Disclaimer: I don't own Evangelion, so stop trying to sue me over it!

Author's Notes

Thanks everyone for all the reviews that you've sent. It's good to know that I'm doing well with the story. Hope to keep you all laughing through this one cause it's gonna be a long one if I have anything to say about it.

Now then, on with the story!

Till Death Does Us In

by Ama no Murakumo

Chapter 2: Removing an Obstacle

"You mean to tell me that my father knocked himself out cold by smashing his head on the desk?"

"That about sums it up."

"Why am I not surprised at this?"

After Commander Ikari had unintentionally sent himself to the NERV Medical Ward, the Sub-Commander had summoned all of the relevant people to break the news. Currently, Dr. Ritsuko Akagi was explaining the circumstances surrounding the Gendo's accident. Needless to say, nobody was in any hurry to wish the guy well, especially his son Shinji.

"It seems the blow has sent the Commander into a comatose state. There's no telling when he'll come out of it."

Misato decided to add her two bits to the conversation by asking, "So I guess this means Sub-Commander Fuyustuki is in charge now?" The old man nodded.

"Temporarily I am. If Gendo's state doesn't improve, I'm afraid the SEELE council may try to remove me. Add to that, we would have to open the Commander's will as well. He left instructions stating that we should only open it in the event of his death or his being rendered into a vegetative state."

Shinji could only shake his head, wondering what could have possessed the man who gave him life to have an accident of this magnitude.

'Oh well. If my hunch is correct, he left us something in that will to make our lives easier. It'd certainly be something the arrogant jackass would do.'

Sitting next to the young man was Maya, who could only stare at the prone form of her father-in-law, wondering if her and Shinji's surprising marriage had something to do with this predicament. Little did she realize how right she was on that point. Ritsuko simply jotted down some notes and turned to the rest of the group.

"Alright everyone, let's go. The Commander obviously won't be waking up anytime soon so we should let him rest for now." Shinji shook his head.

"You guys go on ahead. I wanna stay here for a couple more minutes."

"Are you sure Shinji?"

"Yeah don't worry about me Maya. I just have some things I need to think about."

"Okay." Nodding to her husband, Maya got up and followed the others outside. Once they had all left, Shinji turned around and looked at his father, smirking. The man was truly helpless at this point, having all sorts of IV machines hooked up to him in order to keep him alive. Shinji knew that his opportunity for revenge had come.

'Bastard thought he had me under his thumb, did he? I already know what he'd try if I left him here to wake up later: He'd try to threaten Maya to keep me under control. Well, guess what Gendo Ikari? The puppet has turned on the puppeteer.'

Looking around the room to make sure there were no security cameras, Shinji walked over to the wall where the machines were all plugged in and kneeled down. Taking the many plugs in hand, the normally shy pilot of Unit-01 tugged them all out at once, shutting the machines down. Getting up and opening the door to leave, Shinji looked once more at his father and smiled, not regretting for a moment what he just did.

"I won't let that monster hurt Maya, even if I have to kill him to keep her safe." With that, Shinji locked the door from the inside and left. Since nobody really liked the Commander, no one, not even Ritsuko, bothered to check on him and thus it wasn't surprising that they found a dead body in the room when they finally looked inside a week later.

(NERV HQ: Briefing Room)

"What do you mean the Commander's dead?"

"It's true Captain Katsuragi. We just found him this morning. It seems as if the IV's were unplugged. We're conducting an investigation into the matter."

Okay folks, let's be honest: That was a big fat lie on Fuyustuki's part. But hey, gotta keep up appearances right?

"So now what? You said something about a will last week, didn't you?"

"That's true. Dr. Akagi and I have opened the will and, frankly, we're a bit unnerved by what was inside." This caught the attention of the stoic Rei, who was still a bit shocked at hearing about the Commander's death.

"What do you mean, Sub-Commander?"

"Well…it seems that my suspicions about Gendo being a con artist were justified. It turns out that through extortion and a couple slick deals, he managed to literally and legally gain ownership of NERV and everything associated with it; the Evas, the Geofront, everything." Now everyone else was listening. Maya was the first to speak up.

"Wait, so who did he leave all that to?"

"Believe it or not, he left everything to Shinji." At that, all eyes turned to the boy in question.

"What exactly does that mean, Commander Fuyutsuki?"

"I'm not the Commander here, Pilot Ikari, as that title now officially belongs to you."

"Say WHAT! I'm Supreme Commander of NERV!?" Hearing that their new boss was a 14 year old boy, everybody in the room suddenly felt their minds going into overdrive.

