Namika had scheduled the transplant for eight, hoping to be completed by noon at the latest. She glanced at her watch again. It was seven forty-six.
Shinji was already being prepped by the nurses. Misato was in an isolated room, which contained its own air filter and was shut off from the world except for medical staff and equipment that had been thoroughly sterilized. She anticipated the extracting of Shinji's bone marrow to take no more than an hour, and less than two hours after that it would already be at work replacing Misato's.
She picked up her clipboard, frowning at it as she made some last-minute decisions, and headed down to Shinji's room. On the way, her cell phone rang, and she picked it up to hear Ritsuko's anxious voice.
"It's all going according to schedule," she assured her friend, who was staying within the Geofront. Namika knew that Ritsuko would have liked very much to have been in the hospital, but as she was not part of the medical staff there was not much that she could do. Besides, The Commander would not have NERV roll to a stop because of a bone marrow transplant.
The remaining two pilots were sitting in the waiting room as she passed. Asuka nodded in greeting, but the blue-haired girl wore no expression on her face. Four identical plastic containers sat on the coffee table in front of them.
Namika hurried on.
Seven forty-nine.
Ritsuko was expecting The Commander to lecture her for repeatedly glancing at her watch, but all the technicians were doing the same, and he chose today to ignore it.
Maya poured herself another cup of coffee and, without thinking, poured one for Ritsuko as well. The blonde doctor thanked her absentmindedly and took a sip. It was hotter than she had expected.
Seven fifty.
Makoto had pulled up the data from Asuka's last synchronization test and was repeatedly typing and deleting things so that no actual changes were made to the file. Maya sipped her coffee. Only Shigeru was doing anything of particular use—moving Shinji's files to a storage folder in the depths of the Magi, separate from those of Asuka and Rei.
Ritsuko could not resist the temptation to glance at the clock again. Seven fifty-two. She sipped her coffee.
Seven fifty-three.
"Sempai…"
"What?"
Maya beckoned her over. "Look at this…"
Ritsuko frowned, trying to decipher the blurry form behind the sketchy lines that restructured themselves each second based on the newest data. Makoto and Shigeru hurried over, crowding around Maya's computer for a glance at the screen. Ritsuko withdrew a pencil and pointed it at the indistinct shape.
"That can't be…"
But then the solemn, knowing screech cut through the Geofront, and NERV went into action.
Ritsuko closed her eyes, temporarily isolating herself from the world as she raged as the ridiculousness of the situation. There was no need to see the words "Pattern Blue" upon the Magi screen; she reached towards the pre-programmed button that would fire off automatic phone calls to their pilots—but never made it. A thundering blow shook the Geofront and knocked Ritsuko to the ground; Maya shrieked as her chair upturned. Glass smashed; for a moment all could be heard was static in the darkness; then, slowly, a dim yellow light filtered back into the room. Some sort of emergency system had kicked in.
The technicians scrambled to their places; Makoto slammed his palm down on the button. Maya typed furiously on her temporarily unresponsive keyboard, and Ritsuko hurried to her place behind her assistant as the Magi's mechanic voice issued reports.
For now, within the Geofront, the transplant was forgotten.
Shinji had managed to stay on the bed, but Dr. Ishiyama's nurses and assistants had not been so lucky; most the medical staff had been thrown against the wall and their equipment was scattered across the floor.
Namika cursed violently, searching the floor on hands and knees for her equipment. No luck.
"Dr. Ishiyama, perhaps we should cancel," one of the assistants voiced nervously.
"We're going to have to. We haven't got any electricity; without the machines we aren't going to be able monitor his body functions. We—"
Her cell phone rang.
Surprised, Namika plucked it off of the belt loop from which it hung and flicked open the cover. Nurses, assistants, and Shinji listened in dead silence as The Commander's voice echoed through the room.
"Continue the operation."
"But, Commander," Namika pressed, "we can't—"
"Continue."
There was a click, and Namika slowly lowered the phone.
"Dr. Ishiyama?"
It was hard enough to meet his eyes, but she was shocked to see them pleading with her. "Please, can we keep going with it?"
"You have to understand, Shinji, that if anything goes wrong—we won't have any medical technology to help you, just our hands," Namika said. It was against her doctor's intuition to let this happen; but the Commander had ordered it, and Shinji wanted it…
"I don't want Misato to have to wait any longer. Please?"
Namika breathed in and out, knowing her staff and patient were watching and depending on her.
