Creation began on 04-18-17

Creation ended on 05-02-17

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Grateful and Disheartened

Gendo wasn't pleased at all with the outcome of the most recent Angel battle. He was hoping to break the Third Child's will, but due to unforeseen circumstances, his very relationship with the Hitode woman claiming to be his mother became stronger. Instead of a destroyed Eva that had been possessed by a parasitic Angel, NERV now had four Evas instead of three…and four pilots instead of three. He wasn't even happy with the way the Dummy System had been altered by Dr. Hitode's additional coding that was the only thing that saved all three pilots and was what kept the Fourth Child out of the intended version of harm's way.

Nothing was going his way at all, and he needed to deal with this matter.

-x-

Kensuke awoke to the sight of the hospital ceiling and the smell of an incense burning. His right arm was bandaged and his left leg was suspended in the air by a sling.

"Hey, Kensuke," he heard someone say his name and turned to his right, seeing Toji and Hikari sitting in front of him.

"How long was I out?" He asked them, hoping that they'd know.

"A doctor said you were unconscious for three days," explained Hikari to him. "You needed surgery for some internal injuries you got from a car accident you were in. You found over thirty people in a nearly-destroyed facility before a search and rescue crew arrived."

"Man, Kensuke, they say you didn't stop until found at least forty-seven and was forced to stop," Toji told him. "What were you thinking?"

"This woman that examined me had asked me a question that really got to me," Kensuke explained. "She asked me what would I feel while piloting the Eva, knowing that I was responsible for the fate of everyone everywhere. I wasn't in the Eva at the last moment, but I did feel responsible for everyone that got hurt at the facility. I had to find them, no matter what happened to me."

"A woman asked you a question?" Hikari questioned. "That must've been some heavy question she had asked of you."

"Say, what happened to Shinji and the girls?"

"They were examined and discharged the day before," Toji revealed to him. "The woman that discharged them was the same doctor that did your surgery. She seemed…rather unusual, kind of like she was emotional instead of logical."

"If she's who I think she is, then she's the same one that asked me the question, as well as a question about Shinji."

"The doctor that discharged them did seem to get Shinji's attention," said Hikari.

-x-

Although they were examined and given a clean bill of health by Fusei, Gendo still demanded to see the three veteran pilots and the woman in his office.

"…If they survived unscathed, then there shouldn't be a problem with any medical results," Fusei told Gendo in front of them.

"The way the Dummy Plug just self-destructed was a gamble that embarrasses NERV," he told her. "And not following orders when it comes to saving the Evas from the Angels jeopardizes our chances of surviving the next conflict."

"You ordered me to detonate the arm of Unit-01 while the pilot was still synced to it. Any forceful severing of an Eva's limbs, however major or minor the synchronization, brings unnecessary and potentially-long-term phantom pain to the subject in question. I couldn't carry out that order until the synchronization between them was cut off. Even if I was ordered to, I couldn't do something of that sort of brutality because it violates the oath that was taken."

"In situations of this magnitude, we sometimes need to disregard regulations."

Fusei then turned to face Shinji, who didn't say anything, but didn't agree with anything Gendo had said since they walked into his office.

"And your insistence on substituting the use of the Fourth Child in favor of the Dummy Plug was another gamble that NERV did not need to be troubled with," Gendo added.

"Except wasn't this the very reason that the Dummy Plug was made for?" Fusei countered him. "It had its trial run and could work with the Evas with the exception of Unit-00 due to its primitive design, even if the one it was used in was possessed by an Angel. It kept one of the pilots out of conflict, which would've hindered their synchronization with the Eva because they're ruled by their emotions. They're not slaves to logic."

"It was never intended to destroy itself during an intense situation. Your involvement with the project has put it at risk."

"I won't deny that I was uncomfortable with the idea of using it to begin with if it disregarded the need for the human element, Mr. Ikari, but the coding I installed in it didn't do anything wrong with the overall functionality. All I did was make it so that the Dummy Plug had a sense of morality to its programming, that it would ensure the protection of the pilots, first and foremost, even if it meant burning out its own circuitry."

"Basically, you took an autopilot system that was still in development," went Asuka, "and gave it a conscience so that it wouldn't harm people. It saved us from the Angel by self-destructing and all we did was get endangered for it to follow its instructions."

