Darkness Is (Not) Light

by BardInTheForest

(Pax Ikari vol IV) Another Shinji, another story, but in a universe where free will and predestination are at open war with one another even gods can find themselves stuck in endless cycles.

8. Chapter 8

***** 3rd Angel + 6. Thursday, Day 5.

When tomorrow came, he woke to the smell of breakfast being prepared. Slowly, thinking through everything he had learned the night before, he disentangled himself from his bedsheets, threw on some around the house clothes and made his way to the kitchen. The eldest Horaki stood, an apron covering her front and only a powder blue sports bra and hot pink compression shorts otherwise hiding her glory, bopping along to some unheard tune as she skillfully prepared a morning meal. When she heard him approach, she gestured imperiously towards the bar without turning to face him. He had made dinner; it was now her turn to do something about breakfast.

The itch to take over was reasonably thwarted by the fact that as he sat at the bar he was faced with a rather maudlin memory. Dancing and cooking before him was an unreasonably beautiful woman wearing merely enough to pass as 'socially appropriate' that had a vested interest in his well-being. The main difference between her and his former guardian, however, was that the smells coming from the stove did not resemble the school's locker room toilets. Setting his arms atop one another, he rested his chin on his wrists and watched Tsubame for a time. He had no native experience in mothers, nor did he have a wealth of knowledge about how non-related women that were older than him should act, and so the pieces of his mind that sought out connections between all things began to wonder if this was simply how family life was in other people's lives.

There was a gratitude in his heart that was growing for the two women he'd soon share a roof with. He didn't know what he could do to help Rei, but having Hikari there would help him remain calm enough to figure out what he could try. He couldn't disagree with the point made the night before, how Maya was incredibly important to operations at NERV, and now here was Tsubame to give him a sense of comfort that there was someone 'responsible' to bring any immediate concerns to. Just as one security blanket had been ripped from him, another had settled on his shoulders…one with a very compelling sense of rhythm.

Unseen and unheard by him, Hikari had come downstairs herself. Wearing mint green yoga pants and a matching sports bra, she hugged Shinji from the side and murmured in a still-tired voice, "Good morning."

Just barely restraining his startle reflex, Shinji still jostled her a bit when he sat upright. Shame being the natural first response for having been staring at her mother's gyrations, he began to stammer an apology when he finally took in what his once and future class representative was wearing. Blinking owlishly, he blushed several shades of pink as less than pure thoughts assailed him.

For her part, Hikari was inwardly thrilled at the reaction. "My mom and I practice Shinshin-tōitsu-dō every morning, whenever possible. If you'd like to, you could join us?"

Mouthing the strange sentence, he bought time for himself to recover from the shock of seeing Hikari Horaki, of all women, dressed like a Pop Idol. "The way of mind and body unification?"

"Mm-hmm," she agreed with a nod. "It's a form of meditation that seeks to train our bodies and minds to exercise our free will, helping us express ourselves both artistically and, if necessary, physically." She wagged her forefinger to emphasize the point. "It is a path to positivity, not a means to foster conflict."

From her position at the stove, Tsubame added, "Sometimes, however, in order to reform your subconscious mind to embrace the positive you have to recognize the need to defend yourself and others. Finding balance in your body's nervous system helps find a balance in your mental condition, which helps you know when it's time to unbalance someone else's nervous system."

If there was anything he desperately desired, it was balance in his mind. "Uhm…if you aren't bothered by me joining you, I'd like to."

"Why would we be bothered, silly," Hikari giggled out. "We invited you!" Sliding up onto the barstool next to him, she pressed on with the basics of the art, "There are steps we follow to train our mind towards a positive ki. First, we examine our self. What is it we're feeling? Does our elbow hurt? Are we stressed over something? By examining how we feel we are better able to set it aside for the moment to seek peace. Second, we look at our environment. Have we surrounded ourselves with darkness, or just as bad for us too much stimulus? What did we bring into our life and what does it say to us?"

"Third," Tsubame took over, setting down two meals before Shinji and Hikari, "we need to examine our feelings towards others in our life. What is it we are thinking about those closest to us? Are we harboring ill-will? Have we allowed bad actors to linger in our minds, allowing them to harm our life without even being present?" Turning back to the cabinets, she pulled out glasses to get them something to drink. "Fourth, we focus on the present. The future has yet to come, and will arrive when it is ready. The past is just that, the past. Whatever happened there is nothing we can do to alter it, so we must focus on what we do now. Fifth, and this is honestly the one that's a bit New Age goofy, we open ourselves up to the Universal Mind." Pouring out a healthy amount of orange juice, she gave each of them a glass before beginning to serve herself. "To be truthful, we've never really bothered dwelling on that one. It's much too philosophical, and way too poorly defined, to be useful in our daily lives. We tend to just make sure we're using the entirety of our mind to focus on a single issue rather than becoming scatterbrained."

Shinji's first few bites gave him enough information to go on, the balance of flavors and the texture of the food indicated clearly that Tsubame was well-practiced in the kitchen. She wasn't a master of the art of cooking, but she had the science down perfectly. "It…uhm, it all sounds like good advice. Like it would help me stop…being so me, I guess."

