Salvation
Pre-read by Fanf1cFan
The kitchen of the apartment he shared with Asuka was dimly visible as shades of gray in the gloom of night. From where he sat at the table he could see the shapes of things, which was odd, because at night the kitchen was pitch black. Maybe one of the fluorescents had gone out. He glanced at the ceiling, fighting to banish the logy feeling in his mind. None of them were flickering, but none of them were on either. Which didn't make sense, because the light had to be coming from somewhere.
At this point he realized someone's hand was in his. A hand far too pale to be Asuka's. He looked up, and her familiar soft smile took his breath away. He tried not to make any sudden movements. It was a dream, had to be, but even though it was, he didn't want it to end so quickly. Everything around him took on a surreal quiet, as if he were underwater. His thoughts grew heavy with sadness, even at seeing the expression he knew so well, the way the eyes were neutrally veiled, barely covering over a vibrant inner life. He alone had at times been allowed to see that inner life in all its glory.
He wanted to speak, but he couldn't form words. Even if it was only a dream, he could for a moment hold her, talk to her. Even if it wasn't actually happening, in his mind it was real. Her arm moved. Mutely she pointed behind him, her eyes sliding off his as she looked at whatever she was pointing at. Without even thinking he glanced over his shoulder.
Through an open window the ghostly moonlight bathed the room in a pale gray. He stared awestruck at how liquid the moonlight was, how it wavered in the air, on the ground, forming shadow sculptures. Asuka's resigned voice made him jump.
"You're thinking of her, aren't you?"
He turned to face her, blinking rapidly and making an attempt to shake the fuzziness from his head. The dream had been so real. He glanced back over his shoulder once more, but there was neither moon nor window. While it had been happening, he had not even thought about the fact that his kitchen had no windows. He felt a momentary squeeze on his hand, and looked back to Asuka, sitting across from him.
"Whatever happened in the past, I'm here now," he insisted. "With you."
She didn't say anything, though unreadable feelings passed across her face. Finally she stood, releasing his hands. A chill passed over him. He would have to do something with her, he decided. Something special. It tore him up whenever moments like this happened. She would leave the room, and it would be a few hours before they could talk normally again.
She walked around the table, and he expected her to continue to the door, but she didn't. She stepped over to where he sat, pushing herself in between him and the table, forcing his chair back a few inches. The strawberry scent of her perfume was intoxicating as she straddled his legs, sitting down and immobilizing him. She put her arms around his neck and lightly touched her forehead to his.
"We're going to stay like this," she breathed, "until I'm the only one you're thinking about." That had definitely already happened, but words failed him. "Later," she whispered, "we'll go to bed." The warmth of her breath and her closeness pushed everything around him out of his awareness. "Look at me," she said, plaintively. "Think about me." He nodded, two quick jerks, all he could manage under the circumstances. He watched as she drank in his reaction to her closeness, consumed it, and him.
He jerked awake to find himself covered in sweat, the blankets wrapped tightly around him. His midsection throbbed as the strong feelings and emotions from the dream bled away. It had been a near thing, but he would not have to change his underwear.
It was real, though. She lay not two feet from him, their futons pushed beside each other. Even if she wasn't pressed up against him like she had promised in his dream, she was there, close enough to touch. He let his head fall to the side. The last vestiges of sleep left him when he realized her futon was empty. He sat up, feeling her side of the mattress.
Cold. She hadn't slept there at all that night.
After going to the bathroom, he walked out onto the balcony and looked out over the city that was slowly being rebuilt. He suppressed the twinge of worry that kept plaguing the back of his mind. Asuka was a free spirit, she always had been and always would be. She especially hated clingy people, he knew that too.
Knowing that still didn't stop the worry. The fear he had lived with all his life, the fear of being abandoned. That dream had been a vivid description of his and Asuka's life the past months. The problem was, no amount of self recrimination or unhappy stares from her would make him forget Rei. Not completely, anyway. Not a day went by when he lay down beside his fiance and repeated in his mind Rei's wish that he make Asuka happy.
That wish was the only thing that had overcome his guilt, but even that wish was not enough to make him forget what he had shared with the first girlfriend he had ever had.
He never did get back to sleep that night.
The walk to work at the construction site was a slow one.
"'sup, Shin-man!"
"Touji." He smiled at his friend.
"Are they really reforming Class 2-A?"
"That's what Misato said," Shinji answered, yawning.
"Didn't sleep much last night? Is the red devil really that wild in bed?" Touji asked, elbowing the recalcitrant Shinji. The boy forced a smile, and Touji's grin vanished. "What's up?" he asked, suddenly serious.
