Love and Loss

Shinji had to admit that he had never really made use of the outdoor deck that was part of Misato's apartment unit.

In a way it was only natural that he would return to the apartment; in the course of almost a year it had come to be a place of comfortable familiarity, as well as his sanctuary from the rest of the world. Despite all the windows and sliding glass doors being shattered, the building's structure was still largely sound. The events of Third Impact had also given Misato's outdoor deck, which already had an impressive view of Tokyo-3 due to it being on the eleventh floor, a breath-taking view of the blood lake. From here Shinji was able to better survey the damage that had been dealt to the city; in general it was only the center of the city that had been destroyed and reduced to a lake bed, but that only meant that the special military towers that had once been in the employment of NERV, used as entry/exit points for the Evas and housing their equipment and umbilical cables, were gone. The outskirts of the city which consisted mainly of residential buildings and local shops, had largely been left intact.

Some might have cringed at the massive red lake, but even that too had become a scene of comfortable familiarity to Shinji. The main reason was that it meant the total destruction of NERV. That meant that he no longer had to wake up at odd hours of the morning and take part in synch tests that could last as long as 24 hours, a part of his "job" that even a morning person such as himself had loathed. But in all seriousness, it had mainly meant the end of performing an act that he hated. Piloting had always been something that had caused him both physical discomfort and moral anguish. Even worse, he had played along all in the name of being accepted by the Commander...

But since he now had total freedom, and because he felt like consumating his move back into the apartment with a celebration, Shinji had treated himself to a small cake he had found a local pastry shop. With the city's power being down, it wouldn't have lasted long without refrigeration anyway, so it was best not to let it go to waste. Beyond the cake, though, the celebration mainly consisted of him lounging in an out-door recliner on the deck, looking out at the lake, and sipping on a mixture of Yebisu beer and cola.

Shinji was not usually one for drinking, seeing no practical reason for it, but when he looked in the fridge to see what was available, he saw that Misato had still kept the drink in plentiful supply. Truth be told, he wasn't even normally the type of person to party, but he knew in his heart that this is what Misato would have done for him, if she were still here. No this party was just as much for her as it was for Shinji. So the party was also in her honoras was his first tasting of beer. He immediately spat it back out, finding it to be far too bitter, but decided that as long as he couldn't actually taste the beer it would be potable.

It didn't take long for him to discover the more "pleasant" side effects.

"Hmm, so this must be why people like to drink." Shinji said to himself with a slight slur. Having no real tolerance for alcohol, he already had a small buzz going on from just the first quarter of the can alone. "I can't believe I didn't try this shit before! Wow, I feel all flowy and shit, this is pretty fuckin' cool! Now I can see why Misato drank this shit all the time."Needless to say, he found the feeling of drunkedness to be both enjoyable and fascinating.

"Man, I need to do this shit more often. Just kick back, relax and have a beer. I mean, seriously, I can see why Misato loved to be drunk. If I had to put up with me and Asuka's bitch-ass all day long, I'd want something to mellow me out. Everything just feels so much looser and unimportant. Hehehe, I should do this every day from now on."

When he actually said Misato's name, however, he couldn't help but feel a slight longing for her presence. An important lesson Shinji had just learned was that the only thing more fun than being drunk was being drunk with somebody you care about. Unless you end up doing something you both regret, but this escaped Shinji's intoxicated mind at the moment. It was something he would need to get use to, anyway, seeing as he was condemned to be alone in this world by his own choosing.

(author's note: I DO NOT CONDONE UNDERAGE DRINKING! But if you're going to do it, drink responsibly. ;) )

"Ya know, I'm not gonna lie." He was speaking to nobody in particular, he just felt like having a soliloquy. "When Misato kissed me back there, heehee, I think I would've totally hit that." He burst into a small giggle at that thought, but quickly recovered. "No no, in all seriousness...you had to have been the best friend, mother, and sister rolled up into one that some poor sap like me could have. I don't deserve you, Misato-chan, and I probably never will,but you didn't give up on me. No matter how much I fucked up, it was really you who kept me together." He was beginning to get emotional at this point, a mixture of love and loss setting in. The trick was that he still wasn't sure what sort of love he had for Misato; love as a mother, love as a sister, or love as a friend.

Or love as a...

