At World's End

S-Michael

Chapter the Second

Interrogation and House Arrest

Mr. Browne, the General Adviser to the HALO Chief of Staff could never sleep on airplanes, so he was using his time to read up on the case files of the people he was going to Japan to see. In English and in Japanese. He tried not to pay attention to the people around him, but it was hard, and most of this stuff repeated itself so redundantly. A couple of times, he had thought he had found a discrepancy, but it turned out both times that it was translator error. There were literally hundreds of documents, as a dozen different organizations, taking on the investigation into NERV and SEELE, had all asked all of these people all of the same questions over and over again, creating an ungodly amount of paperwork. He hated paperwork.

"Please, America got out of Second Impact easy, compared to us," the person in the middle seat said to the person in the aisle seat. Browne glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. Unless this man came from Australia (now a frozen wasteland), that wasn't fucking likely.

"Speaking of America, I hear the fishing is lovely in the Gulf of Alabama," the HALO man said simply. Neither said a word; with a single sentence, he had proven his point. The plain landed, and he got off, still reading his files. He was still reading them on the cab from the airport to the proper apartment building, and had gotten out and paid the cabbie before looking up. Until that point, he could have been on the moon. But he wasn't. This was where he would find Shinji Ikari.

-

Misato got the door. "And you are?"

"The General Adviser to the HALO Chief of Staff. My name is Browne, and I'm here to see Shinji," he spoke passably, but had such a thick American accent it was hard to tell.

"Shinji, it's the Grand Inquisitor to see you," Misato said.

The corners of Browne's mouth actually twisted up in a surprised half-grin as Shinji came to the door.

"Come with me, Shinji," Browne said.

Shinji stepped outside, and closed the door. "I'm sorry about that…" he said softly.

"It's quite alright," Browne assured him.

"I've already reported all I know about SEELE and the Human Instrumentality Project. About a dozen times," Shinji explained. There was an apologetic tone in his voice, like he should have kept some vital piece of information secret until now.

"I know. I've been reading the reports. And they're quite a headache, I might add. I want to know about Kowaru," Browne said.

"Kowaru?" Shinji asked.

"Yes. Kowaru. Tabris. The Seventeenth Angel,"

"Why do you want to know about him?" Shinji asked, a bit defensively

"He was the one who warned us about there being more angels out there. I have to decide if we should believe him."

"I see," Shinji said. It occurred to him that neither one of them was looking at the other one while they were talking. "Why did you come to me first?"

"I'm told you were the closest to him. That you and he were…"

Shinji nodded. "Yes. We were lovers. The funny thing is, I'm not even gay."

"I take it from the fact that you found it significant to tell me this that this means you're not bisexual, either?" Browne commented.

"Het."

"And yet…"

"And yet," Shinji said. Browne waited patiently. "Doesn't make sense, does it?"

"It's been my experience that if something happened and it doesn't make sense, it is because something is wrong with the way you're looking at it," Browne said.

"I am straight, and I did sleep with him," Shinji said. Something about the American, perhaps the fact that he didn't expect him to look him in the eye when he was talking to him, loosened his tongue.

"I didn't call you a liar."

"And yet, I'm contradicting myself as I speak. How can I be straight, if I have sex with guys?" Shinji asked.

"Guys? Or just Kowaru?" Browne asked.

"Just Kowaru," Shinji admitted.

"Freud teaches that we are all born bisexual, and that society pressures us to be straight. I'm not sure about that, but it is a psychological fact that there is no such thing as being one hundred percent gay or straight. Perhaps Kowaru was the exception to the rule of your straightness. Even the exception that proves the rule, maybe," Browne suggested.

Shinji sighed. "This is something I've never told anyone, ever, but…I wasn't ever actually physically attracted to him."

"Then why did you sleep with him?" Browne asked.

"Because I loved him. I know that that doesn't make any sense…" Shinji shook his head.

"You wanted to be with him, because he made you feel loved, wanted, special. He showed you such love and kindness, and you wanted it to be real, so you faked it," Browne guessed. "Don't look at me like that; I do this for a living."

"Actually, I didn't so much fake it as I just…closed my eyes and thought about women," Shinji said, blushing. He had never talked about this to anyone before.

