Work Text:
Looking upon the cenotaph marked with the name of Yui Ikari caused something to swirl within Rei Ayanami.
She had been to this graveyard before, when it was much more intact, but never had she been to pay respects. Even now it was not her original intention to do so. It had been Shinji's.
He had wished to pay his mother's marker respect as he had not done so since 2015.
While not all of the graves were left unscathed with all the destruction that befell Tokyo-3, the Cenotaph of Yui had avoided most the worst of it all. Something Shinji was thankful for.
Rei did not need to come with him, something he had made clear, but she wished to support him as he had been one to do for her.
The brunette boy had even bought flowers for the occasion, the same kind as he had seen his father bring to his mother's grave. Whether they had held significance to the woman herself or was just simply her husband wanting to give something to her marker was a matter Shinji did not know the answer to.
There was not much he did know in regard to his mother. He attempted to try and speak to the cenotaph as a gesture of reverence and remembrance but found his vocabulary coming up short.
"I... don't know if I can do this Rei..." He uttered to her, to which she gave him her full attention, "Just this place and the memories of father... and what I know of my mother, how she was never here. I thought that maybe coming here and doing this could somehow make me feel closer to her..."
"But you still do not." The blue-haired girl finished.
"No... I don't think anything will. But maybe instead, I should just focus on who I'm close to now..." Slipping his free hand into her own, he gave her a small smile.
She couldn't help but reciprocate one of her own.
Keeping his hand in hers, he turned back to the marker and knelt down so as to place the bouquet of flowers he held at the base of it.
"Goodbye Mother, and thank you." Shinji told the cenotaph.
Giving another look at the marker, Rei considered the woman who was Yui Ikari and how they have impacted her own life. 'You had been the one to carry and birth Shinji into this world, and without him I would not have known what happiness life could offer... and it was because you no longer live that I was able to. I once had considered it too much of a burden to live, but now I know what a precious gift it is. For all of that...' "Thank you."
Her words had caused the boy to startle slightly but when he turned to look at her, she only gazed back with a smile and squeeze of his palm.
With a squeeze back, the two quietly began to depart from the graveyard.
Walking away hand in hand with Shinji, Rei gave one final thought towards the cenotaph.
'May you know peace, Yui Ikari.'