"Sometimes I don't even know why you did it, maybe you were just doing your job. But whatever it was," and at this point he raised the mug with his drink, "I know this much; this one's on you, Misato-chan."

And with that, he drank up. Well, he at least tried, he mostly slobbered the drink in as it spilled all over the front of his shirt. But it was enough for a then-happily buzzed Shinji. He cursed slightly, but for whatever reason decided that it was okay because his toes needed a drink also.

He wouldn't remember it the next morning, but he would cry himself to sleep that night, thinking of Misato once more. This wasn't the first time, either. Ever since he had heard her voice in the hospital, he had been crying himself to sleep at night. Shinji was not yet ready to admit it to himself, but he really did miss Misato. He just did not yet fully understand why.

That's not correct. He knew why, he just didn't want to come to grips with it. And alcohol had proven to help aid with that.

Fortunately, Shinji had not gone overboard on his first voyage into alcohol-dom. He had not gotten drunk to the point where he had to hug the toilet, but by the next day he had gotten to know the price you pay for drunken shenanigans; the infamous hangover.

Shinji had read somewhere that the symptoms of a hangover was really just caused by dehydration, and so he had possessed the foresight to drink plenty of water before hand. But perhaps he had consumed more alcohol than this would compensate for, because he had the biggest headache of his life going on and he felt more naucious than when he had to breathe in stale LCL. He downed a couple of capsules of pain killers that he had taken from the hospital and was now lying down on the couch with his arm draped over his eyes. Even though the interior of the apartment was dark due to a lack of internal lighting, the incoming rays from the sun that managed to find their way around the blinds was somehow still enough to make his eyes hurt.

"Okay, new game plan. Instead of a whole can of beer, we'll just try half a can next time. I gotta make the supply last, anyway." he murmurred to himself.

He had planned on going to look for Asuka after he had gotten settled into the apartment once again, but decided that today would be better spent overcoming the effects of last night's celebration. No big deal; he had planned on going to look for Asuka for the past several days,
but something always seemed to get in the way. He wasn't sure what, but at the moment he could hardly care.

With that train of thought, though, his fancy once again returned to Asuka. The post-3I world was simultaneously his punishment and his reward, but it was his to claim as his own, and he could neither bare to share it with anybody else nor ask another living soul to revisit the destruction that had ripped them apart.

It seemed odd that this was simultaneously his punishment and his reward. For indeed, how can it be a punishment if you enjoy it?

"Goddamnit, Asuka, is that why are you here with me? Are you here to make sure that I'll never be completely at peace? Is it that important to you to make me feel so belittled?"

One week had passed since his fight with Asuka and subsequent confrontation with Kawrou. Or perhaps it only felt like a week. Maybe it had really been two weeks, or perhaps two months, maybe a year. Or maybe it had only been a day or two. Shinji honestly didn't know, maybe that was just the alcohol talking. He hadn't kept count of how many times the sun had cycled through the sky, and felt no insufferable pang to find a time piece that held the current time and date. In this place of his own creation, this...limbo, where he had only himself to answer to and hold accountable, time was only a secondary consideration, if you even felt the need to consider it at all.

The appearance of Kawrou before his eyes, even though he was fully aware of the fact that it was all a grand hallucination, had unfortunately prompted the appearance of others. And the sightings were only growing in frequency. They hadn't yet resulted in conversations like it did with Kawrou, but people he had known and not known alike were making themselves known to him. For two days after Kawrou, all had been quiet. But soon it had resorted back to simple voices in the wind. The day after, people in NERV-issued fatigues were walking past him. The day after that, random citizens of all nationalities seemed to flock to him. Never in large numbers,though, it was almost always on a one-by-one basis. The only real common theme was that people remembered seeing an orange light that overwhelmed them, then suddenly seeing their loved ones,and then they could not recall anything afterwards.

Althroughout this, Shinji was admittedly becoming concerned about the direction in which this was all heading. How long before it no longer seemed like it was all in his head? How long before he lapsed completely and gave into conversing with specters? But Shinji could not have been said to have been scared or disturbed. In spite of how real or surreal it all felt, and even if he really was losing his sanity, he knew (for the moment) that it was all in his mind, and no matter what the images said or did, nothing could come of it The only direct threat to himself was from himself. But He would still be here in the apartment, safe and sound.

