You Wish! Productions presents...
Neon Genesis Evangelion: Cross
By: Blue Taboo
Chapter 9- A Chance to Love You
Shinji woke up, not to the sound of his alarm clock and the first light streaming in through his tiny window, but to darkness and a soft sound coming from the next room. At first, he wasn't quite sure what it was, as he lie motionless in under the cool sheets, but then it dawned on him. Someone was crying. At first it dawned on him that it could be Asuka, but it just didn't seem like her. Then again, nothing about her was really the same anymore. He listened for a few moments longer and the crying continued and he could've sworn someone else was whispering. He wondered if it was all part of a realistic dream or something, if he wasn't quite awake, but it continued on to the point where his curiosity got the better of him.
He approached the door to the room inhabited by Asuka and Rei and cautiously
cracked it open.
"The images..." a soft voice, probably belonging to Rei, trailed
off.
"They're not real," another whispered, bolder but still quiet,
"It happens to me all the time. Just try to forget about, okay? You're
making me upset and you're crying."
"It is an experience I did not wish to remember, but in this vision
it came..."
"It's called a dream, Rei. Though I'd classify this one as a nightmare.
I take it you'd never had a dream before?"
"No, I had not. Is that strange?" Her voice was more calm, loosing
the strange emotional outburst that Rei possessed very rarely.
"A little, but I've heard of people who don't dream before, and even
for me it doesn't always happen every night. I have nightmares most of the
time, though..."
"I feel...what do you call it? Is it sympathy?"
"I don't need your pity."
"But I've experienced it now and I understand that it is...upsetting..."
There was silence for a little while and then a pair of sky blue eyes that
belonged to the figure immersed in blue, even with blue pajamas, wandered
over to the crack in the door and caught a pair of blue eyes of a much darker
shade.
Shinji knew he'd been seen and he feared death from Asuka and/or an embarrassing
line of questioning from Rei. However, he got neither. He stood unable to
move, petrified by the being's very lack of reaction. She just kept looking
into his eyes and after a while, he brought himself out of his fear and
read the look. She, no, they were acknowledging him so silently and so precisely
saying without words, "So you do care...", and almost smiling.
The look was faceted in two, almost having a different feel from either
eye, but not quite. The two female pilots now shared so much that, at that
time, they both looked out from those eyes and had their separate, but similar
messages heard. The boy could nearly invision the boisterous red-head's
voice softening and saying, "You idiot...do you know how much this
means to me?". At the same time it was almost as if Rei was standing
beside him and saying, "Tears, so this is their purpose, to alert others
of pain. Thank you, Ikari-kun..."
None of them would remember how or when that moment ended, but before they
knew it they were asleep again. No nightmares would come again that night.
The next morning began as usual. Shinji was the first to wake up, the subtle events of the previous night nagging at the back of his brain. He tried to ignore them as he showered and went about his daily routine. As he finished the apartment still remained silent and he frowned. Usually, at this time on a Monday morning, Asuka would have already yelled at him for using the bathroom too long and demanded that he make breakfast so it would be ready for her when she was done. Well, it didn't seem that she would be going to school today, but he made breakfast for four anyway, three human bodies and a penguin that was. Misato stumbled out as he was finishing up and did something that nearly made Shinji spill boiling soup all over himself. She actually went for the can of instant coffee and not her morning beer. Even PenPen, who had just came back in from getting the paper so he could read the funnies, was stunned by her break in routine.
"What happened to a 'traditional breakfast'?!" the boy beseeched
in shock.
"Gee, Shinji," the Major mumbled, "I thought you'd approve..."
"Well...um...I do, but it's just...Thank you, Misato-san. I really
appreciate it..." he stammered.
"Well, I figured it would give you one less thing to worry about. That's
something that no one around here really needs right now..." She put
a mug of water in the microwave for her coffee.
He nodded in response and started to set the table while the soup cooled.
"Are you going to wake them up?" Misato asked while his head was
down.
He looked up. "Huh?"
"You're setting three places. I take it that you were going to wake
them up for breakfast?" she inquired with a grin.
"Well, yeah...They shouldn't have to make their own breakfast or wake
up to an empty apartment...no offense PenPen..."
The penguin warked in response and Shinji set down his sardines to prove
his statement.
Misato laughed. "You do too much sometimes, Shinji. Do you really care
about what other people think so much?"
He shrugged. "I...guess..."
