Episode 13: The Forgotten
Part IV: Partners In Crime (Donna's Theme)

NERV Headquarters. Supplementary Motor Area.

"Well... I'd be lying if I said we weren't shorthanded right now, same as everyone else." The logistics officer on duty flipped back and forth between pages on his clipboard. "That said... it looks like the main problem would be coming up with a pilot. Take care of that, and we should be able to have his bird fueled up and ready to go within fifteen to twenty minutes. Tell the commander he just needs to give the word."

"Understood," Rei said softly.

Undisclosed Location. Potential Asset Living Quarters.

After that, it didn't feel right to just go back to the game. Shinji turned it off. He spent some time just staring at the TV, trying to think. The black screen reminded him of being trapped inside the Tenth Angel. Drifting. Alone. Helplessly waiting for a rescue that might never come. He really could've lived without making that connection, but there it was all the same.

He heard the hiss of a door sliding shut behind him somewhere. Well, okay, maybe not entirely alone.

Shinji turned to see the African boy with the cybernetic limbs - the one Mari had called Q-chan - walk back into the room, her skirt clasped in his metal hand. The other kid sat down next to one of the tables in the back, setting down a clear plastic case beside him.

There was a long moment of awkward silence Shinji didn't know how to end.

Fortunately, the other boy did. "I don't want to hear it, by the way."

"Hear what?"

"Any crap about me knowing how to sew." Shinji craned his neck. Sure enough, the other boy was deftly running a needle back and forth across the tear in the skirt. His mechanical hand was surprisingly agile for a prosthesis. "I've heard it all before, and I really don't care."

"What? No. Why would I - why would anyone say that?" Shinji got up and went over to the seat across from him. "That's just useful, you know? It's like - my teachers taught me how to cook. I mean, that was mostly so they didn't have to worry about feeding me, but still. It's really come in handy, you know?" Which was putting it lightly. He imagined having to leave the cooking entirely up to Misato and shivered.

"Hm." Q held up the cloth and studied it against the light. "I learned how to do this from one of my first squad commanders. Probably saved my life once or twice. Some of the officers didn't like having extra mouths to feed when food got scarce. Having a skill meant I didn't go hungry."

"So... you were in some kind of army?" But he can't be much older than me, Shinji thought.

"More like a militia. Or what you people would probably call a terrorist group." Q shrugged. "Not my idea, for the record. They drafted me when I was young. Took me straight from my mother's arms and all of that."

"... wow." Shinji stared at him. "I'm really sorry. That sounds horrible."

"It was," Q said flatly.

Another door hissed open upstairs. Shinji heard Mari humming a tune under her breath, along with the sound of her footsteps going down the hall. He couldn't help but glance in that direction. He only caught a glimpse of another door opening and closing, though, before her voice vanished.

"Don't," Q said.

Shinji looked back to see the other boy eyeing him. "Don't what?"

"That." Q nodded towards the stairs. "Trust me. Girl might be easy on the eyes, but she really is crazy. And not in a good way. There's something seriously wrong with her head. Let me put it this way - anything you put in her, I wouldn't count on getting back."

"... oh." Shinji didn't know what to say to that. He shifted uncomfortably in his chair. "Um. She called you Q, right?"

"It's Quincy. Crazy girl likes her nicknames."

"Quincy. Okay." Shinji scratched the back of his head. "How long have you been here?"

"Hm. Let's see..." Quincy thought for a moment. "About three years, I think? It's been hard to keep track. I wound up on the wrong end of a grenade somewhere outside of Ngozi. Not sure how long they kept me sedated after that. Probably a few months, at least."

Shinji glanced at the mechanical arm. "Is that how you -"

Quincy nodded. "They just happened to need a guinea pig to test their latest implants on. Didn't bother asking me what I wanted, of course."

"Oh." Yet again, Shinji didn't really know what to say. He fell back on just stating the obvious. "You... don't seem to like it here very much."

Quincy snorted. "You think?"

Shinji shifted a little closer to the table and lowered his voice. "So... why don't you try to leave?"

"Because I can't. And not just because of the guards and the locks." The other boy tapped his chest. "Old snakes put something in here, too. They can shut off my heart at any time, no matter where I am. I wouldn't last a day before they triggered it."

A sudden burst of insight hit Shinji right between the eyes. Oh, God, he thought. It's not just the kid in the overalls. It's all of them, isn't it? They've all been messed with or experimented on somehow. This place isn't an apartment or a psych ward or even a prison.

This is a lab.

His face must've gone pale or something, because Quincy seemed to notice his reaction. "Are you starting to get it now?" he asked. "Don't let the nice furniture and the games fool you. This place is worse than any battlefield you've ever seen. And once you're in here, they don't let you back out."

Inner Sanctum.

Fuyutski came up retching as the cyborg pulled his head out of the ice bath. He didn't have anything left in his stomach to vomit, at least, and whatever probes they'd stuck into his skull at least seemed to be waterproof. Look at me, he thought morosely as his lungs spasmed against his ribs. Staying positive under stress. How'd that happen?

"Enough," the Frenchman snapped. Fuyutski could recognize his diction beneath the voice filter. "Let us focus on the handling protocols for the moment."

"Agreed." Up on her dais, the general leaned forward. "Why did you and Ikari allow the pilot handling protocols to be breached? Much less by this... thing, this Doctor creature. What could possibly possess you to take that kind of risk?"

Fuyutski finished coughing. "You'll... have to refresh my memory," he gasped. "We're talking about... the organized campaign of psychological abuse, yes?"

"Don't get smart with us," the American growled. "You know exactly what we're talking about."

"I'm just trying... to be clear." Fuyutski swallowed. "You'd have to ask Ikari. Perhaps the situation has gotten serious enough that... deliberately crippling our own fighters... no longer seems tenable."

"You're misrepresenting the protocols," SEELE 11 objected. "They were designed not only to keep the pilots under control, but to maximize their link with the Evangelions."

"Forgive me... if I fail to see the distinction," Fuyutski wheezed. "Tell me... I've always wondered. Back when these decisions were made... did anyone ever suggest that... just maybe... we might try making the children we're turning into gods happy? That they might actually be more effective that way? Not to mention... less likely to turn against us?"

"This is old news," the general said brusquely. "The matter was decided decades ago."