"It's a path, not necessarily the path." Choosing to stand on the inside of the bar, she gave him an encouraging grin. "We all have different coping mechanisms, and finding the one that both works and isn't destructive can take a while. If doing this with us helps you, great! If it doesn't, then at least you'll find the physical motion portions useful. Natural fluid motions, gradual improvements, constant training, things like that. Morning calisthenics keeps your body supple, and makes you less likely to do things like break ribs."

The question inherent in her choice of body parts prompted him to reply, "I'm feeling much better this morning. I managed to get out of bed without any pain."

"Good, good." Flicking her chopsticks upward, she ordered, "Shirt off." When he froze, she peaked an eyebrow. "Shinji, I saw everything you've got when we were in the shower. Hikari got more than an eyeful when I pulled off those icepacks. You have nothing to be ashamed of, and we can kill two birds with one shirt coming off."

It wouldn't be easy to argue against the logic, though shame cared little for what logic had to say about anything. Looking down at himself, and hesitantly moving his hands partway to the bottom of his t-shirt, Shinji was once more startled when Hikari stood and took hold of the garment instead.

"It's best to practice with us with as little clothing as possible, to avoid getting tangled in anything mentally or physically." Hoisting the shirt over his head, she hopped up to tug it over his arms and brushed her breasts against his neck in the process. Unaware of the confused blush on his face, she turned and performed a basketball shot with her prize to place it in the basket by the stairs that had her clothes in it. By the time that she cheered, "Three points," and turned around to look at him again the blush had been replaced with a morose, downcast, look. Tugging on his knee, she turned him sideways to face her. She then placed two fingers under his jaw and actually made him face her. "You are a handsome man, and you need to let go of whoever told you otherwise."

Tsubame caught the facial expressions that transited past between him looking at her daughter and the receipt of Hikari's compliment. "However many told you otherwise," she said calmly. "Body image issues continue to be one of the largest drivers of depression in men and women." Her tone drifting towards educational, she gave the two youths a significant look. "You are not 'too skinny' or 'too fat' or 'too short' or 'too tall'. You are you. What matters is how healthy you are, not how your body shows how healthy you are." Motioning them back to their food, she urged the meal to move faster. "You should be able to walk a mile in under ten minutes without collapsing, able to lift forty-five kilograms without straining, and able to hold your toes or place your hands flat on the floor without bending your knees. If you can't, then you should speak to a medical professional or physical therapist to see how to reach those goals. Some people have disabilities that prevent them from reaching some of those goals, which is where medicine comes in. For everything else, there's motivation."

Sitting with her traditional perfect posture, Hikari nodded firmly in agreement. "My mom has always pounded that into me. I know I have flaws, when you compare me to supermodels, but I am confident and happy in myself."

Shinji frowned. "But you told Yuu-san that you could lose a few kilos, the other day."

"Because I wanted to workout with you and Rei, silly." She weathered a look from her mother by not making eye contact. "It's a small lie, and like I said you shouldn't lie if you can help it, but I really wanted her to let me spend more time with you two."

Eating as fast as he could without choking or being rude, Shinji avoided responding and making the situation worse for Hikari. Slipping the empty dishes away from Tsubame, he began washing them in a small rebellious act. Today would be the first day he tried something completely new, and that meant that something tried and true was necessary to buttress his ability to manage the change. With the dishes cleaned, he followed them out to the front room and thence upon on the journey towards a positive mental state.

***** 3rd Angel + 6. Thursday, Day 5.

Deep inside NERV Tokyo-3, Rei I and II allowed themselves to remain medicated inside of a well-managed tank of LCL. While their discussions had gone nowhere, and their arguments proved only to irritate one another, the silence they both sat within served far better in helping them come to a mutual understanding. Neither was in full control of the body, and the longer they spent together the less they felt as if they were entirely unique entities. The largest problem they felt they faced was that they had radically different ideas on interpersonal relations, and there was little chance of either being 'happy' while the other exercised any form of free will.

Rei II, being introverted, preferred to watch and analyze others from a distance. It was less draining when she could puzzle out external motivations while not being directly engaged in speaking with the other actor. She cared little for finery, preferring the utilitarian aspects of what she felt could be kept closest. Secretly she adored 'soft' things, the way they felt when she held them tickled her brain in a most pleasant way.

Rei I, being extroverted, craved the ability to experience new things for herself. The more time she was able to spend speaking to others and engaging in activities, the happier she became and the more fulfilled. She felt a deep-seated need to surround herself in useless opulence for the sake of being opulent. There were no secrets in her mind, everything she felt was instantly displayed on or about her person in gross detail.

Slowly, over the course of real-world hours, though mental weeks, they came to agree on the fact that they weren't going to be gaining any reprieve without convincing everyone else that they weren't going to go off the rails again. Rei I, given a sudden and unopposed control over their body, had lost herself to the freedom that had provided. Her mind had fallen upon the one 'safe' outlet for her extroversion, planning to spend as many 'time resets' as needed doing everything she could possibly convince Shinji to allow her to do. It was a way to avoid the pain of the synchronization tests…a way to not have to face herself.

We cannot utilize Unit-00 together. The statement, as much peace offering as entry to a new discussion, allowed Rei II to seek a common platform with Rei I. We cannot seem to come to a mutual set of guidelines for our shared condition. Is there, perhaps, some way for us to take advantage of the clones on hand?

Rei I's mental frown was neither dismissive nor encouraging. We would have to separate again. Assuming it's even possible for us to do so, which of us gets the new home and how do we explain it to the bitch's daughter?

