Disclaimer: I do not own Neon Genesis Evangelion or any of the things I want to in this world of ours. The only thing created by me on the NGE area is this fanfic series. If you sue, I'll sue back.

The thug trio had carried Rei to an abandoned subway station. The walls were a sickly grey with old paint visible in the corners; the rest was covered in graffiti. An old train-wreck lay on the rail like a heap of rusty rubble and slowly decayed among the other garbage that were laying in piles in and around the train skeleton. The thugs stood around Rei who lay on the floor in the middle. The thugs had beaten her quite badly already.

"Come on, give the bag to us and you won't get hurt again!" Rei fought to stand up, tears streaking her slightly bruised face. She was desperately clinging to her purse. The money was nothing, they could have it, they could even have the necklace in silver in there, the one with the beautiful silver and gold butterfly, but the one thing they couldn't have was the picture.

'The picture shall never be theirs!'

"Very well then…" the trio's leader said, pulling his fist back to give a powerful blow to her face. But before the blow fell, a body crashed into the thug's and sent him crashing into the wall. The thug leader tried to stand up again but was floored by a kick in the face, breaking his nose. Shinji turned around, and the sight was one that could make the devil run for pope and succeed if Shinji said so. In short, he was pissed. His face and hair was damp with sweat and a trail of dried blood in the back of the head, but the eyes, those eyes. They seemed to be burning with anger, hugging the corner to madness. The two other thugs reeled back a step at this sight. Shinji took a step closer to them and actually growled, no, snarled at them. This did break their frozen stance a bit and they decided to aid their unconscious leader. They pulled out their knifes. This seemed to be start shot for Shinji who dashed forward, hitting one of them in the guts with his right fist. As the thug doubled over, Shinji's knee hit him on the nose, sending his face up to meet Shinji's left fist. The thug was down. Two down, one more to go. The thug stabbed at Shinji, who simply sidestepped it and kicked the thug on his knee, sending him on one knee to the floor. Shinji then grabbed his long hair in his left hand and whispered dangerously low in the thug's ear;

"If you wake up, scram, and tell everyone of your little thug friends that you all should stay the hell away from Ayanami Rei." After that, he drove his right fist into the thugs' guts and with the momentum of the thug doubling over; he drove the thugs face into the floor with a sickening crack from his nose as the nose bridge snapped. Shinji lifted the thugs head up and slammed it into the floor two more times before he let the thug go and watched with disgust as he toppled over and lay unconscious on the floor next to his comrades.

"Are you alright?" Shinji whispered in Rei's ear, the animal-like instincts gone like they never were there in the first place. Rei sobbed and looked at the unconscious bodies on the floor. She looked up into Shinji's concerned face and nodded, wincing slightly from the pain in her neck.

"You saved me…I knew you would come looking for me… I'm so sorry…" Shinji hushed her and put a finger on her lips and lifted her up in his strong arms, cradling her, protecting her. She snuggled up into his chest, grabbing some of his shirt in her hands and cried on his shoulder. Shinji started walking home with Rei still in his arms.

"Oh, Kami-sama! What happened?" Misato screamed as Shinji opened the door with his left foot. It really was a horrific picture. Shinji, bloody mess of a hair, sweaty and clothes torn in a few places, one shoe lost somewhere. Rei cradled in his arms, face bruised and blood smeared over her left side of the face, her jogging suit was torn and muddy and her lovely blue hair was smeared with mud and grease. Shinji shook his head to show that he should explain it later. He carried the now sleeping Rei to the couch and put her down very carefully, making sure that she didn't lie in an uncomfortable position. Misato had never seen him so concerned before. She sat down on a chair and watched him as he ran to the kitchen and ran back with some bandages, scissors, painkillers, antiseptics and pillows. Shinji then put the pillows under Rei's head and noticed that he had forgotten something. He ran out in the kitchen again and came back with a bowl of hot water and some towels. He wet the towels and put some antiseptics on them and started cleaning Rei's bruises with them.

When he was done cleaning her face, he had had to change the water three times and go get new towels two times. He got more and more relaxed as Rei's breathing became less and less shallow and pained. He put on some of the bandages and tied them so that they shouldn't fall off. He then carried the things out in the kitchen and only left the bowl of hot water and some damp towels to put on Rei's forehead. When Shinji sat down on a chair beside the couch Misato noticed the bruise.

