"Gen-chan," Yui cooed, snuggling up against her husband, rustling the heavy duvet with her feet. "It's been some time."
"It has," Gendou answered flatly.
"But I'm content, just to be with you. This is comfortable as it is."
"It is," Gendou said.
She was so warm. She was so comfortable. He could just lay there and be comfortable...be comfortable... not thinking about the boy. He could forget about these troubles and just lie there in his matrimonial bed...
Comfortable.
"Is something wrong Gen-chan. You're a bit stiffer than usual."
He gulped, and squirmed. How could they always tell?
"It is nothing," he tried dismissively, though, even he could hear the awkward edge his voice had taken.
"What is it?" Yui pushed, her tone teasing.
"It is nothing," Gendou answered playfully. "Just work stress,"
He hoped that would be enough.
"Fine, keep your secrets. If I didn't know better I'd swear you were having an affair with that Naoko woman,"
The elder Ikari blushed somewhat. It would only be natural for her to get that impression, wouldn't it, with the amount of time he spent with that Doctor? It was...unsettling, that his wife could think him unfaithful. Gendou tried to quantify just what he was feeling, but found he really couldn't get passed unsettled, and maybe, somewhat offended by the suggestion that he had been less than honourable.
"I am not," he answered gruffly.
"I was only teasing," Yui swatted him.
"I don't like it," Gendou snorted.
"Because you always fall for it?" she jibed.
There was a pause, while the man considered his answer.
"Yes," he stated.
Yui chuckled heartily, her laugh having a warm, melodious edge to it, sweet music ringing in Gendou's ears. It teased a soft smile from his lips. This was indeed a man's paradise.
"So then, if it's not another woman, what is the problem?" Yui probed once more.
"Just work," he sighed once more. "It's nothing to worry about Yui,"
Of course, he grimaced internally, he'd only just gone and proved to her that
"Fine then, keep your secrets," she huffed, pushing hard off his body, "Though, something weird did happen to myself and Shinji today. It was really strange too..."
Again, Gendou swallowed, a knot of fear clenching in his stomach. Perhaps, she already knew, and was testing his loyalty towards her? Should he then come clean and admit the truth? Could she be manipulating him again, in that manner unique to her and her species? People always said that he was the manipulator in the couple, but Gendou himself knew better. He himself could stare down gods and men and not flinch, but women, that was a different story.
Perhaps, a nudge for more information would help.
"Oh, how so?"
"Well," Yui shuffled, "I picked him up from the creche early today. He was only crying for me, which isn't unusual, so I thought nothing of it. But, when I was walking him home, I bumped into this rather rude boy in the corridor, with Naoko. The strange thing about it, was the way little Shinji reacted to him,"
Gendou gulped, his gut wrapping a noose around his stomach, She'd met the boy. God help me, she'd met the boy. Change the subject, fast!
"You molly coddle him to much, Yui," he stated, trying to hide the shaking in his voice. "If you run to Shinji every time he cries then he will never learn to live without you."
Yui frowned.
"I'm his mother, it's my job to molly coddle him, especially since he's only three. And you're not changing the subject so easily, husband," she chided. "I know you're hiding something, I can read you like a book,"
For a moment, he thanked God Keel didn't have Yui's mind, or her looks for that matter. Gendou knew that would've made his job impossible. He sighed, he had to evade, at all costs.
"This boy, I cannot talk about him now, it is..." Gendou swallowed, searching for a way to explain it that wasn't a lie. He couldn't lie to Yui "...complicated. He was found inside a restricted part of the lab, that's all I am certain about,"
"I see," said Yui , turning onto her back, pulling away from her husband.
A spark of chilled abandonment ran up Gendou's side as she did so.
"I promise Yui, that when I know more about him for certain, I will discuss it with you. That is all I can do,"
Silence.
A single tense heartbeat stretched into an eternity of anguish. It was much the same feeling as that time he'd proposed, that same terror of rejection, of being expelled from his paradise.
"That boy," said Yui after a few moments consideration. "He does have your eyes. Is he a secret love-child you had with Naoko, before we met?"
"What?" Gendou blurted, his voice ringing back sharp of the ceiling above.
Another alto chuckle served to inform him that he'd taken the bait again, as always. Yui snuggled back up to him, her breath gently tickling his ear.
"You know I don't like being teased about things like that," he stated.
"I know," answered Yui, "But you go so ballistic, sometimes it can be hard to resist."
Love, Gendou thought, it is a strange thing. Comfortable, but strange. Four years before, it had seemed like such a frivolous and unnecessary thing, something that did more harm than good, yet now, he couldn't imagine life without Yui and their son even being possible anymore.