"All right. Misumi, I want you to go check on Misato—Kameko, I'll need a couple of battery-powered flashlights." Namika tore off her surgical gloves, soiled from crawling on the floor in search of her tools. Another nurse was piling equipment on the cart. Namika tugged on a sterile pair of gloves and instructed the nurse to sterilize each piece of metallic equipment. The nurse nodded and went off in search of the necessary chemicals.
"I trust the IV will work just fine without electricity," Namika muttered, mostly to herself. The IV infusion pump, however, which controlled the dosage of anesthesia, would need batteries, and the doctor wasted a few frustrated moments rummaging through drawers to find some of the proper size. She pulled the contraption nearer to Shinji and held out the needle at the end of a long, flexible plastic tube. "I'm going to put this into your arm, and you'll be asleep in a few minutes. It'll last about an hour."
"All right."
She sat on the bedside and waited for her staff to return, not wanting to put in the line until everyone was ready with the proper equipment. That would take time, she knew—every piece of equipment would have to be manually sterilized not only to remove dirt and grime, but also to inactivate any pieces of nucleic acid or protein material that might have been picked up. In the meantime, she instructed Shinji to turn on his back so that they would have easy access to the iliac crest of his hip.
Namika worried. She worried about the safety of this procedure, when there would be no machines to monitor Shinji's body functions. She worried about Misato, who was surely fretting in her room—and whether or not she would be all right. She worried for Tokyo-3. And each worry brought her back to where she began: that there was nothing she could do but focus on saving her friend's life.
"Are you scared?" she asked Shinji. Hardly any light streamed in through the window, and a moment later both heard the clanking and characteristic whoosh that signaled the deployment of an Evangelion half a mile away.
"No." As an afterthought, he added, "And I trust in Asuka and Rei."
Namika nodded, pleased, and patted his shoulder. "I'm proud of you."
Shinji nodded and blinked, unsure of how to react. He decided to stay quiet, and Namika did the same until her staff returned.
"We're ready, Dr. Ishiyama."
"Shinji, I'm going to put the IV in now," Namika informed him. Standard protocol required that she inform the patient of everything she was doing. "You'll probably feel a slight pinch when the needle goes in, so I'm going to numb the area first. Can you hold out your arm for me?"
She felt as if she were working in a third-world hospital, with one assistant handing her equipment and another holding the flashlight for her so that she could locate a vein. Shinji did not have hard-to-find veins, fortunately. The needle slid in deftly under the yellow glare of the flashlight. Shinji mumbled something, but it was not quite audible, and a moment later he was fast asleep.
Namika reached out a hand behind her. Someone tucked the correct piece of equipment into her hand, and she brought it under the light to make a few final adjustments. Satisfied, she placed a hand on Shinji's waist and positioned the needle.
She hesitated. Something didn't feel right.
"Doctor?"
She didn't know why—but something told her that she should not go on with the transplant, that something was not quite right. Her hand quivered and she turned abruptly to examine the IV. It was functioning properly, and in the dead silence, under the stares of her assistants, Namika suddenly felt very stupid. She bit her lip and did what she was there to do, ignoring the unpredictable quaking of Tokyo-3 as best as she could. It went smoothly, and less than five minutes later she was transferring the one and a half quarts of crimson marrow to a sterile bag—from there it would be transplanted into Misato's chest via a catheter.
She sealed the bag firmly and glanced at Shinji. Again, her staff was waiting for her to direct them. Unable to shake off the feeling that something was wrong, she ordered them to hook the patient up to the necessary machines as soon as the power came back on—which she hoped would happen soon.
"Come and get me in case anything happens," she instructed, "make sure Shinji's hooked up to the monitors as soon as the power comes back on; Misumi, get a small bandage to cover the puncture spot—"
There was a chorus of "Yes, Doctor"s from the room. Again Namika felt uncomfortable. They knew protocol—she did not need to remind them. She shook her head and hurried to Misato's.
Asuka was mad—mad because the Angel had picked a crummy time to attack, mad because she wouldn't be able to be there when Shinji and Misato woke up, and mad that the carefully designed plan for the day had just gone to hell. At that moment she didn't care about the fact that Angels did not operate on a schedule that suited humans—she intended only to slaughter it.
She glanced into the distance where Rei was waiting, in the damaged Unit 00. Neither said a word.
Asuka slapped the dashboard with her palm.
