"Like brittle things will break before they turn"

Notes: This scene is split out because it contains suicidal themes. Nothing worse than canon, but you might want to skip to "Aftercare" if this could be an issue for you.

It was a long time before Asuka sat down next to Shinji on the edge of the roof.
It was almost as long before she said anything.

"The first day I talked to Rei she was sitting on the gantry outside your Eva looking down and determining the precise angle she'd need to fake her fall so that her impact would be fatal.

She was a pilot, even if she wasn't a very good one, and I didn't know what to do.

I knew what you would do though, I'd seen you hug her every time you saw her, so that's what I did. I gave her a hug. And again, because I didn't know what else to do. So she decided that I was your stand-in until you came back and started hugging me whenever she saw me. Which was often. But she sat next to me rather than on the gantry working out how to die.

That became how I decided what to do. I made sure she ate, because you would. I sat with her, because you would. I tried to talk to her, because you would.

She told me how you met. I had another thing for my little mental list of 'What Would Shinji Do?' Shinji would get into a giant robot he'd never seen before to fight a monster that was destroying the city he hadn't been to until that morning to protect a girl he'd only just met, not because he expected anything from her, she could well be dead before he returned. If he returned. He did it because he couldn't stand to see her hurt any more."

She went on for a long time, having gone through her own options, the what would Shinji do list and the what would Rei do, all she'd been left with that didn't involve physical contact, violent or otherwise, with someone who was quite literally sitting on the edge was Rei's "everything you ever wanted to know about something, and many things you didn't" mode.

So she told him everything she remembered, everything one of his friends had said, everything she'd overheard. She didn't know if he actually heard anything, he hadn't moved. Sometimes it felt like she was giving his eulogy to a wall. But he hadn't moved, and that was better than him stepping off the edge.

Some things were small, like how he'd gotten himself demoted to Nozomi's third favourite pilot by showing her a picture of Rei being cute.

Some things were larger, like why she'd been so certain Rei was in love with him, because what other reason would someone want to die because another had left them. She hadn't understood why, because even when her mother begged her she didn't want to die.

Some things were results of things he'd done, just because he cared, that had he'd never have known about, like the girl who's name she didn't even know who'd run to the bathroom bleeding through her underwear to find everything she needed to save her from pain and embarrassment.

It wasn't Rei's clear and direct exposition, it was whatever she could think of when she finished the previous thing.

She was running out of things and he still hadn't reacted to anything. If she didn't think of something soon, she'd start telling him how he made her feel, and she wasn't certain she wanted to find out what she was going to say. She would if she had to, she couldn't lose him.

She held on to the wall and made a showy appearance of looking down.

"Anyway, I wouldn't jump from here if I were you. You'd make a mess, and I know how you hate messes. Besides, if you're going to die on me, the least you can do is leave a nice enough corpse that it doesn't gross me out when you sit up at your funeral and apologise for being dead."

Alright. That got a reaction. Not much of one, the only people who'd have noticed it were her and Rei.

"At least run away instead."

Finally he looked at her.

"How far would I have to go Asuka? Would the angels follow me and not hurt anyone else? How far before you stopped feeling everything I do? How far before I no longer see my mother literally dissolving every time I close my eyes, smiling as she does so? How far before you know I don't feel it whenever anyone touches you? How far before you can have a relationship with someone you actually like?"

Shinji stands, "Twelve meters. The apartment balcony isn't enough, the rooftop is."

"Fourteen days."

Shinji turns precariously to look at her.

"It was seven before I couldn't stand being away from you any longer and had to return to the GeoFront. I'm not sure Rei would have lasted another week. So best case is fourteen days before Rei is dead. I like to think I'd last longer, I am the Great Asuka Soryu after all, but I'm not sure I would anymore."

"So you're going to step away from the edge and come back with me so I can treat your burns before they blister. "

"Then maybe we can give you something better to think about. Perhaps if you ask nicely on your date, Rei will let you touch her boobs. With your hands this time."

"Asuka! That's not... actually that is helping." It was probably a good thing the roof was concrete, the heat from his face could have started fires.

"So now you're extremely embarrassed rather than suicidal. Now come on, I'm not waking up with you bleeding on me because you didn't let me treat you."