Except that wasn't true. He knew full and well what he had to do.

The knowledge that all of humanity's knowledge was now somewhere in his mind had left Shinji stuck at a crossroad. If he waited around long enough, it was entirely plausible that Asuka's memories were also in there somewhere, and that he would get all the answers he was after without the need to place himself in the same room with her, and without having to sort through the lies and mind games. While there was no guarantee that Kawrou hadn't just been a figment of his imagination, there were too many other pieces, too many instances of things he had known but should not have known, for his story to not make at least some sense. And yet at the same time, perhaps that, too, had simply been concocted by himself in order to fool himself. The problem was that Shinji had come to doubt his own consciousness, let alone this new found existence. The other problem was that he was conflicted as to whether or not he was running away from his problems again by simply lounging around, waiting for the answers to come to him when they were also out there somewhere, their guardian licking her wounds.

It shouldn't have really mattered to Shinji; except for Asuka (and what he care what she thought anymore?), there was nobody to tell him how to act or what to think. He was accountable only to himself. There was nobody left to give a damn about what he did or why he did it. If it came to his liking he could go and strangle Asuka, make her pay for all her sins, and he had no worries from the law or from justice. There would be no superiors or loved ones to answer to. This was HIS world, HIS absolute freedom, and even if he lacked the testicular fortitude to finish what he had started, it was still his freedom to do so.

In any case, it SHOULDN'T have mattered to Shinji. But, God only knows why, it did anyway.

"I could do it," he finally said to himself. "I could just leave her to die out there. I could just as easily get what I want, NEED, right here."

He was silent for a moment, gathering his thoughts into words. Speaking to himself was a task that Shinji found himself performing evermore. Even though he knew his own thoughts, it somehow felt reassuring to hear them in words, to know that he was coherent enough that he could speak what he felt. The power of the spoken word, while it did not change his solitude, at least drove back the silence that was his largely empty world.

"And yet, for some reason, it just doesn't feel right. Even if Asuka is a horrible person, I can't just leave her out there to suffer. I should, though. I really should just leave her out there."

He grew tired of talking and tried releasing his worries, letting them melt away and give way to the sand man's influence. But the more he thought about Asuka, the more his anger swelled, until finally he could no longer contain it all and he began to kick at the arm rest that were supporting his feet.

"Goddamn you, Asuka! Goddamn you! Why are you even here? I mean, it wasn't supposed to be anybody else here but me. I was the only one who was supposed to come back. This is what I wanted, this is MY world! Why couldn't you have just stayed dead? Why do you hate me so much that you had to ruin the only thing I had left? The only other thing that I wanted!"

Only silence answered him back.

To spare the reader, Shinji was essentially stuck in a loop for the next half hour, repeating versions of the rant over and over. The same expression of frustration, the same impatience, and the same set of questions played themselves out again and again in his mind. It was as if his mind was stuck in that moment, perhaps because he didn't know how to deal with it, and yet needed to find a way. But it was also just another stalling tactic. He could bitch about his problems indefinitely, because that was easier than taking action.

He was no closer to resolving his issues, but for the moment Shinji had worked out all of the frustration from his system. He settled back down and relaxed his body and mind once more.

"I should just leave her ass out there." he complained one last time.

"But we both know you won't." Misato called out from behind him.

Shinji sighed, not a sigh of defeat, but close. Even if they weren't real, he was still tired of having them interrupt his life. "What do you want now?"

Silently (one would suppose, since she was not really there), Misato strolled up to Shinji until he could "sense" that she was directly behind him. "After everything we've been through, and THAT'S how you greet me? Shinji, I'm hur-"

"No you're not." he blurted out, cutting her off before she could say it. "You can't be, because shadows don't have feelings."

"Is that all I am to you, then? A shadow?" To Shinji, the hurt in her voice sounded artificial, but what else could it be? Shinji didn't answer her, instead choosing to remain facing away from her. But the dopleganger knew the answer anyway. "Can't you just appreciate the interaction for what it is?"

"And what is it, huh?" he barked, growing impatient. "I'll tell you what it is; it's little more than me just talking to myself. All it is-"

"Is running away?" she interjected, returning the favor.

Shinji brought himself to turn on his side and rest on his elbow, raising and cocking his head. He was not so much defeated as he was lost in thought, as if considering his options carefully."Yes."

