Chapter 2
Disclaimer: I don't own Evangelion…but I can dream…wait…nope, sold the copyrights for $163.
A/N
I hope you liked the last chapter.
Updated version 2.0
Corrected by my Beta reader Genesis D. Rose. He's a life saver!
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After the small reunion, Misato continues her journey to NERV headquarters, but how will she explain this to the commander?
"Hey Ki-Chan, is the seat belt too tight?" Shinji gave her the biggest grin possible.
"No papa, it fits fine" She smiles back at him. Neither of them notices the driver who's watching from the rearview mirror.
'That has to be the sweetest thing I've ever seen' Misato thought 'If only he wasn't so… self-destructive' She mentally sighs and continues to stare at the road. 'It's so hard to drive slow!'
"Misato-san..."
"Yes Shinji-kun?" She looks back again. "Did you want something?"
"Thanks for slowing down for Ki-Chan…she can get carsick pretty easily" He smiles at Kichi while ruffling her hair.
"Thanks daddy and pretty lady!" Kichi wraps her arms tight around him with all of her might.
"You hear that Misato-San, she called you pretty" He looks into his daughter's eyes, and pokes the tip of her nose. "I got your nose! Haha, you'll never it back!"
"That's no fair! Waahhh!" Her fake crying is apparent so she takes drastic measures, "Daddy…" and smacks him in the face, "I got your nose!"
"That's no fair, you smacked me and you know I won't smack you back" Its Shinji's turn to fake pout.
Kichi giggles at her father's expense…until she notices something outside the window.
"Daddy, what's that thing?" She points outside of the car.
In the background are small rock formations, engulfed in a see of green. It would be a beautiful view if not for large black figure walking outwards, vanishing behind the mountains.
Misato takes action and stops the car, withdrawing a pair of binoculars from the glove compartment. Shinji does the same, only pulling a pair from his gym bag.
Both adults zoom in maximum view and take note of the Aircraft surrounding the area.
"Ki-Chan, you want to see too?"
"Yes! Gimmie!" She pulls them from his hands, forgetting there's a rope wrapped around his neck. Shinji doesn't say anything. "Umm…daddy, the planes are flying away"
"Shit! You 2 get down!" Misato yells at the top of her lungs, jumping into the backseat, covering Shinji who is covering Kichi.
A bright white flash comes from the distant, growing by the second until… 'BAM!'
The shockwave hits the vehicle with a tremendous blow, forcing it to roll off the road, and flipping it over. The situation wasn't any better with a four-year-old girl clinging to her father for dear life.
"Papa, papa, papa!" It hurt Shinji hearing Kichi cry for him. "I'm scared papa!"
"Its okay Ki-Chan, I'm here, everything will be all right" Dust kicks up and covers the occupants in a thick layer of soil. "Just hold tight okay?" She merely nods.
The blast had subsided and all that was left was wind kicking up debris. If Shinji believed in a god, he would have thanked him for keeping Kichi safe. He almost forgot about the other passenger though, "Misato, are you okay?"
"Yeah…just a little dizzy…How's Kichi?" Shinji says nothing, instead looks down at his shivering daughter.
"She'll be fine" He smiles slightly, giving Kichi a reassuring hug, which she returns twice as hard. "I'm glad you're okay Ki-Chan. I would never let anything hurt you" He kissed her forehead, trying to avoid showing her the water swelling up in his eyes.
"Are you c…c…crying ca…cause your hurt daddy?" Obviously his plan failed but he didn't care. Nothing else mattered except her and her safety. It's moments like this that remind him how happy it is to be a father.
"No silly, I'm crying 'cause I'm glad you're okay"
"You're weird daddy" Her exhausted body nests into Shinji's chest. She wanted to fall asleep there, but they had to leave the vehicle.
"Hey Ki-Chan, we have to get out of this car, if you hurry up we can get ice cream faster" She only nods, "But you need to crawl out first. I'm a little stuck here…hehe" Giving a reassuring laugh was all he could think of to calm her.
It took a few minutes of squirming to free from the wreckage…however all was not well…
"Damn it! My car is totaled!" Misato's face turns the same shade of blue as her car…or steel brick depending on the point of view. "How are we going to get there now?"
