"The first question is something philosophers have been postulating ever since the concept was imagined. If you could travel back in time, rewrite the wrongs that have happened in order to make way for a better future, would you? I must confess, I myself could never do such a thing. I have never sought anything but the truth, and meddling in the affairs of others, whose situations I can never hope to fully understand myself, is something I would never trust myself with.
Here lay my ultimate failing - for rather than go back myself, I sent others there in my place. The only two people I could trust, besides myself, to adjust history in an unselfish way, to tamper only when necessary, to do what I could not."
Anon, 2016
---
"Wha? Bright lights!" Asuka's screeches and cursings could be heard several blocks away, until with a 'click', the artificial lights around her were extinguished.
"They came back on sometime around midnight - remember?" queried Shinji, looking over from desk in the corner of the room.
"Idiot, and you didn't think to turn them off? And what the hell are you doing in my room again?!"
"Everywhere was dark. I- I just wanted to be closer to.. other people."
Asuka narrowed her eyes at him, and satisfied with his responding cringe, sighed heavily and levered herself up into a sitting position on the bed.
"I suppose I couldn't just say "I'm bored" and forget about anything Eva-related today?" she mumbled complacently, fidgeting with a stray lock of hair.
Shinji tried to overcome a blush at the reference, and got up from his chair, choosing a space on the bed not too far from her, but leaving a gap for safety.
"Why are you so questionable all of a sudden? I always thought that you would be the last one to question why you're doing something. You always seem so self-assured. Are you saying you want to back out?"
"Nothing like that," Asuka glanced seemingly randomly at a crack in the wall. "I just think.. sometimes I just want this all to be over. For a while, I thought it was over.. but it seems I've been dragged back again to save the world. Like that hasn't been done a million times before."
Reaching over to the table, Shinji gingerly swiped the piece of paper he'd been scribbling on and handed it warily to the brooding girl.
"I wrote down everything I could remember. If we're going to take advantage of any opportunities, the first would be this one." He indicated a title near the top of the page.
Skimming through, Asuka put the sheet casually aside, at last making eye contact as she voiced her thoughts.
"The party. Think it'll work?"
"It's the best chance we'll get. It isn't for a few days, though. I'm not sure if we should go into town - it might cause problems."
"We'll stay in then." Asuka retorted noncommittally. But Shinji could feel her feet digging into his back.
"Can't you at least criticise this, rather than stay quiet the whole time?" asked Shinji suddenly, her continual silence beginning to bother him.
"Why talk?" Asuka sat up, and moved over to him, leaning her head gently against his shoulder. "If it works, none of this matters anyway. You could cheer up a bit. Nobody likes a moody maytr."
The faintest hint of a smile appeared on Shinji's face, but he caught himself before she could notice.
"I'm sorry. I just.. I don't mind dying, I really don't. But if anything happened.. with us.. I'd want to remember it. And I won't! So maybe it's better.. just to leave things. Maybe-" But the act of speech requires the passage of air from the mouth, and Asuka's lips were in the way.
It was raining outside, and the rivulets of water ran down the single window of the run-down apartment, two alike drops never taking precisely the same path.
--
Two Days Later
"It's as if he was born to become an Eva pilot, isn't it?" said Maya, visibly awed by the results of the prior test.
"But that's not what Shinji wants, I know he's not really happy here."
Ritsuko looked up from her terminal with a questioning gaze, but Misato was standing arms-folded and watching resolutely through the observation window as Shinji was retrieved from the entry plug.
"His friends noticed that I'd been promoted before he did. No, I don't care about the promotion. But sometimes it's like he doesn't notice the world around him. Like he doesn't want to acknowledge what's happening - like it isn't his life."
"If he was really depressed, his sync ratio would show it. I think some people are just naturally like that, wanting to avoid contact as much as they can. Usually it's attributed to a bad upbringing-"
Ritsuko shut her mouth with an audible snap as she realised where her speculations had led her, but Misato, Maya and a number of the surrounding technicians were staring. Not at her, but at the black-clad figure positioned in the doorway.
"Your report, doctor?" Gendo spoke indifferently, giving no hint as to how much of the conversation he'd heard.
"Report- uh, Shinji's up by eight points, Asuka by three. Rei has increased as predicted, and the curve indicates she'll develop rapidly from now until-"
"That will be all, doctor. Deliver the written report in person the minute it's complete. The committee are awaiting the results."
"I'll get right on it." replied Ritsuko softly, turning back to her screen and resuming her typing.
There was silence in the several moments following the Commander's departure, until the silence was broken by Maya's hesitant voice.
"So, what are you doing about this promotion, Major Katsuragi? You should celebrate.. or something.."
"Oh, I think we're doing something small tonight - one of Shinji's friends suggested a barbeque, whatever the hell that is.. just a quiet night in, really."
---
"Congratulations!" Touji, Kensuke and Hikari's combined shouts rang out above the dying blares of Misato's ancient stereo system.
There had been a rush to change the track when "Fly me to the moon" came on, and the frantic button pushing hadn't done the deck much good.
"Thank'ya guys!" replied Misato enthusiastically from behind her second beer. "Thanks to you especially, Touji," she added with a wink that left Hikari red-faced.
"Well, it was mostly Kensuke's idea really," admonished the jock, bowing mightily under the weight of her provocative wink, supplemented by the force of Hikari's elbow slamming into his back.
"That's right, I, Kensuke Aida, am the mastermind behind this dinner!" beamed Kensuke, his glasses glinting in a way that would impress even a Gendo-level master.
