+++++ NERV. (Saturday, August 28th, +7, Last Quarter 2/4)

Yui Ikari looked at a woman that she hoped would be able to prove that her presence in NERV was not a mistake. "I'm going to trust you to do whatever is necessary to stop him from disappearing into the wilderness. I cannot stress enough how little I care what that is. Help me find him, help me stop him from harming himself, and buy me the time needed to set the other pieces in place that we will need to keep him from destroying himself in grief and rage." She knew that she was jealous of the woman, but she could not think of anyone else with the appropriate set of skills that wouldn't look to a martial solution where a more human touch could be employed. "Can you do this, or do I have to look elsewhere?"

"I can't make any promises that it won't get ugly, ma'am."

"Keep him alive, give him a reason to keep himself alive, and so long as he isn't permanently damaged, it will not be on your head." Standing from behind her seat, she tugged her long coat tight around her torso. "You have a blank check, Captain."

Misato bowed professionally. "I'll spend it wisely, ma'am."

+++++ Kirijo Manor. (Saturday, August 28th, +7, Last Quarter 2/4)

Shinji was outside and around to the east wing before word had spread around the house that he was in motion. Caught off guard, the security on duty at the time didn't see much reason to prevent him from taking a walk if he'd wanted to, as all of them knew that he was a bit prone to having a temper. His approach to the 'unguarded' all-important door to the sub-levels however, sent everyone into a flurry of motion.

The evening's NCOIC had hoped, through relative inexperience at dealing with enraged demi-humans, that both the aggressively locked portal and weight of the door itself would prevent him from gaining easy access to the stairwell. When the door was later found at the bottom of the pool, the maintenance staff asked how someone had managed to get the semi it should have taken onto the muddy lawn to tear the door off the hinges with a tow-strap without leaving tire marks anywhere.

Video footage of the encounter between Shinji and the agents standing guard duty downstairs showed that they were not given the chance to defend their station from his approach. Between one instant and the next, he'd reached them, disarmed them, and then snapped their weapons in half. An attempt was made at restraining him with a well-delivered tackle, which only served to dislocate the agent's shoulder as he ignored her completely to tear open the door he seemingly knew was his target.

Striding across the green line, as well as the red line, he reached the inner door and kicked it open. With his tattoos glowing brightly, and the lights in the area having turned from the typical industrial white to a warning red, the camera inside Meroko Ikari's room caught sight of what Shinji Ikari had become. Gone was the meek, timid, young man. An inhuman fiend now glared at a woman that had much to answer for.

"Shinji-kun," Meroko purred. She recognized in him what he had become, having seen what stood before her within him for far longer than anyone else had. "So nice of you to stop by. Would you be an absolute love, and help me get these handcuffs off?"

The video now displayed where the inhuman fiend grew slack. Meekly, it walked over and gently snapped the restraints off of the female prisoner. "Of course, Meroko-sama," it intoned, no longer a predator on the hunt.

"Thank you. Now, I know you're a little upset that I've been gone so long. I'll make it up to you by letting you carry me out of here." She held up her arms, the demand that he pick her up from where she sat perfectly clear. "We'll go find a nice hotel and catch up."

"Of course, Meroko-sama."

Watching the events unfold from the safety of her personal office, Miyuki closed her eyes, sitting back in her chair and hating herself for having to resort to such extreme measures to find the truth of things. "Yuko?"

Her closest ally was currently glaring death at the screen displaying Shinji carefully extracting Meroko Ikari from the prison they'd kept her in. "Yes, ma'am?"

"Please make certain that nobody interferes with Captain Katsuragi. Shinji will be…very angry with us for tampering with the files from the Prime Minister, to say nothing of seeking out this phrase the bitch finally gave us just now. We'll make it up to him, of course, but he will need to vent on other shoulders for the time being."

"Of course, Miyuki-sama." Leaving the room, Shinji's Executive Assistant allowed her final words to dig into her longtime employer's skin. She was beholden to her savior, but that didn't mean she had to like everything she did. She certainly did not have to like it when her Shinji was being forced to touch the soon-to-be corpse of a monster.