"Regardless of what happened," said Shinji, finally speaking up, "Dr. Hitode's actions in using the Dummy Plug and not following your order to sever Unit-01's arm were the lesser of two evils."

As much as Rei wanted to disagree with Shinji on that assumption, she held her tongue in check.

"If it were up to me right now, I'd let you go," Gendo told Fusei, indicating that he would've fired her on the spot, "unfortunately, I currently don't have that luxury, as Dr. Akagi's protégé is indisposed for the time being."

"Indisposed" wasn't the word Fusei would've chose for Maya Ibuki's current situation. She preferred "incapacitated" or "not of sound mind and body". Despite the best medical resources available to them, Maya wouldn't be walking anywhere for a while, even with physical therapy.

"At best, Ms. Ibuki's chances of recovering full use of her legs can range anywhere from three months to more than a year," Fusei suggested, hopeful of the young woman's chances of recovery.

"Which is time we may not have," Gendo stated.

"But we have four Evas now," Asuka reminded him.

"Three," he uttered. "For the time being, the Fourth Child is off the combat roster."

Shinji was fine with this, as it meant that Kensuke would be kept out of the Eva.

Asuka was fine with this, too, since it meant less trouble for them with the Angels the less the Fourth Child was in an Eva.

Rei was indifferent to the situation.

"And we can't rule out using Unit-03," he informed them, "until it has been thoroughly examined."

The guy wasn't willing to risk anything with Unit-03 until it was completely devoid of any possibility of contamination from the Angel.

"Rei, you and the Second Child are dismissed," he told the girls, and the albino nodded and turned to leave the office.

Asuka looked at Shinji and Fusei and merely sighed.

"See you later," she told Shinji and left.

When they were alone, Gendo clearly made no hint of his disgust with the boy and the woman.

"You both refuse to fall in line because some ridiculous assumption," he told them.

Shinji and Fusei looked at each other in silence before the woman responded, "What exactly are you talking about, sir?"

"You can cease the ignorant pretense," he told her. "You know damn well what I'm talking about. Even he doesn't deny what he believes to be the truth."

Fusei tilted her head down a little before saying, with a hint of anger that Shinji hadn't seen since he demonstrated his own towards Gendo, "Because what was done all those years ago was the truth, Mr. Ikari. The only question I'd like to have answered, because even I don't understand it, is why? Why did you…and your wife…choose to take him from me?"

Gendo crossed his fingers in front of his face as he often always did, contemplating his next move.

"I don't have to answer your false accusations," he uttered.

"You can't keep this quiet," she informed. "It's going to come out soon that you committed a crime that will have consequences because of the people it affected."

"And what people were affected?"

"That would be telling," said Shinji.

"Yes, Shinji," Fusei agreed with her son. "That would be telling."

"And you're willing to be manipulated by a woman you only met a few days ago, that clearly has her own agenda?" Gendo asked him.

"You're the only one with the agenda. Hers was to find me. You can't even admit you did something you knew was wrong. While I admit that knowing this truth has complicated my life, I can at least accept what I've been told as the truth…which is different from what I had thought was once the truth. I thought my mother was dead ever since I was little, only to find out she was just a woman I thought was my mother, that my father was some cold man that would never say any kind words, only to find out that my father's been dead for years, my parents were teenagers when they had me, but I can look past that. I'm just not sure if I can look past being able to forget everything about NERV, the Angels, the Evas and you when this is all over and I walk away from this all."

"What are you talking about?"

"We went to see Mr. Fuyutsuki earlier to ask him more questions. My only question to him was an obvious one, which was how many Angels there are left to be expected in this feud. There are only four of them left. When they're dealt with, I'm leaving the city with my mother."

Gendo was beyond furious, but kept his emotions in check.

Shinji and Fusei then turned to leave, leaving the man to ponder many thoughts on how to deal with the both of them.

"Oh, and there's something else you should know," went Fusei to Gendo. "Memo from Dr. Akagi: She contacted the Committee yesterday, and they want to speak with you about some recent discoveries that have left them feeling disheartened with you."

-x-

Although they were only broken and there was no need to amputate them, Maya still felt like an invalid because she couldn't move her toes, no matter what she did as she laid in the bed with her legs in slings.

The resulting explosion caused by the Angel usurping Unit-03 had not only injured more than one-hundred-seventeen people, but it killed everyone else that had been present when the explosion occurred, even though it had been contained to just the facility and a mile of land on all sides.

