"Shinji."
The name left her dead lips as a whisper.
The shiny wrapping paper crackled in her hands as she sank to her knees, feeling the warmth of the packed soil seep through the thin fabric of her skirt. Her shadow covered a good part of his tombstone, and she quickly moved a few inches aside. He'd spent enough time in darkness while he was alive. Misato leaned forward just enough to place the bouquet of day lilies at the head of the grave.
There was too much to say and she didn't know how to say any of it. Her thoughts drifted to Asuka.
I don't hate you, Misato... but please, just understand that it's too hard for me to see you right now.
And Misato had responded brokenly, "I understand."
No, she didn't really understand, now that she thought about it. There was so much that she didn't understand. Why she, of all people, had been the only one to survive the Katsuragi expedition. Why the fate of mankind lay in the hands of a group of fourteen-year-olds. Why Shinji had to die so that she could live.
The remaining doctors at NERV, though not nearly as skilled as Namika, had given her an excellent prognosis. Her cell count had reached safe levels and had remained for several months now. The effects of chemotherapy were wearing off; her deep purple hair was slowly regenerating, and beer tasted like beer again (at least the few sips that she had been permitted did). There had been several beautiful nights in which Misato and Kaji sat in his backyard on old logs and ate freshly sliced watermelon without a thought about cancer and death.
Kaji had asked her to marry him and she had said yes without hesitation. Though they were now legally man and wife, the wedding ceremony had been postponed indefinitely. Perhaps they would never have one; nevertheless, now was certainly not the time.
As for Namika, no one knew where she was or what had happened to her. Misato pictured her as a Shinto nun in the mountains. She smiled humorlessly to herself.
Her gaze traveled slowly to the marker beside Shinji's, the one that bore the name Yui Ikari. His mother. It occurred to her that over the last year she had come to think of herself as a sort of motherly figure to him.
I failed, she thought, a grim aura caressing her features. I failed to protect him. I didn't really have any right to think of myself as his mother.
"Sorry," she whispered to the boy and his mother.
How long had it been since his funeral now? Misato counted the months. She'd been discharged in April. It was now mid-August, a blistering Tokyo-3 August where the rays of the sun beat down mercilessly on the city's inhabitants. He was buried at the end of March.
Four months.
Misato suddenly felt very old, so old that her body could no longer bear her weight. She fell forwards onto the parched soil, her head clashing with the bouquet of lilies. The paper crinkled under the weight and a stem broke.
"Why?"
She relived the events of the year, beginning with the initial onset of symptoms in the summer heat. She remembered the crushing shock of being told of her diagnosis, the brutal onslaught of chemotherapy drugs, the low days when she had almost lost the will to live. She remembered learning that Shinji had the power to save her life. And she remembered, painfully clearly, that he had died trying to achieve that very goal.
She regretted the times she'd yelled at him. She regretted not protecting him against the exploits of The Commander.
The Commander… her thoughts shifted direction. Kaji had mentioned that he had not attended his own son's funeral. Misato thought back to the time that Shinji had been so preoccupied about visiting his mother's grave with his father. She imagined his father visiting alone with two bouquets of flowers, one for each grave.
She reached up to touch the smooth granite surface of the tombstone. Her sensitive fingertips found the numbers that recorded Shinji's date of birth and date of death. There was a tiny overlap between his date of birth and his mother's date of death. That, she thought sadly, must have been the happiest year of his life.
Had he been happy living with her, overshadowed by Asuka, challenged by Touji, pressured by Kensuke? Would it have been better if he had stayed with his teacher away from Tokyo-3—if he had never learned to pilot an Eva and been sent repeatedly into battle?
She hoped he had been happy, at least for a little while.
It took Misato some time to gather the energy and mental strength to lift herself up again. She felt awkward upon leaving, as if she ought to say something… but there was nothing to say. She settled for a nod and a wistful smile before heading towards the parking lot.
"You didn't have to come with me, you know. I wouldn't have made you."
She glared at his tombstone with defiance, squeezing the branch tightly in her hands. She'd torn it roughly off of the tree earlier and consequently hadn't made a clean break; there were splinters of wood and bark sticking out in every direction.
"I'm staying at Misato's now," she told him, her voice calming now, "but that's only temporary. I'm going back to Berlin as soon as possible, so…"
Her voice quavered, and she had to stop to regain control.
"…so I won't be seeing you again."
She threw her head back and sniffled hard before continuing. "Maybe I'll go back to school and get another degree. I think I'd like to study engineering. Or maybe chemistry."
A bird twittered overhead.
Her hair was growing, reaching almost her shoulders now in tousled locks. She drew them into a scattered ponytail with one hand, then let go again. "I wish you were still here to look after Misato. But there's Kaji to do that now—they're getting married, did you know that? After all that bickering, Kaji-kun is getting married. And I won't be here for the wedding.
"I'll be okay on my own in Germany. Hikari's promised to visit me once she finishes school."
She paused, realizing that she was talking more to herself than him. Him. In that moment, his silence reminded her of the First Child, whom she had not seen nor spoken to in weeks. She had spoken to no one in weeks.
"I came out of that mold-coated apartment just to speak to you, baka. I hope you feel special."
Silence.
She reached into her pocket and pulled out the SDAT. The tape was at its end, and she listened to its whirring mechanisms while it rewound. When it clicked to a stop, she gently depressed the play button, and listened to the soft tones of her favorite song.
Du weißt, ich werde immer ehrlich zu dir sein
Und du weißt, ich bin derjenige
An den du dich wenden kannst
Jederzeit, überall und irgendwo
Du
weißt, ich werde immer da sein
Author's Note: I'd like to thank all of you who took the time to read this story, especially those of you who left me so many wonderful reviews—thank you for all of your encouragement and constructive criticism. I apologize again for the lateness of the last three chapters, and I'd especially like to thank joedoebell for reminding me that it desperately needed updating!
I'm not planning to write again for some time. For awhile I had a plan to write a funny fic which would center on Gendo and the "real" reasons why he so deeply disliked his son—he was to be jealous that Shinji got the chance to pilot and he didn't, something along those lines, but the plot (was there ever one?) hasn't developed at all. Perhaps sometime in the future.
It's now 12:23 AM – so I'll leave it here; goodnight, and thank you again!