"What was Kaworu like? As a person, I mean."

"I doubt that I am the best person to ask that of. I'll just end up idealizing him," Shinji said.

"Why don't you tell me, anyway, and I can decide later how valuable your testimony is."

"There were times when he seemed more like a dream of what humanity ought to be than a real person. He flowed so naturally with the world around him, and yet was somehow apart from it, above it… He was kind, affectionate…" Shinji couldn't talk anymore. The emotion welling up was just too much, and he went to the railing.

"I'm sorry, I should have been more delicate," Browne said. "You have lost some people very important to you in a short amount of time. How about you tell me about Rei."

"Rei?"

"She's a human/angel crossbreed, after all. Understanding her might help me understand him."

"They were nothing alike," Shinji pointed out.

"Maybe not, but it's a straw to grasp at."

Shinji nodded. "Rei's…quiet. She doesn't have many friends, outside of Asuka and myself. If we can be considered friends. I…is she really a clone of my mother?"

"The files I received claim that genetic material from one Yui Ikari was used in her construction, yes."

"This is all just so hard to accept. The world is crazy. Who in their right mind would want to live here?"

Browne shrugged. "It's better than the alternative."

I am such a loser.

"Call no man a loser until he is dead, Shinji."

"What—how did you know—?"

"A guess. I'm good at this sort of thing, remember."

"Isn't the expression 'Call no man happy until he is dead'?"

"Same basic principle." Browne questioned Shinji for more than an hour about various topics, including Kowaru, Rei, his father, Instrumentality, somehow not making him feel intimidated while he did it.

"Well, while I'm here, I might as well talk to Misato, as well," Browne said when they were back at the door to Misato and Shinji's apartment.

"I'll get her," Shinji said. He went inside, and Misato was just getting out of the shower.

"Sorry you couldn't join me, Shinji."

"He wants to see you," Shinji said, nodding towards the door.

"Right, I'll get dressed," Misato said. She went into her bedroom, closing the door behind her. Perhaps it was just an automatic response, the force of habit? Perhaps she was already having second thoughts about him…perhaps he shouldn't read too much into little thing like that, eh? Is that a good enough idea for ya? A now-fully-dressed Misato left her room, and then their apartment.

Shinji caught a glimpse of Browne as the door opened and shut. Browne had long hair, and with Shinji, he had pulled it back into a Kaji-esque horsetail, albeit longer, curly, and without bangs. Now he was wearing it down, unconsciously toying with a strand of it that framed his face. He smiled at Misato smoothly, looking her directly in the eye. It was a short glimpse, granted, but in it, Shinji had seen someone totally unlike the person he had just talked to for an hour. Is he that good an actor?

Fuck it. That wasn't what was important here. Misato and him; that was what was important. Their relationship. Relationship. The word, the concept alone, caused warm and fuzzy feelings to well, which of course scared another part of him. After all, had not all good things in his life ended in tragedy? His mother died. His father abandoned him. Kowaru loved him, and he died. And now, his father was dead, too. And so many other people, most of them innocent. Everyone he had ever loved always seemed to end up dying. It made him wonder if he wasn't putting Misato in danger, just by having feelings for her.

No, shut up. What was he thinking? There was no omnipotent superbeing out there, a being whose sole purpose in existing was to torment Shinji Ikari until the end of his days. His life had been tragic. The definition of tragedy, in fact. But that did not mean that this relationship would end like all of that. And yet, he couldn't feel this logic in his gut.

What he felt was that history repeated itself. What he felt was that there was a pattern, and whatever caused that pattern to be, in that pattern he kept getting hurt. Every time he reached out, he got hurt. Every time he let someone touch him, he got hurt. Every time he got close to someone, he got hurt. He got hurt, he got hurt, he got hurt. There was an underlying theme to the story here. Shinji realized something. This time around, he had done more than let someone touch him. He had initiated contact! He was the one who had said that he wanted to belong to Misato. She hadn't said that she wanted him. He was the one who had reached out. He was going to be hurt for this, for sure!