"Oh, well, thank you Mr. Aida," restated the Major, in voice lacking any of her previous enjoyment. 'That kid gives me the creeps.'
"No problem, glad to be of service!" Kensuke replied immediately, oblivious to her change in tone.
"By the way, what's Hikari doing here anyway?" asked Touji, attempting to recover from his spinal injury."
"For your information, Mr. Suzahara, Asuka invited me." Hikari replied politely and without malice, though Touji's yelp of pain and hasty change of seating told otherwise.
"Though I haven't seen from her since she opened the door." Hikari continued, sounding somewhat put out. "Shinji was outside trying to get in when we arrived, and he led her off somewhere the second he got in."
"He what?!" screamed the stooges in unison.
"Looks like those two are getting on well." Misato remarked dryly, finishing off her third beer, but pausing as she moved toward the fourth, obviously grappling with a line of thought.
"But he said.. traitor!" ended Kensuke belatedly, crumpling into below the table level.
"They wouldn't do anything perverted, would they?" blanched Hikari, hastily reorganising her memory. "Shinji just said he had something to show her.. Waa!"
"Is something the matter?"
The quiet voice from the hallway was enough to jar Hikari from her horror-stricken thoughts, and she turned so suddenly that Touji, who had been inching closer with thoughts of comforting her, received a sharp blow to the side of the head.
More curious still was the lack of an effect it had on him.
"Shinji, where have you been?" quizzed Misato, beginning to rise from her seat, but deciding otherwise from the sudden queasiness, and sinking back down to table level.
Shinji, for indeed it was he, was dressed in a somewhat crumpled top and was in the process of emitting a stifled yawn. "-uh, I was just having a sleep. Asuka said she was going to wake me up when people started arriving- but it looks like she left it a bit."
Kensuke's eyebrow twitched slightly as he took in Shinji's dishevelled appearance, and the connotations of Asuka being in his room.
"Tell us, man, when did you and Asuka start ..waking each other up?" he asked hoarsely, steeling himself for every minute detail of the torrid affair.
Hikari's expression worsened to petrified, and her only addition to the matter was to grab hold of and squeeze the nearest object to her in an attempt to lessen the tension. Touji whimpered.
"Start waking each other up?" Shinji paused to consider the question. It was obvious from the looks on his friends' faces that something was going on, and he decided to rectify the situation as expediently as possible.
"Around two weeks ago, I think. I was sleeping in and Asuka wanted me to make her a bento for lunch, so she came in and pulled the covers right off of me-" he stiffened, remembering Asuka's seething instruction on the event in question.
"Oh, Asuka said not to tell anyone."
"I said not to tell anyone what?"
The room temperature dropped dramatically as Asuka closed the door of her room behind her with an audible crunch of weakened masonry.
"What the hell's wrong with you people?"
In the silence that followed her vented question, she took in the crimson rash that has spreading throughout Shinji's face, Hikari's post-mortem ashen features, the frown visible on Misato's face behind her seventh beer, and the remaining Stooges' reactions of abject horror and total devastation.
"Whaaaaat?"
Surprisingly, Hikari was the first to recover. Rising steadily from her seat, she disentangled herself from Touji's lengthy arms and marched right up to Asuka, pausing mere inches from her face.
"How could you not tell me about this?! Call yourself a friend.." she huffed, and with that, marched resolutely onward down the hall and out of the door. A few seconds later, she returned abashed to the kitchen doorway.
"Thank you very much for having me, Ms Katsuragi." she declared solemnly with a blush, before returning to her destination outside of the apartment, this time not returning.
"I- we- we should be going too." mumbled Kensuke uncertainly, nudging and prodding Touji for some response. Upon receiving none, he did his best to drag Touji to the doorway, and with one final shudder under Asuka's burning gaze, left.
Silence reigned for several seconds following their departure, but was broken by Asuka's hesitant cough.
"Misato, can we discuss the possibility of an Angel using aerial bombing as an offensive weapon, because I think its important that we should be aware of every possible eventuality, and-"
"Shinji, do you have your cardkey?" interrupted Misato, clearly breaking out of whatever trance she had been in since his arrival.
"My- my cardkey?" Shinji fumbled perplexedly around in his pocket, and oblivious to Asuka's expression of sudden shock, produced a thin strip of scarlet plastic with the Nerv logo embossed onto the front of it. "You mean this?"
Misato's eyebrow rose visibly at this, but decided again commenting, answering instead with another question. "So how come you couldn't get in earlier on if you've got them now?"
"Earlier on? I didn't- umf!" his reply was cut short by Asuka's hand firmly covering his mouth, an action that only further confirmed his belief that both the house's inhabitants had been driven mad.
"Shinji's obviously still tired, I think he needs a bit more sleep before he answers such difficult questions." smiled Asuka through gritted teeth, doing her best to prevent the confounded boy from escaping.
"No, I think we should get this sorted before any of us goes anywhere tonight." Said Misato with a frown, rising from her seat and taking an unsteady step in the direction of the children.
"Or a walk! Let's have a nice walk in the park, eh Shinji? Just the two of us? Nod." Asuka enthused desperately, edging away as the Major closed the distance between them.
'Damn it, there's something odd going on here.' Misato mentally raged as the two teens disappeared in a cloud out red hair, their echoing footsteps fading away as Asuka led the startled boy as far away from the apartment as possible.
"Shiest, she's onto us!"
TBC
Footnotes: Chapter 3 will focus on the 'other' Shinji and Asuka arriving back at the apartment, if you hadn't already figured that out.