She was grateful to the Fourth Child for finding her and pulling her free from the debris.

Several workers were also grateful for him finding them when he came back.

The door to her room slid open and Dr. Akagi stepped inside.

"Hello, Maya," she greeted her. "How are you feeling?"

"Like I need another dose of ibuprofen for my headache," she answered her. "They said I'd likely be able to walk again after rehabilitation in a few months to a year."

"Which, for the time being, you're on medical leave until you recover."

"I can still work with a portable terminal."

"Except you don't really have to. Doctor Hitode is willing to fill in for you until you recover."

"Why her?"

"She feels responsible for what happened. She kept insisting that the Dummy System be used instead of the Fourth Child…because she worried over the emotional state of the Third Child."

"She worried about the Third Child? Lately, it seems like she favors him for some reason."

"Believe it or not, she has every right to favor the boy. The rumor that started after the Fifth Angel and her arrival to NERV…uncovered some really disturbing facts."

"The blood types and such?"

"That's right. It turns out that some things we thought were true weren't entirely true."

"What are you talking about?"

"The commander isn't the Third Child's father. There was never any blood relation between them. And his mother is actually Ms. Hitode."

"What? But…that's not… How?"

"That's what we're still trying to understand."

-x-

"…A Dummy System with a moral obligation to ensure the safety of the pilots over the destruction of the Angels?" SEELE 06 questioned Gendo over the discovery of what Dr. Hitode had done to affect the autopilot system. "How is such a program possible, Ikari?!"

"Doctor Fusei Hitode is a new employee who is divided between her responsibilities as a computer technician and a medical practitioner," Gendo tried to explain with that excuse. "She's also delusional. She's convinced that the Third Child is her son and is trying to manipulate him into believing her."

"We were informed of the DNA evidence by Dr. Akagi that actually confirms what she told us earlier," said SEELE 12 to him. "This discovery brings into question what else you have kept hidden from this council, Ikari. One other factor is the decreased synchronization between the Third Child and one of the Evas. We demand an explanation."

"The woman is interfering with his synchronization abilities," Gendo tried. "Her delusional belief that she's his mother has caused him to question whether or not his real mother is his mother."

"Except the genetic testing confirms that your late wife has no genetic ties to the Third Child," went SEELE 03 to him, which caused murmurs from several other members of the council. "They prove that this Hitode woman is the boy's mother, meaning he has no relation to either you or your wife, which brings into question how you acquired the boy…and how he was able to sync with the Eva when such a requirement was never truly met, Ikari?"

"If a pilot is able to sync with the Eva before discovering their mother was still alive," SEELE 01 uttered, "and their synchronization falters after knowing the truth… This degree of interference is unacceptable, Ikari, and this act of manipulation, however small and insignificant, is something we cannot tolerate because there are those that know what you have done and will take action against you for your role in the criminal act. We demand an explanation from you on what you did, immediately."

Now Gendo, regardless of how much he wanted to disregard the truth, had to explain why there was no biological relation between the Third Child and his wife and he. At first, he thought he could just lie, but SEELE didn't like lies unless they were the ones perpetrating the lies, and there was always the chance that they had other ways to tell that he was lying to him because of how they grew weary of him over time. And his memories of that day, that decaying day, were all but dead and forgotten.

-x-

This time, Shinji barely felt like he was connecting to the Eva at all. It had nothing to do with the attempted contamination by the previous Angel, which was nonexistent. No, it was more like he simply felt nothing from the Eva. There was…nothing to be felt.

"His synchronization is below thirty percent," said Ritsuko to Misato as they were running the test.

"I thought you said he was unaffected by the Angel," Misato responded.

"He was unaffected," Fusei told them, as she was monitoring the test of all three teens. "There was no residual trace of contamination in any of them."

The three couldn't understand why the Third Child's synchronization with the Eva was decreasing. Or rather, neither Misato of Fusei could understand why, but Ritsuko knew why this was happening.

Since there's no real bond between the boy and the so-called consciousness that dwells within the Eva, there isn't a true synchronization between them, the faux-blond thought. It isn't all that different from the First Child and Unit-00.

"Miss Ayanami's holding steadily at fifty-three percent while Ms. Soryu's holding at seventy percent," Fusei told them.

"Doctor Hitode," Ritsuko asked, "can you rewrite one of the Dummy Plugs to use the Third Child's earlier synchronization information?"