She laughed again and got her mug of now hot water from the microwave. "Just
go wake them up, silly..."
"O-okay." She had him blushing as usual.
He turned and left as she finished preparing her coffee. Misato took a sip
of the stuff and said to PenPen, "I think this is the first time I've
ever had this when I was sober. It's not too bad actually..."
Shinji nudged the door open a crack again. "Asuka...Rei..." he called gently, "Are you awake?"
He couldn't see anything because the blinds had been closed, making the
room dark, so he opened the door a little more.
He found the girl's figure tangled in her sheets, with a little smile on
her face.
Just as others were waking, Doctor Akagi Ritsuko was coming to the end of another night shift. Her office was littered with cigarettes, cups half full of cold coffee, and countless printouts of information on the experiment that had caused the current state of the First and Second Children. She had been up all night, thinking and thinking. She had constructed the basic idea for the experiment to reverse what had been done, but she still didn't completely understand what had happened to cause the two pilots to merge. Theoretically, they shouldn't have survived the process, or at least not have returned to human form. Nevertheless, this was not the primary concern of the bleached-blonde scientist. She had been trying to solve the mystery of the tiny cuts that appeared all over Asuka and Rei's shared body.
They say that emotions can drive intelligence, and Ritsuko was now experiencing
that. She felt so guilty over all she had done. Before, she hadn't even
realized the atrocities she had committed against the Children, herself,
and mankind in general, but now that their effect had become so immense,
she saw now that what she had been doing ever since she decided to follow
in her mother's footsteps was wrong.
"Their AT fields didn't just merge...They shattered...The wounds are
pieces of the light of the soul! This is no proof of your instrumentality,
Ikari..."
And with that, she began the long process of fixing her mistakes in attempt
to preserve her own sanity and free a few children from the prison of a
world just waiting for the Apocalypse.
The two female pilots woke up with little protest from Asuka and joined their roommates for breakfast. They chatted while eating, but nothing of particular importance or interest caught Shinji's ear, so he thought and came up with an idea. Maybe he should stay here for the day, just so things would remain calm and the girls could have some company? He'd ask Misato when Asuka and Rei had gone off to shower.
"So how's Kaji doing? It seems like I haven't seen him in a long time..."
"It's only been about a week, Asuka..."
Commander Ikari Gendo stood before the violet behemoth that was Eva Unit 01, staring intently into its darkened, lifeless eyes for a few moments before he began to speak. "Soon, very soon, Yui. We can be together now that I have discovered a way to bypass SEELE's plans. We no longer have to adhere to the schedule those old fools rely on so much. You might even find it amusing how I've ruined their sense of security, but soon they will retaliate, and we must be prepared. I fear that Akagi has caught onto the true nature of my discovery, but that is no matter. She can be easily silenced. Soon, my love, it is only a matter of time..."
There was silence as the man almost expected a response from the giant humanoid,
but it was still as usual. The person he was addressing never responded
since the day she disappeared, but that didn't matter to him. He spoke with
her as if she were still there, and listening to him with her warm smile.
Most would see it like a person talking to a wall, or another object that
had no ability to respond, but Ikari Gendo didn't. He was best defined as
a man obsessed, obsessed with that which was eternally lost, to God, Satan,
or maybe just death.
"Hey, Misato," Shinji began as he heard the water in the shower beginning to run, "Do you think it would be all right if I stayed home today?"
"Do you still feel weird, or is it because you don't want to have to
lie to your friends?" she asked, her back turned to him as she grabbed
her flight jacket from its position sprawled on the floor of her room.
"Well, I guess I hadn't thought about my friends...but...I just thought
that Asuka and Rei might like some company, you know? I know that I would
like that, if I was in their situation..."
She emerged and shook her head at him. "You do so much sometimes. You're
really a good kid Shinji. Go ahead, the school won't miss you. They expect
this with you being a pilot and all..."
"Thanks, Misato."
She laughed. "I need to do something for you. Remind me that I owe
you a steak dinner or something sometime."
"But we already had that," he told her.
"Not officially, but whatever you want. You deserve it."
He blushed.
"Oh there you go, get all embarrassed again," she looked at her
watch, "Shit! I gotta run, or I'll be late for my shift. See ya later,
Shinji!" she called as she ran out the door and quickly slipped on
her jacket.
"Trouble is a part of your life, and if you don't share it, you
don't give the person who loves you a chance to love you enough."
-- Dinah Shore
- Blue Taboo -