The accident during the synchronization test caused a schism in our ego, you exist as the 'repressed psyche' created by the enforced medication regimen the Commander insisted upon. Our unique physiology adapted and healed the barrier, though it did so in a manner which required a split in our soul.

Fair enough. She couldn't find any flaws in the argument itself, though she wasn't convinced that Ritsuko was unable to. Which one of us gets to sit in Unit-00, then?

I will.

…Why?

Rei II issued a minute sigh. To her the answer was obvious, Because unlike me, you have over a decade of trauma involving being inside of an Evangelion. I know better, now, who it is that I am interacting with. I believe I will be able to come to a mutual understanding with her, so long as we ensure that she will receive her freedom once the battles against the Angels has completed.

…Ok, that actually makes sense. Becoming more animated as she saw a path forward, she began to think through how to implement the plan. Now we just…need to recreate Yui Ikari's masterpiece. Fuck.

***** 3rd Angel + 6. Thursday, Day 5.

Following a morning of learning the forms and pace Tsubame and Hikari followed in practicing their meditations, Shinji was surprised by Maya's return. Seeing her enter, as he was shirtless and holding himself up in a plank position, he could be forgiven for blinking in surprise as she looked down at him and began to laugh dryly.

"Ok…what did I miss," the mousy Captain asked of Tsubame. "Because I'm betting there's a good story here."

Dropping to his knee, Shinji pushed himself upright and asked the series of questions that had been on his mind during the meditative exercise, "Did you and Doctor Akagi find anything? Are you ok? Are you hungry? Can I help?"

Years and years later, when it was little more than an amusing anecdote to be shared when discussing the past, Maya would still struggle to explain why it was that she chose to do what she did. Setting down her bag, she placed both hands on his chest and stepped up on her tiptoes to press her lips lightly to his. "Thank you," she murmured gently. "In order: yes, no, yes, maybe."

"O-ok." He hadn't expected the kiss, nor the familiar touch, yet for the life of him he couldn't think of a reason he ever wanted her to stop. "I'll…uhm, I'll make you something to eat. Why don't you go…uh…go do what you need to do, I'll have food waiting and we can talk about what I can do to help."

"Among other things," she agreed with a curious look to Tsubame. Receiving a subtle nod in reply, she gave Shinji a warm hug and then turned to head to her room.

Not wasting time, Shinji moved into the kitchen to begin scraping together something comforting and refreshing for his housemate. Feeling Hikari follow behind, he remembered her mother's words from the previous night and tried to include her in what he was attempting. "Could you slice up a few apples and carrots, Hikari? I'm going to work on a warm sandwich. Do you want anything? Tsubame?"

"I'm fine, dear. I'm still full from breakfast," Tsubame replied, her own pace towards the kitchen slower and introspective. "Perhaps a glass of water with some ice would be wonderful."

"Can I ask you an honest question, Shinji?" Hikari pulled out a glass for her mother, filling it from the combination icemaker and refrigerator before setting it before her. "I promise nothing you say will upset me."

Of any combination of words he could think of, those terrified Shinji the most. Stopping dead, he carefully set the knife he'd pulled out to filet some meat down where it couldn't be knocked off and turned to face both Horaki women. "I apologize for whatever it is that I did." The disaffected, mechanical, way he spoke matched well with the near-terrified set of his fragile features. "Please let me know how I have failed, so that I can do better next time."

Stopping her daughter from saying anything by gripping her shoulder, Tsubame blew out a low sigh. "Shinji, sweetie, you didn't do anything wrong." Moving around Hikari to approach the young man that she had guessed might carry more than a touch of trauma with him, she set her hands on his biceps and lightly caressed his arms. "When Hikari, or I, tell you that we won't be upset we are doing that because the question is going to be challenging to answer. We are telling you that we understand the answer might not come out 'clean', and that you'll need time to explain those points we don't understand right away. Whoever it was that hurt you in the past, I promise you…I swear to you, from the bottom of my heart…they won't lay a hand on you again."

Maya's return was far faster than any of the others had anticipated. Upon laying eyes on Shinji standing stock still and scared out of his mind, the 'protective' personality she kept hidden stepped forward with a vengeance. "Nurse Horaki, I hope that there's a good explanation for this?" Approaching the bar, she leaned aggressively against it and made it clear that this was Captain Ibuki speaking now.

Inwardly wincing and growling, the meeting not going quite how she'd hoped it would, Tsubame kept an outward mien of calm and comfort. "Pilot Ikari was abused in his previous life, ma'am. We stumbled across a trigger, my daughter asking him if he was in a good place for her to ask an honest question came across to him as if she was upset with him." Looking away from Shinji towards Maya, she silently pled for her patience and understanding in turn. "Seems we'll want to be careful how we couch future questions. I'll submit a report to Agent Tanaka, let her know that NERV might need to investigate how he was being treated back in Nagano."

"I-I…uhm…." Don't reset. Don't reset. Don't reset. Don't reset. "I-I offered to…to have them stay…uhm…."

"Shinji very graciously offered to let us stay, since Section Two didn't want anyone out and moving around while they're searching for poor Rei-chan." Hikari, mortified at what she'd prompted unknowingly, took up the responsibility of explaining everything to the 'Lady of the House'. "At the risk of over-sharing, my mother is trying to get a divorce, I asked Shinji last night if he would like to start dating, and I quite frankly hadn't thought that maybe you and he already had something between you. I saw a kind, caring, man and took my chance. My intent had been to ask him how he felt about you, and if he'd finished reading the coursework regarding the global sex discrepancy."

