Title: Afterlife
Fandom: Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
Pairing: Batou/Motoko
Warnings: Spoilers for the ending
Summary: There is always one person for whom Motoko is the most important.
When she walked into the room behind the Chief he saw her immediately. She wasn’t expecting his reaction, but then, she probably should have. Where everyone else looked relieved, smiling and relaxing their shoulders like a burden had been lifted, he crumpled. She had been expecting him to be angry, at least. He always was, in these kinds of situations. He clenched his jaw and hands and turned away, walking out of the room and leaving everyone else looking at each other knowingly. Of course they all knew, who didn’t fall a little bit in love with the Major? And didn’t she like it like that too? But they were brothers in arms and would never bring it up in front of her, would never make it into a divisive competition for her affections. They respected him too much.
There was never any need to talk about it so perhaps she had taken it for granted that everything would go immediately back to normal. She was the one who died, shouldn’t she be the one who was upset?
Once the Chief had explained his plan to Paz, Borma, and Ishigawa there was a long pause. No one was looking at her in a way that meant they were all waiting for her to do something. She let out a quiet sigh and said, “I’ll go then,” before walking out the door.
Batou she called out on the comm links. There was a determined silence in response, but he hadn’t turned off his comm so she reached out and followed the signal. He wasn’t far. The room was dark when she went in, lit by the glow of a few monitors crunching data. In the pale glow it was hard to see his face, hunched over as he was, head in his hands over the table. She stepped into the room only far enough for the door to slide shut behind her and then waited.
No matter how much silence he had gotten used to over the years, adapted himself to, it still didn’t suit him. He wasn’t a cool and aloof loner on purpose, not like her. Perhaps she’d overestimated his ability to live that life, perhaps this was the breaking point that every person had.
“It was your real body. It was your real cyberbrain. How did you do it?”
His voice was dangerously calm. If she was too flippant now he would probably explode. That’s what he wanted her to do. To be relieved and go back to normal so he could explode in anger and violence, lash out as the only way he knew how, and then leave and hate her safely, drown everything in anger. For once in her life she almost hated that she could read him so well. This was her fault.
“I uploaded myself to the net at the last minute.”
“And for two weeks you couldn’t contact me to tell me you were alive?!”
He bit off his words as if it took an effort to keep from action. It probably did. He turned to look at her now, equal parts hurt and angry. The hand he pressed against the table was shaking slightly. She noticed at the same time he did, and he brought it up to rub at his forehead, looking down again in her silence.
“I’m sorr-”
She didn’t even get to finish her apology, because it loosened in him a torrent of words he had probably been repeating to himself since the moment that the bullet had entered her head.
“I watched you die! After all those years, after everything, I watched you die and there was nothing I could do about it! So many times before I’d been afraid of losing you but it was worse than I ever could have imagined. I was prepared to kill anyone and everyone who had contributed to your death, including the Chief, and then I would be able to die satisfied and get to see you again.”
“I’m sorry, Batou.”
It wasn’t as though she had offered herself up to the slaughter, it wasn’t as though she had intended for him to be so wounded by her death, but this was all she could offer. No matter how unfeeling she might be accused of being, this was never a suffering she had wanted to inflict on him. She stepped closer slowly, waiting to see if he would lash out, but his anger was spent for the moment and he did not resist when she rested her hand on the back of his neck and gently drew his head forward to rest on her chest. With his eyes pressing against the hollow of her shoulder, he let out a long shaky breath and reached out to wrap an arm around her waist.
“You’re alive,” he said quietly, almost a question.
I’m still here, she replied, touching his shoulder.
Then Section 9 still exists. He was sounding more like his normal self, though still tired and laboured.
Yes.
When they had me locked up all I could think about was how I never told you that I love you.
She froze for a moment, fingers that had been stroking the skin at his hairline stopping, holding in her last breath unconsciously. She felt uncomfortably warm, but snapped out of it quickly, though she couldn’t help a small sad smile from finding its way into her lips. There was nothing she could say, and hated herself a little bit for that. Maybe if she went through the same thing he had she would be forced to put into words how she felt about him, but now…
He looked up at her and gave her the same sad little smile back, and it made her heart ache. She did this to him over and over again, thoughtlessly, and he still loved her. She let him draw her down into a kiss, closer until she was on his lap, never close enough for him. She had died and remained alive. But the real miracle she could never understand was here.
Tags: angst, batou, batou/motoko, ghost in the shell, stand alone complex, the major