+++++ Kirijo Manor. (Saturday, August 28th, +7, Last Quarter 2/4)

Yui had reached the side gate to the Kirijo Manor via VTOL, just as Shinji was leaving through the last way the in-house security forces had expected him to. Her pilot set the vehicle down in her son's path, and she carefully hopped out of the side of the demi-plane with due care for the rotor wash. Moving to intercept him as he mindlessly altered his course to accommodate the massive flying machine, she took up position alongside him and walked at his pace with ease. Her husband, after all, had been about his height; she knew how to keep up with him.

"Well, hello, sister dear," Meroko stated with a sour expression. "What can we do for you this fine evening?"

Yui wanted nothing more than to begin swearing at a woman she'd thought much better of. She wanted to clench her teeth around her throat and tear her carotid artery open to watch her bleed to death in agony. She would not make it so easy on her. "Shinji, did you know that your father would read to you while I carried you in my womb?" She directed her attentions to where they would do the most good for the moment. "Frost was his favorite, he'd read several poems to you and then detail the meaning behind the prose. Your talent for linguistics most likely began before you were even aware of the world around you."

"Do not make me have him-"

"When he died, I felt my heart break. Kyoko-chan took you to her apartment that evening, kept you occupied and unaware of the trauma you'd just witnessed for a week." Yui sighed with genuine regret. "I spent that week alternating between sobbing and swearing. I was…I was selfish. Instead of holding my son close, instead of pulling the small life he'd helped me create closer…I let another woman take care of you while I flounced around in darkness."

"Yui-"

"Now, a decade and a half later, I get to see that my mistakes went so much further than that. You could have been the brightest scholarly mind in generations. You could have been a musical virtuoso. You could have been a star athlete." Anger, hot and bitter, rose in her throat. "Instead, I sold you into slavery."

"Shinji, would you be an absolute love and-"

The electrical charge that disrupted whatever it was that her sister had been about to order her son to do created a sharp tang of ozone burning around them both. She had no doubts that her son was strong enough to survive the device she'd used, he was his father's son. Watching him twitch on the ground as the electricity forced his muscles to spasm and clench irrhythmically, she allowed a maudlin regret to blossom in her own chest. "I should have never pulled you out of the pool that day, Meroko-chan. If you'd drowned…I would have listened to Kyoko, and let her raise my son to be even better than his father." When the device ran out of power, she pulled out a pair of riot cuffs and resecured her sister. Her throat microphone was triggered by a flex of her trachea, sending her message to one of the ladies she needed to speak with. "Captain Katsuragi, have you acquired transport?"

A sporty coupe pulled up along the road nearby, the passenger window rolling down to reveal Misato leaning over to ask, "Need a hand, ma'am?"

"No. I was dealing with Meroko for years before you were even born. Please take my son and go…he doesn't need to see what I'm about to do." Taking her sibling by the hair and dragging her away from Shinji, Yui left Misato to muscle him into the car. Another keyed sequence of throat movements allowed her to send the other woman away. "Captain Minders, you may take the VTOL back to base. I trust my hostess will help me return, when it's time to."

The diminutive blonde pilot began the pre-flight sequence, responding, "Aye ma'am. I'll remain on standby tonight, just in case you need me to come hide bodies."

"I appreciate that." Reaching the same gate Shinji had left, she reached up and removed the microphone from her neck. "I believe it's a bit naïve to think that death is the inevitable outcome of what I plan on doing, however."

+++++ NERV. (Saturday, August 28th, +7, Last Quarter 2/4)

Kyoko was honestly surprised at how calm Akane and Mikoto were being. When she'd ordered them to present themselves, and then ordered them to stand fast despite the warning going out that Shinji was in danger, she honestly had expected some form of insubordination. Instead, Mikoto was laying on the couch in Kyoko's office catnapping and Akane was sharpening the boot knife she carried. Both had declined refreshments, which was a shame in her mind because she'd made them herself. "I appreciate that this must be difficult. Shinji-kun has made quite the impression on all of us, and I share your concern regarding his welfare."