"She's missing," he finally answered.
"Well, she does that from time to time, right? Goes off for a day or so? You told me that yourself."
"Yeah," Shinji agreed, scratching the back of his head, his smile now not so forced. "I'm probably worrying about nothing. C'mon, the boss'll tear us up one side and down the other if we're too late."
"It'll be strange going back to school, huh?" Touji asked, jogging to keep up. "Hey, just how many times did you guys repeat? You're probably some super genius by now..."
"-aah, not quite..."
"No, really, how long were you guys in there? What did you do?"
"We'll be late," Shinji said mysteriously. "Let's run."
"Hey, c'mon Shin-man! You can tell me-"
No matter what, parts of humanity always operated on the bitter edge of technology. If there were height limitations, a skyscraper would be raised to within a meter of it. If a new material were synthesized with higher tensile strength, the standard skyscraper's height would be increased. There was no such thing as 'high enough', or at least, not that Shinji could see. This was why he was trying not to look down as he took measurements with the laser range-finder built into his portable touch-screen.
"No, dummkoph, look there!" He could practically hear Asuka correcting him, back when he had been too slow picking up something that for her was simple. "The load-bearing calculations are all wrong! I swear, if you were an engineer, we'd have buildings falling all over the place. Give it here..." and with that, she would co-opt his pencil and lay out the solution in simple math. Every time he took a calculation, he thought of her.
"Hey!" He looked up from calculation that warned of something similar. "Hey Takashima!" The young man several dozen meters away finally looked up from where he was working.
"What's up, Ikari?" The man deftly walked across the narrow beam between them.
"Look," Shinji said, pointing, "whoever worked on this section reversed the bracket here." He ran his finger along a seam which didn't quite fit where it was connected. "It almost looks right, so I can see how they did it, but there's no way this will hold over the long term."
"Damn," the man said, taking off his hard hat and running a hand through damp hair as he looked up at the towering structure. "Whoever did that is sooo dead."
"Yeah," Shinji agreed reluctantly. "The heavy lift crane has already left since most of the big work is supposed to be over. Still..."
"Well..."
"Ikari! Takashima!" The booming voice of the project overseer made both young men look up. "What's the hold up? You two don't go on break for another twenty minutes."
"Hey boss," Takashima spoke up quickly. "Look at what Ikari found."
Minutes later the big man was swearing the miss-installed bracket up one side and down the other.
"Ikari, I hate you," the man said. "Oh, and good job. They'd have my ass if this went unfixed."
"Yeah, no problem," Shinji said, muffling a yawn.
"Hey, are you good for the rest of the day?" the man asked, noticing the yawn. "I don't want any injuries on my site because of a slip and fall."
"I'm okay," Shinji said quickly.
"Give him the rest of the day off," Touji yelled, from where he was a couple of levels up. "He didn't get much sleep last night because his wife took off for a while! She's like that!"
"Yeah, thanks Touji," Shinji mumbled to Takahashi, who smiled knowingly.
"Really?" the big man looked genuinely worried. "Hey, it's okay, mine does that every once in a while. She'll just get stir-crazy, and go off for a day or two. She's part American, you know."
"Mine's part German," Shinji muttered. The man nodded sagely, clapping him on the shoulder.
"Go ahead, take off. We'll be okay here."
"Thanks," Shinji bobbed his head in appreciation.
"Hey, don't go all mushy on me," the man said gruffly. "I'll work you hard tomorrow."
"Yeah." Shinji waved a hand tiredly in Touji's direction, and the boy waved back.
The apartment was quiet, and loneliness tugged at Shinji as he flopped down on his futon. It was as he had left it that morning, as was the house. Asuka hadn't come back yet. Something fluttered, stirring in the breeze of the air-conditioning.
A note. He had somehow missed it when he had woken up. Picking it up, he immediately recognized Asuka's still-hesitant Kanji handwriting.
"Don't try to find me."
His eyes narrowed, and he clenched the paper in his hands. He hadn't lost his first girlfriend just to lose another. His eyes scanned the words, but he had stopped consciously reading.
Maya. I can ask Maya to help me find her.
Why did she run? he wondered, staring blankly at the page. Did she think I wasn't serious? Did she think I wouldn't take responsibility for what I did?
Did she think I didn't love her?
His eyes skipped over a word that brought his attention back to the note.
...Rei's alive. She's alive, Shinji, in that verdammt dummy plug that almost forced you to kill Touji. She's alive, and you have to go to her. You owe me, dummkoph, don't ever forget that. You owe me-
At that point there was a smudge, and the entire note was crumpled, as if it had been thrown away and then retrieved.