"It's within theoretical possibility," she responded. "The question would be why?"

"We need a fail-safe backup in case his current synchronization information becomes unreliable."

"What about the Eva?" Misato suggested. "Unit-01 has always been the temperamental one. More so than Unit-00 has been. What if the problem isn't with the Third Child…but the Eva?"

"Commander Ikari will have my ass if Unit-01 has become compromised," Ritsuko explained. You have no idea how much I agree with you that the Eva is the one with the problem.

-x-

SEELE was not pleased with what Gendo had revealed to them. If he had lied to them, there would be severe consequences. But he didn't lie to them.

It was shortly after Second Impact that Yui revealed to him that she couldn't have children of her own because of an incident she was in earlier in her past, so she told Gendo that they should find a child that didn't have any parents. They went to an understaffed, overburdened and damaged hospital in Tokyo under false pretenses and ended up finding a newborn baby boy in a bassinet beside the cot of teenage girl that looked dead among several other people that were either dead or dying because of the devastation done to the city. And then…Yui took the baby and they left before someone could stop them in place of the lack of security.

"So, your wife just took someone else's baby?" SEELE 05 asked him. "You both took a teen mother's child…and neither of you ever thought to confirm whether or not the mother was even deceased?"

"She looked dead!" Gendo expressed. "She was just laying there on the cot! She wasn't moving, wasn't breathing! I thought she was dead!"

"First rule of leaving a dead body, Ikari," said SEELE 03 to him. "Whenever you think somebody's dead, always check to make sure they're dead!"

"And neither of you checked for a pulse," added SEELE 11. "If the boy's mother were truly dead, this would be overlooked to a degree. Unfortunately, this isn't the case. You kidnapped a child and now his mother, who wasn't as dead as you thought she was, has come back for him, and if she has it in for desiring justice for the injustice she was dealt, then that is to be your problem."

"This all brings into question the other matter: If the Evas require the souls of women that bore children after Second Impact for there to be pilots compatible for them, and the Third Child's mother was never dead and never bound to the Eva, then what is it that really binds him to the Eva?" SEELE 01 brought up. "How do you propose resolving this issue…if you can even resolve it, Ikari?"

"If the boy's mother were, for some reason or another, not directly involved in his life currently," Gendo suggested, "then his attention could be directed back to the Eva."

"If you're suggesting that this Hitode woman were to be met with foul play," SEELE 11 suspected, "how do you plan of explaining to her son why and getting him to cooperate with NERV if even he knows there's nothing really keeping him from leaving right now? The remaining Angels, be damned because of you."

"For now, Ikari, it's best not to go and threaten the mother and expect obedience from her son," SEELE 07 told him. "If she was able to make the Dummy System act in defense of the pilots' lives, then who's to say that she can't get it to stop entirely if she was in the mood to do so? Or behave no differently from the way the pilots do whenever they're in the Evas? Doctor Akagi has expressed her opinion that Dr. Hitode, despite being more of a physician than a computer expert, is close to being her superior in the field of coding…if not her equal, and that it would be in the best interests of NERV that she be left alone. And with her protégé, Ibuki, currently incapacitated, your personnel will require her services now more than ever."

Gendo hated this discovery! Bad enough that the old men now knew that NERV (really just Gendo himself) had placed their survival in the hands of someone's bastard child, but now they had to rely on the child's mother just because their personnel took a heavy blow due to the Angel that possessed Unit-03, which was salvaged from the attack.

-x-

"Hey, Kensuke," greeted Shinji at the medical ward where his friend was.

"Hey, Shinji," the otaku responded. "How you been?"

"I just got through with a synchronization test. They'll probably replace me soon."

"Why would they replace you? They were about to put me in the Eva, but then they decided to that day and sent me home until later. I really wanted to do it."

"I'm glad they didn't. Misato got injured and Commander Ikari took charge in dealing with the Angel that was possessing Unit-03, the Eva you were supposed to pilot."

"The Eva…got hijacked by an Angel?"

"That's right. It took over the instant the Eva was activated and caused the explosion that hurt you and everyone else that was there. We were fortunate that the Eva had an autopilot device in place of you, otherwise, we would've had to… If it ever came down to that."

"What do the pilots feel when they're in the Evas," Kensuke sighed. "The good doctor asked me that."

"I didn't need the possible death of a friend on my conscience if something went wrong with the mission. I would've wanted to stop piloting the Eva after that because I couldn't live with the guilt."