Taking all of the information in and processing it with the rapidity that earned her a place under Ritsuko Akagi, Maya let her stern visage shift to one more suited to speaking among friends. "I see." Blowing air through pursed lips, she looked back to Shinji with a sad smile. "I'll try to get a therapist lined up for you, but approval is going to be hard won if I'm being honest. Command wouldn't let us set poor Rei up with one, and it's honestly looking like that was the biggest mistake we've made as an organization." She relaxed as Shinji did the same, then shook her head sadly. "You were right…that is Rei. Just not the Rei we thought she was."

Shoving his own concerns aside, Shinji stepped up to the side of the bar directly across from Maya and leaned in hard. "Can we help her? Is there anything at all I can do?"

"The best thing you can do right now is relax." Maya stretched an arm across the bar and patted his chest. "You've been in two fights in one week; one against a giant alien, another against someone you became fast friends with. No decisions you make right now are going to be made from a place of calm, unless you actively seek out that calm." Settling back on her own feet, she looked to Tsubame. "Exercise was a good idea. School has been shut down for the rest of the week, so he'll need something to occupy his time until he's no longer suffering from hyperarousal."

Tsubame tilted her head slightly to the side, impressed at the accurate diagnosis. "You studied psychology?"

"Dual major. Psychology and biomechanics. Can I speak with you in the other room? I think we need to make sure we're both fully informed on a few issues." Urging Hikari over to Shinji, she kept her tone neutral. "Help him not hurt himself making food. You and I will talk later, sound good?"

"Yes ma'am." The class rep recognized when she was outranked and outvoted, promising herself to fight the battle when the time was right instead of making an already bad situation worse.

***** 3rd Angel + 6. Thursday, Day 5.

Out of earshot of Shinji and Hikari, Maya took control of the conversation before anything else could be said, "Setting aside several very obvious issues, let's focus on the important bit here: why is he not wearing a shirt? There is no way on this Earth or any other that he would feel at all comfortable uncovered. I enter my house, finding your daughter dressed in a form-fitting exercise outfit, you 'dressed' in clothing clearly intended to draw masculine attention, and the young man I have been assigned to protect only half-dressed himself. Short, concise, explanation. Now."

"The same reason you kissed him when you came in," Tsubame replied with far more calm than she felt. "He has issues, but he's also an absolute dear. Spend any amount of time around him, and you start to feel like you've known him forever. I dress like this in public, by the way. This is my workout outfit when I go jogging. If you have an issue with it 'in your house', I will change. My daughter, on the other hand, is actually wearing more than she tends to when she and I work out together. If you have a problem with that, I will encourage her to dress even more conservatively 'in your house'."

Blinking twice as she remembered that she had, in fact, kissed Shinji on entering the house, Maya frowned and looked over to where Hikari was quietly and calmly supporting Shinji as he came down from the adrenaline rush he'd found himself in. "I…did do that."

"As his current medical provider, there are a whole lot of questions I'm supposed to start asking right now." With the statement out in the open, she wasn't surprised when Maya's head snapped back towards her with much more hesitation in her eyes. "How about, instead, we both accept that he's an adult in the eyes of the government. Neither of us have or are going to force him to do anything he doesn't want to, because both of us are better women than that. If he ends up doing something with us, it will be handled with all the love and respect that he deserves as the hero he is and will be." Offering a friendly smile, she felt she had things back under a semblance of control. "Perhaps we could, instead of sharpening our claws on each other, discuss how best to ensure that Pilot Ikari is never left alone to deal with those demons he's got lingering in the dark corners of his mind."

She wanted to accept the offer being extended, but she couldn't let her own interests outweigh Shinji or Rei's. "Talk to me about this divorce. I heard a bit of gossip, and dismissed it as such, but if it is going to cause issues, I need to know about it."

"Fair enough," Tsubame agreed amicably. "He has been sneaking off to the barracks to 'fraternize' with a pair of junior enlisted. I found out through Mariko, Chief Kazugawa's wife?" Maya nodded in recognition. "I then, to my shame, gave him that black eye people saw him walking around with for a few weeks."

Understanding the urge to punch a cheating spouse, Maya couldn't in good conscience disagree with the contention that the act had brought shame to Tsubame. "Is that something you suffer from? A violent tendency when angered sufficiently?"

"Second time I've ever hit someone who hadn't hit me first. The first time was my sister when she broke my favorite glass horse." She held her fingers a few centimeters apart. "Handblown red sand glass, made by my grandfather as a birthday gift. Knocked her out cold. Got grounded for two months, and got my ass beat for it. I bought her ice cream the first day I was ungrounded, and we talked every day until she died in Second Impact." She shrugged. "I didn't even spank Hikari when she did something wrong, I really prefer to talk things out if I can."

"…I'll be asking her about that."

"I would, in your place." Holding up the hand that had held her wedding ring, she showed that there was nothing adorning the finger. "As far as I'm concerned, he's out of my life forever. The government, as you might be well aware, doesn't want to encourage or simplify divorces anymore. If you can believe it, the counselor they made us go see before even starting the application process said that in a few months my ex might have been paid a stipend to seek out 'more wives'."