"The psychological stability of the pilots is secondary to their mission," the Russian agreed. "We need them to remain compliant with our will."

"Not to mention, the final ritual requires them to know despair," the British representative added. "Why else would they choose to end this world when we need them to?"

Fuyutski raised an eyebrow. "Perhaps... you could try explaining it to them?"

"Enough," the chairman said. "The scrolls are clear on this. To usher in the new age, the children must be untainted by the sin of their elders. Our ultimate victory will be impossible otherwise."

"If you idiots are quite finished debating scripture," the ninth monolith snapped, "might I point out that he never answered the important part of the question? I can see only one reason that Ikari would risk a valuable resource like the pilots. He wanted a secure channel of communications with the alien in order to formulate some kind of plot."

It was enough to nearly make Fuyutski laugh. The pain in his ribs, however, reminded him that wouldn't be the best of ideas. "Plotting... with the Doctor? Have you any idea what the man is like?"

"We're getting nowhere," the general said. "I believe the time has come for more invasive measures. Unless any of the circle is opposed?..."

The monoliths, for once, fell silent. She motioned to one of the cyborgs.

NERV Headquarters. Central Dogma. Outside of the Command Center.

"... so it has to be Izu Oshima." Kaji's voice sounded particularly tinny through Martha's cell phone. Triple-encrypting the call tended to have that effect. "It's close. I can be there within a few hours -"

"Don't be daft," the Doctor muttered. "We need you where you are. Let me draw the fire on this one."

"You sure? That's a lot of fire."

"Please. You think this is the first time I've had an entire planet after my head?" The Doctor grinned, even though there was no one there to see it. "I should be lucky it's just the one this time. Practically a holiday by my standards."

"If you say so." Kaji took on a more serious tone. "Just promise me you'll take care of Katsuragi, Doctor. If she gets implicated..."

"It won't come to that."

"... all right." Kaji still sounded reluctant. "I'll keep watching the usual channels. Good luck." He hung up.

The Doctor snapped the cell phone closed and thought for a moment. Right. That just left the commander to worry about. Not that he really expected Ikari Senior to try and stop him at this juncture, but it probably didn't hurt to be cautious. For all he knew, Mr. Father of the Year could decide he hadn't done enough to throw his son under the bus for one day...

... oh, bloody hell, this again? He grumbled under his breath and scratched the back of his right hand for the umpteenth time. In all seriousness, the scar hadn't given him this much trouble since the day he'd gotten it. Why act up like this now of all times?

Misato ducked into the stairwell. "Did he find it?" she asked quietly.

The Doctor nodded. "Izu Oshima, just off the coast. Seems there's an old GEHIRN base there that's seeing a bit too much traffic for a mothballed bunker. How's the cover story?"

"We're set. Makoto and Ritsuko are rigging the recorders for me. Everything should be fine as long as we're back by tonight."

"Brilliant." The Doctor rolled his shoulder. The one without the stab wound, that is. "Sounds like we're just waiting on the system cache now."

"Mmh." Misato stayed in place.

"... what?" The Doctor glanced at her. "Is there something else?"

"Just one," Misato said. "'Alloparental.'"

The Doctor flinched. Misato snorted and stifled a laugh, not even bothering to hide the smile on her face.

"Oh, ha ha. Very funny, I'm sure." The Doctor huffed and crossed his arms. "Where'd she'd even get that from, anyway? Well, not the word - I mean, that's just Rei for you, incredible vocabulary for an eleven-year-old any way you slice it - but still."

"Oh my God," Misato said gleefully. "I'm seriously going to have to spell this out for you, aren't I?"

"I have the feeling you're gonna no matter what I say."

"Doctor, you know what Shinji's relationship with his father is like. Of course he's going to fixate on the first role model he meets." An odd expression briefly flashed across Misato's face before her smile recovered. "I mean, he talks about you constantly. He spends more time at your place than he does at mine. Come on, he's literally dressing like you now!"

The Doctor sniffed. "Well, that's just good fashion sense, innit?"

"Ugh. You're hopeless." Misato shook her head. "All I'm saying is, it's a little late for dad shock, don't you think?"

Dad shock? Really? The Doctor shook his head. What did that even mean? Also, as a follow-up, why did that phrase sound oddly familiar? He felt the back of his right hand itch again. He reached once again for the progenator scar -

... oh.

Potential Asset Living Quarters.

Shinji could feel the bile rising in his throat. He pushed it back down for the moment. He still had questions. "So, um. Earlier, I saw this bald kid in, like, this gray work suit...?"

"Mmh. That's the Blank." Quincy picked a thicker needle out of the sewing kit. "Some Russian lab made them at one point. Every few months, they thaw a new one out and ship it over here for Suzie to boss around. They're crap in the field, but they handle grunt work okay."

Shinji tilted his head. "What's their name?"

"Doesn't have one," Quincy said. "No point in giving them one, either. They don't last too long without someone ordering them to eat and sleep. Try and get them to do anything on their own and they freak out."

That confirmed that, then. Shinji swallowed. "Well, that's not nightmarish or anything..."

Quincy just shrugged.

"What about Suzie? What's her deal?" Aside from being British Mini-Asuka, he mentally added.

"Eh, she's pretty simple," Quincy said. "Raised from the cradle to be a soldier, used a combat knife as a pacifier, that sort of thing. She likes to pretend she's an officer. Really, she's just a little girl trying to impress her grandma. She is pretty good with that mech she pilots, though. I'll give her that much."

"I thought you said you hated her."

"Eh. What's the point?" Quincy shrugged again. "She's a lab rat like the rest of us. She just hasn't realized it yet. Can't have her thinking she can order me around, that's all."

"Huh." Still a lot kinder than I would've expected, Shinji thought. Given the circumstances and all. "You're really nice for someone who's been through as much as you have."

Quincy let out a short, bitter laugh. "Is that what you think?"

"I'm just impressed, that's all." Shinji rubbed the back of his head. "That must take a lot of strength."

"Not really. I'm just filling in for Kay, anyway. Seems like the sort of thing he'd want me to do."

"Who's Kay?"

"The only decent person in this hellhole." Quincy checked over his last few stitches. "He's not here right now. Old men send him on a lot of solo errands. Seems to have some kind of pull with them. He's probably the only reason they haven't broken me down for parts or made me into one of those blockheads by now."