Ritsuko's face appeared in a mini electronic panel on her side. "Asuka, that won't help. Don't worry about Shinji now. We need you to concentrate on defeating the angel."
"What do you think I'm doing?" she seethed angrily.
Ritsuko ignored her, shutting off the control window instead, and this made her all the angrier; Asuka's fingers tightened into a fist and she grumbled under her breath.
It was coming. She braced herself and replaced her hands on the red controls of Evangelion Unit 02. Her eyes narrowed. Several hundred meters away, Rei watched in silence… with a tinge of fear.
I will not fail, Asuka thought. Even if Shinji isn't here.
But that was not how things were to be.
It was ridiculous, trying to carry out a transplant under such conditions—the ground shook again as Namika ran down the hallway, grateful that she was not wearing heels as Ritsuko always did—nevertheless, she slipped to the ground and broke the fall with her shoulder. The doctor scrambled to her feet and examined the bag. Fortunately, there were no leaks.
Her heart sank as she neared Misato's room. No electricity meant no machines, and no such machines meant that they could not filter the marrow to remove T-cells, a process which would greatly decrease the risk of rejection. Modern medicine was hopelessly dependent on electricity and machines. She would have to hope that rejection could be suppressed in the imminent future using powerful drugs.
Her assistant arrived momentarily, and both re-scrubbed and donned clean surgical gloves. Neither spoke; both were too busy focusing on the task at hand. Upon entering the room, the first thing that Namika noticed was that Misato's curtains were wide open and she was sitting in bed with her neck strained, attempting to catch a glimpse of what was going on. Dim light filtered in and a second assistant quickly arrived with a flashlight.
"We don't know either, but he wanted us to keep going with the transplant," Namika informed her. They made a small incision in her chest to insert the catheter (unlike Shinji's, Misato's procedure involved a bit of surgery but required only local anesthesia). Both doctor and assistant breathed a sigh of relief when they saw the red liquid slowly dripping into Misato's chest. Misato herself remained distraught, muttering all the while to herself with a glazed look in her eyes.
"They'll have deployed Units 02 and 00… except that reconstruction on Unit 00 hasn't been completed yet, but 01 will reject her… and with no electricity they'll be operating on that inconsistent backup system …"
"Misato," Namika begged, watching the catheter nervously, "please calm down."
But that was not to happen, as the ground shook again and Namika fought to keep the IV system and bed in place. Her assistant screamed, and a moment later Namika realized why; the windowpanes had shattered, and they were now face-to-face with none other than the head of Unit 02.
Just the head.
"Misumi, close the curtains," Namika ordered.
The girl cowered and Namika, driven over the edge, lost her patience.
"CLOSE THE CURTAINS!"
Trembling, the assistant half-crawled to the window and pulled the draperies together, not daring to look at the severed head. It did not block out the sound of horrified screams and shattering buildings, but it did prevent them from having to view the damage. The doctor scanned the incision, satisfied that the quake did not appear to have done any damage. Misato's fingers were scrabbling across the surface of her bedside table for her cell phone, with no success.
Namika breathed, tried to reassure her. "I'm sure they ejected the entrance plug."
"Entry plug. I hope they did."
"I'm sure they did."
But Misato shot her a warning look and Namika refrained from making any other ignorant comments. She was reminded uncomfortably that despite all the years she had worked at NERV, she knew very little about its functions. They simply delivered the injured to her and she was to treat them and return them to work.
"Does anything hurt?"
"Not really."
"No chills? Fever?"
"No."
"Good."
Without warning, the lights flickered back on. Namika saw with relief that everything was functioning well. She nodded to her assistant, and the girl sank into a chair, holding a shaking hand over her eyes. Namika met Misato's eyes and they grinned shakily; under normal circumstances the doctor would have scolded her assistant for such a bad case of nerves, but today's circumstances were certainly not normal. She shook her hands, trying to bring feeling back into her numbed fingers, and reached for the monitoring machines; Misato certainly appeared to be alive and well, but the human eye was imperfect at detecting tiny changes…
Then the door burst open, and the assistant let out a little shriek.
"Dr. Ishiyama!"
Namika burst out, "You're not allowed in here without being fully sterilized! Get out!"
"We need you now," the nurse insisted. She was breathing quickly and unevenly, and there were patches of red in her cheeks visible even in the dim light.