Maya frowned. "There's a difference between an open relationship and cheating on someone. He snuck off to do it, which isn't 'finding a wife' it's 'breaking a vow'. That's disgusting that the counselor blamed you for him hurting you…I'm sorry that you had to endure that." She huffed. "Probably wanted to give that man a shiner too!"

"It was a woman."

"Gross."

"The current 'deal' on the table is if I find another man to 'cohabitate with', one that's willing to state that we're 'active' on a legal document, they'll grant me the divorce." She tossed a thumb towards the two teens in the kitchen. "I'm not going to rush him into anything, but I'm also not going to shy away from it if he continues to show interest. What I'm not going to do, however, is have another kid. Hikari's my pride, joy, sun, moon, and stars. She is the one thing I can state I will never, ever regret in my life…I'm not going to do anything that will take my full support away from her finding a far better life than I had."

"Hold on," Maya held up a hand to her shoulder, "why 'continues'?"

"When I showered with him, to get the LCL off of him so that we could work on his ribs…let's just say that he responded very enthusiastically to soap and water applied by yours truly. I didn't do anything more salacious than rub firmly to clean off the LCL and he got an erection that could have shattered steel. If it wasn't for him saying 'no', I wouldn't have to wonder whether or not I can convince him to 'cohabitate'."

"…Really?" That surprised her a great deal. "He…he seemed so neutered when Rei was flirting with him subtly. Are you sure it wasn't just a post-adrenal reaction?"

"He could probably taste the gum I'd been chewing the day before. I didn't put his tongue in my mouth, he did that all on his own." She fanned herself at the memory. "If I can convince him to take up a regular exercise regimen, we're going to have to have an armed escort follow him everywhere to keep the panties from smothering him. He's already adorable, in his own youthful way. A few more months, good food, and exercise? Mmnf."

Maya started to chew on her thumbnail, thinking through what she'd seen and trying to square it with what she was being told. Psychologically, there were explanations for both sides that didn't add up to something negative. It did mean something dangerous if not properly handled, however. "I haven't asked if he's been intimate with anyone…didn't think I would have to."

"He hasn't. I'd bet my left arm against it." Tsubame waggled her hands back and forth. "It's in the way he moves when he's aroused. It's very…ignorant. He wants to try and give, but doesn't know how, which means he's extremely timid in his actions. If he had any experience at all, I guarantee you he would have been making me speak in tongues before I got a chance to do anything for him. At most, I'm thinking he's kissed one or two girls. He kind of knew what he was doing there."

"Ok," she paused for thought. "Ok, I'll buy it. I'll…I'll have a talk with him about-"

"You could just show him how to do it." When Maya's mouth dropped open, Tsubame rolled her eyes in a display that showed where Hikari gained the tic. "Honey, my own daughter gave me a speech about the old normal being a thing of the past. She doesn't care if Shinji and I break a few futons, so long as she's not ignored by us. I'm not saying that you have to, but if you want to, I'm also not telling you that it's the worst idea ever. He's attracted to you, he likes you, and the more good women we surround him with now the fewer the government is going to try to shove into 'your house'."

"I'm his guardian!"

Tsubame snorted, "I'm Hikari's mother. We're women, Ibuki. Unless a lot of things change rapidly, we're going to have to get used to being seen only for what's between our legs again. We have a chance to be part of something that sucks a hell of a lot less than arranged marriage to some fat, pampered, fuckwit. I'm not offering to share, I'm offering to work with you to make sure that 'your house' doesn't run into the ground because idiots left him without people to keep the wrong ones outside." Motioning the topic away, she moved on, "Neither of us is going to be jumping him right now. I just want you to know where my mind is, and that I'm not looking at him as a cheap way out of my marriage. If he offers, great. If he doesn't, I'll fucking deal with it because I'm a big girl who wears big girl pants."

As much as she thought she should, Maya couldn't bring herself to argue against the concept. If she only looked at the short term, as she had been, the idea was terrible and bound to cause no end of damage to Shinji. If she started looking longer term, it became clearer that the problems they faced were only the vanguard of a much larger force. "If he keeps winning, he's going to draw attention from powerful individuals. From the government. From women who want the social cachet that comes from being attached to him. If he loses…."

"If he loses, I get the feeling we're all dead anyway." Tsubame wasn't interested in dying. "I won't deny that's part of the reason I'm not pushing him in any direction. He's very vulnerable, and poor Ayanami-chan having a mental break isn't helping him. He needs help, and he probably also needs affection. So will she, once she's better again. If even a quarter of what he explained to me about the Evas is true, the stuff they face…it's no wonder she couldn't keep it together with only the Commander's cold heart for company."

"…Give me some time to think on this, ok?" She wouldn't rush a decision as important as this. "You give me time to think, I…help cover for what you're doing. It's disgusting what the government is doing to us, and I'm not going to help them hurt you." Looking over to where Hikari had Shinji quietly chuckling at some joke, she blew out a frustrated sigh. "If you promise not to pressure him, I'll look the other way on him signing forms saying you're going to be trying for children. It'll get them off your back."

"You know that would mean I move in here, right?"

"Yes. It also means I can keep an eye on you, and you can keep an eye on him while I'm trying to help Rei-chan." Resuming her professional demeanor, she held out a hand as an offer of peace. "Don't abuse my trust, I won't abuse yours."

