Disclaimer- I don't own Evangelion, property of Studio Gainax, Anno-san, plus a bunch of other people and associations.
Chapter 2 Homecoming
"Hello Shinji. It's been a while." The woman paused, eyes running up and down his form in a studying, not hungry manner.
His clothing was frayed and faded, and her trained eye noted it as being worn through time, not abuse. It was modest, plain, and unassuming... it summed up the wearer's appearance perfectly. The only out of place object was the silver, equal armed crucifix necklace that hung from his neck, which had a slight red stain on it.
"You look... okay."
The young man swallowed down a scream. "Hello Misato."
"Mama..." Asuka whispered softly, glancing with either revulsion or love at the rebuilt Unit 02. It had only taken four years to reconstruct the Eva, but she hadn't seen it since... that day. To her, the Eva represented her life... pain, love, loss, duty, pride... death.
The red Eva showed no trace of any damage from its destruction at the hands of the Eva Series, but Asuka did. Unconsciously, she rubbed her right arm, the arm that had been scarred viciously. Even now, it ached.
Everything did. Where the pseudo-Lances had assaulted her, she still felt twinges of pain in her deep scars, some of which were visible, some of which were not. And if that wasn't enough, nightmares about those monsters still haunted her dreams, their mocking grins, their shrieks, their teeth...
Her eyes drifted towards Unit 01, and her mismatched orbs narrowed. "Idiot." Asuka growled. Shinji Ikari was a touchy subject at best with the woman. She was mixed on his saving her, hated him for running away, and that was just feelings from one day.
"Why unfreeze it... its not like any of us can pilot-" that train of thought was derailed violently.
The redhead had a sneaking suspicion that Unit 01 had been unfrozen because a certain pilot had finally returned to NERV.
With a snarl that frightened the techs around her, she turned and stalked off, looking for answers.
"How've you been?" Misato asked, as they walked (or rather, she wheeled and he walked), and immediately winced. It sounded fake and false, something you would say to any random stranger on the street, not a person you had lived with for a year.
"Fine." Shinji replied automatically, trying hard not to look at Misato's wheelchair. Every squeak seemed a vicious punch to his gut. He still remembered the blood on her lips as she kissed him, and her final words to him.
His words, like her's, sounded false, something one would say if they didn't give a damn about the question.
"That's great." Misato paused, and glanced once more at her old cross. "You kept it."
Shinji seemed confused for a moment, until he caught her eyes riveted to the crucifix on his neck. "Ye-yeah... well... I was holding it for you. Do you-"
"No... it's yours now. Keep it." The Sub Commander said quietly. She had tried, for seven long, agonizing years, to forget her vengeance, her hatred. That cross was the symbol of her past.
The atmosphere was strained, reminding both of them painfully of the waning days of the Angel War.
They drifted into uncomfortable silence, which hung like a lead weight.
Finally, Misato couldn't take it anymore, and she stopped. "Shinji, why did you leave?" it was practically whispered, full of sadness and regret and wistfulness.
It was a question that Shinji had been expecting and dreading. He knew he'd have to answer up to it all, answer up to why, that terrible day, he abandoned everyone. "Do you have to ask?" he asked, throat clenched tight.
"I really do." Misato said tersely.
Shinji whirled on her, anger and remorse in his eyes, and he advanced forward in fury. "You saw what I did! How... how could I go back to the way things were!" he paused, and turned away, that damn choke in his voice again. "I couldn't stay here... not after everything."
"They would have killed you!" the Sub Commander shouted angrily, meeting his advance with her own, wheeling herself forward.
"And what gave me the right to live! Why is it always me who survives!" Shinji cried desperately, backing away. "Kaoru, the JSSDF... why me?"
"You'd rather they'd have killed you!" Misato screamed, taking advantage of the retreat and pressing her advance, barely conscious that her wheelchair was about to crush the young man's foot.
"OF COURSE!"
The Sub Commander's eyes narrowed, and she pressed her face right into Shinji's. "You'd rather they have killed me?" she hissed.
He flinched.