Shinji raised his eyebrows. "Are you serious?"

"Besides, costs me nothing to be polite." Quincy glanced at the door. "Any minute now, they're going to come in and take you to see the old men. And there's nothing either of us are gonna be able to do about it."

"Yeah, probably..." But I know someone else who could, Shinji thought.

Central Dogma. Dorsal Anterior Storage Area 32.

Finding an isolated spot for a quick think proved to be a bit more challenging than one might have expected, especially with all the security cameras around. Eventually, though, the Doctor found an out-of-the-way room full of mothballed radar consoles. He sat on one of the desks, looking down at the progenation machine scar.

"Old wounds, eh?"

"Mmh." He didn't even need to look up to know the Fifth was sitting next to him. Not quite as he remembered himself, oddly enough. Rather, he looked and sounded like he had the one time they'd met face to face, what with the time differential and Belgium and all. "Don't suppose you lot were behind this? The itching and all."

"No. I'm afraid not." The Fifth crossed his arms. "I honestly have no idea what any of that's about. If I had to guess, though... perhaps your friend Donna was right. Maybe that side of us isn't quite as dead and buried as we'd like to think."

The Doctor scowled. "... maybe it should be."

"Oh, come now. There's no need for that, is there?" The Fifth gave him an annoyed look. "I'd be the first to admit that our record's mixed, but it's hardly that bad. Especially compared to what the poor boy's had to work with before."

"Even with Adric?"

"Ah." The Fifth swallowed and looked away. "Yes, well... I'd rather thought that might be on your mind."

"Connection's obvious enough, don't you think? Talented. Light on social skills. Desperate, overwhelming need for approval. He's even from another universe."

"Mmh. Not nearly so much of a prig, mind you."

The Doctor quickly gave him a sharp look. "You said it, not me."

The Fifth chuckled. "Yes, well... it may not be kind. But then he did spend an awful lot of time going behind our back, didn't he? Not even the red-headed one has quite that much arrogance."

"Eh. Might just be a lack of opportunity there, let's be honest."

"True enough." The Fifth's expression grew serious again. "Looking back on it... I suppose that if I had to point to just one mistake I made back then, it's my presumption that there was time. Time to work on him, or for things to work themselves out. Or for Nyssa to get through to him. But that's the thing about time travel, isn't it? You always assume there's more just a TARDIS trip away."

"Wellllll, it's not just that." The Doctor sniffed. "Things really did feel so much more leisurely back then, didn't they?"

"Until they weren't."

"Eh. Fair play." The Doctor looked up at the ceiling. "I dunno. Maybe it'd be different if we were up to the usual. Running around in the TARDIS, traveling, the open road. Might feel a little more in our lane then."

"Perhaps." The Fifth shrugged. "Whatever the case, I don't think I'd count on having the luxury of time if I were you. We both know the clock is ticking."

"Yeah, well..." The Doctor stared off into space. "That's what it does."

"That's what what does?"

"Oh, sorry." The Doctor looked up as Misato walked in. "Just... thinking out loud, that's all."

"Yeah, well, c'mon." The captain had swapped out her usual dress for a black officer's coat and full body armor. She carried a riot helmet under one arm, her hair drawn back into a ponytail. "We're about to get started."

"Right." The Doctor stood up and dusted himself off. "Good thing, too. Sooner we've got Shinji out of there, the bet - oof." He winced and stopped short.

Misato noticed. "What? What was that?"

"Urrrgh." The Doctor ran a hand down his face. Of all the times... no helping it, though. Best to just deal with it while they still had breathing room here. "Nothing to worry about. Popped a nano-suture, that's all. Could you give me another mo here? Just need to switch out the dressing on the wound."

Ooh, he probably shouldn't have said that. "Wait, wound?!" Misato's eyes went wide. "You're injured?!"

He tried to backpedal. "It's nothing. Really, it's nothing. Just a scratch from the train earlier. If you just -"

"Like hell! Let me see it!"

Oh, so now this was a thing. Wizard.

Central Dogma. Pilot Ready Room.

Rei pressed the button on her cuff. The plug suit deflated and sized itself to fit her. She had not been ordered or asked to change her clothing. It did, however, strike her as a prudent measure, given the circumstances.

The plug suits were, after all, bulletproof. To a certain extent.

Dorsal Anterior Storage Area 32.

The Doctor sat impatiently on one of the radar console with his coat and suit jacket off, his dress shirt unbuttoned and peeled back over his shoulder. Misato pulled the bandages off of his skin and blanched. "Are you kidding me?!" she snapped. "This is huge! And - wait..." She felt the skin nearby the stab wound. "Why's it so cold?"

"That's normal," the Doctor said. "Just think of it as a reverse fever. Really, I can handle this on my own. I just need -"

"Yeah, well, you're not," Misato snapped. "Where's the bandages?"

He sighed. "Coat pocket. On the left."

She went into his coat and pulled out a small plastic box roughly the size of a hip flask, its mauve-colored front plate marked by strange writing that looked like the mutant offspring of hiragana and Sanskrit. Opening it up, she found a pair of gloves and a stack of sealed bandages in various sizes. Guess band-aids look the same no matter where you are in the universe, she thought.

Misato pulled on the gloves, which stretched like latex but looked and felt somewhat metallic to her. "So what's got you so worried?"

"Sorry?"

"About Shinji. It's cute and all, but I thought we didn't have to worry about them hurting a pilot."

"It's not physical damage I'm worried about, if that's what you're asking. And be careful with that," he snapped as she peeled open a bandage wrapper. "Those aren't calibrated for humans. You get anything from the active side on you, it's liable to take your skin clean off."

"Eugh. Got it." Misato made a face. "So are you talking about mental trauma, then? Or..."

"Sort of. It's - eh." The Doctor seemed to pause and reconsider. "S'not like I haven't been meaning to bring it up anyway. Suppose now's as good a time as any."

"What's that?" Misato carefully positioned the bandage over the wound, just to make sure it was big enough. (Urgh. It wasn't the width of the stab so much as its depth that got to her. She was amazed he could even move that arm.)