"Why is it running away? Because I'm not really 'real?'"

"Because you're internal. You're only in my mind. That means that instead of facing the world for what it is, I'm just diving back into my own little world. And...for all I know, I'm only hearing what I want to hear. Why should you be hurt? Because I can feel sorry for you and pity you? Maybe the real Misato wouldn't have wanted my pity, and maybe she wouldn't have been hurt. Maybe she'd even-"

"-be mad at you right now?" she asked, again completing his sentences.

His face and voice softened slightly into something sadder. "Who wouldn't be right about now."

Misato then advanced to the back of the couch, standing over him, wrapping her arms around her front. "Shinji, right now I'm the furthest thing from mad. If I'm hurt..." she paused for some slight dramatic flare before smiling, "it's only because you took a beer from my personal stash."

He couldn't help but chuckle. That was definitely something very Misato-esque to say.

Returning to a more serious mode, Misato was silent for a moment, as if considering the best way to deliver her thoughts. Her smile disappeared and she began staring out the glass door. "Regardless of whether or not you think you're running away, you need to hear what I have to say. You're really pissed with her right now. And in some ways, you have a right to be. But in other ways you need to be a little bit more understanding."

Shinji was dumbfounded by the audacity of that statement. "A little bit more understanding? A little bit more understanding! Maybe you didn't get the memo, so I'll spell it out for you. Since the day we met her, she's made my life a living hell. And now, here at the end, when I finally get everything the way that I want it, she's still here to make hell for me! And the part I can't figure out is why she's even here! I didn't want her to come back."

"What did you want, then?"

He sighed deeply before responding. "I dunno. I guess it's easier to say this if I think everyone else is content to be in Instrumentality, but I just wanted a chance to be by myself. A chance to start over."

"So you made the world empty, and all to yourself?"

For some reason his reluctance to confide in Misato's shadow collapsed, and began to pour out his heart. "Even before, I just...couldn't ever deal with people. I've NEVER been able to deal with people. Whether it's because of Gendo, or because I've just always been too weak and stupid, I don't know. But even up there, I couldn't really deal with it. There were no borders, no limits, no more need to be afraid of being misunderstood or rejected, because such things were impossible in Instrumentality. And I...just wasn't ready."

"There are no borders, limits, or anymore need to be afraid of being misunderstood or rejected down here either, what's the difference?"

Shinji looked over at her, unsure of why she couldn't connect the dots. "The difference is that there's no people down here."

"So you needed more time from other people. Did you think denying them the opportunity to return was the only way to accomplish that?"

"I'm not sure it was ever within my power to deny them that. At the time it made so much more sense to me that I alone should return. I was only thinking about myself. I was just so paralyzed by my own self-pity and selfishness that I just didn't give a damn about everybody else. In that moment, I really would have let the rest of the world die, because I just wanted it all to go away."

He stopped and reflected upon what he had just said. One of the three heroes and defenders of humanity, and yet here he was admitting that he had basically given up, and had been prepared to leave everbody else to their own devices, consequences be damned. This was a powerful confession that he was making! Had he really felt so isolated that he had lost touch with the world to the extent that he would've no sooner let it be destroyed? Was he really such a horrible person? However, it should not be forgotten that his destructive depression was a meticulously calculated move on SEELE's part, a move that he had been too ignorant to notice. Which only really meant that it was still all his fault.

Misato only continued to gaze at him, looking as though she already knew what was going on in his warped little mind.

Shinji snapped himself back to reality with a shake of his head. "But like I said, I couldn't deny the ability to come back. One of the last things my mother said was that anybody could come back from Instrumentality if they really wanted to."

"So how can the world ever really be yours, and yours alone?" she asked.

"I guess it can't. I know it's at least possible that people will come back. And some day, I might be ready to deal with people again. But I just thought that that day wouldn't be so soon."

"In other words, you weren't ready to deal with Asuka yet."

"I suppose." he replied. He didn't have to "suppose" anything, she had hit the nail right on the head. But to be fair, the head was pretty big. It was painfully obvious that he and Asuka were having issues at the moment.

Speaking of that..."Tell me about Asuka's mother. What does she have to do with any of it?"

Misato frowned slightly and returned her attention to the lake. "You aren't ready to hear that yet, Shinji."

