To those of you that are waiting patiently for this story to continue I thank you and hope that this latest chapter lives up to you expectations.

Her Choice

The rain continued to pound away, the waters fell with such speed and strength that she feared she may have to take her eyes off the sight in front of her eyes. Someone whom she thought long since passed on, someone from her past, whom she never met. Her family, not like Misato or even Aunt Rei, someone with whom she shared a blood bond.

Yet at the same time it represented danger. This man had brought nothing but fear and hatred into her parent's lives. He had pushed the human race to the brink of extinction just too full fill his own selfish ambitions. This man was both family and a stranger to her, he was the source of her greatest grief and benefit. He had created the giant that she now rode, the only real link she had to her father.

Yes this man was these things and many more. He was the grandfather to Karen Ikari and once the leader of EVA and thus the free world, he was Gendo Ikari and he was a man who, by all rights, should have been dead.

"You're," Karen was at a loss for words, "but you're suppose to be-"

"Dead," he interrupted her sentence, "yes I know. Come with me," he held out his hand, the only hand he had, and beckoned to her, "come with me Karen, there are many things you should know."

"Are you really here?" Karen asked, "Or am I imagining you. You're not real," with each passing word her voice sounded more strained, more afraid. "You can't be real, you're supposed to be dead." She turned away then and fell into a fetal position while remaining on her feet, she covered her head with her hands and shut her eyes tightly. "Go away, I don't need anymore ghosts in my life." She didn't know when nor how but somewhere along the way she started to cry, she could tell her tears from the pouring rain as they were much warmer.

"Karen," he looked down at her scared form, "this was not what I wanted for you." He whispered. Kneeling down next to her he removed a wet handkerchief from his jacket, then he placed the cloth on the sobbing child's face, covering her mouth and nose. When she realized what was happening her eyes went wide, then hazy as the cloriphorm did it's work.

Mere seconds later she was unconscious and lying over into her grandfathers arms. It took half as long for the two men to appear behind him, without looking at Gendo Ikari they took the Sixth Child to a nearby car. Then waiting for the elder man they drove off.

"This was not what I wanted for you at all." he said again as he stroked the sleeping girl's hair, his voice tinged with the slightest hint of sadness.

As her eyes opened she gazed upon an unfamiliar ceiling, then an unfamiliar wall. Feeling with her body she could tell that she was in a bed of some kind, a heavy blanket covering her body. She was no longer in her rain soaked clothing, but rather in clothing of similar make.

When she rose from her bed he was there, he sat at her bedside, his legs crossed. The man that Aunt Rei's and Doctor Ibuki's procedures recreated from her memories and emotions, there was no way he could have lived, Misato had shown her his page in the obituaries.

"I'm glad you are awake." The voice spoke evenly, however the cold, unfeeling resonance that everyone told her about was not there. He seemed to her as if trying to hold his emotions in check, as if he would loss the control he was known for in a second.

"Are you real?" She asked as her breath left her. "Aunt Rei and Misato both told me you died after Third Impact." When she tried to leave the bed her head swam, as if it was the morning after she had just snuck a couple of Misato's Yebisu.

"Easy," he placed his hand on her shoulder to steady her, "the clorophyorm hasn't finished working through you're system." When he said so she stopped clutching her head and looked at him. "Can you explain how an illusion could drug you?"

"Then you're," he nodded subtly, "but they said you killed yourself after my father was killed in Unit One's reactivation seventeen years ago." Her hands found their way to the blanket that covered her, then she clenched the comforter tightly. "So that was a lie too?"

"Partially," he spoke again, "I was supposed to die after Shinji, but I found out something that they didn't want me to know." Gendo looked her in the eyes and smiled, it was a rare smile, not one laden with sarcasm like when he was in command of NERV, it was genuine, pure. "I found out about you."

"What is going on?" It was a simple question, but at the same time very complex, it was the question that she felt was at the heart of her existence. Rising from her bedside, Gendo Ikari once again beckoned her with his hand, this time she took it.

"For a long time I've waited to meet you," he said as he held her hand walking through a vast hall, "but Rei was always watching, I couldn't expose my existence to you without fear of consequences to either me or you-"

"Aunt Rei would never lay a hand on me," she said as she looked at the floor they trod, "I remind her too much of my father." She spoke with resignation, Rei Ikari had been like her guardian angel, always protecting her from harm, from others.

"You seem," Gendo spoke as he walked, almost afraid to look at her, "a little like your mother to me." When Gendo encountered resistance, he stopped, seeing Karen behind him, still clutching his hand.

"I think that's the first time," Karen smiled, "that someone has compared me to my mother, it feels kind of strange." She stared vacantly her head facing more forward than down, "but I'm not my mother, and I'm not my father. I'll never be them, no matter how much Misato or Aunt Rei or Kaworu or anyone want me to be." Her eyes came into focus when she felt a scarred, strong hand caress her cheek.