"Shinji's... wellllll, psychic's maybe a bit too strong of a word." The Doctor sniffed. "He's an empath, mostly. Picks up on people's emotions rather than their thoughts. He's sensitive - literally. Can't tell if he's always been that way, or if the Eva neural link stirred it up."

"Wait, really?" Misato raised an eyebrow. "That doesn't make sense. Shinji's told me before he has a hard time understanding other people."

"Well, it's not like it always works for him," the Doctor said. "Besides, knowing what other people are feeling doesn't tell him why they are, or give him any context. Figuring that part out takes a bit more work. Not to mention, up until recently, he hasn't had any way to tell the difference between what he's feeling versus what he's picking up from others. Try to imagine that one for a second." He stared off into space. "All the fear and despair of a city at war, filtering through your head. Feeling every bit of it as if it was your own..."

He sniffed again. "That's part of why he likes the TARDIS so much. Telepathic white noise. Gives him a break from all the hubbub."

"Okay, well, assuming that's true..." Misato tilted her head. "What's the risk here? Do you think the Committee might use it against him somehow?"

"Less that. It's more who they've stuck him with." The Doctor's expression turned grim. "Think about it. These are the children so damaged and unstable, not even Gendo Ikari was willing to risk dealing with them. That's saying something, don't you think?" He looked away. "No telling what Shinji might find if he digs too deeply into those heads. Or what learning about it might do to him."

Potential Asset Living Quarters.

He held back the nausea for as long as he could, but it couldn't last forever. Shinji vomited into the bathroom sink. (There went the granola bars from his second breakfast. Should've known better, Shinji thought bleakly.) Some of the sick, unfortunately, wound up on the sleeve of his suit jacket. He took it off and put it aside.

His left arm hurt. Almost as if he could feel scapels and saws digging into it, taking it apart, taking it away. Could feel gears working beneath his skin. (Is this why they put me in here? He wondered. To scare me? To show how much worse off they could make things for me? If so, he couldn't deny it was working...) He shivered and rubbed his hands up and down his upper arms. Ride it out, Shinji thought. Just ride it out.

Dorsal Anterior Storage Area 32.

"Okay. That should do it." The new bandage and dressing secure, Misato pulled off the gloves. "Where should I - hey." She looked down to where she'd put the old bandages. "Where did they..."

"It's all self-sterilizing." The Doctor buttoned up his dress shirt. "Once they've been used, they take themselves and whatever contaminants they've absorbed apart at the molecular level. Just put the gloves down and they'll do the same."

Misato blinked and placed the gloves on the radar console. After a moment, she felt a sudden wave of heat rise through the air. The gloves simply dissolved into nothingness, like a cloud of dust dissipating, leaving nothing but a small pile of ash behind. "... huh."

The Doctor pulled his blazer back on. "Right. Now that that's over with, can we finally -"

A door at the back of the room that Misato hadn't even noticed opened with a loud clang. "Gott, there you two are!" Asuka stood in the hatchway, clad in her plug suit and vaguely Celtic-themed war paint. "C'mon. Wondergirl says everything's ready."

Misato raised an eyebrow. "And where do you think you're going?"

"Uh, with you? Duh?"

"Not with THAT you're not, young lady!" the Doctor snapped. He pointed to the Howa assault rifle slung over Asuka's shoulder. "Put that thing away before you hurt someone! And aren't you supposed to be on bed rest?"

"Ugh. I knew you were going to be like this..." Asuka rolled her eyes. "Okay, one, relax, gramps. I'm only bringing gel rounds with me. If you want to yell at someone, Misato's the one bringing real bullets."

"That's not -"

"Two," Asuka continued, cutting him off. "You need all the help you can get. If both me and Wondergirl are along for the ride, they practically have to take it easy on you. And three, I've got some old scores to settle with Makinami. So yeah, I'm going. Now are we gonna get moving here or what?" She turned and climbed up the ladder running down the wall directly behind her.

The two adults exchanged glances. "She's right, you know," Misato said. "And I am going in armed. I'll have to be if you want me to hold the exit."

"Nurghftfh." The Doctor sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Just try to keep it down to suppressive fire, please? I'm starting to regret this plan already..."

He looked back over to the open doorway. "... does that feel right to you?"

"Does what?"

"Her just walking off what happened to her. After only a few days, no less."

Misato shrugged. "Everyone processes trauma in their own way. If she says she's fine, I'm not going to try and second-guess her."

"Maybe..." The Doctor stared off into space. "Still... something feels off. Almost like..."

"Oi! Spaceman!" Asuka stuck her head back down the hatchway above the ladder. "What'd I just say?! Let's move it already!"

She vanished once again into the space beyond the ceiling.

The Doctor let out a deep sign and ran a hand through his hair. "Donna," he groaned under his breath. "Of course she got Donna..." He seemed irritated, almost to the point of absurdly horrified. But Misato couldn't help but notice the small, wistful smile on his face, though she wasn't quite sure how to interpret it.

"So... the commander's office?" she asked after a small pause.

He nodded. "The commander's office."

Potential Asset Living Quarters.

C'mon, Shinji told himself. Just push the button already. The button, unfortunately, remained unpressed. He couldn't even bring himself to move his hand in that direction.

He'd used his needed bathroom break as an excuse to go upstairs. Quincy had rolled his eyes, but hadn't said anything. The bathroom proved to be mostly identical to the one on the first floor, albeit with a standing shower and a few different cosmetic products strewn about on the floor. Of the other doors on the upper level, three were locked. One had been entirely empty, just a bare metal chamber without so much as a scrap of furniture. Not even a bed.

Which left him with the final option - the door marked MARI'S ROOM in a cutesy, childish scrawl, surrounded by a carefully drawn border of vines, flowers, and knives. Shinji could hear synth music with a vaguely familiar beat coming from somewhere beyond the threshold.

Just do it already, he thought to himself. What if there's something useful in there? It's what the Doctor would do. Yeah, well, part of him countered, he's way more difficult to hurt than we are! And you heard Quincy! What do you think she could do to us if she feels like it?! The other voice had a point, Shinji had to admit. Sure, he could just run for it if things turned bad. But there was a certain amount of sense in making sure he didn't have anything to run from in the first place...

Regardless, he probably needed to just make up his mind already. He'd been standing frozen outside of the door for at least five minutes.