Their son.
That brought his mind back to something very uncomfortable. That boy, that other Shinji, was the broken spring poking through his mattress.
I...I
Grandfather:
Chapter 3: Deja Vu.
I don't own this, somebody else does.
Stuff might be mentioned that's copyright.
I don't own it either
It's just a bit of fun anyway
I...I
"We are running a DNA analysis, and will have the results soon. But, it would be best for you if you just admitted who you are, and why you came here. We might even be able to help you?"
The words caught in Shinji's throat, but he had to ask, he had to know for sure.
"What..." he stuttered, clenching his hands into fists. "What year is it?"
The response he received, was pretty much the response he had expected. His father, and the Doctor looked at each other for a moment, seeming to Shinji as if they were both about to burst out laughing at the stupidity of the question.
"What does that have to do with anything?" the elder Ikari answered, his voice hard.
'if you won't do it, then just go home,'
Those words echoed in Shinji's mind, a memory of his first time Piloting that machine that surfaced each time he heard his father's voice.
"It is..." he stuttered "I think..."There's no way to say it, no way to get this out without sounding like a lunatic. "I was born in..." no, that was even stupider. "Last time..."
Shinji gritted his teeth in frustration.
"Don't waste my time, or I may place you back in that cell, until you decide to be more cooperative."
Damn it. He didn't want to go back there. Any answer was better than going back there.
"I'm from the future!" he shouted, forcing the words out almost as if loudness were equal to truthfulness.
"Do you take us for fools? I have little patience for childish pranks such as this,"
"But...but it's true" the boy stammered, sweat running in rivers across his brow.
Silence
He watched Akagi lean towards his father, and whisper a quick something into his ear. A reminder of something perhaps? Shinji would've given his life to hear what.
"Very well, I'll humour you for a moment. Let's say you really are my son, then you would be able to answer a question only my son would know the answer to."
It wasn't a question, or even an offer, but Shinji still nodded. It seemed as if it could be the perfect way out, a way to prove himself.
"If you are Shinji, then perhaps you could tell me. What gift did I give to you for your third birthday?"
Shinji's hope collapsed.
He stared open mouthed for a moment, his mind frozen Of all the things he could've been asked, it had to be something he couldn't answer. How stupid was that? How stupid was he for not being able to remember.
"Time is limited,"
The prospect of that dark jail cell becoming his home for the next few weeks loomed large in his mind. That black nothingness haunted his memory, threatening to swallow him, his hopes and his dreams for an eternity.
Then, a single spark of light flared against the dark.
Nothing.
That's it!
"You gave me nothing," Shinji stated, a clear picture of that day forming in his mind. "Mother was with me, she gave me a Gunbuster that year. We had a party, and, you were supposed to be there, but you called earlier in the day, and apologised for not being able to make it."
Gendou remained impassive for a moment, before casting his eyes down to his hands. There was no doubting that would be a strange thing for a spy to know. The silence that followed, terrified Shinji. The boy glanced at the heavy doors behind him, expecting any moment that a swarm of armed guards would come running through them, to drag him back to that oubliette. There was another exchange, between his father and the Doctor, discussing possibilities, the boy guessed. Akagi believed him, well, he hoped she did. He hoped she was making some sort of statement on his behalf.
Shinji made a mental note to thank her later, regardless.
Shivering, he waited for what seemed like an hour for his father to speak again, though it must've only been a few shallow heartbeats.
"Very well," the elder Ikari said, his tone as cold as it had been a few moments previously. He was giving nothing away. The guards though, weren't coming yet.
"Shinji," Naoko chimed in. "Perhaps you should tell the chief everything you told me, about the Evangelions, the Angels, everything you know. Start with your Mother's death and work forward from there."
Gendou Ikari stiffened, fidgeting slightly in his chair.
The boy nodded, feeling an uncomfortable twinge as he cast his thoughts back to some things he didn't want to remember, of that old man's shadow cast across the platform as he walked away, Shinji's uncle resting a heavy hand on the boys shoulder while he cried. He could never remember his mother's death, because frankly, he'd never wanted too.
Gendou's voice looming over him and saying that he would have to grow up early and learn to live on his own was the child's only memory of that day.
The young Ikari told his father as much. He told the man that he had learned to live on his own. Shinji'd learned to cook, to clean, to manage a household like an adult. His uncle had been impressed with him, that he was so mature and responsible. Shinji never gave a second thought to it, after all, it was what Gendou had told him to do.
Maybe his father might even have decided to take him back once he'd learned how to cook a soup from scratch.
He told Gendou as much.