"Uhh, Misato-San, it's only a mile away. I'm sure we could walk" He then looks down at Kichi, "do you want to ride on daddy's shoulders?" She nods enthusiastically, "Okay…" He puts his hands under her arms and picks her up. When he has her at head level, he swings her around behind his back. Both of her legs are thrown over his shoulders, and she wraps her arms around his forehead
"Hehehe, I can see really far" Kichi looks around, only able to see dirt for half of a mile, "Papa, all this dirt is icky!"
"We'll get you cleaned up when we get there, okay Ki-Chan?" There's no response, only the sound of mild snoring, 'Poor thing must be exhausted' He almost forgets…again, "Hey Misato-San, can you grab my bag? It shouldn't be too heavy. I would carry it but I don't want to wake her"
"No problem" She smiled and leaned over the wreckage, "Ah, here it is…oof!" She lifts it over shoulder, nearly falling to her side, "What the hell is in here?"
"Well, some smokes, my binoculars, some clothes for Kichi, a few packs of animal crackers, and my medication…' His voice trails off. Misato wisely chooses to stay quiet, "Her clothes are wet because I was in the middle of doing a load of laundry…sorry"
"No problem, I need to start heavy lifting anyways"
Both Misato and Shinji walk for twenty minutes to the ground level entrance of NERV. They don't try to talk, not wanting to wake the sleeping beauty on Shinji's shoulders. Just then Misato pulls out a small phone and presses the speed dial number for NERV.
"Misato here, yeah…yeah…can I get the monorail up here? My car is kind of totaled…yeah, I know it's the third one in six months…well, dodging an N2 mine is kind of hard…what do you mean 'You should have found a ditch'? Then it would be stuck in a ditch!" Shinji doesn't bother to listen to the rest of the conversation, only paying attention to the green haired angel resting behind his head.
After a few moments of waiting, the large doors open, revealing a long dark tunnel. They walk to the end near the second door, but a patrol guard who is waiting at a small outpost stops them.
"Please step through the metal detector" He motions Shinji towards a metal frame and he reluctantly agrees. Before he steps through though, he wakes Kichi, telling her to wait next to Misato. He then puts his flask in a small basket, along with some keys, a cell phone, a lighter, and his wallet. When he passes through, the beeping does not surprise him. "Sir, I'm going to have to ask you to empty all of your pockets again"
"That's impossible" Shinji sighs impatiently.
"Why is that?"
"Because I have a metal plate in my head. The plate itself won't set of the alarm but the screws holding it in place are composed of a steel alloy that can set off super-sensitive metal detectors" His unenthusiastic response, triggers the guard's curiosity, making him raise an eyebrow.
"What did you do?" The guard's intrigue was probably his worst enemy, because he wasn't spared.
"You really want to know?" Misato who is standing behind Shinji, pinches the bridge of her nose and closes her eyes, feeling slightly irritated.
"Yeah…" His word drags on for a few seconds.
"One second, hey Ki-Chan?" He doesn't turn his face to meet hers, but instead grabs the contents from the basket and puts them in his pockets "I want you to put your hands over your ears, okay?"
"Okay daddy…" Even though he wasn't looking directly at her, he could still feel the sadness on her face.
"Well…" Shinji pulls his lighter and a cigarette from his back pocket. Once the orange filter is at his lips, he lights it and takes a deep breath, "A few years ago I tried to blow my brains out" The smoke expels from his lungs as he gives his answer, "I probably would have been dead too if I didn't sneeze, causing the gun to slip" Shinji's eyes connect with the NERV officer for half-a-minute without either of them blinking. "What…" The guard has the same bewildered look Misato gave him during his ride to pick up Kichi. "Here, take this" He hands the guard the cigarette the he was just smoking, taking one last puff before doing so.
The patrol officer doesn't say anything as he puts the cigarette in his mouth and breathes slowly in and out. "You may go on…"
"You okay sweetie?" He tries hard to cheer up his upset daughter but it doesn't seem to work. Apparently he hurt her feelings just as he had predicted.
"You tell me to put my hands on my ears when you have to say something sad…are you sad daddy?" She closes the distance between them and wraps her arms around his leg.
"I'm not sad anymore" He tries to walk but Kichi is firmly stuck, "So that's how it's going to be, huh?" He grins, and starts dragging his foot along, with the girl holding even tighter. He feels better knowing she's giggling with every step he takes.