He found himself thinking about Browne, again. Browne with his hair down. Browne was not what he would call an attractive man, he realized. Not ugly, not by any means; just…not very attractive, either. Average. But that hair…that hair, he realized was beautiful. Having it cascade around him did wonders for his looks. He remember thinking that Browne was (could be) a good actor, and surely, no one with that kind of knowledge of humanity could be ignorant of the fact that the prettier you were, the more attention the opposite sex paid to you. He could very well be trying to seduce information out of Misato right now. And, horror of horrors, he was a lot closer to her age than Shinji was!

Stop being paranoid, Shinji! he scolded himself. If she leaves you, it'll be because you are such an obsessive, whiny little child! And there was the old self-hatred again. He decided to make himself useful, and so he did the dishes, even though, according to the schedule, this was one of those rare days in which that was Misato's job.

-

"Misato Katsuragi. Charmed," Browne said with a lazy smile, playing with his wavy hair.

"Stop flirting with me and tell me what you want," Misato snapped.

"I'm not flirting with you," Browne assured her. "You'll know when I'm flirting with you." Misato's eyes flitted back to her door for a second. Did that mean what he thought it meant…nah, probably just his imagination being overactive…probably.

"Look, I've just been under house arrest for…" Misato looked at her watch, and realized that the amount of time she'd been under house arrest for in hours wasn't all that impressive, "more than a day, my boyfriend died recently, and the last several years of my life have been a lie. Excuse me if I'm a little cranky when I demand that you get to the fucking point."

"House arrest?" Browne asked.

"That's not what they called it. They said that Shinji and I should stay indoors so as to be ensured of our own safety, or something else lawyer-like, but lets call a spade a space, shall we: it's house arrest," Misato said.

"I'll look into that for you. It's probably some sort of mistake. Fucking bureaucrats; the god of bureaucracy is a petty and vindictive one," Browne said. "Anyway, I've got some questions…"

Misato answered all of the questions, and then she went inside and saw Shinji doing the dishes. Funny, she had thought it was her turn today. She looked at the calendar, and saw that she was correct in that belief. "Hey, Shinji, that's my job. Why are you doing it?"

"I just thought I'd do something nice," Shinji said. "Make myself useful, you know? Besides, there wasn't anything good on TV."

"They're still talking about NERV and Kowaru?" Misato asked.

Shinji shrugged. "Actually, I didn't check. Just figured it would be more of the same."

Misato stood there, and watched him do dishes, and thought, Oh, damn it. This was another little gesture, another little sign of her power over him. She shouldn't let him do this. She should go up there and do the dishes with him. Oh, the hell with it, she would. They were silent as they washed and dried the dishes, Shinji washing, Misato drying. Misato could see in her peripheral vision that Shinji was nerving himself up for something. Jerkily, almost shakily, he stepped into her, resting his head on her shoulder. Well, her upper arm, actually; he couldn't quite reach her shoulder. Misato looked down at him, and had to smile, and drape her arm across his shoulders. So shoot me; he's just so fucking cute. "The rest of this stuff can wait. Lets go see what's on TV."

They went out into the living room, and channel surfed for a while. "Not a damn thing on. Ah, well. That's why god invented movies," Misato said. She got up to browse the shelf, and Shinji went into her room, returning with a blanket and a couple of pillows. Ah, cuddling. She smiled without turning around. That could be fun. Don't take pleasure at that thought, you fucking ephebophile! You disgust me. Another, more detached part of her mind retorted, You're already sleeping with him. What's the big deal about a little cuddling? Cuddling lead to making love, which was twofold problems in and of itself. The fist, obviously, being the fact that she apparently had the capacity to feel lust for a fourteen-year-old boy. The second being that she didn't make love. She fucked.

That wasn't completely honest, though. The thing was, the strange thing, that the idea of cuddling with him gave her more of an oh-my-god-what-kind-of-sick-monster-am-I kind of disgust than the idea of fucking him did, as she had already done. That, she realized, was seriously fucked up. What the fuck; just, what the fuck? If you can sleep with him, you can watch a fucking sappy movie and cuddle. Stop being so fucked. Stop being fucked. Easier said than done. She put the movie in and then went to the couch. They sat together, sharing the blanket, and they watched the movie.