Fat chance though. By age ten, he could cook almost as good as his uncle, if not better. It brought a smile the boys face to be almost bragging to his father about the fact.
A nudge from Naoko jumped him forward a few years, to the boy's first day in Tokyo-3. Shinji described Unit 01 and the Third Angel in brain scouring detail, dredging up a hundred little thoughts, feelings and memories he'd hoped would have stayed buried.
He described the lash whipping Fourth and the fortress-like fifth. His description of Rei was the only thing that drew any humms of interest from the old man behind the desk.
Next of course, came Asuka, or Kyoko's child as Naoko called her, and the sixth Angel at sea. The twins that made up the seventh and next the volcanic eighth. That one had left the boy with a nasty skin rash. The spider-legged ninth had been easy, relatively, as had been the tenth.
Gendou had finally praised him for that one, and Misato too. After the eleventh had been deleted from the system, he'd finally begun to feel like he belonged. He'd visited his mother's gravesite with his father, first-kissed Asuka...and locked up frozen like an idiot too. He was in a good place, comfortable and happy, and then this happened. Just when he thought he'd found his happiness, something would come and snatch it away.
It seemed to be the pattern of his life so far, didn't it?
As if he had no right to be happy.
"I see," was all his father had said when he finished, in that horribly cool voice of his. All Shinji wanted to know was whether he'd be spending the rest of his life. That knot in the boys gut twisted tighter.
"Some guards will take you back to your ward," Gendou stated after an eternal minute.
Shinji's shoulders dropped with relief, a weight of worry dropping with them. He was safe, for the time being. He could go back to the ward with Silent Girl now. It mightn't have been home, but it was better than the alternative.
Gendou watched silently as two guards led him away. They were gentle with the boy, not really guards, more escorts this time. The two young enlisted men weren't even carrying weapons, just wearing black anonymous suits and sunglasses.
The door opened, and the boy slipped wordlessly through, his head held low. The door closed with a subdued brass tick, leaving Gendou and Naoko alone. The man took his glasses off for a moment, sighing loudly as he rubbed gloved hands against his tired eyes. Slowly, he picked his glasses up, and slipped back into his mask.
"So, you believe him too," Naoko said.
Gendou though for a moment. This was insane. This was impossible. And yet, he found himself compelled by some strange will deep inside him to believe the boy, to believe the child was his own flesh and blood.
This wasn't right. This had to be a deception. The boy had to be a clone, or something like that. Yui had written her thesis on human cloning. It was public information. But artificial ageing. Yes! Just like the ABHE. And who could do that? Nobody but his own staff, or Keel Lorenz. It had to be him. Another plot, another scheme, another spy.
Logically, it was the easiest conclusion. And it had the beauty of being possible.
Yet, gut instinct nagged at him. A father's instinct to know his own son perhaps?
"The genetic tests will confirm it," he said.
"So you are beginning to believe after all?" Naoko chimed in. "You did say 'confirm', didn't you? That would mean you have a belief to confirm,"
Another pause.
"It flies against all known physical principals, but it...is possible."
Those words seemed dirty, almost as if he was naked speaking them.
""Not all scientific principle's. Time travel was shown to be theoretically possible, under an extension of Einstein's laws, but only backwards. I have been doing some reading up on this matter, naturally."
"Yes, naturally," Gendou nodded slightly. "But..."
"What?" Naoko probed. She was enjoying seeing Gendou worried alright.
"Causality," was all he said, before another moments pause. "I will be spending tonight at home with my wife and son. If you see the Professor, please convey my regrets that I will miss our usual game. And prepare a set of false identification papers for the boy for the time being."
Naoko scowled for a moment, a jealous flash of anger heating her body for a second. Leaving her to do his own donkey work as usual while he spent time with that woman. How was she any better to herself? What had she done that was so special anyway? A few half baked theories on cloning, maybe dabbling in some accelerate cellular mitosis? Yui, you'd swear she was a God herself the way Gendou spoke of her. Of course, she wasn't the one who designed the greatest revolution in computing since complimentary metal-oxide-semiconductor field effect transistors had she? She hadn't handwritten protein simulation algorithms in bare machine code? Hell, she probably wasn't even all the special in bed. So what made her better than me? Naoko wondered sourly.
Gendou stood up calmly, and fixed his creased white jacket.
"Good night, Doctor." he said, not even acknowledging the doctors unasked question.
Akagi watched him leave, her hot scowl slowly transfiguring into a vulpine smirk. Perhaps, there may be a way to prove herself better than that woman after all. If the boy was from the future, and he was to be the future pilot of the ABHE...
Perhaps, there might be a way for her to use the boy's knowledge to her advantage to finally show up that woman, once and for all.
