From: "JOYCE K WAKABAYASHI" Subject: [Eva][FanFic] When We were One Yes, this is another Maya-Ritsuko fanfic. This is a spoiler for End of Evangelion and very sad. If you really need to know, I can tell you the basis for this story. My site is www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Gulf/7463 I await your comments. I might make a comedy to balance this one out. Now for the main Feature: WHEN WE WERE ONE Everybody's disappearing, Maya thought as everyone in the control center began dissolving into liquid. . Terrified, she turned to her computer to see what was going on. "Everybody's AT field is disappearing?" Then suddenly, she found two hands on top of hers. They were two hands she knew well. They typed, "I need you." blindingly fast. She turned around to see Ritsuko, smiling at her. "Sempai." she said. "Maya." Ritsuko said, hugging her. Tears came to Maya's eyes. The person she wanted to see most in the world, and she was here at the end of the world, the end of time. This person she had longed for was now looking at her, really looking at her and holding her. "Sempai, Sempai, Sempai, ah!" They melted into an ecstacy of LCL as Third Impact continued. When Maya was conscious once again, all she saw was water lit up by a shining light. She felt the presence of millions of voices in her head, but slowly one voice made itself heard above the hubbub. A light flashed and they were standing together at a beach. Maya was dressed in a T-shirt and jeans while Ritsuko was dressed in a sky blue swimsuit. Ritsuko looked down at herself in surprise. Maya blushed. I only saw her that one time in that swimsuit and this is what appears. "Maya?" said Ritsuko. "Sempai? Where are we?" "This is the result of Third Impact. Everybody's minds are being crushed together into a state of perfection, a state of bliss." "I feel so afraid." "If everything goes as planned, there will be no loneliness, no reason to fear. This is the only way that I could talk to you." A series of images flashed in Maya's mind. She saw images of Gendo making love to Ritsuko, a young brunette Ritsuko looking sadly at herself in the mirror weeping, and Gendo with a gun. "Oh, my God. He shot you?" "Yes, he did. I found out that he never loved me, so I wanted to betray him. But in the end, my mother chose him over me. How like her." Ritsuko then looked startled. "Maya, you've been thinking about me like that?" Maya realized that Ritsuko could see what was inside her heart, the hope that Ritsuko would look at her as more than an assistant, the fantasies of a stolen kiss or more, the joy she had felt at a simple touch. She suddenly felt ashamed. She must think terribly of me now. Tears began to fall from her eyes. Ritsuko surprised her by hugging her. "Don't be ashamed. I'm much more guilty than you." With that, Ritsuko's heart finally opened. Maya saw a young girl looking on as her father left her mother, a young girl who said nothing as her mother brought a man home to replace her father. The man was ugly, but there was something that drew her to him. Maybe it was the way he paid attention to her. Her mother had bragged that the director of her project was the smartest and most brilliant man in the world. It wasn't often, but occasionally he would take them both out hiking or to a picnic. She hated him at first, but he could be charming when he wanted to be. It was only later that he began to see Ritsuko by herself. He began to flatter her, give her small gifts. It was only a matter of time that she found herself at a love hotel with him. She was still in high school at that time. She had been scared, but he told her that she should act like a big girl. It had hurt the first time, but later she began looking forward to it, needing it. Her mother didn't know or perhaps didn't want to know. They kept things on a superficial level, talking about things other than Gendo. It was only later that she found about the truth about why her mother killed herself. The surveillance video had shown the first Rei telling her mother that she was an old hag, and her mother had strangled her in a rage. Perhaps she had admitted to herself that she wanted to do the same thing to her daughter, the replacement that Gendo had found. Her mother had figured it out, but didn't admit it to herself until the end. She had sacrificed her daughter to keep her man and for that, Ritsuko hated her even though she loved Gendo too. . Throughout the years, he slept and worked with her. But he had never told her that he loved her. He had told her that she was beautiful and smart, that only she could help save the world. He followed her advice, put her in charge of the scientific part of the Evangelion project. He obviously needed her, at least her skills. He told her the secrets of Seele, the prophecies and the truth of their project like the dummy project. The secrets he told her made her feel dirty, but she felt honored that he chose her to know them. A dark trust was the basis of their relationship. It was only when she saw him looking at Rei Ayanami with those same eyes he had shown her when she was a young girl, she knew that she had lost him to her. She had denied it to herself, but when she had been stripped naked, standing in front of Seele, trying to defend him. . . She realized that Rei, a pale copy of his dead wife, was worth more to him than she could ever be. He hadn't, after all, made a copy of her mother and he would never make a copy of her. It was her youth and innocence and need that had attracted to him; now she was just a tool to get him what he wanted. So, she wanted to kill Rei, would rather commit murder-suicide rather than have him leave her He had wounded her pride, made her feel like she couldn't love or be loved by anyone else. He had been a shadow on her soul that had turned her into a shadow. "Do you still love me?" said Ritsuko, "Now that you know everything." "Yes." said Maya. Then she thought of all the things that made her love Ritsuko. The smart and brilliant scientist with her glasses that hid her feelings. The beautiful woman in the swimming suit who had greeted her new assistant. The woman who looked in the mirror and felt doubts about whether she'd ever be as good as her mother. The woman who was just a grown-up version of the young high school girl who wanted to erase the part of herself that longed for and never received the love she so craved by changing her hair and projecting an air of ultra-competence. The patient and encouraging teacher whose very touch raised her pulse. "He took advantage of you for years, took advantage of everyone. He didn't understand. . . He didn't truly open his heart for you, to anyone." It seemed Ritsuko could see everything that Maya was thinking because she said, "That's what you truly think of me?" Tears came from her eyes. "Now and forever. I love you." The sky changed from a bright blue to a nasty orange like some disasterous sunset. "Sempai, what's going on?" "We've failed. It appears that Shinji is destroying this refuge. He couldn't stand this place where all secrets are laid open and the truth about one's self is revealed. It hurt him too much. Now that we aren't part of this perfect being, everyone will be judged on their own merits, all the good and bad they've done in their lives. As you know now, I've fallen far short of what it takes to get into heaven." If that's so, then I'm just as bad as you. I knew a lot of the same things you did. I deserve to go to whatever terrible place you are. I won't leave you to face it alone." She held Ritsuko's hands firmly. Then she saw a light above her like that of a thousand N2 bombs going off at once. She lost her grip on Ritusko's hands. She watched as Ritsuko's voice and image grew fainter. "Maya, I won't be able to teach you any more programs." Then she disappeared. "Sempai! Sempai!" she screamed, but there was no answer. Finally, Maya screamed, "There's no heaven without you! I don't want heaven without you" Then Maya finally allowed herself to call her by name. "Ritsuko! Ritsuko!" she sobbed. But God would not be denied, Maya Ibuki continued her ascent. THE END