He was about to give up and go back downstairs when he... felt something from beyond the door. That. What was that? Shinji blinked and cocked his head, as if trying to hear a distant sound. That wasn't coming from him, was it? No... no. At least he didn't think so? Though something about it did feel kind of familiar...

He hesitantly reached out and knocked on the door. When he didn't hear a response, he pressed the button to the side. The door slid open. He stepped inside.

Pilot Ready Room.

That only left the handgun. Rei first removed and examined the magazine before slotting it back in place. Then she drew back the slide and observed the chamber. Both totally empty, as expected.

(She had no need nor any interest in possessing such a device. Unfortunately, she had discovered that humans tended to underestimate her current form's abilities, allegedly due to such factors as height and weight. She had therefore reluctantly taken on the empty handgun as a kind of visual prop, intended to communicate the appropriate level of threat in scenarios where forcing compliance might be necessary. She usually tried to avoid resorting to such measures. Immoderate use of the device in the past had led to... issues. But if the captain and the Second Child deemed such a show of force as being appropriate to the situation...)

She placed the gun inside of its holster, then clipped the attached belt around her waist. Both the device and its trappings clashed with the plug suit's color. Despite being made of a polymer material, the holster and belt had been - perhaps unnecessarily - given the color and texture of black leather.

(Another matter she found confusing. Humans feared death. Yet she had observed they also tended to strangely fetishize machines expressly designed to kill them - from the handgun to military aircraft to even the Evangelions. A contradiction. She would have to ask the Doctor about it at some point.)

She looked at the clock. It was time.

Potential Asset Living Quarters. Mari's Room.

"Um, hello?" Shinji called out. "Is it okay if I come in?" It occurred to him that he probably should have asked that before he stepped into the room. "S-sorry to intrude," he hastily added as the door swished shut behind him.

He found himself surrounded by books. Piles and piles of books, stacked higher than he was tall, held in place by cloth netting secured to the floor and ceiling. It reminded him a little of the Doctor's library, except somehow even less organized. The pile of hardcovers in front of him featured - just at a glance - pre-Impact atlases, fairy tale collections, ancient cookbooks, and two seemingly identical copies of Lois Lowry's The Giver. Somewhere else in the room, that one drummer that the international rock station loved - what was his name, Bill something? - sang cheerfully about an invisible force reaching in and slowly tearing him apart.

"... hello?" Shinji stepped further into the room, maneuvering awkwardly between the book stacks and a bag of yellowed paperbacks hanging from the ceiling. He felt something snap beneath his foot. He looked down and raised his shoe. A half-crushed plastic syringe lay on the carpeted floor, alongside a half-dozen gleaming metal needles. Wokay, Shinji thought, his head spinning. Glad I decided to keep the sneakers on after all...

His vision went black. "Guess who," Mari whispered.

Shinji's brain, predictably, locked up. "Um," he said weakly.

"I'll give you a hint. Glasses... big boobs... not wearing anything at the moment..."

Before Shinji could even process that sentence on a conscious level, his body automatically leapt free of the hands over his eyes and turned around, his face bright red. Mari burst out laughing. She was, of course, dressed in a pair of sweatpants and an oversized Count Duckula t-shirt. "Ohmigod, your face..."

Shinji couldn't help but smirk a little himself. "Yeah, okay..."

"You're funny. C'mon." She grabbed him by the sleeve and pulled him along, dancing in her bare feet over the occasional needle. "Watch the stickies," she added casually. "Suzi tries to sneak in here sometimes. I like to keep her on her toes."

She guided him out of the book piles into the other half of the room. Here he found a bunk bed with pink and white sheets, and a scratched-up desk, and a wireframe swivel chair bolted to the floor beneath the carpet. Two decrepit bookshelves against the wall held piles of improperly folded clothes. A torn-up martial arts dummy - consisting of a padded head and torso set up on a weighted stand - sat in the room's corner, a needle driven neatly through the center of each of its eyes. The walls were covered with layers of posters and graffiti and cut-up magazines and what Shinji really hoped was red paint.

Mari pressed the stop button on the venerable boombox on the floor with her toe, then plopped down into the lower bunk. "So!" she said brightly.

Shinji sat down in the swivel chair next to the desk. "So...?"

"So piloting." Mari leaned forward, her canine teeth shining. "I want to know all about it. Tell me - is it amazing or is it incredible?!"

"Uh..." Shinji flashed back to his first battle, and being trapped in the endless dark, and holding up Sahaquiel, and the whole Unit Zero thing. "I... think I've had what you could call a mixed experience."

"Oh, come on, though!" Mari swung her legs onto the bed and flipped over, ending up on her back with her head bent back over the edge of the mattress. Shinji tried to ignore her somewhat obvious lack of a bra and failed. "Doesn't it just feel incredible when you're synchronized? All that raw power at your fingertips? Twelve thousand plates of fortified armor responding to your every twitch? Mmhh!" That final sound came out somewhere between a satisfied grunt and a moan.

Shinji felt his face redden again. You can do this, he told himself. It's just like talking to Asuka in her room back home, okay? With maybe just a slightly higher chance of getting murdered. "How much did they tell you?"

"Pretty much everything. I made it up to the Pribnow box before they cut me."

"You know that you feel everything the Eva feels, right?"

"Oh, but that just makes it even better." She rolled over onto her front and grinned wildly. "Feeling the actual pain of combat? Like it's your fist hitting their face? Only you're thirty stories tall? Urrrrrgh I am so jealous! You have no idea." She kicked her legs in frustration.

"... sure." Shinji shifted his eyes away from her. His eyes fell on yet another needle lying close to the edge of the desk. He took it and held it up. "Hey, why do you have so many of these around?"

"Oh, I use heroin."

Shinji's eyes went wide. "Wait, really?!"

"No." Mari snickered. "You're way too easy to mess with, dude. You know that, right?"

He gave her a sheepish smile and rubbed the back of his head. "Yeah, I get that a lot."

"You're just like a puppy, aren't you?" Mari turned over onto her side. She propped up her head on her elbow. "Just a dumb little puppy. Waiting for someone to put a collar on you and take you for a walk."

"I don't know. Kinda feel like I've got a few too many collars on, if anything." Shinji spotted a flip phone lying amidst the various things set out on the desk. He picked it up and glanced at its front. No signal, of course. She had a UK phone number, though, he noticed. Just nine digits, not counting the code at the beginning, like the Doctor's. "So, needles?"

