady hand, I take out my phone and call Section 2. They said that they'd be here in a few minutes, but that still wasn't quick enough. They roll Asuka back out on the stretcher.

"Listen," a nurse whispered in my ear, "We injected her with a blood clotting solution. It should slow down the bleeding, but don't tell them that." I hear a helicopter land outside the hospital.

"Whatever," like that was going to do anything if her organs were injured. I take her out to the helicopter and they load her in.

"Are you okay?" one of the agents checked out my body.

"I'm fine, just go! How long until we get to NERV?" he frowned.

"It'll take about three hours…" I see him inject Asuka with something, "She'll be fine though. That's a little something Akagi whipped up. It basically stops bleeding from what I've heard."

"Damn it… okay, just try to hurry…" I knew I couldn't do anything at this point. Asuka's life was in the hands of the speed of this copter.

---

Three Hours Later

That damn injection worked for about the first two hours, after that it was basically useless. The bleeding continued, and it ended up with me having to hook up a tube going from my wrist to hers just so her heart was able to beat. Her heart has slowed down to only 40 beats a minute and I overheard one of the agents say that she was basically dead. I felt like I was about to pass out from loss of blood myself, but I managed to stay awake. We were just now landing at NERV and I could see that Akagi was already waiting for us on the ground. The second we landed she took Asuka and rolled her to the hospital, with me following close behind.

"Do you mind telling me what the fuck you two were doing! Why the hell does Asuka have a bullet in her back!" we entered the hospital branch of NERV.

"I'll tell you later, just do something about this!" she rolled her eyes and pushed Asuka into the ER. One of the nurses held me back from following her.

"I'm sorry, but you can't go in there. Please wait over here," how she managed to overcome me was far beyond me, but she somehow got me to stay seated until I calmed down, "She'll be fine, I promise," she walked off into the ER. I feel a few tears fall from my eyes. The look on Asuka's face…I can't let that be my last memory of her… I can't let her pure terror be the last thing I have…I bury my face into my hands and basically ball like a child. What could I do at this point? I was obviously no help at SEELE, and now I can't do anything either. I felt so helpless, so useless. My wife was in there dieing because of me… all because I couldn't protect her. It wasn't supposed to come to this, she wasn't supposed to die. I suddenly feel a presents next to me. I look up to see Sam standing there with a worried look on her face.

"Is… she…" I could see that she was holding back tears, "Is Asuka…" I don't say anything, "What happened?"

"We went to SEELE…" I finally summed up the strength to talk, "We went to SEELE for revenge… and she paid for it…" she suddenly had a confused look on.

"Revenge, what are you talking about? Did you go there for me? I told you that I was going to resolve this!" how close minded could one person be?

"Like hell we went there for you! We went there for Dietlinde, not your sorry ass!" I was standing up and staring down at her at this point, "Asuka couldn't care less about you and frankly, neither could I! Use my child as an insult one more God damn time, I fucking dare you!" she stood there surprised at what just happened, then she begins to cry, "No! Don't even start with that! You don't care about any of this, so don't even try and pretend! You don't care that Asuka's in there close to death, you don't care that I have to deal with this, and you couldn't care less about Dietlinde!" she whips around and runs down the hall in tears. Just then I see Cass turn the corner… crap! Yet another asshole to deal with!

"What the hell did you just do?" he had anger in his eyes as he stormed over to me, "What did you just do to Sam?" he grabs me by the collar, "Speak up Ikari! If you can say it to her face, then say it to mine!"

"Oh shut the hell up! You never cared about her!" I push away from his grip, "All you ever saw in her was her measurements! You cheated on her within the first week of you two dating! Asuka was right, you really don't care about anything!" he threw a punch at my face, but I caught it before it hit me, "You only beat me last time because I actually cared about you…" I twist his fist, making him fall to his knees, "In case you can't tell, I'm in no mood for an argument, got it?" I let go if him and he stands up, taking a few steps back by doing so.

"You know what? I came here to help you through this, but you know what? Fuck you! Asuka can go to hell for all I care!" that was more then enough to set me off. I tackle him to the ground and beat at his face like I did with Karsten.

"She can go to hell? Is that what you just fucking said!" I plant my elbow into the side of his head, "How about you go back to that slut of a girlfriend you've got, huh?" I do the same thing again, and then I suddenly feel a tugging at my back. I look back to see a police officer pulling me off of Cass. He was able to get me off of him and into cuffs. He sat me down on a nearby chair and helped Cass to his feet.

"Go to hell Ikari!" he stormed down the same path as Sam. The cop came back over to me and damn near picked me up out of my chair.

"Who the hell do you think you are? Assault is two years in prison, you know that right?"

"I THINK that I'm the commander of NERV, now either you put me down or I have you fired, got it?" his hands went from my shoulders to my wrist. He started to walk off with me until one of the nurses came out.