Kensuke suddenly got the feeling that the doctor that asked him these weird questions was very close to Shinji and was the reason he was unable to get into the Eva that day, thereby saving his life.

"Say, that woman, the good doctor," he uttered to Shinji. "I think her name was Hitode… What's with the two of you, anyway? She asked me about you."

"It's…complicated, really," Shinji responded; it was still difficult to comprehend how others would react if he just up and told them that he found out about his mother being alive and recently involved in his life after so many years of absence.

"Bull, Shinji," Kensuke told him. "Whatever it is, I can take it. I got hurt from an Angel and went to find people that might've survived the explosion without any concern for my safety. Surely, you can trust me with whatever it is that you're hiding."

Sighing, Shinji gave in and decided to explain it to the otaku as best as he could.

"It was only recently that I found out something that was hard to comprehend," he started. "Please, don't tell anyone about this, no matter what. Doctor Hitode…is actually my mother. My real mother. I'm not really related to the Ikari family at all, meaning Commander Ikari isn't my father. Never was, never will be."

Now Kensuke was at a loss for words. It would've made perfect sense for why the woman asked him about Shinji; certain parents just wanted to make sure their children were doing fine when they're not there, and this Hitode woman was no exception, wanting to know who her son was outside of his life as a pilot for the Eva. And he couldn't disbelieve Shinji; he knew the boy couldn't make a lie this elaborate, even if he had years to build it up.

"Really?" He spoke. "I mean, she looks… She has to be around Misato's age, doesn't she?"

"It's not unheard of, Kensuke," Shinji told him. "She was about two years under my real father when they first met. She was thirteen when she got pregnant and fourteen when she had me, after Second Impact occurred."

"But…if she is your mother… How'd you end up with a family with a cold man you thought was your father? I mean, what, did she give you up or…"

"No, no, she never did that. As far as we both know, I was just taken from her one day while I was less than a week old. And as far as I know, that day still hurts her."

"Then…you were likely kidnapped…and led to believe that the Ikaris were your family. That's just… That's just hurtful. How many people know about this? Your relation to her, I mean?"

"Just that man, Misato, Dr. Akagi and Asuka so far. I don't want to cause problems by telling everyone about this. Can I trust you not to tell anyone?"

-x-

She felt like it could come to life at any moment and grab her and eat her. This was how Fusei felt, standing in front of Unit-01 in the cages right now. It bothered her to no end that she decided to come and look at the Test-Type Eva after taking a break from reworking one of the Dummy Plugs to accommodate her son's synchronization data. She didn't question the coloring or the unusual, upper torso configuration that set it apart from the other Evas so far, but there was something about it that gave her a reason to feel great concern for Shinji.

Unit-00 was the Prototype Eva after years of trial and error, she thought, going over the Eva Series in the chronological order that existed. Judging from the trial and error that went into making that particular Eva, the makers must've worked on several versions of the original Eva until they made one that worked. Unit-01 probably takes the workings of the successful version of Unit-00, but functions differently than the prototype, which would explain a part of why it's called the Test-Type. Probably another reason for the upper torso configuration. And then, there's Unit-02, which takes the trial and error of the first two Evas without the bugs, resulting in the final model that's being produced, something that Ms. Soryu prides herself over. Units-03 and 04 use the production information used for Unit-02 and continue to develop the production models. Yet, for some reason, this Eva seems to be more valuable than the others…and it bothers me.

"Ritsuko thinks the problem is with Unit-01," she heard Misato say, snapping her out of her train of thought. "Not with Shinji."

"Hmm?" She responded, looking to her right and seeing the purple-haired woman. "I say this only because I'm a physician, but shouldn't you be resting? Not many people should be working with a mending injury."

Having a broken left arm in a sling and a mild concussion from the failed Unit-03 activation test was the least of Misato's concerns right now.

"I can still work," she told Fusei, "and it's not like I can take a vacation after what happened."

"Medical leave is not the same as a vacation, despite both having the injured take time off to recoup."

"And again, it was a bold move you made, getting the Dummy Plug to fry itself should the children be placed in inescapable jeopardy…and not severing Unit-01's arm while Shinji was still synced with it."

"I wasn't going to follow that order, even if it came from that man. It'll be about another half-hour or so before the Dummy Plug I'm working will have accommodated Shinji's earlier synchronization data."