Taking her hand and shaking it firmly, Tsubame inwardly thrilled. "Deal."

***** 3rd Angel + 6. Thursday, Day 5.

Sitting at the desk in his room, Shinji wound the day down by writing in his diary again. Starting with breakfast, into the meditative exercise and how it felt like it was helping before Maya came home, then going into what they'd learned about Rei. The MAGI had falsely indicated that it couldn't be Rei because her psychograph didn't match the patterns they had on record. Shinji knew why this was, but it was evident that nobody else had pieced it together as of yet. Wondering what he could do to reach out to Rei, either Rei, had led him to spiral into a bundle of anxiety during dinner which had led to him simply laying his head down on his crossed arms and trying not to vomit up the lovely fish dinner they'd made.

The entire day he'd received nothing but support from Tsubame and Hikari. Each time he started to flag, they asked the right questions to bring his spirits back up again. Each time he was becoming too manic to focus on what they were doing, they'd distract him with subtle affections that didn't cause him to feel crowded and constrained. Even in this different life, Hikari managed to impress him as mature well beyond her years. While he'd never met Tsubame, he at least knew now why Hikari was the way she was.

Writing down the last thing Maya asked him to do before she went back to work on Rei, he gave it more thought as a way to expound the way Mister Star had asked him to. She wanted him to think, hard, about what kind of relationship he wanted with the people he was surrounding himself with. Did he want Hikari to be his girlfriend, or did he just want Hikari to be around to talk to? Did he want Tsubame to act as a mentor, a mother, or a lover? When he looked at Maya herself…what did he see? Her fingers had lingered on his sternum when she asked that. The touch made his heart pound and his mind still, it was fire and ice at once. Through it all, he still had Rei I's seemingly deep-seated desire to break his pelvis…which frightened him. The question became, then, why did it frighten him? She was beautiful. Rei II, at least, cared about his well-being so badly that the first thing she did was manipulate the entirety of NERV's command structure to make sure that they could live in something resembling peace. If they were separate from one another, it would be so easy to get a better feel for how he felt. It was the not knowing. It was the hot and cold, up and down, random chaos of….

It was Asuka. It frightened him because he was seeing the same emotional rollercoaster that he saw every time Asuka walked through a door. The third of their trio, the Second Child, the redheaded goddess and irritant could never keep her emotions on an even keel and that made it impossible for him to ever get close enough to call her something more than a colleague. Somehow, in mixing the two parts of Rei's soul in one body Mister Star had managed to recreate the exact problem that….

Did that mean that Asuka's mind wasn't well? It was evident that Rei was no longer mentally or emotionally healthy. If apples were apples, that meant that Asuka was also not mentally or emotionally healthy. Which would mean that….

Growling the question out loud, he tried to take that one last step towards awareness, "What does it mean?"

"What does what mean?" Tsubame's mellow alto carried from his doorway, the beautiful nurse leaning into the room enough that her voice wouldn't carry down the hall.

Barely swallowing a yelp of surprise, Shinji still felt as if his heart was about to explode as he turned slowly to face one of the latest complications in his life. With her calm, warm, smile and a gaze that spoke of endless patience, she served as a vision of loveliness he had no roadmap to navigating. Right and wrong seemed so messy when he felt her touch him. Good and bad were so vague as to be meaningless. He knew only two things without question: he wanted her to shove him into his bed…and he was terrified of what that might change in him if he let her.

Stepping slowly into the room, Tsubame closed it behind her and leaned her shoulders against it with her hands clasped together in the small of her back. The mature vision of loveliness was wearing a t-shirt that just prevented whatever she might or might not be wearing from being seen, yet her tone remained free of any form of seductive force, "I talk to myself too, when I'm abnormally stressed. It's nothing to be ashamed of."

"I…uhm…I was asking myself…if…." If you could possibly learn how to lie without stammering like you're being electrocuted, you blithering idiot!

"It's ok, you don't have to tell me if you don't want to." Using her abs, she rolled upright and walked over to him. Each stride of her bare legs enticed him to linger, each subtle shift of her hips somehow managing to hitch her long shirt up even higher along her thighs without giving away the prizes hidden beneath. Once she reached him, she turned his chair around so that she could drop elegantly into his lap. Lacing her arms around his neck, layering her wrists atop one another, she laid her head on his shoulder and breathed out an unreasonably adorable sigh of contentment. "I asked because you said something, not because I have to know your every thought."

His heart pounding for an entirely different reason now, he found his mouth suddenly dry and his lungs unwilling to cooperate. "I…." His left hand was precariously close to her fabulously sculpted rear, his right fluttering in an effort to find a landing place that wasn't enticingly bare leg. "I-I…."

"What is it you think of," she purred, "when you look at me…hmm?" Breathing just deep enough to cause her breasts to rise and fall noticeably, she touched her tongue to the nape of his neck. "There's so much conflict in your eyes. I know you want me. I know some part of you yearns to possess me." Applying just a hint of teeth to his throat, she exulted when he shuddered in joy. "I don't want to push you; the choice is yours to make. I just need you…to understand that I'm available."

He wanted her. He wanted to give in and let her show him the delights of the human form. Despite his hormones and half of his emotions wanting to let one hand or the other touch her, he couldn't get his body itself to move. Only his jaw, still slowly moving in a vain attempt at producing speech gave any indication at all that he wasn't simply some statue.