"I'll be the judge of that." he challenged.

She looked back at him, still frowning, and her tone became more stern. "By your own confession you basically said that you weren't ready to deal with Asuka yet. You haven't even tried to confront her again, you've been too busy stalling and getting too drunk off your ass to do anything! How would knowing about her mother make it any better?"

"I'm not ready to deal with Asuka the PERSON yet. But as long as she's here, I at least want to know how Asuka got to be so fucked up."

She looked to the lake again. "Like I said, you aren't yet ready to deal with that."

He threw his arms up in defeat and swifly stood up. "GODDAMNIT, stop being so ambiguous! Is it so much to ask for a straight answer?"

"Let me put it another way, then. Asuka isn't your only issue." she retorted.

"My only issue? Do tell, what other issues do we need to get out in the open, hmm?"

"You're definitely mad at her, and that's to be expected. I already told you that she does kinda deserve it. But you're not the victim here, Shinji, she's got her own reasons to be pissed at you."

"Name ONE thing I did to her," he yelled, holding up one finger as if to emphasize his point, "that even gives her the RIGHT to be mad at me."

"You mean besides the fact that you hacked it right in front of her while she was in the hospital?"

At this Shinji's face became flushed, partially out of embarrassment that he had been found out, but also because he felt infuriated that his mind was this thing's playground. Nevermind that she also had a good point.

He felt defeated, which was no different than how he usually felt. When Yui left him for Eva and Gendo deserted him, he was defeated. He was humiliated that not even his own father wanted him around. When Touji's body was basically destroyed and he could no nothing, it might as well have been him that crushed the insertion pod. In his selfish withdrawal and refusal to go to Eva when NERV was attacked, he had let Asuka to be ripped apart, an undignifying death that not even she had deserved. But the cherry on top was that he had not only allowed Misato to die, he had basically failed her.

He might as well have put the gun to Misato's torso and pulled the trigger.

But then again, Misato's shadow knew all of this.

She softened her expression into something more forgiving and receptive. "Now to be fair, you were pretty drained emotionally and mentally. I'm not condoning what you did-"

"Good, because lest you should forget, I don't exactly require approval anymore." he snapped.

She remained as she was. "You're just venting."

He just scoffed at her.

"But I'm not telling you anything about Asuka until you tell me more about your other problems."

"Fine, don't give me all the answers! If all of humanity's knowledge is really inside me right now, then all I have to do is play the waiting game. Sooner or later, I'll know everything that's relevant."

She smirked and chuckled slightly. "My dear Shin-jun, it doesn't quite work that way!"

"Huh?"

"I already told you. Before you can confront Asuka, you need to confront yourself."

"Oookaaay, let's say I play your little came and I 'confront' myself. Where would I begin? You said I had issues, so, what part of my already shot-to-hell psyche do you wish to explore?"

Misato put her hand to her chin and began sorting through the various options, attempting to prioritize them. "Well, let's see. For starters, we can talk about your abandonment issues that pretty much began with the 'death' of your mother and the subsequent abandonment by your father. Also significant is that you hate your father for what he did to you but you still feel the need to win his approval because, secretly, you feel that your innate deficiency somehow drove him away. Stemming from that is your need to feel acceptance from anybody, including me,
Suzahara and Aida, Rei, Asuka, et cetera, et cetera. Need I go on?"

"No thanks, Freud."

She giggled. "Oh Shin-jun, if I could still bear-hug you, I would just because you're such a good sport!"

"Hold on a second." he declared, raising his hand at her as a gesture to emphasize. "You don't get to just listen to me pour my guts out. No sir. If I tell you something about myself, you have to tell me something about yourself. You have to give to receive, so to speak."

Misato considered that for a moment, but then shook her head in agreement. "Alright, fair enough. I'll even be gracious enough and go first. What do you want to know?"

"Tell me what you meant when you said Kaji was like your father. You once told me about your dad and how he was never around and stuff, but then he saved you at the Antarctic expedition. Then you told me about Kaji and how he was no better than your dad. What did you mean by that?"

Misato paused for a moment to organize her response before answering. "My father was never around, that's true. He was always telling me to be a good little girl, but he was never around to see it. I got to thinking that maybe I wasn't being good enough, and so I tried really,
really hard. I went to school everyday and got good marks. I did my chores, and YES I cleaned up after myself, thank you! I did everything that was asked of me. I even smiled everyday, even when I wasn't really happy. And I hated every minute of it.