Just go, the note said, a few lines below the smudge. Go, because I know it's what you really want, which means it's what I want. I love you, so go.
He was halfway to the nearest working linear rail line before he even took the chance to think.
This is stupid. I should get Maya, or anyone.
His feet didn't listen. He slowed to a walk, stopping before the blinking light of the entry portal.
Crap. He ran a hand through his hair in frustration. Think, think... Oh. Of course.
He reached into his pocket, hoping in his haste he had not left his wallet.
It was there. He pulled out his NERV card. Not the old one, which might have still worked anyway, but the one he had been issued when they had rehired him to work in construction. Crossing his fingers, he swiped it. After a moment's thought, the light blinked green, and he breathed a sigh of relief.
He had been scheduled to eventually work down in the Geofront, but he hadn't expected the authorization to be there yet. Apparently, bureaucrats being bureaucrats, they had gone the easy way out and already given him the clearance.
The train ride was one long tense string of moments in which his emotions swung between hope and fear. Asuka had abandoned him, but Rei might be alive. What if she wasn't? He knew quite well his former fiancee's pride might not allow her to come back to him.
If he could ever even find her again.
What am I thinking about! He clenched his fist, clearing his mind. Rei's alive. I've got to get her out.
Doubt crept into his mind again, and he wished not for the first time that Maya was with him. It was an empty wish though. To go get her meant another half hour at least, and if she got the government involved, there was no telling how long it would take. In fact, who knew what they would even do, knowing that Gendo's test subject, and the one who had played a major part in Instrumentality, was still alive?
No. I've got to do this myself.
He breathed out a sigh. It was easy to say, but he had next to no idea what to do.
The train came to a stop, and he set out. Asuka's note had left vague instructions on how to get to where the dummy plug was, but in the gloom of the dead Geofront, currently lit only by what few mirrors were still aligned, he felt lost. Even with the afternoon sun still high overhead only a few sullen yellow rays shone down, illuminating small areas here and there. Trees had been uprooted, and there was structural damage everywhere, but it was not completely impossible to travel. He set his mouth and kept walking.
If a pregnant woman can do it, so can I.
Half an hour later, he was walking down a tunnel he hoped was the one Asuka had written about. Her numbers were scribbled, but he was almost sure he was in the right place. The dull red emergency lighting spoke of at least a few power generators that had been brought back online.
With a start he realized that this was the first time had had been back to the Geofront since that final battle with the Eva Series. The shadows were heavy with memories. Somewhere down here Misato had sent him to rescue Asuka, and then had died. Countless others had been killed by invading JSSDF forces. He imagined he could still smell the faint stench of death and decay, though he knew the air processors had long since taken it away.
Junction E7.
Now he was sure he was on the right path. She had written that down pretty legibly.
There should be a destroyed blast door... here.
Only it was no longer destroyed. It was one of the few new things he had come across, still shiny and untarnished. And blocking him from Rei. He took out his NERV card and swiped it through the reader beside the massive doors.
The light blinked, but stayed red. He swiped it again, it blinked red again. He looked to the sides, but the mechanism for manually opening the door during emergencies was missing. Or rather in pieces, he realized, when taking a closer look. There was even a tool box, open and lying there.
"Huh." He looked from toolbox to door, his frustration rising. "Alright then." Flipping a mental coin, he set off down the hall, looking for another way into the section behind the closed blast door. A faint noise made him spin suddenly, and back into a wall. There was no cover, and running would only make more noise.
He listened intently, but there was only silence. Thirty seconds passed, and he was about to move when he heard it again. It was a shuffling sound, shoes scraping against the floor, and it was coming from the other direction.
"Hello?" He walked slowly in the direction the scuffling had come from. "Is anyone there?"
No answer, and no other sounds than his own footsteps. He passed the locked bulkhead and kept going. After ten minutes, he figured whoever it was must have run ahead, or gone down one of the side shafts. After a few more minutes, he noticed that there was more debris on the floor, as if this was one of the sections that was still relatively untouched.
Up ahead, he saw a lot more debris, bent and twisted pieces of metal, and even larger pieces of wall and bulkhead. When the Geofront had gone into free-fall and slammed to a halt back in the crater it had left, a lot of damage had been done. His heart leapt, and he broke into a run. Damage like the broken bulkhead now in front of him. It spooked him that there might be someone else in here with him, but he had more important things to think about.
Ten minutes later he had broken into a side shaft and made his way back to the other side of the locked bulkhead.