"Or maybe Asuka, if she hadn't already been fighting for her life while you were hiding... or Rei, since they already managed to break into Terminal Dogma... or Touji, since he was once a Child too..." each name was like a physical strike, and Shinji lost ground and staggered backwards. "Shinji," Misato's tone had softened to a soothing whisper, "It was you or them. It's okay to feel regret, but don't let it consume you. They would have killed you and everyone else without a second thought."
Shinji nodded, not quite ready to accept the words, but placing them into his heart. "Where are we headed?" he asked hoarsely, as if their confrontation had drained him.
"The Commander's office." Misato replied.
He flinched again, though less noticeably. "Father..." Shinji whispered, freezing. The word brought back terrible memories, and a cold, rushing hatred.
Misato paused, unsure how to break the news. "Shinji... your father died in the JSSDF attack. They found his body in Terminal Dogma."
The hate was replaced with uncertainty. Was he supposed to feel sadness? Regret? He didn't know. "Oh."
They pressed on in silence.
Misato glanced at him. "I know this is... unsettling, to be thrown back into NERV, but-"
"Ikari."
The pilot looked up, and swallowed down a mixture of revulsion and sadness. Another person he didn't know how to react to. "Ayanami."
"Rei? I thought you were up at the bridge." The Sub Commander said, glancing curiously at the blue haired woman.
"I... I wished to see him." She replied, glancing intently at Shinji. She had rejected Commander Ikari for him, Misato remembered.
"Of course." And with that, the Sub Commander pulled forward, out of hearing.
Shinji found he couldn't look at Rei. Her origins... even now, he woke to a cold sweat and fading images of smiling, soulless shells of Rei.
After a few more moments of tense pause, Rei spoke. "You are uncomfortable... I will leave." She whispered neutrally, but her eyes seemed sad. Before he could say anything, she turned.
After a flicker of hesitation, Shinji grasped her hand. "Wait... I'm sorry. I shouldn't be rude." He said quietly, a slight smile on his face. "It's nice to see you again, really."
Rei turned, and smiled at him. A real, full smile, that made her face light up, and her beauty entrancing. Seven years really was a long time, Shinji realized.
Maybe even long enough that old wounds could heal, and people could start over.
Shinji smiled back, this time warmly. "How have you been?"
As soon as she reached her apartment, Hikari haphazardly cast off her shoes and hurried towards the phone. With practiced ease she punched in a number.
Three rings. "Hello, Suzuhara residence."
"Hi Keiko. Is your brother home?" Hikari asked.
"Hikari!" Keiko Suzuhara squealed happily. "One second. Touji! Its Hikari!"
A few stumbles and muffled curses later, the elder Suzuhara picked up the phone. "What's up Hikari?"
"Shinji's back." She said bluntly.
There was a very long, or possibly very short pause. The silence was a choking miasma in the air.
"Oh." Touji managed.
Silence again.
"Do you want me to tell Kensuke?" Hikari asked quietly.
Touji sighed deeply. "No... I'll do it." Without another word, he hung up.
Shinji clenched his fist reflexively, an old habit he had not experienced in years. He stood, for the first time in seven years, in front of the Supreme Commander's desk. Though his father was gone (a fact he could barely accept), it felt as though his intimidating, haunting presence still lingered in the room.
Rei had offered to come inside with him, but Shinji wanted to talk with the Commander privately. Misato had to head over to the bridge earlier, to oversee the final unfreezing of the Evas.
"Hello Shinji." Commander Fuyutsuki greeted levelly. "Please, take a seat."
The former pilot took the seat, and tilted his head in acknowledgment. "Commander." He replied neutrally. After a moment of silence, Shinji voiced his first question. "Why didn't you tell me father had died?" he asked accusingly.
The Supreme Commander blinked in surprise, but his surprise passed like it was never there. "I had though you would have been notified, if not by us, then by the government, about your father's demise." Fuyutsuki responded calmly.
Shinji's face quirked into a bitter smile. "I doubt the Japanese Government wants anything to do with me." He paused, and raised a curious eyebrow. "Speaking of which... how did you get me into the country? I would have thought that I was unwelcome."