"I didn't want to be a good child! I had no interest in my studies, and I would have no sooner just skipped class to go hang out with my friends. I was fairly wild and carefree. But my father was a polar opposite; very strict and responsible. He wouldn't tolerate a little brat like me. No no, even the family was just his well-oiled machine. Everybody and everything had to be in its place, in perfect order. I think he was just partly keeping up appearances so that he'd come off as respectable to his peers and colleagues.

"And like any kid at that age, I just wanted my father to love me and accept me. So when he wouldn't, I tried changing myself into what he wanted, even though I didn't like what I had become." Shinji couldn't help but feel a twinge of sympathy.

Misato seemed to know it. "I only kept it up because I thought that's the only way he'd give a damn, and he still never noticed, or even cared. Why would he? He was always busy with work and hardly ever home. Even after our parents split up and God knows why he got custody, I kept on smiling and pretending like some day, he'd notice. For a while I even thought that he might eventually see through the smile and come and comfort me and finally tell me that I didn't have to pretend anymore. Some days, I can't even figure out why my dad even wanted children, let alone why he even bothered keeping custody of me. And then he did what has to be both the most selfless and yet most selfish thing I have ever known."

"He spared your life. How was that selfish?"

"He was probably just being a good father, but I think it was also his way of trying to weasel his way out of years of neglect. He was basically trying to apologize."

Shinji looked mildly confused at this. "Isn't that what you wanted, though? To be noticed?"

"I did, but it was just too little too late, you know? Plus, how can he notice me if he's dead? It was a hollow apology at best." The years of pent-up anger and resentment had finally surfaced, and were it the real Misato it could have very well been that she had been given a long overdue relief of burden. "I honestly question if he thought I'd be better off alive."

"Well, for what it's worth, I'M glad that you lived." Shinji commented. Then he smirked a bit. "And you sort of turned out like your father anyway." Misato cocked her head as though she had been insulted. "You became responsible. Maybe not always anal and strict, but definitely a respectable adult."

Misato's annoyed frown had transformed into a little smirk, as if an inside joke had just played out between them. "Point taken."

"So then what did Kaji do to you? Did you feel like he ignored you, too?"

"Yes and no. On the contrary, he gave me all the attention I could ever want. I...suppose this is a little bit more detail than you care to hear, but I was pretty wild in college. That was when I first got into beer. I did it all; hard drinking, parties every weekend, every drug conceivable, I even tried smoking cigarettes with Rits for a while, but I couldn't stand that shit." She stuck her tongue out in disgust to emphasize her point. Then her body language shifted as though a more uncomfortable subject was coming to light. "But my particular specialty was that...I was kinda 'loose' in college."

A slight blush appeared on his face as it become clear where the conversation was headed. "You...slept around?"

"I wasn't a whore, I NEVER did it for money. Let's just say that I may as well have worn a 'Welcome' mat for panties."

"I'll thank you kindly if you don't go into the nitty-gritty."

She eagerly agreed to spare him the more..juicy details. "But I met Kaji shortly after my freshman year began, and...well, let's just say that we skipped class for an entire week and that it was a week to never forget."

"Ah." His blush returned for seconds while the shadow had still not blushed once. Shinji took this as meaning that sex was not something that Misato was easily embarrassed by, which, even though he had not really known that side of her, somehow sounded fairly Misato-ish. "So what was the problem?"

"The problem was that he didn't want Misato the sorostitute or Misato the pothead. And he REALLY didn't want Misato the village bicycle."

"Village bicycle?" Obviously Shinji had missed out on some sort of reference.

"You've never heard that joke? 'She's like the village bicycle; everyone's had a ride.' Anyway, I gave him a week of sex I KNOW he didn't forget, but he still wanted me to be a good little girl. He told me that I didn't have to try so hard to rebel against mommy and daddy, that I had too much potential to just throw it all out every weekend at a frat party. He told me that he wanted to see me grow into, and I paraphrase here, 'a fine young maiden of much maturity and virtue.'"

"He asked you to tone down your drinking. So what? And while I'll argue with him about the 'maturity' part, you did eventually become a contributing member of society."