"I'm not terribly concerned, ma'am," Akane mused in a gentle hush. "After all, I'm at least aware of who I will need to kill should he end up dead because of this. Since I can't be where I should be, at least I'm where I need to be."

Mikoto's voice was cold death, "It won't be pretty, and it won't be quick…ma'am."

"Are you sure you don't want some cookies? I made them myself, you know." Kyoko had been threatened so many times over her years that she didn't even feel the need to informally reprimand them for speaking their mind. "They really are rather good."

Akane eyed her superior with a scowl. "Katsuragi?" The true reason for their anger finally came forth. "You have at least five employees here on post that would make room for him, and she sends her?!"

"There are reasons, dear. The good Captain is, at the moment, the best choice to handle a situation where no good memories are going to be made." Placing a pair of cookies on a plate, she walked over and crouched down to insist that they take one. "Each of us serves our role in this organization. If we believed that he needed physical safety, you would be there. If we felt he needed emotional safety, we would have sent Lieutenant Ibuki and Ritsuko-chan. If we felt he needed to work his rage loose, we would have sent Sergeant Valatok. What he needs, right now, is not going to be found in the presence of good, understanding, friends."

Setting her implements down with a petulant huff, Akane accepted one of the cookies and took a nibble. "So what's she good for?"

"Hedonism." Kyoko nudged Mikoto with the plate until the skeletal agent took her own cookie. "Right now, he needs to get drunk off his ass enough that he loses all reserve and lets out the toxins he's husbanded for so long. If it comes to it, we know that Captain Katsuragi cannot become with child. That means, that right now, she's been given this mission. The commander believes that he needs an outlet that Captain Katsuragi can provide. The commander is perfectly willing to sacrifice Captain Katsuragi's job duties in the long run if it means navigating this situation in the short term. You should both feel good about that," her warm smile did not match the cold frost of her tone, "because it very well could have been one of you losing their job, and their access to him. Do not think that because we have not reprimanded you for sneaking kisses with him during combat situations that we are ignorant of those kisses." When both Akane and Mikoto blanched slightly, she resumed her calm, pleasant, demeanor. "More cookies?"

+++++ Katsuragi Apartment. (Saturday, August 28th, +7, Last Quarter 2/4)

Shinji sat bolt upright when his conscious mind regained the capacity to act and react to the world around him. He didn't recognize the room he was in, the couch he was on, or the scent in the air, and all of that combined together to make him incredibly nervous. He could barely remember watching a video…of something. He'd had Shizuko on his lap, he'd been sitting at his desk…he'd….

"How're you feeling?"

Turning quickly to see Misato sitting on the arm of a nearby reclining chair, looking with genuine concern at him, he tried to make that information meld properly with what he remembered. "I-I…." At that point, the enormous headache that had developed without his knowledge greeted him heartily. "Ugh…." Falling back down onto the couch, he shoved the heels of his palms into his eyes.

"Mmm, yeah, I've heard high voltage tends to do that." Shifting where she was seated to the coffee table in front of the couch he was laying on, she rubbed his stomach in commiseration. "I've got painkillers and your choice of whisky, vodka, or Yebisu. How bad a headache are we talking, here?"

His mouth felt incredibly dry. "Like someone is carving pictures in my skull with a spoon."

"Whisky." Patting his chest, she stood up and moved towards her kitchen. "We'll have you up and able in no time."

"How did I get here?" He remembered having several moments just like this. He'd wake up somewhere he hadn't been when he last remembered anything, with no recollection of how he'd managed to arrive wherever he was. It was different than the fugues he'd had the past several days, but still concerning that he might have hurt someone.

Misato chuckled darkly. "What's the last thing you remember?"

"Reading…something. I was in my room, on my laptop."