"Mmm…it's the making a choice, isn't it?" Letting her left hand trail over to his right, she placed it on her thigh just below her shirt and clenched his fingers to prompt him to touch her. "You can't make choices, at least not like this. You're afraid of losing out on another possible future, one that you are afraid might be better…for them." She could almost hear his neck creak as he looked at her in growing worry. "You'll give anything to make someone happy, even someone you just met. Accept happiness? No, no you can't let yourself risk it." Using the same hand, she slid his fingers to her opening, running his fingertips along her 'lucky silk' thong. "What is it that frightens you, then? My daughter has said she doesn't care, so long as we're happy. I've even convinced your dear Captain Ibuki that she could share with us. There's nothing but you stopping us from," curling her fingers, she 'helped' him begin to rub her, "continuing where we left off."

She feels so…wonderful. "Y-you're…hot, soft…to touch."

"And all yours," she offered in a husky whisper, "if you want me." She paused, deliberately. "Do you want me, Shinji?"

He did. He wanted her so terribly bad. His resistance waning, his reasons to not let go and let himself be happy growing fewer and fewer, he no longer needed her prompting to continue caressing her. "Wh-what…after?" He couldn't just think of the present. It wasn't how he was built to think. The past was near all-consuming, but avoiding the pain the future promised was a concern he couldn't shake. "I…I don't…."

"After?" She issued a sultry chuckle. "Why does there have to be an 'after'? Why can't we enjoy the rest of our life together?" Shifting how she sat, she demonstrated her flexibility by lifting her right leg up and letting it drift past his torso and face to sit astride his lap facing him. Placing his hands on her breasts beneath her shirt, she began to grind her hips against him. "I have a job that I love, hobbies that fulfill me, a daughter that loves me…all I'm missing is a man that values me. A man that will let me give him the happiness he gives everyone else."

The happiness Rei had tried to give them, the happiness she was being denied. I don't give happiness…I only bring pain. Standing, he set her on her feet as best he could and walked quickly towards his door. "I-I need…I need to take a walk." Leaving before she could say anything else, he hurried down the stairs to the first floor, kicked his shoes on, and was out of the house in a flash.

Before he could take seven steps, Yuuko's partner Kaneda was at his side keeping pace stride for stride. "Everything ok, bud?"

"Y-yeah," he stuttered, "I just…a lot…hard to think."

"Mmm, makes sense." The big man made no motion to stop him, simply walking alongside him as if they'd planned to do so. "My little brother, he used to have to take walks when his mind got too overwhelmed by something. He told me it helped to have his body moving at the same pace as his head, cleared away the stuff stopping him from finding answers."

Grateful for the distraction, Shinji asked, "Used to?"

"Drug dealer caught him with a lucky shot during a raid." If he was broken up about it, he did a fantastic job of hiding it. "His team seized seventeen tons of prime brown. Probably saved tens of thousands of lives by cutting off the flow from Jiangsu." His lip curled into a proud grin. "They lost six people, killed forty-three, captured thirty-six. We had pork katsu at the funeral…man, now I'm hungry. Want to go hit one of the nearby street vendors? My treat."

That Kaneda could talk about his brother's murder as if he were recounting a baseball game impressed Shinji far more than anything else he'd ever seen from Section Two. "Uhm…sure." Changing his direction when the big man patted his arm with the back of his hand, turning to where he pointed, he attempted to try and talk through his own problems. The Agent seemed friendly, and it was strange to be able to speak to an adult male without having the desire to mentally tune out. "How…how do you know when you're doing the right thing?"

If the question surprised or bothered him, he didn't show it. "Does it feel right? That's usually my first check. If it feels like you shouldn't be doing it, you should listen to yourself and find someone you trust. Me? I have Yuu-chan for that. Honestly, I'd recommend you talk to Lady Horaki the Younger if you're looking for advice. She's a good kid, good head on her shoulders." He frowned as they rounded the corner, thinking of something. "Of course, if the problem you're having is related to her that wouldn't help so much. Might be best to stop still, don't want to press on and keep digging deeper. That's gotten me in trouble more than once."

Shinji saw they were approaching a tidy little stall that had a grandmotherly woman working in it. Something about her screamed 'I am not what you think I am', but he couldn't put his finger on it for the life of him. "I…yeah, I can't talk to Hikari about this."

"Yeah…oh! What about Captain Ibuki? Everyone at NERV respects her. Don't have a bunch of experience with her myself, but I've never heard a bad word." Climbing over the back of the barstool to sit down, he greeted their proprietress for the meal, "Good evening, Nanami-sama. My young friend here needed some fresh air, and I thought I'd bring him by and introduce him to the best teriyaki katsu on Earth."

Standing an impressive one and a quarter meter tall, the confident woman snorted out a laugh of disbelief. "Butter me up some more, boy, still won't get you a free beer." A sly smile hit her as Kaneda roared with laughter and she looked to Shinji who'd mounted his seat with far more manners than his warden for the evening. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Pilot. Thank you for protecting our city from the enemy. What can this humble cook make for you today?"

If she was nothing more than a cook, he'd eat the stall. "I…uhm, I'm only doing what anyone else would in my place, ma'am."

"He'll have the beef platter," Kaneda ordered for him. "Gotta get some meat on his bones. I'll take the pork, and only cider tonight. I'm on duty."