"Whoa! You can't arrest the commander!" at least someone had some kind of sense around here.

"Wait… he really is the commander?" his eyes went wide and he snapped the cuffs off as fast as he could, "I apologize… I just thought that… sorry…"

"Just leave…" I sit back down and hunch over in my seat, "How is she doing?"

"Well she'd be doing a lot better without you causing all of this commotion out here! And she's fine. Akagi needed to talk with you about something though," just then, Akagi comes out of the room.

"Okay, you can go back now. Make sure she stays stable," Akagi came over and sat down next to me, "Okay, I have good and bad news. The bad news is that the bullet punctured one of her ovaries. She'll have trouble getting pregnant again; we had to take it out. The good news is that she'll be just fine… well, I do have one other thing, but I don't know if it's good or bad news at this point…" she got a concerned look on her face, "Only her ovary was damaged… not her uterus… and nothing inside was damaged… Shinji, Asuka's pregnant…" those words hit me like a train. She's pregnant? How the hell did that happen? Sure, we had sex twice after our wedding, but I pulled out.

"But… I didn't…" she cut me off.

"Don't tell me you guys have been using the pullout technique! Didn't either of you pay attention in health? That doesn't always work!" she had an unexpected cheerful voice on, "So tell me… what are you feeling right now? About the baby," even I didn't know.

"I just don't know… I mean, we just lost Dietlinde… okay, what I think doesn't matter. How do you think Asuka will react to this?" even if it was her child, I think she'd subconsciously push it away.

"That's my main concern. I wouldn't tell her until right before she finds out on her own. If she found out that she was pregnant on her own, she might freak out. She needs some kind of support here. If I were you, I'd tell her tomorrow. She'll be awake by the end of the night tonight at around one. Until then, you can either wait here, or you can come with me to grab something to eat," she had a wide smile on and she held out her hand.

"I'm… I'd rather wait here…" why is it that people always wanted me to leave Asuka when she was in the hospital?

"Okay, come on big man," she took my hand and pulled me out of the chair, "You need something to eat. I could hear your stomach from inside the ER. Look, Asuka will be fine. They're operating on her right now, and all they're doing is taking out the bullet. She'll be done within the hour. But for now, I'm making you eat," she had her normal caring smile on. I just stood there staring at her, trying to dissect exactly what she thought about our new child. Was she happy? Was she angry? Was she disappointed? What? With a sigh, I give into her.

"Fine… but the minute that she's done I want to see her, awake or not. Okay?" with a nod, she begins to walk.

"So my father to b-…" a long, awkward pause, "Sorry…"

"Forget it…"

---

Cafeteria – Twenty Minutes Later

"So let me get this straight, you two went to SEELE, by yourselves trying to get back at them?" Akagi was starting to get pissed. After I told her exactly what happened, she started to fume, "Why the hell did you drag Asuka along with you, why did you make her go down your path!" I failed to tell her about Asuka damn near shooting me.

"I tried to get her home; I didn't want her to go! Do you think that I would really do that to her? You know just as well as I do that she won't change her mind once it's made up." I just didn't want to tell her about her threat.

"What could she have possibly done to you? Let me guess, she threatened to divorce you? Not likely!" even I would have known that that was a lie.

"No…"

"Then what!"

"She damn near shot me, okay? She put a gun to my head and threatened me with that…" I had an uneasy voice as I spoke the last part.

"Oh get real Shinji! She'd never do that! Even when she hated you after you got back from Germany, she STILL couldn't sum up the courage to do it!" that was true… but it was different.

"You didn't see what I saw. I think that Dietlinde's death is eating away at her. That wasn't Asuka that was holding the gun…" what if it really was affecting her that much?

"How is she doing mentally? You said 'eating away at her', what do you mean?" God I hope it doesn't affect her too much…

"I really can't tell… okay I think. I mean, she's hurting really bad, but I don't think she's going crazy if that's what you're getting at." She's way too strong for that. Hell, she's stronger than me and I wasn't going insane because of this.

"I'm not getting at anything; I'm just making sure that she'll be okay." Out of nowhere, another doctor walks up behind Ritsuko and whispered something in her ear, "What! You're kidding me!" the doctor nodded.

"We don't know what happened. Her body just didn't accept it, so it gave out," Akagi leaps up and runs off with the other doctor, leaving me behind. I followed not too long after them. I really didn't like how that sounded. 'It gave out' what was that supposed to mean? I eventually came to her ER and tried to follow Akagi inside.

"Shinji wait out here. You can't come in," her voice was firm, actually making me back off. My heart was pounding at this point. What is going on in there? I simply stood there staring at the doors for a few minutes until Akagi comes back out with closed eyes and tears running down her face.

"Ritsuko…?"

A/N- Cliffhanger! Is Asuka okay? Is she even alive? Find out in the next chapter; A Broken Heart Will Heal, until then, keep on keepin' on!