With a bottle of her workaday whisky, two tumblers, and a bottle of painkillers, she plopped back down atop her coffee table. "I recommend not doing what I'm about to have you do, except under the care and guidance of a professional. Mixing alcohol and pain relievers is a good way to get yourself killed unless you've done the research." Pouring out a respectable amount of both, she placed her fisted hand over his mouth to dispense the painkillers. "Open." She was pleased that he responded without hesitation or complaint. Opening her fist slightly to let the pills drop down, she gently lifted his head up and set the glass of alcohol to his lips. "One more time."

The familiar burn of whisky helped him swallow the pills. He was used to gagging things back when they were chased with alcohol. After a healthy swallow, when the cup was removed from his lips, he lowered his hands and eyed his 'Tactical Commander'. "Thanks. Single pot still?"

"…Ok, you see, I've been trying to make any sense of you this past week, but now I want to know where someone as strait-laced as you gets off knowing the difference between types of whiskies."

Pulling himself upright, despite his head assuring him that was a stupid idea, he shrugged and took the glass of whisky to knock the rest back in a single go. "Same place I learned almost everything else, my Aunt's house." The medicine would eventually help dull the pain, he needed answers now. "How did I get here?"

"I drove you, after you were…convinced to stop doing what you were doing." Her brow knit, the information still not making any sense to her. "I was told that you were suffering from a form of conditioning. Something that the Commander hadn't been aware of until you showed up." She looked between his eyes, seeing that he was truly incapable of lying. "She said you'd tell me what I needed to know, if you wanted to."

His memory remained occluded, but his hatred for his mother diminished once more. "What was I doing?"

"Trade you an answer for an answer?" She caught his scowl darken some, then poured them both another glass of the amber liquid. "Listen," she handed him his back, "I don't want to be your enemy. I don't want to be a stranger outside of work. I don't even want to be your 'commander'. I want to be your friend. I want to do whatever I can to get you through this, so that you can do whatever you can to get everyone else through this. I want us to come out the other side of this as people who want to be around one another. I want to earn your respect."

As she'd explained her position, he'd felt his shoulders lose their tension. The entire time she'd been speaking, all he saw of her emotional bearing was frustration and determination. She meant what she said, he honestly doubted she ever said anything but what she meant. "What do you want to know?"

"Have I done something wrong? You've been acting like you have no interest in knowing me. Everyone's been keeping you away from me, then suddenly the Commander calls me late in the evening and asks if I would keep you from getting so fed up with everything that you wander off in the wilderness and tell us to fuck off." She gestured between the two of them loosely. "You seem comfortable enough around me…so did I upset you?"

He took another draw of his drink, considering the question. "Not…really? I guess I just saw how angry you were all the time and assumed I'd done something to upset you."

Blowing out a frustrated sigh, Misato smirked with irritation. "You know we didn't get a chance to connect yesterday, yeah? I was planning on asking you then if you were interested in coming over this weekend. Hadn't expected you to be dropped in my lap after the Commander was forced to use an electroshock clamp on her own son to stop him from escaping with whoever the hell 'Meroko' is." When Shinji's face went flat, and his hand crushed the tumbler he'd been drinking from, she threw her own glass down and stood to press him back into the couch. "Whoa, whoa, whoa!"

Ignoring her efforts, Shinji stood up and went to leave. "I need to-"

"Damn it all, Ikari, you need to stop and let me take a look at your fucking hand!" Hopping up and wrapping her legs around his waist, she tried to use what little mass she could call upon to topple him back over. Noticing very quickly that he cared little about the additional weight, she growled out, "How the fuck are you so strong?!"

It wasn't that his anger had gone anywhere, he was honestly growing angrier with every second that passed. The only thing that stopped him from walking out of the apartment and finding his way back to the Manor was that Misato had effortlessly clamped down on him and was fighting to get his hand to where she could assess it for damage. She wasn't thwarting his wrath, she was trying to heal his wound. "I'm strong because I'm not human anymore…not that I ever was." He couldn't touch her with his bloody paw, and he doubted he could remove her without hurting her with only one hand. "I need to go. I need to go and kill her to protect everyone else."