"Stay here," Namika ordered her assistant, and to Misato, "I'll be back soon." She said not a word to the nurse, breaking into a run once she exited Misato's room. There was a dreadful feeling in her stomach that she knew already…
She threw open the door to Shinji's room, where the medical personnel were gathered around the patient but scattered quickly in her presence. Namika strode to the patient and in doing so, noticed the display of flat green lines on the electrically illuminated panels around him.
Flat lines.
Flat lines…!
"Shinji," she whispered, taking firm hold by the shoulder and shaking him first gently and then harder, "Shinji!"
Nothing.
She turned him over so that he was lying on his back, pulled back his eyelids, and shone her light into them. She listened desperately for a heartbeat, moving her stethoscope over his chest in rapid, panicked motions. She watched him desperately, praying that she would see his chest rising and falling as he breathed. Around her, the staff stood motionless, heads bowed, waiting for her to conclude what they already knew.
The doctor tossed her hair back and threw a painstaking, stricken stare at the monitor, but was greeted again with flat lines.Nothing had changed.
Forced to accept the bitter truth, Namika backed away slowly from the bed and tripped over the metal contraption that maintained the IV line. One of the nurses reached to help her up, but she slapped away her hand and remained sitting on the cold tiles.
As a doctor, she had learned early on to accept the harsh realities of medicine. But now… this time…
She gripped the cold metal bar of the metal structure beside her and held it tight, feeling the coldness sink into the flesh of her palm. Her arm quivered uncontrollably, and the almost-empty IV bag above her moved in response. She looked up at it with miserable eyes, and suddenly the answer dawned on her.
Yet nobody had ever anticipated that it would be a problem.
Statistics from graduate-school textbooks were hurling themselves at her now, and Namika felt the numbers ricocheting in her mind; less than one in 800,000 deaths were attributable to the use of general anesthesia, and most of those were due to other complications.
Other complications.
She recalled the symptoms prior to anesthesia-related deaths exactly as they had been written in her college textbook: medullary paralysis occurs if the respiratory centers of the brain that control breathing and other vital functions cease to function death results if the patient cannot be revived quickly careful control of the amounts of anesthetics and monitoring of the patient's vital signs should prevent this from occurring—
Careful control of the amounts of anesthetics—they had done that—she had checked and rechecked them. But they had not been able to monitor his vital signs, or somebody would surely have noticed.
Shinji's death could have been preventable.
Shinji's death…
Namika let out a little cry of pure misery. Somebody reached down again to help her; again she slapped them away and instead clutched tightly to the wooden table leg behind her, letting her world fade to blackness as she scrunched her eyes and struggled not to cry.
The last thing she remembered was regretting the fact that she had shouted at her assistant for showing weakness.
It fell to Rei to dispose of the food they had prepared. She was surely not about to eat it, and Asuka was still hospitalized. Minor injuries, she had been told. The Second would be out of the hospital in a few days.
They had defeated the Angel. Rei did not remember how she had done it. It didn't matter. She vaguely remembered the NERV technicians mentioning that it was a miracle that she had survived the battle at all, much less emerging unscathed. That Asuka had survived with only minor injuries. It didn't matter.
She neared the waiting room slowly, hoping not to see the four plastic containers stacked on the coffee table as they had been that morning. Perhaps they had spoiled in the lack of refrigeration and someone had thrown them out. Perhaps someone had been hungry and eaten them. Perhaps—
But no, they were still there.
She picked them up and made her way woodenly to the nearest restroom. It was a small, private room designed for usage by only one person at a time; there were no stalls, and for that Rei was grateful. She entered and closed the door behind her. Rei opened her arms and the containers fell into the sink with a clatter. A ceramic, white sink unlike the metal sink at home where she and Asuka had prepared the meal.
Rei peeled back the plastic lid of the first container and poured the potatoes into the toilet, then watched them disappear as she depressed the flush lever. Next came the rice. By the time she removed the lid of the asparagus, her eyes were filled with tears and her hands shaking such that she missed the toilet bowl completely and the vegetables scattered across the floor.
She cleaned it up without focusing on the task, and tossed the container of apple turnovers into the trash can without opening it.
Rei grasped the edge of the sink with her white hands, still trembling. The yellow light cast a dim glow on her blue hair, and in the mirror she saw her red eyes teeming with tears. She blinked, allowing a single tear to escape and make its way down her cheek.
She tore a paper towel from the rack and held it to her closed eyes, allowing the soft paper to soak up the moisture that leaked from beneath her eyelids. In the midst of her grief Rei mused ironically that a few weeks ago she would have been shocked with her behavior today. The First could not remember crying; she could count on one hand the number of times in which she had shown true emotion—but today it did not matter.