"No you are not." Gendo Ikari's eyes were warm ready to overflow at any minute, "you are you. You are Karen Ikari." Karen closed her eyes and put her own hand over the one that caressed her, this man was nothing like what she had heard, he was warm, he was caring. He seemed similar in the way that he cared for her to Aunt Rei, but she could feel his warmth all the way to her core.

"Grandfather," she spoke with falling tears, in a voice that neither shuddered nor quaked, this man may actually been the family that she had searched for, someone of blood relation to her.

"It sounds nice," he said, "when you call me that. However we have things to do." They started to walk again, this time however he did not hold her hand. "Do you know what's going on?"

"About the Angels?" He nodded, seeming to save time, "not much, only that they carry with them enough power to cause another Impact."

"Then you should also know that they are not angels."

"What?" Karen stopped and stared at her Grandfather, wide eyed. "That can't be right, if they aren't angels then what are they?"

"Evangelion." Sensing her movements Gendo also stopped, "those things that you are fighting are Evangelion." She seemed frightened, but he dare not look at her. After over forty years of manipulations and machinations this was his chance to make amends. However he questioned his strength, could he dare look his own grandchild in the eyes and force such a sin upon her.

"My life for the past forty years has been nothing but one sin after another," now he spoke as she had heard, his voice even, words coming out of a man of stone, yet still she could not forget the kindness in his eyes earlier, "and repeatedly I have had to force someone else to shoulder this burden. Now is no different, I need you to do this for me, Karen."

"What?" She balled her fists and forced herself to be just as even as this man, "Do you just need me because of Eva as well?"

"You're wrong," he shook his head, "I need you to leave this city and never return," she was not as seasoned at hiding her emotions as He was, so naturally when he said this she was taken by surprise. "However that is not all," He adjusted his eyeglasses with his index finger.

"I can't," her voice was numb, "I can't just pick up and go like that, what about Misato, or the Suzuhara's, or all the other people who need me to protect them from what those things, what ever they are, can do?" What about all that I have left of my parents, she silently thought.

"They don't matter," his voice still as cool as ever, "All that matters is keeping the same mistake from happening again twenty years later." He needed to keep his voice calm, needed to be that Bastard King that others had spoken about behind his back.

"I can't do it," she shook her head, feeling no match for the stern eyes of Gendo Ikari, "I need time to think, about this, about everything else."

"Then go," he lead her to a door, there was no grand hallway, no great reception, this door when opened would lead her to a car, one that would take her home, "but our time is limited. In three days I will seek you out, please do not fight me then."

"I understand." she looked out to the sky beyond that door, there was no trace of the clouds that had brought the once fierce onslaught of water, barely a few puddles scattered about. She wondered briefly about how long she had been incapacitated, but thought nothing of it. There were more important things to think about now.

She had spent the rest of that day and well into that evening thinking about what her grandfather had offered. There was more to it than just abandoning Evangelion, of that she was certain, but she had rushed out before she had gotten any real answers.

As Karen lay in her bed, she wondered if the encounter was even real. She had begun to notice some inconsistencies in her memories involving Chi and Reika. They were never apart and always agreed on whatever Karen had decided, they had been almost insistent on doing things with just the three of them, she also began to wonder if the two images in her mind had ever even changed clothes.

Rolling over she cursed herself for being so analytical of her own life, she should be cursing Aunt Rei's name, making a unique out of Kaworu or something angry like that, but all she could do was think. She wished that she had more than three days to decide whether to disappear from the world forever or not.

She knew that if she went with her grandfather that her life would be one of constant running, of always looking over her shoulder, of hiding. However if she continued on as she did she would face alienation from the few people that she still held close to her, she could die or worse lose someone that she loved. Still that outcome was possible in both choices.

Her musings were cut short as her cell phone rang. The hour was ungodly and she knew that it could mean only one thing.

It was time to go to work.

Gendo followed the conversation on Karen's mobile phone, the conversation seemed innocuous enough, yet there was a series of coded messages between the two. Judging from the conversation Karen had not made up her mind in regards to him and it saddened Gendo.

Sitting in an office chair, with his hand resting on his other wrist just at the bridge of his nose he smiled.

"You advanced the time table," he spoke to the empty room, "well played Rei."

-to be continued

whew, most of that was written in the expanse of a few hours. Sorry about the cliffhanger before but I have been suffering the worst case of writers block I have ever had. I'm still trying to figure out why I can write one story so easily and spend twice the time getting out half the work on another. Well in any event please enjoy this chapter and look forward to more, this damn thing is finally starting to come along