For a long time after Aoi Saijyou had left with Makoto to check on the technicians' progress in restoring power, Shinji sat in the darkness of the Nerv operators' station. His legs were pulled up against his chest, his feet anchored at the edge of the console chair, as he stared up at the metal-paneled ceiling far, far above his head. Father's there, he thought to himself.

Insane. Driven mad. No father anymore- but I'm used to that- and no mother, either. Am I all alone?

Asuka, he remembered. The computer workstations obstructed his view, but he knew that if he stood and looked over the side, he'd be able to observe Maya, Shigeru and a handful of other technicians working on her body.

Asuka's gone too, he thought to himself. Right?

Beyond the console computers, he could hear their soft voices, carried up in the vastness of the Terminal Dogma. Makoto brought me up here so that I could watch them and make sure Asuka's all right, but what's the point? Mother, father, Ayanami- Asuka will be gone, too, I know. It's a matter of time. Why does everyone have to leave me? Why can't we all just be together?

Shinji clenched his eyes shut, squeezing out tiny tears that ebbed at the corners and left tiny wet tracks down his cheeks.

So alone. Always alone. But why?

"This is amazing work, Aoi," Makoto said. He ran his hand through hundreds of colorful bundles of wires while his other hand held up a chemical glow stick near his face. His eyes jumped frenetically as he quickly followed each strand to check where each one was routed to and from within the giant power router and transformer. "I can't believe you'd accomplished all this in just a few days."

"You can thank my crews for this, lieutenant," she grinned. "They did all the hard work in restoring this station. And in the dark, too," she added, giving a thumbs-up to the two-dozen personnel behind her who waited with bated breath. Some of them let out a small cheer, while others shook hands with each other, but they all shared relieved well-earned looks of accomplishment.

Most of them were completely unqualified for the work she gave them, but none of them had disagreed with her expertise. Or her leadership, for which she was grateful. She'd culled them from the small pool of survivors of the Third Impact, all based on their abilities and duties within Nerv. Luckily, many were electrical or mechanical engineers of some sort, but she'd also found a small number of scientists from the Research and Development crews of Project-E.

Aoi put her hands back into her white lab coat. It was chilly in the dark, but luckily they'd be able to change that within a few minutes. "We're lucky that the solar panels themselves hadn't been destroyed. We had to sacrifice a couple of the solar generator fields, but what we have will definitely get us by," she said.

"What sort of system do we have rigged?" Makoto asked.

An orange-suited technician handed her a thick sheaf of electrical schematic printouts, which she flipped through quickly but almost casually so. She had been working day and night with the hardware for the last 72 hours, after all. "The original 45-megawatt system consists of 300 BP-2150 150 watt PV modules and 15 'Sunny Boy' 2500 watt inverters," she answered. "The second 12-megawatt system consists of 72 Schott Applied Power 165 watt PV modules, and four more 2500 Sunny Boy inverters.

"System parameters are monitored by this Sunny Boy control module and PC connection, located within megacomputer Balthasar," she continued. "The pumping system consists of 16 Kyocera KC-120 PV modules, each mounted on a dual axis Wattsun tracker, powered by a Grundfos SunSub PV powered submersible well pump."

Makoto scrunched his face in confusion, and looked at the sub-lieutenant behind him. "It's not really my area of expertise, but isn't that a little outdated?"

She shrugged. "They're American AND a little antiquated, sure, but this installation was built a long time ago. This solar generator was never really meant to be used in the first place, except in the most severe of cases."

"You've got a point," Makoto said, standing from his crouched position. "Okay, close it up. We're ready to go." A technician took his place and screwed the panel back into place.

"Want to check out the fields, too?"

"Nah. I trust you. We've already seen the substations and transmission lines. We don't need to check every inch of circuitry or of the distribution lines. And besides, you wouldn't have shown it to me if you hadn't already made the calculations and test-checks yourself, would you?"

"Triple-checks, actually," Aoi Saijyou confirmed with a satisfied smile.

"Well, then, all that's left is to flip the proverbial switch," Makoto said, grinning. "It'll be a nice change of pace from this overbearing darkness all the time. Frankly, this place gives me the chills.

"You want to do the honors?" he asked.

Aoi Saijyou turned to her crews, and nodded. "Absolutely."