Creation began on 05-20-16

Creation ended on 05-21-16

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Different from You: Work and Play

"…Why is she here?" Fuyutsuki asked Ritsuko, three days later, referring to Shado Ikari, who sat in the corner of the large room that overlooked the rest of the staff and electronic equipment present in front of the large Unit-01 that had Shinji inside it.

"Believe it or not, the Third Child brought her with him," she answered him; many of the staff had even started a pool on how long the Third Child and his daughter would be staying around before something went wrong to cause them to leave (and most of the pool centered around Commander Ikari trying something to drive one or the other away). "Apparently, he has trust issues that are severe."

"I hope you know, I heard all of that," the speaker uttered with Shinji's voice; someone had neglected to turn off the communication link between the room and the Entry Plug.

"Uh, Shinji, this isn't a daycare center we're running here," Fuyutsuki tried to explain to the young father. "You couldn't have asked someone your age to watch her?"

On the monitor, Shinji's facial expression showed anger where it used to show calmness as he responded, "The day I start to trust people will be the day they don't try something to get rid of Shado or myself. She's not bothering any of you as long as she's sitting somewhere not in your way, so don't start something over nothing."

Unfortunately, as much as Fuyutsuki wanted to speak back at him about the severity of what they did at NERV, he couldn't help but be reminded of how similar this was to what had occurred almost a decade ago, back when Yui was alive. Only it was the reverse of a mother and son. This time, it was a father and daughter. He turned to look at Shado, who simply stayed quiet and watched them all.

Or rather, she was ignoring them in favor of the one person she trusted that was, in her mind, an adult.

"She hasn't moved from the chair I asked her to sit in, has she?" Shinji asked.

"No, she hasn't," Fuyutsuki answered, seeing no point in arguing with him over nothing.

"Then there's nothing wrong."

Of course, that was only Shinji's belief. But one that had some truth to it. His daughter hadn't really made a move to ask any one of them for anything that her father hadn't already left in a bag with her.

-x-

"So far, his synchronization ratio is holding at seventy-two percent," Ritsuko informed Gendo in his office later that day. "However, it lowered by three percent when Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki questioned why his daughter was here, then returned to where it was later."

However, this was like memory lane for Gendo, as well. The fact that his son brought his daughter with him here was no different from when Yui had brought him here to watch the critical experiment with Unit-01 (back then, it was Unit-00, requiring another Eva to be built later). Only this time, it was for a different test with a different outcome. A little girl got to see her father survive a sync test with a cybernetic organism…and would be going home with him later on.

"Was there any other cause for concern?" He asked Ritsuko.

"Other than Fuyutsuki questioning the little girl's presence, nothing that could've ignited the Third Child's anger," she answered him, and then noticed a picture of the commander's granddaughter and another picture of the First Child, realizing that both girls almost resembled one another in terms of their hairstyle and facial structure, which wasn't all that different from the Third Child's, either.

Gendo took notice and merely said, "It's plausible that the Third Child will demonstrate some trust in the First Child and install a similar trust with his daughter."

"Except that he hasn't been too concerned with anyone else besides his daughter since they moved into that small apartment. If anything, sir, his priorities seem to include his daughter and exclude nearly everything…and everyone…else."

-x-

So far, this park in Tokyo-3 was the only one that included a playground for little kids that included a swing set. None of the other two parks Shinji and Shado had found had such things as playgrounds for the girl. And while the girl loved jungle gyms, she preferred the swings because it was one of the only things she and her father bonded over…and because not many other children her age wanted anything to do with her, leaving Shinji as her only playmate when he had time to spend with her each day.

As far as Shinji noticed, with the exception of the Geo-Front, much of the city itself was empty. One night, in fact, he left the side of a sleeping Shado to see how much of the city was empty; it must've been the shortest three hours he ever spent on the streets of a new place that he felt no attachment towards. It made him wonder if there was any actual life in the city.

"Daddy?" Shado asked.

"Yes, dear?" He responded.

"Are we bad?"

"No, of course not, sweetie. What gave you that impression?"

As the small swing slowed down, the girl explained, "We've been looked at differently by others ever since we got here. The elderly man, the lady with the fake hair and the lady with the purple hair. They seem to have a hard time accepting what we are to each other."

Shinji sighed and expressed, "You remember what I said almost a year ago to that woman that tried to get you into the oven? About how there's no point in living if anything happened to you?"

"Yeah. You told her that if she tried something like that again with me…you wouldn't hesitate to make her regret her decision to mistreat me the way she did."

"The same can apply to everyone here, Shado. You're the only reason I have for doing any of the things I do anywhere. Nothing else matters. If anything were to happen to you, there would be no reason to go on living. You're the light in my life, and I wouldn't trade you for anything."

"I wouldn't trade you for anything, either. You're my best friend."

-x-

"…If either ever knew NERV was keeping surveillance over them whenever they were outside their apartment or the base," went Ritsuko to Misato, watching the teen father and his toddler daughter through a camera in the playground.

"This is a complete invasion of privacy, but this is to ensure that Shinji is kept safe from harm," Misato expressed, seeing how it seemed that the pair were rather isolated from everyone, but not so much as by choice as they seemed to be by a bad hand of cards they were dealt by others. "Do we have any other information on their maternal relatives, Rits?"

"Nothing we haven't been informed before these two showed up," she answered, zooming the camera lens on Shado, who was no longer on the swing set, but now on the merry-go-round being pulled into motion by her young father. "What do you think he meant by a woman trying to get his daughter into an oven?"

"You don't wanna know."

To be continued…

A/N: I actually wanted to have Shinji sang to Shado the song Look What We've Become byGrace Potter from her album Midnight, but I wasn't sure how to go about it. I just heard the song and immediately liked it a lot. Can anyone guess what Shinji meant by what almost happened to Shado in this reboot?