It did not matter at all.
"Hey."
"Hey." Misato lowered the newspaper and giggled girlishly. "I see you brought me flowers."
"Yeah, but they're plastic. I remembered you liked hyacinths."
Misato smiled. The strain of her illness had etched deep lines into her face, but she was smiling again. She held the newspaper out for him to see the headline. "The last angel did some pretty bad damage, huh?"
Kaji's mouth formed a thin line. "Probably one of the worst. A lot of reconstruction's going to follow this one."
"I see." Anxious to change the subject, she chided, "Hey, how'd you get them to let you in here? I thought you had to be medical staff."
"I have excellent persuading skills," Kaji informed her. "Besides, do you know how much scrubbing they made me go through? Surely you don't think I'm wearing this blue gown for fun." He picked morosely at it.
Misato laughed weakly and coughed. Kaji waited for it to pass, then asked, "So how did you convince them to give you a newspaper?"
"Ritsuko said it was sterilized. Some sort of new radiation process."
"I see."
Misato pursed her lips. " 'I see' again? Nothing else to say? Hey," she pressed, her voice becoming serious again, "I haven't talked to Shinji since the day of the transplant. How's he doing?"
"Fine…just fine."
Misato closed her eyes. "I'm glad…"
Kaji watched her apprehensively for any signs of suspicion. There were none—she had believed him. The doctors had jointly decided that it would not be a good idea to inform her of Shinji's death while her own life was in such jeopardy, but it was a secret that could not be kept forever. He lowered his head and looked away, reliving memories that he would rather have not occurred at all.
Two days after the foiled transplant that ended his life, Shinji Ikari was laid to rest beside his mother. Almost all of Shinji's class had attended the simple funeral, led by Hikari, whose face was streaked with tears as she slowly made her way toward him. Rei was there as well, standing a short distance off from her classmates. She did not cry, but the pain in her red eyes remained a fresh image in Kaji's mind; beside her had been Kensuke, pushing the wheelchair of his best friend. Touji had gestured impatiently for him to stop a short distance from Shinji's casket. Bit by bit, he inched over to Shinji's side on his new prosthetics—the first steps he had taken since the day his Eva had been forcibly crushed. Ritsuko stood alone uncomfortably for a good part of the ceremony, but was later joined by Maya, who sobbed quietly through the rest. Asuka had refused to attend, choosing instead to grieve alone.
Also absent was the doctor who had coordinated the entire transplant. Namika Ishiyama had been promptly fired by The Commander himself on March 27. The actual circumstances were rather sketchy; all they knew was that she had disappeared after leaving behind three lengthy notes—one to her assistant, one to Ritsuko, and one to Misato. Neither Ritsuko nor her assistant had shown their messages to Kaji, and the third was being kept for Misato's eyes only. The Major did not know why her doctor and old college friend had not come to see her for four days; she had simply been told that Dr. Ishiyama was unavailable and was sending her best wishes.
Now the medical team's foremost focus was on NERV's own Major Katsuragi's recovery. Although exhausted and weak from the chemotherapy and multitude of drugs she was being given to prevent rejection and suppress infection, she claimed to be feeling better; looking at her today, Kaji would have had to agree. Nevertheless, there were still no fruits, vegetables, or flowers allowed in her room, and the hospital continued to maintain very stringent policies on who could and couldn't enter her room. He had heard through the NERV grapevine that both Ritsuko and Rei had visited; both had been told not to disclose any "excess information"—the code words for Shinji's death. For now, she accepted without question the fact that Shinji, like herself, was recovering and would not be able to visit her for some days.
"I'm so tired," Misato muttered, her eyes still closed.
Kaji sat with her until she was asleep again, smoothing aside the tendrils of red hair that framed her face. He couldn't wait until her own dark hair was long again. He'd ask her never to cut it again.
Asuka watched the man she had once loved pass through the tiny window in her closed door. He didn't look at her, as he didn't know which room she was in. Her fingers tightened around the SDAT until she forcefully pried them away, afraid that she would break the mechanism.
He'd asked her to hold on to it for him until he was out of the hospital.
She had considered giving it to Kaji to bury with him, but decided instead in an act of selfishness to keep it.
The sweet soprano of the girl's voice filled her ears.
