--
DARKFIC ALERT - I have been told that this work of fan fiction is dark,
and I understand that it is considered polite to warn people of the fact.
So those who dislike dark stories should not read this fic, because it is
dark.
-- 
This fan fiction is adapted from Neon Genesis Evangelion, produced by 
Gainax. All characters herein are the sole property of Gainax, and no 
claim on them is made by this author; etc. etc. 
-- 


Endings
by Chris Burke

--

     <Who would have thought it'd end this way?>

     Shinji crouched next to her. He reached underneath her legs and
behind her shoulders, and picked her up. Grunting under the strain, he
walked over to her bed. He set her down, gently. She was surprisingly
heavy; he was out of breath. <Or maybe it's just catching up to me.>

     He rested a moment, looking around the room. It was dark He turned
and opened the blinds on the window. Light shone in from the afternoon.
The room did not much benefit from the light. The small window was not
large enough to properly light the room, and just emphasized the overall
dinginess of it. It was a room meant to be left in darkness. The bed,
however, was directly under the window, and the afternoon sun shone
directly on her. She almost seemed to glow.

     <Why haven't I ever noticed how beautiful she is before?>

     He carefully straightened her legs and arranged her arms beside her.
Looking down at her now, he could almost pretend she was asleep. The
effect was dimmed, however, by the sight of her chest. Considering this,
he pulled the bed covers over her, tucking them in around her neck. Now
nothing but her unnatural stillness betrayed that she wasn't merely
enjoying an afternoon nap.

     The illusion achieved, he sat down on the bed. Some part of him, a
part that was at the moment pushed deep into the back of his
consciousness, struggled to believe the illusion, to hope that it was
just a dream, that he or she would at any moment awaken. 

     <I wonder what she dreamt of?>

     It occurred to him, as the imminence of rain occurs to a man on a
bare hill watching dark clouds approaching, that he was far too calm. Too
lucid. It couldn't last forever. Not that it was important, for now at
least. Let it last as long as it would.

     Without knowing why, he reached out. His fingers brushed the
perpetually rumpled hair, as thought trying to straighten it. He
immediately regretted the move. Blood was left behind from his touch,
marring the otherwise peaceful scene.

     Smiling a rueful smile, he reflected that in reality the scene was
not at all peaceful. There was blood everywhere. A large pool of it on
the floor by the bed. Splattered blood on other parts of the floor, the
bed, some on the walls, and a great deal of blood on him. On his shirt,
on his arms, on his hands.

     On his hands. He remembered those last moments. Holding her, as he
had once before, while she convulsed with pain. His arms around her,
getting soaked with her blood. Looking down into her eyes, her looking
back up at him. An almost peaceful expression on her face, but with pain
in her eyes. Her chest heaving spasmodically, her life spilling out of
the wound there. Then a sigh, when her diaphragm relaxed for the last
time.

     That last breath had signified a change. Not just from life to
death, but a change in his life as well. He could never go back to the
way things were. The pattern his life had been following was destroyed.
Nothing would ever be the same. He would not be.

     His gaze went back to the pool of blood on the floor, and the pistol
lying nearby. Soon this would end, this calm. It would all hit him at
once, and he'd panic, do something stupid. Maybe confront his father.
Maybe run away. Maybe take that gun and end it all.

     <Such a simple thing to do, pulling a trigger,> he reflected. <Just
a tiny movement of the finger. One impulse, and it's done.> He looked at
his hand. The blood was starting to dry. 

     What had changed, from one moment to the next? That simple action,
the reflexive squeezing of the index finger, had been impossible. His
finger wouldn't move, would never move. There was nothing he could
remember happening, no change external or internal, that had made the
impossible action suddenly so simple. Automatic. Then in the moment after
that, completed.

     It was an image he would never forget. Not the pulling of the
trigger, not the roar of the handgun that drowned out the sound of soft
metal piercing flesh, not the eruption of blood that had painted the
room. The moments before that. 

     Vividly, he remembered. He was standing in the center of the room.
She was a few feet in front of him. He was holding the gun at arms
length, the barrel pointed at her chest. She was on her knees, looking up
at him, eyes wide. His arm was shaking. She was crying. Tears were
rolling down her face. Her hands were pressed together in supplication.
She was pleading with him. Begging. 

     The memory would haunt his dreams.

     For the moment, however, he could calmly recollect. He wondered how
it was that he had never seen her cry before. Never heard her speak so
openly before. There on the floor before him, in broken fragments that
made up part of her continuous pleas, she had poured her soul out for
him. Throwing it out as an offering on his mercy.

     At the time he had not been lucid. At the time he had not been able
to listen to everything she said. He could not remember the details. But
he was able recall enough to wonder how it was possible that he had seen
her smile, yet never seen her cry.

     Shinji stood up, being careful not to disturb her, and went to the
bathroom. He turned on the hot water tap. He waited for the the water to
get hot, then thrust his hands under the faucet. He washed his hands in
the scalding water, then used a wash-cloth to clean the blood off of his
face.

     He left the bathroom and picked up his jacket near the door where he
had left it. He walked back into the bedroom, picked up the gun and put
it in his jacket pocket.

     <I'll have to get rid of the gun. The shirt and jacket as well,> he
thought distractedly. Law enforcement was too distant and abstract a
thing to worry him much now. Pointless anyway -- his fingerprints were
everywhere.

     Shinji walked over to the bed and looked at her again. He had to
leave soon. Already he could feel the edges of his preternatural calm
beginning to fray. He indulged himself with this last moment anyway, just
for a little longer. 

     <Misato's going to be angry,> he thought incongruously. It didn't
matter what she thought, though. It didn't matter what anyone thought of
him, or what happened to him. Because he finally knew, without a doubt,
that he was a weak person.

     He turned and walked toward the door. He stooped to put his shoes
on. Turning, he looked back at the still form. The light from the window
seemed to blend everything together, made it seem not quite real. 

     A vague desire drew him once again into the bedroom. A few moments
hesitation, and he knew. He went to the dresser and took the small black
plastic case from off of it. Going to the bed, he lifted the cover and
placed the case into her lifeless hand. He smoothed out the cover again,
and tried to smile down at her.

     The image of her on her knees came to him again, and he had to turn
away.

     He walked straight through the hallway and out the door. His steps
were a bit hurried, a bit shaky. It was happening faster than he had
thought. But he was a weak person, after all. He had always wondered.
Misato, Asuka, Kaji, his father had all made him unsure of whether he was
strong or weak. Some telling him yes, some telling him no. Now he knew
that he was weak.

     He knew he was weak because he had given in to her pleas.

     Shinji quietly shut the door behind him and turned away from the
apartment turned tomb, leaving for... somewhere. He did not know where.

--
end

please send all comments to wyrm@engin.umich.edu

--
I don't thank anyone for this.