"Right, right." Mari waved her hand. "I signed up for this experimental drug thingy they're doing. They give me a shot to take every other day. Hormones and steroids and junk. It's supposed to make me grow up faster."

Shinji blinked. "Why would you do that?"

"They said it would make my boobs bigger, duh!" She grinned and cupped her chest. "What do you think? Is it working?"

He immediately panicked. "I - I - u-uh - I wouldn't know?"

Mari pouted. "Aww. You're no fun."

"S-sorry." Shinji tried to rally, blushing furiously. "Um. But - the steroids and everything... isn't that kind of bad for you?"

"Who cares?" She shrugged and laid back. "World's gonna end any day now, right? Can't ruin a future I don't have."

"Y-yeah, about that." Shinji tilted his head. "Do you know the people you're working for are - like - deliberately trying to cause that?"

"Meh." She waved her hand dismissively.

Shinji blinked. "... meh?"

"Meh." Mari sighed. "... bored."

"So... let me get this straight." Shinji leaned forward. "They're planning on killing everyone in the world. Including you. And you're seriously okay with that?"

"Hey." Mari looked over at him. "What does your blood smell like?"

"My... what?" He blinked again. "Uh... like blood, I guess? Kind of copper-y? Why?"

"Wanna find out?" Mari grinned. She reached back under her pillow and pulled out an empty syringe with a needle fitted in place. She rose from the bed, a predatory look in her eyes.

NERV Headquarters. Commander's Office.

The lights in the room were dimmed when the Doctor entered this time. He found the commander in the same place as always, several holograms of photographed documents hanging over his desk. The elder Ikari sighed by way of greeting. "Yes, Doctor? What is it now?"

"I'm gonna ask you this one last time." The Doctor tried to keep the bile out of his voice. He mostly failed. "To do something - anything - for your son."

"And I will respond as I did before," the commander said. "I fully intend to have Shinji and Fuyutski returned as soon as possible. But I cannot afford to act without caution."

"That's not good enough." The Doctor slammed his palm down on the desk for emphasis. As he did, he quietly pointed the sonic at the desk with his off hand, concealed behind the sway of his coat, and activated it for a brief second. Right, he thought. That should do it. Now to meet up with the girls.

The commander gave him an unimpressed glare. "Did you really come up here just to repeat yourself, Doctor? Believe it or not, I do have actual work to attend to."

"Oh, well, then! Good to know you have your priorities in order," the Doctor snapped. "What could possibly be more important than your only son's well-being? It's not like - wait."

He squinted at the largest of the images hanging in the air. "'Sixteen are they in number; they number eight pairs of two'... Palestinian Aramaic, circa first century. Carbon ink on calf-skin parchment. Is this from the Dead Sea Scrolls?" He pulled out the brainy specs.

The commander raised his eyebrows. "You can read them?"

"I can read everything. 'First of the host is Lilith, she who fell'..." The Doctor skimmed over the rest of the text. "'Sahaquiel shall come, the roving eye, third of the host... with a terrible roar, he shall fall upon the earth and crush all that he perceives. His partner in syzygy, Arael, shall come, the listening ear, cruel and careful...' Wait, this is your source on the Angels? The Essenes?! Why would you listen to them? They were a book club!"

"We have our reasons."

"Don't get me wrong, they're good people," the Doctor added. "But I wouldn't exactly call them experts in anything outside of the latest spiritual trends. Just a bunch of monks and exiled priests squatting in an abandoned villa and swapping mystic texts at night... bit like Burning Man, really, except with chastity oaths. Still, why would you stake the entire world on their say-so?"

"I will admit, our dependence on the Scrolls has been... frustrating at times." The commander waved his hand. Another image - this one of a crumbling fragment of papyrus - enlarged and leapt to the front of the stack. "Even our knowledge of the texts is far from complete. Take this item, for instance. Most of it was accidentally destroyed by improper handling. Recovering any useful data from it at all is next to impossible."

"'Then Ayin and the sorcerer-kings fled eastward from Kairost to the mountains of Sark," the Doctor read out loud. "'Their cities'... something, something, 'devastation', something... 'And the land of Kherom was lost to them.'"

The commander narrowed his eyes. "Wait... that root means east?"

"It's a whatchamacallit, an abbreviation," the Doctor said distractedly. "Means 'counter to the temple.' Common saying in the region back then. Kind of an oblique way of reminding people which direction they were supposed to be praying to. And since Jerusalem's west of Qumran..."

"I see." The commander adjusted his glasses. "Impressive."

The Doctor rubbed his eyes. "There's something else, though," he muttered. "Something I'm missing... the papyrus? The ink? No... more like..."

He opened his eyes and looked at the fragment again. "... oh."

"Doctor?" The commander leaned forward urgently. "What is it? What do you see?"

The Doctor carefully folded up his glasses and stowed them in his coat. He turned to the commander, a serious expression on his face. "The day's gonna come," he said quietly, "where you really will wish you'd spent less time on these moldy texts and more with your son. Remember that."

With that, he turned and strode out of the office.

Mari's Room.

"Waitwaitwaitwaitwait -" Shinji backed up against the desk as Mari advanced on him. His hand landed on some kind of small speaker or radio, which immediately began to hiss. He quickly shut it off. "C-can we talk about this?"

"Aww, c'mon, puppy." Mari's grin widened as she came towards him, syringe in hand. "It's just a little sting."

Time to run? Time to run, Shinji thought, as he dodged past Mari and headed for the book stacks. But agh, why do I have to suck so much? The Doctor would've known exactly what to say here. And I didn't even get to talk to her about the -

An idea suddenly popped into his head.

Shinji skidded to a halt and turned back towards Mari. As she'd been right on his tail, she bounced off him and stepped back, wincing and rubbing her nose. "I've got it," he said. "Let's play a game. G-games aren't boring, right?"

Mari cocked her head. "I'm listening."

"The reason I came in here is that, earlier, you seemed... kinda sad." Which was putting it lightly, Shinji thought. What he'd sensed behind the door earlier had felt like the lowest, most miserable points of his own life. Like how he'd been right before he'd met the Doctor.