"If it works out until we figure out what's going on, he won't have to pilot as much as he used to."

"You have no idea how much I'd like for him to stop. Ever since I found out what he does here, it worries me to no end that every time he goes up against these creatures could very well be his last time. Some of the personnel here probably have stress trying to make sure that these kids live to see old age, but are reminded a bit that there are no guarantees when it comes to the Eva or the Angels."

"If it's between the Evas and the pilots…I'll sacrifice the Evas over the pilots if it means saving them. Evas can be repaired, rebuilt, even replaced. It's people that can't be replaced. Ever."

"Same here, Ms. Katsuragi. Same here."

"Can I ask you something?"

"Feel free."

"What do you do when you can't sleep at night?"

"I think of who and what matters to me."

"And those that cause you problems?"

"I feel nothing but contempt…and pity."

"What are your plans for after the Angels are defeated and there's no further need for the Evas?"

"Continue to build up my relationship with Shinji, introduce him his relatives on my side and his father's side…and see where that all goes."

Unbeknownst to either woman, Ritsuko was monitoring them through the surveillance cameras, eavesdropping on their conversation. She didn't say it, but before Fusei arrived, she really wanted to think very little of Shinji outside his usage as an Eva pilot. But with how things have been slowly revealed, she had to admit, if only to herself, that she had some dislike of him because of the belief and assumption that he was Ikari's son, a rather ill-fated situation. Thanks to Fusei, however, she didn't have this hatred of him as much now, just pity that he was a victim of factors beyond his control.

I hope she can free her son from this agency, she thought, really hoping for those two to be able to get away once this was all said and done with the Angels.

-x-

"Tread with caution, Ikari," Gendo recalled the warning he was given by SEELE 01 when the meeting ended. "Do not do anything to this Hitode woman that jeopardizes the usefulness of the Third Child. Leave her to her day-to-day routines. That's an order. And should she choose to come after you for your crime against the boy and herself…seek to settle if possible."

Except that he didn't want to settle with the woman…and he didn't want to lose the Third Child until he had outlived his usefulness. So long as the Angels were still out there, he needed the boy to pilot the Eva until they were defeated and he could achieve his own goal for Instrumentality.

If they think I'm going to stand by and be disrespected by a woman that was supposed to be dead, they all have another thing coming to them, he thought, returning to his office to work on a new plan of recourse in dealing with the delusional woman that threatened to take off with the boy when this was all over. Everyone here is expendable, including her.

-x-

Fusei couldn't believe her ears when Shinji told her that he didn't know a thing about the communication app that was FaceTime. When he told her that all he really knew were texting and instant messaging, she had him sit with her in the cafeteria after synchronization testing was done for the day so that she could teach him how FaceTime worked.

"…I was about to call my sister today to see how she was doing," she told him, setting her tablet on the table in front of them. "It would be nice of you two to meet for the first time in…"

She didn't finish her sentence.

Shinji didn't need to hear the rest. Whoever his real, maternal aunt was, he hadn't seen her since he was a newborn, so there were no memories on his part, not like how there were with his relatives.

"I hope she'll like me," he said to her.

Fusei smiled and placed a reassuring left hand on his shoulder.

"She's bound to like you a lot, Shinji," she responded.

On her tablet screen, a woman's face popped up. She had a slight resemblance to Fusei, only older and with shorter hair that had a grayish bang on her left side wrapped in a small braid.

"Fusei?" She asked.

"Hey, sis," Fusei greeted her. "How are you?"

"Another one of my friends up and decided to tie the knot with her boyfriend, and she wants me to attend her wedding. Suddenly, it feels like everybody wants to get married before they turn thirty or something. No sense of… Never mind that, Fusei, what about you? How has Tokyo-3 been to you?"

"A long search has paid off. Shinko-Kinomi, meet Shinji. Shinji, this is my big sister, Shinko-Kinomi."

"Hello, ma'am," Shinji greeted her.

Shinko-Kinomi's face became a little blank as she looked at Shinji. It was almost like looking at Fusei a little, only with her boyfriend thrown into the mix. He looked so much like them; the only thing off were his eyes, which seemed weathered, having seen or endured much of what this young man shouldn't have.

"Hello, Shinji," she uttered, sounding a little sad. "It's great to see you."

Suddenly, Shinji's eyes started tearing…and he wasn't sure why. He had just met his mother's sister for the first time in over a decade, and yet it felt like he had seen her before, from an earlier time.