"Hey that was an accident, I swear." Obviously she was being sarcastic. "But in all seriousness, I suppose that I was hurt that I had shown him who I really was, that beneath this womanly exterior is just a girl who wants to be free, and he basically said 'no.' In a way, I guess it felt like a rejection."

"So you thought that you had to act in a way you didn't like in order for him to keep paying attention to you?"

"That, and I couldn't help but feel like he was being a hypocrite. He wanted me to behave and go to my classes, but then he'll turn right around and skip class for a week to have sex! Was my schedule that week somehow expendable?

"In retrospect, I think he just saw me as this wild and untamed thing, and he was gonna come along and civilize me and then we go off into the sunset. As romantic as that sounds, I just didn't see it happening. He didn't really seem to want to come to grips with that, though.
Either that, or perhaps I had been too stubborn. And I think, in part due to my father, I was worried that if I did indeed play along and be the good girl that Kaji wanted me to be, he'd eventually not notice and then I'd be back to square one." And with that, Misato felt that the subject of her previous relations had been covered thoroughly enough.

Shinji thought there was a little bit more to add, though. "You know, I never told you this, but one night you and Kaji had gone out, and you came back passed out. Or rather, you were passed out and Kaji had carried you all the way back to the apartment. Asuka and I were there..."

She just HAD to cut him off. "This is the night you two kissed, right?"

Shinji felt really annoyed in that moment. "Can I tell the goddamn story without you roaming through my mind in advance?"

"Don't be surprised that I know, Shinji. You were both briefed that we were under constant surveillance by Section 2."

Shinji's face went slightly flush with embarrassment at the prospect that his and Asuka's shennanigan's had probably been the subject of the better part of the NERV staff's snickering. "Oh yeah. Anyway, when he saw us he asked me to take care of you. Maybe it was just the way he was holding you and the way he asked, but...I think he really did care about you, Misato."

Misato's face scrunched up and traces of tears could be found in her eyes if you looked closely enough. All she could really do was nod in agreement.

Then she decided to press onward. "Alright, I told you what you wanted to know, now it's time for you to pay up."

"What do you want to know? Where do you want to start?"

"Let's start with how you really felt about me kissing you."

No, anything but this!

Their parting kiss was something that was to be remembered throughout the ages and proclaimed in song by the Greek muses of old. If he could turn back the wheels of time, Shinji had to admit that he would do it all over again. It wasn't anything like kissing Asuka, but how could that be considered a "kiss" when it had really just been Asuka toying with him? It had meant nothing, but kissing Misato had meant EVERYTHING.

And that was what scared him.

Not only was there the age difference and social acceptability to think about, there was also the fact that she was his legal guardian. In their time together, Misato had become like his big sister, and even his surrogate mother. While certainly he had found her to be desirable (and it was a guilty pleasure of his that he had stowed with the other sentimental trinkets he owned the picture she had sent him when he had first arrived in Tokyo-3), he had never even entertained the idea of a romantic relationship. In fact, he had become so accustomed to how things were arranged between them that such thoughts made him highly uncomfortable. Naturally, Touji and Kensuke's on-going teasings and musings of ecchi interaction with the Major had done little to help. And yet kissing her had, in that moment, opened up entirely new avenues of thought. Never had he imagined that anybody could care for him so much, and then express it physically.

He had been so afraid of intimate contact from her that he even pushed her away after Asuka's losing battle with coma and the destruction of the Rei he knew and cared for. Having now had a taste, in more than the literal sense, of what he had been missing out on, he had been burdonned by guilt that he had been missing out.

Part of him was excited that the shadow was even asking this of him, because maybe it meant that the real Misato would also want to know. But he also dreaded what he might learn. In all likelihood, the real Misato would just say that she was doing her job and that she was just trying to get him to stop acting like such a child. But one possibility lingered in the back of his mind like a splinter that's just deep enough that you can't get it out, but it doesn't let you forget for an instant that it's there. Suppose he had been MORE to Misato than just a simple ward or a kid brother...

"I know what you're thinking right now."

"I'd rather not be." he answered as his voice quivered.

"It's okay, you can tell me." she reassured him.

"We both know it, can't it be left at that?"

There wasn't really any way around it, as she was probably going to keep harping on him until he finally condeeded. And though it had not occurred to him at the time, avoiding the question was no better than running away, something he had sworn never to do again.