"Beef and pork," she repeated. Never having taken her eyes off of Shinji, she continued, "What would you like to drink?"

He was being weighed and measured for something, but for the life of him he couldn't figure out what. "Do you have any sweet green tea?"

"I just happened to get a new batch in this morning." Her reply seemed to be approving of him. "I'll be right back with your drinks." Hopping down off the stepping blocks she used to reach the counter, she walked off with the youth and vigor of a woman a third her age to go into the back of the stall.

"Don't worry," Kaneda assured him in a voice that had shifted hard into the serious, "you're not wrong. You'll understand why you're getting that feeling soon. For now, just accept that she's famously generous with hard-luck cases." His tone moved back to his traditional mindlessly pleasant. "So, since you can't talk to Horaki-chan and you can't talk to Captain Ibuki because she's trying to help Ayanami-chan, I can offer you an ear or two. Is it just stress over having to sit back and let others handle things? I know I hate it when I can't do anything for my friends."

Taking a moment to think about what he could, and could not, share with anyone else Shinji tried to put words to one of his 'lesser' problems. "I…think I could have done more to help Rei. I…uhm…every time I…you know, I think about it, I come up with two new things I could have tried."

"Hindsight lies just as much as foresight, and do not let anyone tell you otherwise," Nanami intoned, having silently returned with their drinks. Turning back to the stoves, she began preparing their meals. "If you change one thing about the past, you change everything that follows after. All the things that you believe you know would happen, would then not happen because what had preceded them was different."

Kaneda nodded along. "Think of it like knocking over mājan tiles. You hit that first one, which hits the second, which hits the third, so on, so on. Problem is, you move the second piece to the side, the third piece never falls, and everything you're expecting to happen just doesn't. Better to think about how to react in the future, when it matters, than how you should have acted in the past, when you didn't know which way the tiles would fall."

With an amused scoff, Nanami glanced back over her shoulder at Shinji. "He takes my own wisdom and butchers it in trying to share it with you as if he's Miyamoto Musashi."

"I am sharing the lessons I have learned from my honored and venerated elder with my junior, Nanami-sama," he replied beatifically. It was becoming increasingly apparent that there was a long-standing relationship between the two, and that he genuinely respected her. "That's the problem with the past. It seems so…clear. Problem is, it's like one of those mirrors on festival days. It's distorted, distorting you, and accepting it as reality distorts your perception of everything that follows."

His brother. Realizing that Kaneda likely thought he could have saved his brother, Shinji began to lean into the idea. Whatever small change was made to allow them to travel back to just after the Third Angel, it caused large enough ripples to keep Hikari's mother alive while removing her sisters from existence. A small thing for the world, but massive in his eyes. Picking up his cup, he took a small drink of the tea and found it was perfect. "Thank you." Who the gratitude was directed towards was left unsaid, as he wasn't really sure who he should be thanking.

Everyone remained silent for a time, the occasional car driving past producing the only sounds other than those made by preparing food. The quiet, appropriately enough, helped quiet his racing thoughts. The evening's problem wasn't that he was worried about enjoying Tsubame's affections, it was that he was doing so while Rei was stuck in NERV. He couldn't do anything about the past without risking upsetting the future he'd just experienced. If he reset time, would she just attack again? Would he not grow closer to Hikari and Tsubame? The ability to go back and try again automatically penalized him by forcing him to navigate the complex social situations around him over and over. The more he tried to fix, the more he'd break. His thoughts were interrupted when Nanami slid his plate before him; a healthy serving of rice and breaded beef cutlet, all glazed with a sharp-smelling teriyaki mix and served with steamed vegetables on the side.

"If he absorbs his food half as well as he absorbed the lesson, I think he'll gain a good amount of mass." The older lady patted Shinji's hand comfortingly. "Eat up. Good company and good food make many problems seem easier to deal with."

There were no more lessons shared over the late dinner, only friendly banter between two old friends and their younger, newer, friend. It was odd, of that Shinji had no doubt, but the fact that he had been let into their lives encouraged him. He'd never met them before. He had no prior knowledge of their habits, their quirks, or their personalities. Yet here he was…making friends. He'd never have believed himself, the first time around.

+++++ Author's Notes.

The importance of Rei in Shinji's world cannot be overstated, honestly. Even in canon she was fundamental to his success, or his failure, and it was never until it was too late that he ever realized that. Her existence, whether it was as a budding friend, a potential lover, a replacement maternal figure, or some confused amalgamation of the three, was essential to him having any chance at understanding his own importance to everything around him. The problem of Rei, however, is that she can never be just one thing. That, inherently, causes confusion to everyone she interacts with. People like neat, easy, categories to define others in. "Friend", "enemy", "workmate", "bad", etc etc etc. Shinji is facing that confusion at a very vulnerable time in his life, the fact that (I feel, at least) he's realizing how important she is to him should go a long way towards helping him grow.

The conundrum that is Ritsuko, however, is much easier for me to spend time changing away from its canon origins. Considering she was really only in the plot to stop Gendo from having to be politically savvy, socially manipulative, and a scientific wunderkind polymath, and was filled out to serve as a foil to Misato, there's more room for her to have her character shifted subtly to what I need for any particular story. Considering the themes I'm wanting to touch on in this one, I'm actually going to be happy to write her once I'm done with the setup. The punchline's a killer.