Misato stays behind to talk to the guard as Shinji moves ahead.
"So…what the fuck happened to him?" The guard's eyes betrayed the sadness he felt for the boy. "He's got a lot of scars, and I thought they said he tried to drown himself?"
"Gendo happened…but I feel like I'm missing something" She keeps a stiff face, examining the guard's eyes, "Don't feel bad though, just look at those two…" She thumbs the direction of Ikari family duo, "I think he found something to live for" She reads a sign in the distance behind the NERV patrol officer, "You know this is a no smoking area?" She points to the cigarette in his hands and then back to the sign behind him. His eyes follow the direction she's pointing.
"Sorry Major"
"Not a problem" She pulls it from his hands and looks at it for a few seconds…then takes a puff.
"Major?" He watches as his superior offers the cigarette back, generously.
"I'm allowing it this one time, see you later"
"Good-bye ma-am" His body stands up straight, giving her a salute. She follows salute after him. Once military procedure is over, Misato heads over the Ikaris.
"Sorry, that took a little longer then expected"
"No problem Misato-San, Ki-Chan and I were just talking about why the color green is pretty"
"It's-the-color-of-my-hair-and-that-makes-it pretty-because-my-daddy-says-I'm-pretty-so-green-is-pretty!" Kichi starts to pant from her million-mile-an-hour statement. Her already dry throat itches, causing her to cough.
"Careful Ki-Chan, we don't want you to choke" He leans down and pats her back, succeeding in stopping her coughing. The aftermath wasn't any better.
"Huuuggghhhh" Kichi expels the contents of her stomach in front of the two adults, causing her to cry, "Waahhhhh!"
"Ki-Chan, are you alright? Here, drink some of this" If the major wasn't shocked enough, this did it.
"What the hell? Are you giving her alcohol?" Fire burned in her eyes with the passion of a thousand suns…or mothers, "Give me that" She snatched the flask out of Shinji's hand, surprising him and spilling a few drops of the amber liquid on the ground.
"Hey, that's not alcohol! Take a sip!" Shinji had a disgusted expression, but sighed after he realized how the situation must look.
Misato eyed it for a bit, examining the silver container. After a full forty-five seconds, she brought it to her lips and took a tiny sip. It tasted sweet, not bitter, and it didn't leave an after-taste.
"What the hell…is this…?"
"It's…apple juice. You think I would give her something like liquor or beer?" He grabbed his flask back and handed it to Kichi, which she enjoyed greatly.
"Then why have a flask if it's just for apple juice?" Her question created an awkward pause…'I asked another personal question…DAMNIT!' Just as she feared, Shinji gave in to the question.
"I used to drink…a lot…and I kept it as a reminder of what I did…" He looked back to Kichi who was still sucking on the container; "And Kichi loves apple juice so I keep it with me at all times" Watching the teary eyed girl, concentrating on getting every sip out of the container, brightened his mood once more. "Hey Ki-Chan, did it taste good?"
"Yeah…'Hic'… it was… 'Hic'… good."
"Slow down now" Shinji cackles, "You don't want to get sick again do you?" He takes the end of his shirt and wipes the muck off of her face. "Your throat might be dry from the dirt too"
"Icky, icky dirt… 'Buurrpp', it tasted bad when the car went smash!" She emphasized the last word, reminding the Major of another bill to pay.
After the Ikaris were settled, Misato calls back to the guard.
"Hey Kisho, will you clean up this mess?" She points to puke puddle.
"Yeah…"
"What was that!" Misato was back in Major mode.
"Yes ma'am!" He gives his second salute, grabbing a towel from a nearby janitor's closet.
"Okay you two, let's continue shall we?"
"Yeah" Mr. Ikari replies, "And I think Ki-Chan is ready too"
"Okay, then here we go!" Misato walks up to the large door connecting the tunnel to the monorail system, sliding a key card through the electronic lock. "Shinji-Kun?"
"What is it?"
"Please take your bag back, it's killing me…"
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A/N well here's chapter two. I'm very happy with the reviews I'm getting. Sorry if it gets waffy and then dark, or vice versa. This story isn't 100 happy.
Updated chapter, thank my beta reader!