Numb

Title: Numb
Rating: K+
Series: Neon Genesis Evangelion
Summary: Shinji writes a poem to the person he loves, but events tend to work against him as usual.

Disclaimer: Evangelion, and the pilots are the property of Gainax, and they reserve all rights. The song Voiceless Screaming is copyright to X-Japan, the poem belongs to me.

AN: This story is based off the opening scene (or close enough) of SlvrElement's fanfiction.net story, The Look in Your Eyes. This story was inspired by the many possible outcomes of Shinji reading his poem to Rei. So please give that story a read to see where I got the idea, please note that I only borrowed the idea of the class assignment of a poem, nothing else. Everything else in here is mine, not counting the brief uses of dialog from the Anime/Manga.

AN2: Please note that this will also be a slight retelling of the episode where Shinji is absorbed into Unit-01, done slightly off Canon, originally it was the 12th Angel but I decided against that. I plan to base a lot of Shinji and Rei's relationship on the events of the fifth Angel from the Manga rather than the Anime, there is just so much more of a relationship between them in the Manga. Additionally the title of this is to reflect the trifecta of my Linkin Park story naming.

AaAaA

The falling rain met her eyes as she stared calmly out the window, the drops gently pattering off the glass. She felt at peace during storms, it wasn't something she was able to explain, she just knew that she was. Ever since she could remember, storms had brought her a sense of comfort; there was something about the beautiful, yet destructive lightning that would soothe her when she needed it.

Sitting, staring out the window, Rei could only watch as the rain fell past. Watching its descent she felt nothing; no emotions, and no feelings. All that she had, all that she ever knew was the long forgotten memory of a feeling of peace suppressed deep within her soul, hidden by the cold masks she had been taught to wear.

Masks; barriers to hide away the person that she truly was, a scared little girl caught in something that she could never truly understand, something that she didn't want to understand.

She couldn't remember any of her childhood, all she could remember was Commander Ikari teaching her to hide her emotions and feelings away behind a mask, to never let the world in.

'It's the only way to protect you from others Rei,' he had said on more than one occasion when she had questioned him. 'All anyone wants to do is hurt you, they will pretend to be your friend or tell you that they love you, but in the end they will only cause you pain. You can't trust anyone Rei, only yourself and me.'

And so she had, she had distanced herself from all others, keeping close to only the Commander. As she progressed through school she had become know as the 'Ice Girl,' not because of her skin pigmentation, but because of her cold attitude toward the other students. For eleven years she had been shunned by the others, ignored, and overlooked. For eleven years this had been her life, keeping others at bay with her mask of ice, she had no one and no one wanted her, but all that changed on the day that the new Pilot came to Tokyo-3. Before he had come she had nothing in her life worth waking up for, the only thing she'd had was her position as a pilot and even that held no future, that path would only lead to her death, as it would for all who pilot an Evangelion.

With the appearance of the younger Ikari, her life had been thrown into total chaos, for eleven years she had lived as an outsider and now here was this person that appeared to care about her. He didn't care about what she could do for him or how he could use her to his advantage, he merely cared about her for her, something she had never experienced in her life.