'I'm the Commander now? Well this certainly wasn't my intention but I'm definitely gonna make the most of it.'

'I can't believe it! I'm actually married to the Supreme Commander now! I wonder how Shinji's gonna operate everything?'

'So Pilot Ikari has been made Commander. I wonder if he is happy with this news.'

'Oh great, Shinji's my boss now. I hope he's a bit more lenient on drinking on the job than his old man was.' (Three guesses as to who was thinking this and the first two don't count)

Noticing that everyone's eyes were glued to him, Shinji simply stood up and cleared his throat. Looking to Fuyutsuki, he asked, "Sub-Commander, what's the status of NERV's budget?"

Stunned, the older man stated, "Well thanks to some creative lying on the part of the former Commander, NERV managed to glean more than twenty times the money that he actually needed for HQ expenditures from the council."

(Whistles) "Damn that old geezer really was a con artist. So what did he do with the extra money anyway?"

"He hid it away into a secure account in the case that he needed to make a quick getaway for any reason."

"Well I guess as the new Commander, I oughta put that cash to good use. Here is my first declaration as Supreme Commander of NERV Japan…" Everybody was holding there breath, waiting to see what Shinji would say, "Pay raises for everybody!"

The effect was instant. Makoto and Shigeru threw themselves at Shinji's feet and starting chanting Kumbaya to his name. Misato cheered loudly and pulled out a beer from God knows where before chugging the thing down like a vacuum. Fuyustuki let out a sigh of relief, thankful that Shinji was at least trying to make his employees happy. Ritsuko was laughing as she watched Maya latch onto her husband (Shockingly nobody had been informed by Fuyustuki about their marriage so far, not even Dr. Akagi) and smother him with butterfly kisses all over his cheeks.

Once everyone managed to calm themselves down, Shinji looked around the room at everyone and began speaking, "Alright everyone things are going to change around here. I intend on fixing every single problem that my father created. First of all, we need to deal with the SEELE council. I understand that they're the ones who have funded NERV since the beginning but they seem to think their word is law. Not anymore. I won't let myself get pushed around by these old men because you are all my friends and I intend on protecting you. Once they're taken care of, we can work full tilt on stopping the Angels. Dr. Akagi, I'm entrusting you with developing new weapons that we can use in combat. Misato, I'll admit that you're personal habits could use a little fine tuning," at this, everyone snickered at the blushing captain, "but you're track record as a tactician is top notch. I hereby promote you to the rank of Major and you will get an appropriate pay raise. I expect you to keep up the good work and am trusting you with the lives of myself and Rei when we go into battle. You are all dismissed for now."

By the end of his little speech, everyone was looking at the young Commander in a new light. This wasn't a little boy they were taking orders from. No, Shinji was taking responsibility like a man and thoroughly intended to get things done.

As everyone filed out and back to their respective posts, Maya linked her arm with Shinji's as they walked and whispered in his ear, "Shinji don't you think we should tell everyone about us?"

"Later. I was planning on telling them after Asuka arrives since I didn't want to tell the story more than once."

The couple looked up and saw Misato strolling over.

"Commander I wanna thank you for your trust in me and I just want you to know that I'll do my best!"

"Glad to hear it Misato. By the way, aren't you due to pick up the Second Child tomorrow, right?"

"Yeah. Why, is something wrong?"

"No, I was just going to suggest that you take someone with you. I have a bad feeling about the mission and wanted to ask that Maya and I go with you and have Unit-01 on standby in a carrier jet. If we get attacked out there, I'd feel more comfortable knowing we had two Evas to fight with."

"Good thinking, sir. I'll have Makoto dish out the appropriate orders. See you tomorrow then." Misato turned to leave.

"Oh and Major…"

"Yes sir?"

"You might wanna reconsider your attire. While I may not be the tyrant my father was, I feel that we need to maintain a sense of professionalism and frankly, I doubt that the miniskirt counts."

Looking at herself, Misato let out a loud EEP as she noticed her panties peeking from underneath her skirt. Pushing the offending garment down, Misato stuttered an apology and took off down the corridor. Laughing to themselves, Shinji and Maya turned the corner, only to run into Rei.

"Oh, Rei. Sorry we bumped into you like that."

"It is alright. It isn't a problem. So are the two of you happy with being married?"

"Actually it's going much better than we…" The two suddenly stopped and looked at the pale girl in shock, "wait a minute, how did YOU know we were married?"

"I was the one who informed the courthouse of your marital status. Was that wrong?" Now Maya decided to speak up.