"Pretty sure your mother's already on top of that." Misato took advantage of his hesitation to get his hand up to where she could look at it. "Who is this bitch?"

He couldn't pull any memories to the fore, still. He remembered Shizuko, the Prime Minister's information…and then waking up on Misato's couch. "My aunt." He put his clean hand on her back, holding her so that she didn't fall as he walked towards what he hoped was the bathroom. "I'm sorry for bleeding on your things, and for breaking your glasses. I'll pay to have them replaced." Opening the most likely door, he paused in the entryway to the bathroom. "I need you to climb off me, please."

"I need you to not go flying off the handle and hurting yourself," she retorted.

He could see the calculations taking place behind her hard gaze. She was thinking of ways that she could incapacitate him without killing him. She was a predator eyeing something capable of killing her, and she wasn't thinking of how to kill him. "If you don't get down, we're going to both have problems." He didn't have time to beat around the bush, and at the moment he didn't really care if her feelings were hurt. "Having you where you are, doing what you're doing, is causing my body to react to thoughts I shouldn't be having. If you don't get off, I'm going to be hurting myself because I'll be unable to do anything about the rising issue."

With an arched eyebrow and a heavy layer of doubt, she kept her eyes locked on his. "Nice try, but you suck at lying. I'm not letting you lock me in the bathroom, and I'm not moving from where I am until you calm down."

Walking into the bathroom and using the open shower door to give himself the room to turn around, he made it so she was between him and the exit. "I'm not lying. You are giving me an erection, I'm physically unable to masturbate, and if you don't climb down soon I'm going to be in an increasing amount of pain as my body refuses to do what it ought to until I can find someone to help me get rid of it." He tipped his head towards his bloody hand. "I'll sit down by the tub. I'll let you get the glass out of my hand. Please…get off."

"What the hell happened to you?" Instead of moving, her brain was stuck trying to make sense of what she was seeing before her. She knew he couldn't lie with a script, and he wasn't speaking with half-truths to disguise that fact. His mother damn near killed him to stop him from escaping with his aunt, and he was acting like he had some sort of behavioral conditioning in place that caused memory lapses. This wasn't a young man, it was a science experiment gone awry! "I…I can't help you if you keep me in the dark. Nothing you're saying is making sense, and I don't want you to continue hurting yourself trying to play this solo. I was serious earlier, I want to at least be your friend…friends help each other."

"…You don't want to know."

"The fuck I don't!" She shook his hand slightly, drawing his attention to the glass shards and blood. "Normal people don't crush a bar tumbler in their bare hands at the mention of a name! You are part of my god damn team, and something is hurting you! Now if I promise to get off of you, will you promise to tell me, start to finish, what the fuck happened to you?!"

It was too late, and he knew it. Everything had conspired against him, and he was where he was because his mother wanted him well away from a woman that had ruined him. "It all started at a train station, about a decade and a half ago…."

+++++ Kirijo Manor. (Saturday, August 28th, +7, Last Quarter 2/4)

"The fuck I am," Ulala snarled in Mitsuru's face. "I saw him tear one of the doors off the wall, then a few minutes later come walking out with a woman in his arms. You want me to 'calm down and let them handle it', and I want you to fucking make me."

Chie leaned with her back against the only exit from the room they were in, waiting for a break in the yelling. She knew she was going to be waiting for a while, but she also knew that the only way anyone was getting past her was if the door opened from the other side. The trained professionals were handling the situation, whatever that situation was, and the best thing for her friends was to not get underfoot. She had noticed Yukiko sidling along the wall, trying very hard to not be noticed, and when her best friend reached her side she stated quietly, "Not moving, just so we're clear."

"I wouldn't ask you to," Yukiko responded reassuringly. "Ulala isn't the only one who got a look at the circumstances…I'm kinda worried, Chie-chan."

"Why?" Worried, as a descriptor, was something that could be applied to Yukiko under almost any circumstances. It was one of the reasons her laughter was so bellicose, she spent most of her life wound tight.