Good. Now, if her instructions are right...
The tight corridor widened, then opened up into a room he had never been to before, which didn't mean much considering how big the Geofront was. The girdered ceiling was high overhead, lost in the gloom, and from it hung what looked like an entry plug. On the side of it he could barely make out the word 'REI' in big block writing, with smaller words below it. The frame holding it had come loose in the shock of landing, and the plug was tilted at almost a thirty degree angle. His breathing stopped for a few seconds, then he ran over to the control panel below it.
His eyes quickly took in the large touch-screen, and his hands shook as he tried to figure out what to do. 'Subject: Viable,' was clearly visible on the upper left hand corner of the screen, but he had no idea how to navigate the different screens, or what to do. He touched the nearly blank screen, and a window popped up, prompting him for input. Whoever had been here last had left it on this screen.
'Deactivate Subject Life support, Yes or No'
Subject, meaning Rei. The last person here had been Asuka, that stray fact dumped itself into his mind. She didn't have to tell me. His vision blurred. I never would have known.
He touched the 'No' and watched as the screen changed. A long list of options came up, and he read them all through. After a long pause, he selected 'Crane Controls.' What came up was fairly straightforward. He pressed the button to lower the plug, and held his breath.
A distant screeching sound came from somewhere above, and the dummy plug began to slowly come down. After a half minute it had come most of the way down, when a shower of sparks and harsh groaning made him wince.
Error, the control said.
He looked up, but the plug was still out of reach. He scrambled up onto the control panel, flailing his arms in all directions as he stood. He reached up, and barely managed to grab onto the near end of the plug. Leaning over, he managed to see a smaller version of the control panel he was standing on. He touched it, and strained to see the words.
Fortunately it was a lot simpler. Open, or close. He pressed 'Open' and was rewarded with a familiar click and hiss. His eyes bulged when he saw the faint hair-line cracks appear near where he was holding on.
Crap!
When the plug had slipped, it had apparently turned. He watched in horror as the door slid open and a fountain of viscous liquid poured over him. He closed his eyes instinctively, and then something slammed into him, knocking him off the control panel and onto the ground.
When he came to his senses, pain exploded in the back of his head, and he felt a heavy weight pinning him down. It took a monumental effort to creak open his eyes. His vision was blurry, but that was probably whatever the liquid was that had come out of the plug. He blinked rapidly, and a face came into focus.
Her brilliant crimson eyes held his gaze firmly and made five seconds feel like five aeons. The sheen of liquid on her pale skin gave her an otherworldly look, and he knew her stunned expression matched his. From her light blue lashes to the slight smile curving her lips, she was alive, and in his arms. She blinked, and her eyes suddenly bulged. Before he could flinch, she spewed LCL all over him, then coughed weakly, expelling the remainder of the liquid from her lungs.
"Sorry," she breathed, pushing herself back up.
"That's, um..." he sputtered, trying not to stare, "that's my line," he finally stammered. Her physical state finally dawned on her, and she blushed, lowering her chin to his chest and bringing her arms up to hide the view.
"Don't look at me like that," she mumbled weakly.
"Why not?" he asked, wide-eyed. Before she could formulate a proper reply, a familiar scuffling noise drew the attention of them both. He quickly looked to his right.
"Haha..." the boys clothes were dirty and wrinkled, but his glasses were intact, as was the camera he was holding. Its case was cracked, but the blinking light on top showed that the internals were working. "Sorry Shinji, business comes first...!"
"Do you want to kill him, or shall I?" Rei's voice was deadly serious, and Kensuke flinched.
"I'm still deciding," Shinji murmured.
"Um, guys," Kensuke spoke hesitantly, "you know I was kidding, right? Right?" No one reassured him of his possible safety. "Look," he said nervously, slowly lowering the camera, "I'll just put it down here. Then you can-" Rei's eyebrow twitched. "-aah!" The boy suddenly dropped the camera and took off running for dear life.
Rei turned away from her handiwork and looked at Shinji again. A faint blush returned. She carefully reached down and began unbuttoning his shirt.
"Um, R-Rei? What-what are you-"
"I need your shirt," she said innocently. "I am naked."
"Oh." He let out the breath he had been holding. "Right..."
"What?" she asked, tilting her head slightly. "What were you expecting?"
"N-Nothing!" he yelped.
She studied him for a moment.
"We'll see," was all she said.
---
A/N: Well, that takes care of the major stuff ^_^ All that's left is an epilogue, to take care of the small things. Really small piddling stuff, you know, pregnancies, reunions, nothing important