"Good night, chief," she said as the office door closed.
I...I
Silent girl seemed to be waiting for Shinji, the purple haired teenager looked right at him when he arrived. She smiled a welcome home, before returning to her study books.
A set of pyjamas had been laid out for Shinji on his bed, but he didn't want to put them on with Silent Girl watching him. Instead, the boy just flopped back weightily onto the hospital bed, the springs squeaking under his weight.
He closed his eyes, thankful that he got to spend the night on a soft bed, instead of that cell. The sheer impossibility of his situation didn't really bother him. Impossible situations were almost a fact of life for the boy. It was a familiarity with the weirdness brought on by six months of sharing his mind with a thirty story machine.
He still wasn't completely sure this wasn't the doing of that machine...somehow.
Going back in time seemed almost normal. Strangely strange, yet oddly normal. Even though he picked that phrase from an old motorcycle review in one of Misato's well-thumbed Autoroad magazine's he'd borrowed once when he'd had the flu, it seemed to perfectly fit his situation.
And that woman, in the corridor, who looked so much like Rei. Mother, he was sure of it. Live and breathing. He found his thoughts drifting back to her, no matter how hard he tried to avoid it. Mother, she died when he was three.
August 27th, 2004.
He still didn't want to remember the day. It was there, a looming dark spot in his memory hoving ever closer. The more his thoughts dwelled on it, the closer it came. A terrifying shadow of thought that threatened to consume him entirely if he allowed it to.
No! He forced it back, diverting his thoughts to an easier, happier path. That night, just before the day, when his mother took him home from work with her. She cooked such a wonderful meal, even baking a cake for him to apologise. Even his father came home that night, the man seeming so warm and alive in his memory. He'd actually smiled back then.
Maybe, with his mother still alive here, when, wherever he was, he thought, he might be able to go back to something like that day. That apartment in old Hakone with the warped wooden floors. He still remembered how it had always smelled of fish and detergent, how there was always some splash of disarrayed papers on the kitchen table beneath a cold coffee-cup paperweight.
But, would they let him talk to her now even? Doctor Akagi seemed so quick to hurry him along away from her. Not a moment too soon, if he was honest. That headache, it had felt like his head had been about to burst like an overinflated tyre.
Such a bad headache, he could only remember one like it once before, when he was a boy, with his Mother. There was this other, bigger kid there, in an orange jacket...or something, with one of his Mother's work friends.
Thinking about it, about that child who had been with his mother...
There was only one person he could have been.
Himself.
A younger Shinji Ikari.
It seemed almost ridiculous to him, that he could remember meeting himself, and himself at the same time ten years ago. A strange drunken chuckle rose in his throat, staggering it's way across his tongue. Hello Shinji, I'm Shinji.
What would he tell himself if he met himself again? When your father abandons you, kick him in the nuts, maybe?
Another chuckle escaped.
It was the stuff of headaches, of DeLoreans and flux capacitators, of bad Star Trek episodes and cheap manga. But, it fit the facts. He was in, what to him, was the past. It could still be some maddening dream, or trick of that mental kind the Evangelion loved to play, but that seemed less likely with every passing minute.
This was as real as the bed resting against his back, as the draft of cold air against his skin, and the hot breath blowing against his face.
What?
The boy's eyes shot open with a gulping gasp of breath. Blue eyes met with hazel brown, barely a few inches away from each other. That face, Silent Girl, staring at him with penetrating curiosity. Supported by her hands on the bed, leaning over his side, her breasts brushed against his shoulder.
Shinji's eyes drifted down, past her small, tightly closed lips, down her thin neck, and over her collarbone, down into that dark valley between her breasts. Silent girl scowled, and Shinji blushed. Then she grinned that foxish grin of hers, one Shinji swore he'd seen before. She cuddled herself in a familiar fashion, apparently enjoying his embarrassed reaction.
"Sorry," Shinji muttered. Bewildered and red-faced, it seemed the logical thing to do.
Silent Girl just smiled.
She was teasing him. She was actually teasing him. Definitely some relative of Misato's then. Shinji sighed, feeling a strange release as he stared up at that familiar ceiling.
Back in time.
At least there'd be a long wait until the next Angel attacked, or until the next sync test. He had a school assignment due in two days, and he hadn't even started it. Oh well, now he had ten whole years to do it. Wouldn't that be funny, one day going to school aged fourteen, the next being twenty-four. At least, that's what everyone else would see. He'd most likely married by that age. And that's not even considering what Asuka's reaction when they next met...
Shinji sighed.