"She…kinda looked like him." Spelling out the rest of the matter with a significant look, she waited for her friend to react.

Chie was even more determined at that point to guard the door. "Hopefully she'll be dead before tomorrow, and wherever Shinji's gone we'll be able to find him."

"But what if Mitsuru-," she gasped as Chie looked at her angrily.

"Don't you start. I'll accuse a lot of people around here of a lot of things, but intentionally hiding something that we all know is going to set off someone as angry as him? Does that sound at all like Mitsuru-senpai?"

"If her mother told her to shut up about it, could you blame her?" Yukiko managed to keep her voice down, the rest of the women in the room involved in a rolling argument about a great many subjects. "Could you ignore your mom like that?"

Chie turned her glower towards the room in general. "Then it's still her mom's fault. Blaming Mitsuru for something she couldn't control is asinine."

+++++ Katsuragi Apartment. (Sunday, August 29th, +8, Last Quarter 3/4)

Shinji shrugged, angry and in pain but unwilling to take either of those out on Misato. "What can I do? Unit-01 needs me to pilot it, my mother's the commander of the organization that runs Unit-01, and despite the fact that I know it's not really her fault I still…I hate her."

Running her thumb around his palm, feeling for any hint of the glass that might remain after she helped him remove it, Misato scowled in disgust. "…This makes no sense."

"I've thought that my entire life."

"No," she scoffed, looking at him and coughing out a pained laugh, "no, no. That's not what I meant. It's true, don't get me wrong, but that's not what I meant. I'm sorry," she sighed, slipping her hand around so that she interlocked their fingers, "I shouldn't be letting myself get distracted by other things. I'm just so used to multi-tasking on everything I do that it's like trying to stop breathing entirely for me."

He wasn't offended that she might have become lost in thought, he doubted many people honestly could listen to his story from start to finish without becoming distracted by something in a vain effort at salvaging their own mind. "What's wrong?"

"I don't know why they didn't tell me." It was her turn to shrug. "I'm supposed to take responsibility for you while you're in Unit-01, and if I don't know something this major how can I help you if you suddenly collapse in on yourself? I mean, I knew that you had challenges, the day we met it was kind of obvious that you were…well, I thought you were a bit moody. Now that I know there's a reason for it, everything makes sense…except for their not having told me."

Making a flailing attempt at a joke, aiming for the kind of self-deprecation he'd begun to understand was common among humans, he awkwardly posited, "Maybe they didn't want to ruin my mystique? You know, the tall, dark, and stupid thing?" When Misato barked out a laugh, she brushed up against his 'standing problem' with her knee causing him to wince as everything reacted poorly to having been as it was for more than an hour. "S-sorry."

"You…weren't kidding." She glanced down at his pants, then back up to him, biting her lip. "Shit. I'm…I'm really sorry. I mean, beautiful woman, handsome man, I just…you know, I didn't want you to go storming back out into the night and get yourself hurt. I was ordered, specifically, to not let you go back out and get hurt. I…uh…shit."

"It's ok." He'd clearly caused this problem. After all, if he hadn't lost control of himself he wouldn't be sitting here as he was. "I'll just…." He didn't know what to say, because he would have to be lying regardless.

"How did this get handled before?" She rolled the hand she wasn't using to hold his own hand. "I mean, there had to be a way this was handled!"

He moved his eyes to the wall, avoiding her gaze. "Either Meroko-sama 'handled' it, or…."

"You…you know, you had this issue in the Eva. How'd that get resolved?" When his cheeks blossomed pink, and his lips remained closed, she realized that someone else had 'handled it'. "Ok…I'm guessing it was someone in that mansion. And you can't…you know…manually secure it?" Pain registered in her palm, pressed against his, as the skin grew violently hot. "Christ! O-ok…shit!"

"I'll just try to sleep. Tomorrow…or, I guess later today, I'll talk to Ritsuko-san or Maya-san about it."

Misato frowned. "Ok, why them?"