Fuyutsuki smirked. "True, the government is upset with you, but NERV is still a powerful organization. I have my ways."
"I suppose so..." Shinji trailed off into silence, glancing out into the blinding light that made up the walls of the office.
The Commander coughed, and said briskly, "Now, down to business..."
Shinji sighed, a feeling of weariness wearing on his body after talking with Commander Fuyutsuki. Though more... welcoming than his father, being at NERV, being in that office, being in this damn city made him want to scream and run back to the hole he had buried himself in.
And it was only about to get worse... because, like so many things today, he would see Unit 01 for the first time in seven years.
He was alone, walking the halls of the Geofront. Rei was getting suited up, Misato was on the bridge, and Asuka...
Shinji hoped to just avoid the redhead as long as possible... he felt guilty enough as it was without seeing her face.
Eventually, the hallway ended and the unholy visage of Unit 01 welcomed him back to his Hell.
Misato's eyes were riveted to Shinji's visage on the screen, not paying attention to any of the titles or the numbers, just his face. She studied him, trying to find the boy she knew in the man who returned.
Nearby, Maya's own eyes were rapidly scanning the incoming data impassively. It had been a long time since she did this, but it was so ingrained in her conscious than it came naturally.
"How are the Children?" Commander Fuyutsuki asked.
"Asuka's is acceptable from her scores before... the attack, and considering her time away." Maya reported, briefly choking on the memory of the attack. Blood, screams, Aoba's furious shouts...
"What about Shinji and Rei?" Sub Commander Katsuragi questioned, looking over at the suddenly distracted doctor.
Flushing slightly at her lax attention, the doctor quickly scanned the screen. "Oh... Rei's is quite high, taking into account that she has been away from her Eva the longest." Maya frowned, glancing over the numbers again. "But Shinji's has decreased dramatically, even accounting the years he hasn't piloted."
"But it's still within acceptable limits, correct?" Fuyutsuki asked levelly.
The head of Project E briefly considered asking why their sync scores were so important, but decided to forgo the questioning. "Yes, sir."
"Excellent." The Commander murmured, and left without a word.
"Alright, we're done now. Good work everyone." Maya's warm voice drifted over the com, slightly startling the Third Child (which was what he was, once more). He was still used to Doctor Akagi's voice drifting over the speakers, cold and businesslike.
He briefly wondered what had happened to the doctor, but decided that he was better off not knowing. Enough was enough, and the pilot had taken in too much information for one day.
Shinji exhaled slowly, hating the bloody taste of LCL that clung to his mouth and his body. As he exited the entry plug, he picked up his pace slightly, hoping to retreat to the safety of the men's locker room before he was faced with the unappealing scenario of talking with the Second Child, who was currently still within her own entry plug.
Luckily for him, he managed to get to the locker room without running into Asuka. With an almost desperate haste, Shinji jerked the shower on, sighing in relief as the warmth of the water struck him, sweeping the clinging drops of LCL off his body and the smell of blood.
He didn't know how long he stayed in that shower, letting the steam rise and create a miasma around him, but he enjoyed it, as if it was cleansing all the troubling feelings in his soul away.
Eventually, he decided that his skin couldn't withstand any more, and toweled off. As Shinji exited the locker room, he felt refreshed, and ready to sleep the rest of his first day in Tokyo 3 away.
Which is why, he didn't notice the redhead leaning against the wall next to the door.
"Well... look whose back." She drawled, raking her glare over Shinji, who froze up as he turned towards his former roommate.
"H-hello Asuka."
Seele 01, known also as Keel Lorenz walked through the halls of the facility confidently, belying his age. The hallway was lit, but ended in darkness, but it didn't matter to the leader of Seele. He knew his way.
Stepping lightly into shadow, he triggered a single pillar of light, which burst into being.
It was a large tube, filled with amber LCL. A single naked shape floated within, eyes closed. The skin was ghostly white, almost glowing, and the hair was matted and gray.
"Your day is imminent. Soon, you will accomplish what you were created for." Keel murmured, smiling.
The boy within opened his blood red eyes, and smiled back.