Mari outright laughed. "Me? Dude, have you even met me?"

"Betcha I'm right," Shinji insisted. "In fact, I bet you I can even figure out why you're sad. If I lose, then you can take my blood or whatever. I won't run."

"And if you win?" Mari sidled up to him, more than just a little too close for comfort. "What do you get?"

"The t-truth." Shinji swallowed. "You have to tell me the whole truth about whatever's bothering you."

"That's it?"

"That's it."

She studied him for a second, then smirked and pushed back her glasses. "Okay, puppy. You're on."

"I get three questions to help narrow it down, okay?" That'd leave him with some room for error, at least. "That work for you?"

"Hmm." Mari seemed to consider it for a second. "No."

Uh-oh. "... no?"

"Shhhh." She put a single finger on his lips. "One. You get one question."

"O-one?!" he squeaked, his voice cracking.

"And you've got, oh, thirty seconds to ask it." Mari grinned, a wicked gleam in her eye. "Better make it count, puppy."

She walked away from him, humming, placing herself in between him and the door.

Oh, goddammit, Shinji thought as she circled him. Why didn't I just run? Why did I have to open my big mouth? And why does she have to be so frigging nuts and so frigging cute somehow at the same time?! That's so not fair! And why is that a theme for me these days?! Am I trying to get myself killed?! It makes -

No, wait. Focus. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Remember what the Doctor said. Lower the barriers. Let yourself feel. Listen - to the emotions, to your own subconscious, to the world around you. To the data you've already observed. Let them all flow through you like a river. And if you watch the stream carefully enough, you might just be able to see...

To see...

Shinji opened his eyes. "Okay."

"And now it seems, I'm falling, falling for her," Mari sung under her breath, idly half-twirling across the needle-strewn floor. "She seems to have - huh? Oh, right." She turned to him expectantly, syringe in hand.

Shinji raised his hand and pointed at the top bunk. He looked Mari in the eye.

"Whose bed was that?"

He felt the shift within her immediately - from a sort of apathetic nothingness to pure killing intent, as fierce and as cold as a winter sun. Shinji froze. He could almost see the gears turning in her head, calculating the best way to end him - her empty eyes vanishing behind her glasses, her hand tightening around the syringe...

She stepped back and plopped down into the wireframe chair. "... okay. You're good," Mari admitted. She ran her hands through her hair, the darkness receding from her as suddenly as it had come. "Whatever."

Shinji let out the breath he'd been holding in. He crossed over to the bunk bed and leaned against its side. "So..."

"So it was my brother's." Mari shifted her eyes away. "He used to sleep there when we were kids."

Everything clicked together inside Shinji's head. Not just the bunk bed - the oversized t-shirt. The used furniture. The boombox and its cassette tape of thirty-year-old music. All mementos, objects held close to try and preserve a connection that no longer existed. Just like Father's tape player, he thought. No wonder it felt so familiar to him. "Is he..."

She nodded. "He's gone. They said it was an accident. But, you know. That's what they always say.

"Accident." She tapped her finger against the point of the syringe needle, as if testing its sharpness. "No more four-eyed mum, buying out every used bookstore 'cuz she wants to read every single one in the world. Even though she knows it's impossible and there's no space. Accident." She tapped the needle again. "No more military nerd father, dragging us to museums and reading every stupid little sign. Accident." Tap. "No more big brother, bossing me around, keeping me out of trouble. Keeping me human, I guess."

"All of them, huh," Shinji said softly. He could sort of feel it now - the sense of void in the room, of empty spaces that had once held those unspeakably important. So intense that he could almost feel it coming out of the walls.

"All of them." She shrugged and leaned her head back. "And who knows, maybe they really were accidents. Or maybe the old snakes decided they didn't need them anymore. It's all the same to me."

He tilted his head. "Is it?"

"I mean, it's like - if they're not here, what's the point, you know?" Mari raised her head and looked him in the eye. "The thing is - they're the only ones who could ever make me feel anything. Anything real, you know? They were all I've ever been able to care about. And it's not like I haven't tried. I can't. I literally can't care. Not even when I want to.

"So... that's why it doesn't matter to me if the world ends or whatever." She tossed the syringe in the air above her and caught it on the way down. "Let the fucker burn, why not. And yeah, sure, I'll even do what the old men say, as long as it seems like fun. It's better than rotting away in here.

"Basically... I'm already dead. I died when Kobu did. I'm just trying to have a little fun while I wait for the meat to catch up. You know?"

For the first time in the conversation, Shinji knew exactly what the Doctor would say. "I don't know if I buy that."

She sighed. "If you're talking about Q and the rest - I can sorta pretend to care when I need to? Like when I need to get on with people or whatever. But it's not the same."

"No, I get that. Or at least I think I do." Shinji rubbed the back of his head. "What I mean is, I don't buy that you're really dead inside. Or that you can't come back. It's a big world, right? How do you know there isn't someone or something out there that could make you care again? Care for real, I mean." She raised her head, listening to him. "All that you can really say for sure is that, whatever it is, it's not in here, right?" Shinji motioned to the walls. "Until you go outside and look, you'll never know."

Mari shook her head with a sad little smile. "There's no leaving here. Not for me."

Shinji tried for a gutsy, Doctor-y sort of smirk. "Yeah, well. Maybe that's just what they want you to think."

She cocked her head to the side and narrowed her eyes, studying his face. Shinji felt himself blush again. He quickly looked away. "I m-mean... I can't promise anything, right? And I'm not saying it'll be easy. And - oh, um, it'd probably help if you don't, like, hurt anyone? That's kind of a red flag for most people, so -"

He smelled something sweet. When he looked up, Mari was standing right in front of him.

Shinji's eyes went wide. Oh, God, was she back on the whole blood thing? "Wait, I -"

Mari leaned in and kissed him.

Shinji's brain immediately threw several bewildered errors and crashed. The moment seemed to last less than a heartbeat to him. The next thing he knew, Mari stepped back away from him, a thoughtful expression on her face.

"Hmm." She opened her eyes. "... nah. Nothing."

"... huh?" Shinji tried to say. It came out more as a kind of dazed whimper.

"It ain't you, chief." Mari shrugged and adjusted her glasses. "Sorry."