The movie took place around Second impact. It was about a couple trying to find each other and survive in a time of absolute craziness. It hadn't been a very big movie. After all, who wanted to watch a movie about romantic fluff set during the greatest disaster in human history? Not a recipe for success.

Misato moved stiffly, putting her arm around him. Shinji froze for the tiniest fraction of a second, and relaxed into it. She could feel his heartbeat racing. Misato looked at him, and he stared forward at the screen, pale, drawn. Surely, he could not be so excited because of a little touching? And then she remembered the hedgehog's dilemma. It wasn't excitement, not entirely, it was also fear. Fear of being hurt again. It was something she knew, but on some level had forgotten, and so it was an epiphany.

A realization that rode the heels of that one caused her to suddenly burst into a spontaneous fit of laughter, and then she was doubled over. Shinji was asking her what was it, but she couldn't stop laughing. She laughed until tears ran down her face and her sides ached, though it wasn't really that funny.

"What is it?" Shinji asked again.

"I never noticed before, but we're a lot alike, Shinji," Misato said.

They were to spend a week under house arrest, but neither of them would mind. Every day trapped was another day away from the madhouse of the world for Shinji, another day when he could be alone with Misato. Another day their world only consisted of each other. (Except for when Browne would come to question him twice more.) And for Misato, every day their world only consisted of each other was another day that she could put off the decision of what to do about their relationship. Still, even with all that extra time to think, all she came across were dead ends. Every road lead to a scenario she did not like, would show her part of herself she could not foresee liking, and every way out ended up hurting Shinji. Truth be told, she did not want out.

This wasn't right, though. She was twice his age. She thought about what she had just thought. Twice his age. Did that really matter, when the world could end tomorrow? What they had, mayhaps it wasn't healthy, but then, they were both damaged goods, anyway. Yeah. She liked that. This feels good, and we probably won't live long enough to regret it, anyway, so why the hell not? Just do what you feel, no matter what the origins of the feelings or the impossibility of any real future. None of it mattered. If by some miracle, the both of them survived until the world was safe, then it would be a problem, but until then, just relax. There were bigger fish to fry. And what a relief it was, too.

-

"Morning, Mr. Browne."

"Morning. Do you want to tell me why Misato Katsuragi and Shinji Ikari are under house arrest?"

"All NERV personnel are under protective quarantine. It's for their own safety. Security cameras in a hospital's parking garage caught an attempt on Shinji Ikari's life not five minutes before issuing that message."

"I see," Browne said. "Very well. Where can I find Rei Ayanami?" His week was not to be so pleasant. He shuttled back and forth across Tokyo 3, and under, to what was once NERV HQ, and was now HALO HQ, trying to get a feel for Tabris, Instrumentality, the angels, and just how this entire thing came together in the first place. He watched the video of the angel's final moments so many times it was burned into his head verbatim. Every movement, every oh-so-human gesture, freakishly human. Perhaps angels were more human than they would like to think. Perhaps Kowaru had some sort of supreme understanding of humans, and that was why he could imitate them in such a way that even the American would have been fooled if he didn't know better. Or perhaps it was Shinji's influence that made him human, that made him sacrifice himself for the good of humanity. Whatever the reason, he could be read, and after taking in all the details he could, Browne believed he had read him correctly.

He dialed the home office. "Hello?"

"This is Browne."

"What have you concluded?"

"Tabris lied."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. I believe that, being an angel, he had had some sort of knowledge of what would happen if he were to merge with Lilith, say, or if he were to merge with Adam. He guessed that something was up with SEELE and NERV. What he told them was calculated to bring them down."

"Smart boy." It was the infighting between NERV and SEELE caused by Tabris' warning which had brought the truth to light. "I guess we all owe him a debt of gratitude."

"I doubt he'd accept. He didn't give a flying fuck about you or me or all of the two point nine billion humans in the world. The only one he was trying to save was Shinji."

"Are you sure that there will be no more angels? Because, if we go through with the plan, and then an angel shows itself…"

"I'd bet my life on it."

"No doubt. The only problem is, we're betting the future of the human race. Are you willing to bet that?"

Browne didn't speak for a good minute. And then he exhaled heavily. "I know I am right. Proceed with Operation Advocate."