"It's great to see you, too," he responded.

-x-

The door to Fuyutsuki's cell opened, and the elder saw Gendo step inside.

"What brings you down here?" He asked the Machiavellian as he sat up on the cot in front of him.

"It came to my attention that you've been off your meds after you were incarcerated here," Gendo stated, "and you've had visitors when you shouldn't."

"So you're here to inform me that my visitation privileges are being cut off? You really think that is going to hurt me any more than the truth has already done so?"

"You've divulged sensitive information to people that had no right to know about anything."

"That's your opinion. Mine's the only one that matters here. There's no point in keeping the truth hidden, anymore. Whatever loyalty I had for NERV eroded the day I found out the truth about the boy. He was never your son. He was never her son. He was your martyr. An orphan of providence that you thought you could exploit for your own purposes. Except you can't control him, anymore. And since the truth is bound to come out sooner or later, I might as well come clean with another hidden truth you knew nothing about. It's about Yui."

"I don't need to know."

"She told me not to tell you, but she may as well have lied to me, too."

"Tell me what?"

-x-

"…See you tomorrow, then," said Shinji to Fusei as he left NERV HQ for the day.

"Same here. Stay safe." She told him.

Shinji stuck around for a few seconds, wanting to say something else to her, but the words he wanted to say didn't make it to his mouth. Instead, he merely waved goodbye to Fusei.

On the bridge in Central Dogma, at Maya's station, the woman began the night shift and starting working on the adaptability of the Dummy Plug that was encoded with her son's synchronization data, hoping to create a substitute for the Eva that kept him out of it for a while. She thought she was by herself in the large room…until she heard Ritsuko's voice.

"It sounded like he wanted to tell you something," she told her.

Turning to face the faux-blond, she responded, "I know he wanted to tell me something. He wasn't sure what to say to me before he left. He's still coping, adjusting. I don't blame him if he can't tell me just yet. I don't want to pressure him into saying the wrong thing he may regret saying. I've waited so long just to find him, to meet him and talk to him. I'm willing to wait longer just to have a stable relationship with him. For now, him just knowing that I'm here for him is enough for me."

"How do you do it? Show patience for a child that has difficulty saying things or speaking up?"

"There's no logical methods, Dr. Akagi. You take the time to get to know someone, what their life story is and what they went through in their past, and you have clarity. You can't force them to be open or say what you want. If you want to be close, you have to be on stable ground, let people open up at their own pace. It's…it's not all that different from dancing…or doing laundry…or even cooking. We can't rush anything…with anyone."

Ritsuko felt like she was speaking with someone that actually understood Shinji to the very core, that wanted to understand him to the very core, that really wanted to be around him.

"I'm not sure I'll really be able to understand people without logic," she told the woman.

"Give it a try one day. Take all that they know…and put it aside. Just…flow down the river that is the conversation between you and whoever."

"And how do you avoid a conversation that may lead towards something…undesired?"

"You choose your words carefully."

-x-

Gendo wished he had killed Fuyutsuki for telling him what he had been kept in the dark on, but fate had intervened and preserved the elder's life. After being informed of how the contact experiment's cruel outcome with the Eva was really Yui's intention, to become the soul of the cybernetic behemoth to ensure a bright future ahead for everyone, he had trouble believing Fuyutsuki to be able to come up with an elaborate lie like that. He couldn't believe that Yui would just…let herself get reduced to a ghost in the shell…and refuse to return to life…or that she would only tell Fuyutsuki…who spent the last years since that agonizing day silently sneering at his grief.

"…If you're going to kill me now, you might as well do it," the Sub-Commander told him after telling him everything and apologizing for the sneering. "I've more or less put what affairs I've had in order. I told the Third Child and his mother all that I know, hoping that they'll be able to walk away from this for good. They've already lost fourteen years together, and it would just be unforgivable to ruin whatever chances they have left of a future together."

Gendo had taken out a pistol with the intent to blow the old man's head off; he didn't think on how to make it look like a suicide of how to explain his disappearance, just wanting to be rid of him.

But someone had snuck up behind him and tazed him in the neck.

He didn't revive until sometime later…and Fuyutsuki had fled.

"Grr…" He growled, wondering how long he had been unconscious and who could've aided the former metaphysical biologist to get away.