"Oh." His brain finally reactivated and spat out several conclusions. "Oh, I didn't mean - like - me. I-I wasn't trying to - I just meant, like, in general..."

Mari just smirked at him. The expression faded as she tilted her head and studied his face again. "You're dangerous," she said. "You know that, right?"

"I'm - me?" Shinji blinked. "Have you even met me?"

She snorted, then turned away. "You should probably go," she said. "I haven't talked to someone like this in a really long time. And I'm kinda feeling like I really, really want to tear something apart? You probably don't want to be here when that happens."

Her voice was calm, but Shinji could hear something building inside of her. Something sharp and angry. He nodded slowly. "Okay."

He shuffled off towards the exit. He turned back at the door. "Hey, Mari?" he said. "Good luck. I mean it."

She didn't answer. He could just barely see her through the book stacks, her back turned towards him. She seemed to Shinji to look small and alone, in a way he couldn't have imagined earlier in the day. He pressed the button and stepped out the open door, leaving her in what he could only hope would someday be a kind of peace.

AUTHOR'S NOTES

So... I'm back. Sorry for worrying all of you. The Trump years were... difficult for me, though no more than I'm sure they were for everyone else. 2020 being, of course, a particular standout, not that we're quite out of that particular mess yet. I'm okay in terms of physical health, holding in there mentally. I just needed to walk away for a bit. Damned if I can say why.

If you told me ten years ago that I'd still be trying to write this fic after all these years, I'd be... immensely disappointed in myself, actually, for a few different reasons I can name. For one thing, I definitely never wanted to be writing this anywhere past 2015, i.e. the year it's actually set in. I came up with this as a quick and dirty project, something I could just write and have fun with without worrying about editing or consistency or anything. Instead, I've let myself get tripped up time and again by my own perfectionism. Like I just can't let myself be happy tossing out anything that - to me - feels substandard. It's stupid, and I know it's stupid. But somehow I just can't seem to kick that way of thinking.

I can even point to the specific pain point in this chapter I got stuck on four years ago (it hurts to write that number): that damned scene with Mari. No matter what I tried, I just couldn't find a way to write it that felt satisfying to me. I even resorted to found poetry back in 2019 to try and make things work, without any luck. Then Eva 3.0+1.0 came out and made something finally click. Gave me just a little bit more to work off of, I guess? Whatever it was, it finally got the gears turning. Guess that's my equivalent of that one scene Anno spent a full year reanimating in CGI...

(It also didn't help that I front-loaded nearly all of the exposition for the episode into this one part. I can only hope it reads easier than it felt to write it.)

About Mari (spoiler warning for 3.0+1.0 for the rest of this paragraph): needless to say, the version of the character I wrote here is substantially different from what we wound up seeing in the films. I have a lot of thoughts on Eva 3.0+1.0 that are probably better discussed elsewhere. So for the moment, I'm just going to point out two key factors that led to me writing her this way: first, I was working off of what turned out to be an incorrect assumption - namely, that Mari was the same age as the other pilots as of 2.0, which in context made how okay she seemed with the whole child soldier thing a little creepy to me. And second, I already have ONE mysterious wanderer character trying to change things for the better in this fic, thank you. That slot's full up. Of course, I'm also doing my best to write her with some sympathy, in spite of this version's established flaws. Hopefully, that comes through in the prose.

The song Mari's listening to, by the way, is "Invisible Touch" by Genesis, featuring lead vocalist/drummer Phil Collins. (Who at least at one point was the darling of American soft rock radio, as Shinji mentions.) Part of my long-standing attempts to get into the characters' heads via music.

Speaking of that scene, I finally got to drop a minor bombshell I've been sitting on for a very long time, which... probably isn't all that much of a surprise, really? I've been trying to hint at Shinji having some degree of psychic ability for a while. The Doctor even briefly talked about it directly way back in Episode 6. Hopefully, that explains some things, like how Shinji knew Rei was in trouble from three stories away back in Episode 5. On top of psychic powers being a well-established feature of the Whoverse (see in particular the Series 7 episode "Hide"), it also fits with what we see in Evangelion canon. For example: Shinji's ability to pilot without wearing nerve clips or a plug suit (which one might otherwise assume are necessary components), his "Rei visions," Toji seeing him on the "hell train" while unconscious, etc. So there's some precedent here, to the point that, for all I know, everyone just takes Shinji being a telepath or a psychic of some kind for granted. What do you think? Let me know in the comments.

Wow, did the nickname "Q" seem fairly innocent just a few short years ago. Context changes on you fast. Kinda doubt the 8chan guy is an African child soldier, though. Or any sort of soldier at all, probably, no matter how he billed himself.

Who continuity notes: the scar on the Doctor's right hand is the one left by the progenation machine that created Jenny in the series 4 episode "The Doctor's Daughter." I've been having it itch whenever he's been feeling particularly parental.

The meeting between the Tenth and Fifth Doctors mentioned here occured in the 2007 Children in Need Special "Time Crash." The whole "time differential" thing is how they handwaved Peter Davidson looking older. Adric was a companion of the Fourth and Fifth Doctors, an arrogant teen genius character somewhat infamous in the fandom for how badly he was mishandled by the writing team of the time. (His habit of betraying the Doctor to side with the villain in certain serials did little to endear him to the audience, it seems.) His death in the 1982 episode "Earthshock" nonetheless weighed heavily on the Fifth, whose last act before regenerating was to speak Adric's name.

Finally, the first aid kit Misato remarks on might actually be from closer to home than she realizes. Well, sort of, anyway. The (otherwise frankly terrible) Series 9 episode "Sleep No More" mentions a merger between India and Japan as part of an unspecified catastrophe sometime around the 38th century. We can assume it was made and marketed specifically for non-humans, though, due to what the Doctor says and the fact that it's mauve instead of red.

There's really not that much more to say. If you're still reading this, in spite of everything, thank you for sticking with me. It means a lot to me. (Shoutout in particular to XanderKH from Evageeks, who commissioned the incredible new cover art on the TV Tropes page last year!) Whether or not I'm back for good, we'll have to see. At the very least, though, I intend to finish out this episode. I've always felt guilty about leaving things off in the middle like I did. Besides, we're on the edge of another big reveal here that I've always wanted to get out of my system.

That's it. Again... thanks.