"Ritsuko-san helped me provide a sample, Zeppelin-sensei's orders. Maya-san was going to help get another, but I fell asleep before she could try." He still couldn't look at her, everything was becoming worse with the beauty right before him. "It won't matter soon, anyway. I'm sure they'll come up with something to help with the pregnancies. I wonder if they're going to have it be naturally delivered," he muttered darkly.

"Pregnancies?"

His eyes finally went back to hers, a hint of disbelief in his stare. "Only man on Earth, remember? Anything biologically male died, except me. I've already heard two people talk about how I'm going to have to 'help'."

"And…you don't want to." She had intended the statement to be more of an assertion, but it ended up trailing towards a question.

"I don't care, honestly." With his free hand, he gestured along his body. "This is just meat. It's been worthless for a long time. It was only recently that I started to…." He'd almost become carried away enough to out his recent partners. "I enjoy the feel of someone against me. I enjoy it more when that someone actually gives a shit about me. I might as well try to enjoy it while I can, because they'll probably just hook up some form of vacuum to me, or have me stand in a machine, or something else 'humane'. Something that will 'spare my dignity', like I have any fucking left. I'm a mobile erection that saves lives by killing demons. Show me where that's 'dignified'."

Opening her mouth, she thought about what she was going to say once more and switched her idea to one that wouldn't come off as creepy as she thought the first would. "I'll call Rits. If she helped once, I'll tell her to shut up and deal. She can lose a little beauty sleep to fix you up."

"No," he shook his head and went to stand, "I shouldn't have brought them up." After Misato refused to let go of his hand, he was forced to stand awkwardly where he was, hunched over to accommodate her reach. "I'm glad they want to 'help', but they're in a relationship and it's not right to ask them to do something like that with me."

Misato concealed her surprise, promising herself to have a little chat with Ritsuko about keeping things from her. "Ok, but you still need help. Rits is a doctor, and I'm sure she's had to do stuff with patients that was a lot grosser than helping a handsome young man resolve an outstanding issue."

"I'm not going to let them hurt each other trying to help me!" Shifting his weight to walk away from the argument, he failed to account for a pool of blood and water on the floor that had been there since before they'd cleaned his hand. Traction, and with it balance, fled the local area leaving him toppling over atop Misato.

Compressed between his weight and the floor beneath her, Misato gasped out a huff of pain but once again latched onto his waist with her legs. "Calm. Down." There was a part of her mind that warned her about continuing what she was doing. A part of her mind that, for most of her adult life, had told her that she was forever selling herself short by using sex as a stand-in for actual intimate human connections. Another part of her mind figured that if she caused the problem, she should be the one to solve the problem. It was, after all, only polite to fix what you broke and it wasn't like Shinji was disinterested in her. He very clearly was interested. The way that it pressed down against her proved that out. Still, it wasn't the smartest decision to jump right into bed with him after everything. But it wasn't really jumping into bed. They'd spent more than an hour talking to one another, and they'd known each other for a week now! She'd…she'd done dumber things. A lot dumber things. Kaji-level dumb things. All this blasted through her brain in the time it took for Shinji to take one breath. "I'm going to ask you an honest question, and I would appreciate an honest answer."

Everything felt tight from where he lay atop her. His spine, his skull, his knees. "I c-can't lie worth a damn."

"Good. Never lie to me." Taking a deep breath, pulling him tighter against her, she asked, "If I 'help' with this, are you going to regret it? Are you going to feel contempt for me?"

He swallowed, shaking his head. "J-just…meat. Y-you're the o-one that m-matters."

"We matter," she corrected firmly. "This isn't a 'you' thing, or a 'me' thing. If I help you, it's an 'us' thing. Can you-" The sound of her door's chime ringing cut her off, and the worried gasp of her best friend was followed by footsteps rushing into the apartment. "Shit."

Ritsuko stood in the front room looking down at Shinji, still dressed, between Misato's legs, and set her fists on her hips. "Misato, what the fuck are you doing and why is there so much blood here?"