She hadn't gone to his funeral. She didn't have anything to say to him or to anyone. Maybe later. Maybe sometime in the future. The far-off future.
She wondered briefly what had happened to the food she and Rei had prepared. She recalled without emotion that night that they had sat in Rei's apartment and shared dinner on her bed. She recalled the feeling of crisp crust on her fingertips, of smooth ceramic plates balanced in her lap, of tender asparagus spears giving way under her fork.
She listened as the tape came to an end.
They waited, each day hurrying to the hospital to mark her daily white blood cell count—cheering when it went up, consoling one another when it went down. Then, finally, there came a happy day in late April when the flowers were blooming, her cell count had maintained itself for some time above 1000, and Misato was officially discharged from the hospital.
She had been permitted out of her room a few times in the last week, usually for only a short walk down the hallway, but today she was going home. Home today meant not the usual disheveled Katsuragi apartment, but Kaji's house instead, where she would stay for an undetermined amount of time. Ritsuko and Maya had been over and hand-scrubbed the entire house over, then proceeded to throw out all the beer they could find. She was looking forward to seeing his serene watermelon patches again, away from the traffic and congestion of the urban Tokyo-3.
They had bought her a new outfit for this occasion, a simple sleeveless cotton dress with a matching hairtie. A nurse helped her to fasten back the red curls of her wig with it, but she slipped into the dress herself. It was nice to wear something other than a hospital gown for once, and she planned to dump the wig before long, too—already Kaji had discovered fresh hair sprouting anew from her head.
"You look lovely," the nurse told her.
"Thank you," Misato replied.
She left her bedroom with a cheery wave, pleased to be rid of it—she brought nothing out of it except for her cell phone (the lamp had been carefully packaged and taken home already by Ritsuko). The nurse waved to her and turned back to stripping the sheets and laying on new ones for the next patient. Misato felt a twinge of pity for whomever would be staying there next, but let that feeling dissipate as she half-walked, half-ran to the elevators.
They were waiting for her when she came out of the lobby; Kaji was carrying real flowers, and Ritsuko hurried forward to take pictures of her. Rei waited off to the side, carrying a large bouquet of colored balloons. Misato came down the stairs into the warm sunlight smiling, laughing, and finally crying as she landed in Kaji's arms.
"Welcome back," he whispered. Misato took the flowers from him and inhaled their soft scent. She hugged Rei, who handed her the balloons without speaking, and thanked her for everything.
"And you, Ritsuko," she added.
The blonde doctor smiled and looped an arm over her shoulders. They needed no words to express their relief.
"Ritsuko's brought over all the medication you'll need—and she cleaned out my house from top to bottom, so we're all ready for you," Kaji informed her.
"I want a watermelon," Misato demanded.
"It's too early for watermelons. You can have a watermelon flower instead."
"But no beer," Ritsuko cautioned.
All three of them escorted Misato to Kaji's car, where she slid into the passenger seat and fastened her seat belt, then let her balloons float free in the backseat.
"You realize that I won't be able to look in the rearview mirror if you do that," Kaji warned. He turned the keys in the ignition. "But then again, you've never used yours, and you always lived to tell the tale."
"I use it," she protested.
"Not the way it's intended to be used," he countered. They backed out of the parking lot, waving and calling to Rei and Ritsuko. "The rearview mirror was not intended so that one could apply makeup and keep the occupants of the backseat from fighting."
"Very true. All right, all right, I concede," she acknowledged with a knowing smile.
Kaji wove his car in and out of traffic while Misato was content with simply admiring the scenery of Tokyo-3 after having seen nothing but the small garden outside her hospital room for months. She touched her hand to her neck, finding first the cross, then the rose. The glass rose he'd given her. The same one he'd given to another girl.
"Hey," she said quietly, breaking the silence, "how's Asuka doing?"
"She's staying at your apartment for now. It was decided that I could probably do a better job of taking care of you than she could."
"I see."
Kaji attempted a joke. "It was all actually because Ritsuko decided it would take too long to sterilize your apartment after you've been letting all that mold and fungus grow for years."
She slapped him lightly.
He pulled up into his driveway.
"We're home."
Author's note: I hope you didn't see that coming, although there was a very subtle hint in the last chapter, perhaps a bit too subtle (I seem to have a habit of making my hints too hard). This was the original ending I came up with when I first planned this story over a year ago, and it's perhaps the only thing that hasn't evolved as the story developed.
Just a short epilogue to follow…