Asuka. The ward suddenly seemed uncomfortably quiet. The hurried shuffling of Silent Girl as she searched for something couldn't compare with the brash and loud Caucasian. She wore her American gene's with pride alright. And her butt-tight cut-off jeans too. She was always berating him for something, usually something silly, or telling him what to do. She was...not quite Tsundare... more...what did Westerners call it?... A bitch? Not a massive bitch mind, not in the Hollywood sense, more in the 'pecking and biting at every little thing he did that didn't meet her own high standards' sense.
Yet strangely, Shinji felt himself missing that pecking and biting. It felt uncomfortably quiet without her. It wasn't that Asuka was a hypocritical sort of bitch. It was more that she insisted other people meet her own standards for herself, and got annoyed when they couldn't.
He kind of enjoyed it in a strange, masochistic sort of way. It meant that if she ever praised him, she really meant it. There was only really the once, that time she'd walked in on him playing his cello, but it felt so much better to hear her say she respected him that little bit more than the hollow praise from his classmates he would be inundated with after every Angel battle.
It'd be some time before he saw her again.
The shuffling stopped, and Shinji rolled his head right. Silent Girl appeared from under her own bed, holding a black remote control.
She smiled a triumphant smile, launching herself backwards onto her own bed. The springs squeaked under her weight, herself bouncing up as Shinji watched her breasts continue down. Don't get caught! his mind warned.
Or else Silent Girls first word be 'Pervert!' in a loud, screeching siren voice.
Like Asuka usually. Even if Asuka was always getting Hentai and Ecchi mixed up.
The black television in the corner popped into life, the picture fizzing a bit before coming into focus. A news station, discussion some new construction project in Hakone.
Silent Girl changed the channel.
Kujibiki Unbalance.
Silent Girl scowled and changed the channel.
Some rally race along some dirty wet roads.
Silent girl smiled and settled in, turning the volume up and letting the sound of unsilenced exhaust fill the room. Misato does the exact same thing, Shinji thought. As an old Corrolla GT slid around a hairpin turn, Silent Girl silently cheering it on, Shinji suddenly felt that little bit lonelier and more homesick.
I...I
A plan was forming in Naoko's mind as she slipped into her office. Waiting for her in a cardboard box on her desk, beside a picture of her daughter and an idling laptop computer, was that wetsuit the boy had been wearing when he'd been found.
It was still coated it dried and flaking connect liquid.
A black phone was placed on a shelf, alongside a sheaf of programmer's journals and notes. Pulling the suit from it's box with one hand, Naoko inspected it for a moment, a sinister grin forming across her lips.
The boy had been found wearing this suit. According to the boys own words, he wore the very same suit when he piloted the ABHE. The suit had to serve some function, beyond being a simple biometric monitor. Yui was having that infection problem with the connect liquid.
It seemed only logical. A skintight suit that sealed the dirty parts of the body away from the connect liquid. What else could it be for?
Well, Yui wouldn't get the chance to invent it. Naoko would show who was the smartest one, she would beat her to the punch and solve her problem for her. She would show the Chief just how much she herself was worth.
All she had to do was dial Yui's home phone and tell her.
The phone rang, a giddy ecitement building in the old woman's breast. Well, she wasn't that old, only about forty years old. And she'd still kept her looks too.
"Hello, Ikari residence" That woman answered. So cheerfully too. Lets she what she looks like at this age. How cheerful she will be when her husband loses interest for someone younger and leaves her holding the baby.
"Oh Hi, Yui," Naoko forced herself to be pleasant and cheerful. "It's myself, Akagi from GEHIRN."
"Yes? It's a bit strange for you to call me at home, Is it important?"
"It may be," said Naoko. Of course it bloody well was. "It's just I was thinking about your problem, with the rats infecting themselves, and I think I may have had a brainwave..."
That moments silence was one of the sweetest in Naoko's life. Gendou Ikari would notice her now, for sure.
I...I
Two things:
1: I start full time employment in about eight to ten hours, so it's unlikely I'll be able to do too much for the next six months or so. Hell, I'm surprised I even got this stuff done.
2: I guess I could concatenate this with the previous chapter. It'd probably work better. But I'd also never get it done. Just look at my Battlestar Evangelion fic... two nice juicy long descriptive chapters... if a bit dry, and half of an equally long third on my Harddrive I'm still working on. Even after a year.
If there's enough demand, I'll post the half I have.
3: This is still surprisingly popular. I've been PM'd for updates, which is something that's never happened before.
4: Don't be afraid to keep reviewing either..
6: Or to go to evamade(dot)net or evafics(dot)org for a bit of reading/chat.
5: I need a pint before I go to work tomorrow. And perhaps a liquid lunch and dinner.
'Til next one then...
--Dartz