-x-

"You do know that if they find out you helped me, they'll kill you," said Fuyutsuki to his savior as they drove out of Tokyo-3.

"It may not matter," the man that tazed Gendo responded. "All I want is the truth…and it would seem that there are many different truths than the one I'm after. Hard to believe what was revealed. Never in a thousand years would I have believed that boy was never really his…or that his mother had been a lot younger than his wife had been before Second Impact. It's insane. Why would they do that?"

"If I knew, I'd turn them in for this. I still have hope for the boy and his mother."

-x-

Looking at his mother's charm again in the quiet night, Shinji sighed at how close he came to saying something so simple to Fusei, but how at the last second the words just wouldn't get to his voice. He wanted to express his affection for her, but a bitter memory of his childhood came up.

Of all the time where old memories of that sort to pop up, it had to happen just when I wanted to say that I love her, he thought, angry at himself for not saying anything to his mother as he left NERV.

Ring-ring! His cell phone rang, and he picked up.

"Hello?" He asked.

"Hey, Shinji, it's me," his mother's voice on the phone. "I was calling to see how you were doing before you probably went to sleep for the night."

"Oh, well, I'm just thinking. I'm about to go to bed now."

"You be sure to get plenty of rest, Shinji. You're bound to have a good day tomorrow."

"Yes, ma'am. I…I…"

"Shinji? Is there something wrong?"

"No, it's just… I… I love you, Mother."

There was a short silence between the two.

"I love you, too, Shinji," Fusei told him. "Good night."

"Good night," he responded, and then hung up. I was able to say it. I was able to say it.

-x-

Setting her phone down, Fusei looked at Ritsuko, who seemed surprised to hear Shinji say what he said to the young mother.

"I didn't think he'd actually say that," she told her.

"I wasn't expecting him to say it, either," Fusei expressed, "but I'm glad he did."

"You need praise, too?"

"Just his is enough for me. Haven't you ever needed someone's acknowledgment or acceptance?"

"Not in that many words."

"Okay. What do you plan to do after the Angels are defeated?"

"I honestly don't know. Who has the time to plan ahead for their future?"

"Those that want to have a future after a situation they're dealing with. There's gotta be something you want after this is over. Think about it."

Ritsuko thought about it…but couldn't think of anything for herself in the eventuality of the Angels being defeated. She had wanted to make her mark in the world of science with something superior to the MAGI. It was supposed to be the Dummy System, but she had the minor feeling that that wasn't much of a success for her because, while she designed it to work with the Evas, Fusei had made it so that it had a conscience when dealing with the possibility of endangering the pilots, something she had cared nothing about because she had been willing to sacrifice them. The fact that the Third Child's mother had installed a safety net in it, it pretty much made it half her success, even if she didn't know.

"What are your plans?" She asked the young woman.

"I want to introduce Shinji to my mother and sister. I mean, he's already met my sister, but that's through FaceTime. I want him to see them in person. And his father's family, too."

"Okay, personal question, which you don't really need to answer, but it puzzles me about you. You were fourteen when you had Shinji, but you were in a relationship with your boyfriend, which I can only assume was good…but why didn't you two get married?"

Fusei sighed and looked down at her left hand.

"We planned to get married after Shinji was born," she explained. "He was going to become part of my family, as my sister and I had no brothers. Our parents gave us their blessing, but Second Impact came and…he died from exasperating his internal injuries three days after our son was born… It turned out I wasn't the only one that saw their child being taken away from them by somebody and tried to get up and stop them."

Fusei then realized that she had just told the faux-blond how her child was taken from her, not just how her boyfriend and lover had died.

Ritsuko, who didn't know exactly how this woman's kid had been removed from her life for so long, had her suspicions. Now she knew what happened…and more than likely who was the culprit that had harmed this woman and caused her to lose her son and her lover.

"I'm sorry for your loss," she apologized to her.

"It's okay. People say that wounds heal over time. It's not always true, but…thinking about the time I spent with him, it helps me to deal with his absence."

But Ritsuko also suspected that finding Shinji was another thing that helped this woman with her grief. To have finally found the child she had with her lover had spared her a lifetime of agony.

"I hated my mother," she told Fusei outright. "We didn't have a good relationship. There, I said it."

"You wanna talk about it?"

"No, but sure."

To be continued…

A/N: Any ideas of who saved Fuyutsuki? How Gendo's going to take the truth? The next Angel?