"Wait a second…it was you! You're the one who married us and moved us into that apartment!"

"Correct. Are you not happy with the arrangements?"

Thy opened their mouths to speak when they firmly shut them. The girl had them there. While they were upset to learn Rei did it without telling them, they couldn't deny their feelings. They were happy with the arrangements and Rei obviously knew it. Probably the large smile on her face is what gave it away.

Shaking his head, Shinji looked Rei in the eyes and said, "Look Rei. We aren't upset that we're married now that we've gotten to know each other a lot more. But we ARE upset that you didn't tell us about it beforehand."

"I understand. In the future I will endeavor to tell you about such things before taking action."

"Thanks Rei. That's all we ask of you." Maya smiled at her husband's kindness and put her hand on the younger girl's shoulders, prompting her to look up.

"Rei, would you like to have dinner with us tonight?"

(The next day: Ikari Apartment)

As the sun rose over the horizon and its rays filtered into the Ikari home, Shinji's eyes fluttered open as he looked down at the young woman clinging to his side. He smiled as he remembered the way they cuddled together after Rei had gone home for the evening. Shinji had even ordered his fellow pilot to move into an apartment several floors below theirs because of the crappy condition of her old one.

Once she left, Shinji had led his wife to their bed and spent most of the night planting soft kisses on her skin to soothe her. Maya had asked Shinji a couple days earlier why they hadn't consummated their marriage yet even though they had agreed to their new relationship, and he had told her that he wanted it to be special for them and had promised to take her anywhere she wanted for their honeymoon.

Obviously, Maya was more than happy with this agreement and the couple had starting sharing intimatacy without removing all of their clothes.

Watching her eyes come open, Shinji lifted her chin slightly and kissed her, trailing his fingers around her neck. Pulling back, Maya smiled and hugged Shinji around the waist.

"I could get used to waking up like that every morning," she said as she lifted herself out of bed and made her way to the closet, smirking as she noticed her husband's eyes transfixed to her shapely panty-clad rear. Pulling out their official NERV uniforms, she tossed his behind her, giggling as it landed on his head. Shaking his head, Shinji stretched and stood up as the pair began to get dressed. Buttoning up his new Commander's uniform, Shinji gave Maya a peck on the cheek.

"Hey Shinji. What you told me last night…was it true?" Last night during dinner, Shinji had told Maya about his meetings with Kozo and Ritsuko in which they told him everything about SEELE and Gendo's plan for Instrumentality. Upon seeing the Rei clones, Shinji had ordered that new souls be put into them and that they be allowed to try and live normal lives, much to his companions' surprise.

Ritsuko also showed the new Commander that she had somehow managed to salvage Gendo's soul from his body. A smirking Shinji ordered that clones of Gendo be made and for the soul to be uploaded into one immediately. When asked for what purpose that would serve, Shinji simply said, "Stress relief."

"Yeah, it was all true. I'm still kinda shocked myself about it all."

"And what did you mean when you said that you wanted to use your father's clone for stress relief?"

"Let's just say that if the stress of being Commander gets to be too much, I'll always have a punching bag…"

"Shinji, that is a cruel and underhanded thing to do to him…can I join in?" Shinji face-vaulted at his wife's remarks but simply nodded his approval to her. Shaking his head, he turned the conversation to something more important.

"So are you ready to meet the Second Child, Maya?"

"Yeah. I just hope everything goes smoothly."

"Doubt it. I heard that the Admiral in charge of the transport is a stubborn old goat. He's probably gonna give us a hard time."

"Well as Supreme Commander, you out-rank him don't you?"

"True, but I was hoping to hold that particular card until I really need to use it. Besides, if the Second Child figures out my position, she'll probably start trying to be a kiss-ass."

"He he he I guess you have a point there. Well, let's go. The plane's leaving soon."

Well that's it for Chapter 2. Yes, I killed Gendo and had him brought back. Shinji makes a much better Commander and this allows me to keep bashing the old fart around. Sorry about the lack of humor in this one but trust me, it gets better starting in the next chapter. Keep sending those reviews people! I love your comments.

Next time on Till Death Does Us In, Chapter 3: Digging One's Own Grave or Why Insulting your Boss is a Bad Idea. The trio of Shinji, Maya, and Misato go to pick up Asuka from the Over the Rainbow. What happens when Asuka starts acting like herself? Bad news for the redhead, no doubt! Also, Shinji starts going back to school after the transfer of Unit-02. Will he be able to conceal his new job? Probably not! Hope to see ya next time!