"Shinji, you're hurt." Shinji blinked and touched the back of his head. He felt the uncomfortably stiff puddle of blood in his hair and sighed.

"It's nothing Misato-san. Let me take care of Rei for now, okay?" Misato sighed and pulled him away under heavy protests.

"Let go of me, I need to look after Rei!" Misato pressed him down on a chair in the kitchen and started pulling the dried blood under his hair. Shinji winced as he felt strands of hair being pulled out along with the blood. Misato gasped as she saw the wound in Shinji's head. It looked nastier than it was though and it just needed some cleaning and antiseptics and a few bandages. As soon as Misato finished with the bandages, Shinji rushed back to the chair beside the couch and sat down to keep close look over Rei. Misato decided to want to know what happened. Shinji started explaining with a hushed voice to not wake Rei up.

"A couple of thugs knocked me down and took Rei away to an old subway station; I found them and took Rei with me." Misato looked sceptically at him.

"A bit more details please." Shinji sighed and added a few details.

"I was angry as hell and…well; I managed to scare them away…"

"Yeah, right. Listen, I know what those thugs are like. How many of them were there?"

"Three."

"And you scared them all away; you jumped out from behind a corner and said 'Boooh! I'm a ghost!'?" Shinji lost his temper around that point and started talking with a bit louder voice.

"I tackled the first one and kicked him in the face! I hit the second one in the guts and knee-capped him in the face! I kicked the last one down on one knee and drove his face in the floor three times! Enough details or do you want to hear about how I broke their noses?" Misato looked at him with some admiration. She had never thought that he was capable of something like that.

'Rei will be all over him if she saw that. And I think that Asuka will too, and if they clash, then we'll hear it to the US and back, and not the way over the Pacific, but over the Atlantic.' She was right, they all should notice in a short while; Rei should be all over him.

Rei looked at Shinji with admiration in her eyes. Shinji had not left her side theses three days she had been asleep or sick.

'He did it for me…he did all that only for me. No one else has put him or herself in danger for me. The commander burned his hands while getting the entry plug open, but that was because he was afraid of losing the Eva pilot, not the person.' She had just woken up and seen Shinji's relieved smile. She did not know why, she maybe never will know why she did it, but she did.

The moment he saw that she was awake, she shot up and embraced him tightly, whispering thank you in his ear. And of course, Misato just happened to walk in on this.

'Great, now there'll be no break in this for Misato-san.' Shinji thought and carefully loosened Rei's grip around his neck. He had to clear his throat a couple of times before he could talk again.

"…um…do you want something to eat, or drink Rei? You have been out for most of the past three days. Don't worry; the school has been closed because of the last angels' attack."

"Some water please, Shinji-kun…" Shinji tensed and blushed a bit at this but went to get her drink. He glared at the grinning Misato in the doorway.

Shinji continued helping Rei until she was completely recovered, just in time for the call from NERV HQ. The angel was proceeding towards the Geofront.

The fight was short and synchronized according to the plan. The only thing affecting the outcome was when the cores of the duplicating angel(s) exploded, Shinji recalled the hug he had received from Rei and let the AT field drop a split second too early. As a result, Shinji was briefly wounded. The moment Shinji dropped the AT field, a piece of debris, namely a wood splinter, passed in between the plates of armour of the Eva unit, through the body, into the entry plug and piercing Shinji's left arm. Needless to say, it was an emergency for the guys at NERV. It was like the time when the cube-like flying fortress angel, Ramiel, had almost melted Evangelion Prototype Unit 00. Only that it was switched places. This time, it was Rei who ripped the damaged entry plug out and forced it open, with heat-proof gloves though. It was pretty messy in there. The entry plug was half full with LCL liquid, some blood mixed in and some blood on the walls. Shinji almost unconscious and a splinter the size of a pencil sticks out of his arm, blood covering the left arm of the plug suit. Shinji managed a smile before fainting, toppling over into Rei's arms.

He woke up in the hospital. The first thing he thought was not the freaking "another unknown ceiling", but the first thing a person with some mental sanity left would think;

'I'm in the hospital wing, someone is holding my hand.' He looked to the right. Rei was gently holding onto his right hand.

'It's Rei…' He smiled weakly at her. She looked into his eyes and smiled too. She seemed overcome with happiness in knowing that he was so okay that he was conscious. So overcome that she lunged forward, Shinji prepared for another hug, and was almost choked when he received a…