The mixture of emotions was overwhelming and confusing him. He buried his face into the side of the couch and began to whimper.

It was a risk, but Misato decided to spearhead the question. "I wish I could say that I was just trying to wake you up out of your depression. And while that is true, Shinji, I think...I think physical contact of those kinds are the only way I can really show that I care about somebody. Maybe it's because that's the sort of attention that I like but never received when I was just a kid.

"Shinji, I've read your file. I know what happened to you as a child, and I can only guess as to what you're lacking. I've always tried to show that I care, but I never meant to make you feel uncomfortable."

"It's not that, Misato. It's not that you made me feel uncomfortable. I just...I just...I just wish that you had never shown me how much you cared! It hurts, Misato! It hurts knowing that no matter how pathetic I got, you still cared. Maybe I've always wanted that kind of attention, I don't know, but now that I know what it's like, I wish I never did. Look around you; THIS is what I wanted, right? I wanted to be all alone, right? So how can I truly appreciate it if I miss you so much?"

"Maybe you didn't really want to be alone. Maybe that's why people still have the option to return."

"And then what! They'll all reject me again, which is all I'm good for and all I'll never know. But because of you, Misato, I know what it's like to be loved. And knowing what it's like to be loved and then to never have that ever again...it makes it so hard!"

The reader will forgive Shinji for being a little melo-dramatic and over the top; it is important to understand that he feels as though rejection is the only thing he has ever known. To know love and acceptance, REAL love and acceptance, would be a contradiction of the paradigm that Shinji had come to adopt over time. One cannot miss what they never had in the first place. Maybe he had pushed it to the back of his mind, but I think that Shinji did not truly understand what he had until Misato's mad race to get him into the elevator. He had realized it again back at the hospital, and now he is confronting it again. It is something that he has to live with for the rest of his days, a task that would easily discourage anyone.

Shinji let the tears flow freely once more, curling up into a protective fetal ball on the couch. It was a bad decision to come back to this place. Everything from to the smell of Misato on the furniture to the scorches on the stove from her god-awful cooking made him think of her and what she had tried to give him. It made more sense to him now; he pushed her away because he could not handle what she was trying to offer him. Now that he was ready to accept it, he could no longer have it anymore. It only served to fuel his downward spiral back into a depression.

This Misato that was standing over him was at best the real Misato's shadow, but she felt no less of a drive to try and comfort him. She was obviously upset over what had just transpired, as well. "I'm sorry, Shin-jun. This is all I can do for you now. I'm sorry!"

"Go away." was all he could muster up to counter. He was even more confused now as to what had been his relationship with her, and so all he could do now was what he had done before; run away and push her away from himself.

He felt her presence disappear as though it was the whim of a wind's fancy, and once again he had only himself to keep company.

A whole can of beer was sounding really nice right about now. Even when drunk, he could barely remember lamenting over Misato, but at least it was barely, and at least it didn't seem so close to him and so important.

Shinji wasn't sure how long he had been crying on that couch, but he had relatively calmed down and was just ready to get back up for another experiment with beer when he noticed the front door had been slid open.

He immediately threw his full gaze at the door. Surely he had remembered to close the door.

Didn't he?

Shinji couldn't explain it, but suddenly the hairs on the back of his neck stood erect, and his heart began racing in conjunction with the paranoid feeling of somebody standing over him. It was different from Misato standing over him, though. This felt more ominous, like a primal danger.

His head hadn't yet fully turned to face the intruder when he received a punch straight to the jaw. The momentum of the blow had thrown him off the couch and onto the floor. Startled and confused, he barely registered somebody sitting atop of him, straddling him, cutting him off from any hope of escape. Shinji had no means to ward off the intruder, as the back pack that contained the police weapons had been thrown into his room just down the hall. With both arms pinned in such a way that they had no leverage, Shinji was completely at the mercy of his nemesis.

She was missing the cherry-red plug suit in favor of something more casual, but it didn't take long for Shinji to identify his attacker.

Asuka had taken the initiative, it was only natural that she also give the first greeting. "Jesus H. Christ! I knew you were fucking pathetic, but seeing you back in this dump crying on the couch and calling out Misato's name? HA! You take the fucking cake!"

He wasn't about to let her get back on her high horse. "Good to see you, too."