Shinji slowly came too and blinked as he looked at the familiar anacoustic tiles of the hospital room.
Back here again, he thought as he blinked to bring his eyes into focus and turned his head to his right. To his surprise, he found both Misato and Ritsuko snoring away in a pair of chairs next to his bed.
Shinji, was to put it mildly, surprised. Misato he could understand. She always had a maternal streak about her. But Ritsuko? He couldn't fathom the reason for her presence.
He must have made some noise, for Misato snorted and jerked awake. She blinked a little, a puzzled frown on her face. She then noticed Shinji waving a hand at her.
"Hey Rits, Ritsu wake up" she said as she nudged Ritsuko awake.
"Hgrmphfszl…..huh, whuh…whozzgoinon?" came the inelegant reply from the usually put-together doctor.
"The hero of the hour is awakened. How're you feeling?" said Misato, the last directed at Shinji. He honestly thought about it, and felt refreshed.
"Honestly, Captain? Alive" he replied, to which she gave a teasing grin and wagged a reproving finger.
"Ah, ah, ah. What did I say about that?" she said, her voice reproving. Shinji sheepishly grinned and replied.
"Alive, Misato. I feel alive" he replied, correcting himself at the blunette's insistence. Her smile widened and warmth was added to it, mixed with equal parts pride.
"Hmm, what do you remember of the battle?" Ritsuko asked him, and Shinji frowned in thought, wondering how much to tell her. Then deciding lying would just add to his headaches in this situation, spoke.
"All of it" he replied, to which the two women traded surprised looks.
"And the whole 'Azrael' thing?" asked Ritsuko as she reached into her lab coat pocket for a pen light, as she cupped his left cheek and used her fingers to peel back his eyelids to flash the light in it to check their dilation.
"Eh….we're using Judeo-Christian naming conventions for the Angels right?" at which Ritsuko pulled back from him, looking surprised. He continued "Well, I overheard you all calling him Sachiel over the radio. Well, Azrael is the Angel of Death, kinda like the Grim Reaper. So I decided to call myself that to scare it. Atleast that was my thought when I fought it. Seems a bit silly now" he replied, with what both women considered an adorable blush. And slightly happy that, despite everything, he was still a teenage boy.
"Uh…so I have to ask, when did you both sleep last?" he asked, noticing the purple lines under both their eyes and the slightly glassy-sheen.
The two women snorted in amusement at his question, with Misato having a lopsided smile on her face, while Ritsuko tried to mask hers by continuing with her manhandling of Shinji.
"So, to be clear, you fought off an eldritch abomination that is literally the personification of the end times, and in a biomechanical combat vehicle that is linked directly to your mind, and you're worried about us not getting enough sleep?" said Ritsuko, who had finished her examination of Shinji, and quirked an interrogatory eyebrow at him.
"What can I say? I'm just that nice" he replied, causing Misato to snort at his sarcasm and Ritsuko to give an amused smile at him. A masculine chuckle was heard from the door, causing the three to turn to the door and see Gendo Ikari himself standing in the ward.
Shinji was, for all intents and purposes nonplussed. Never, in any of his lifetimes, did his father ever come and see him in the hospital. He knew, thanks to Instrumentality, how much both his parents loved him. That his father had to put a large stone on his heart to send him to his sensei. He also understood what a dangerous game his father was playing against SEELE.
This did not mean that his father was getting a free pass for everything he had done. He was still a cold, manipulative arschlot and a Magnificent Bastard. He was the kind of ally that you watched closely for the dagger he would try to drive into your ribs.
He still respected the hell out of him though.
"Commander" Shinji said in a calm, formal tone that betrayed nothing of the maelstrom of feelings that were running through him as he straightened himself up in a form of attention. Misato and Ritsuko seemed to shake themselves out of their shock at his address of his father.
"Only Commander? I must admit, I am disappointed" he replied, as he removed his glasses to let me meet his eyes, the cool brown meeting Shinji's grey-blue. Shinji had thought long and hard as to how the two men would define their relationship.
"Under the circumstances I think it is currently appropriate sir. We are, for lack of a better word, strangers to each other. In the event we get to know each other outside of our official duties, we may repair our relationship" on seeing the flash of hurt that crossed his father's face, a slight sting was felt in Shinji's heart. He hurriedly added "This is not a 'no'. It is a 'maybe', conditional to your actions, off the clock" Saying this, Shinji held out his right hand to his father, who looked at it silently, then slowly, shakily reached out to shake it.
-NGE: RX-
The first words out of Shinji's mouth when he entered Misato's apartment were completely deadpan.
"Dear sweet Kami on high, why are there no biohazard signs on the front door?" he said on surveying the mess that was Misato's apartment. To which the owner gave a sheepish smile and scratched the back of her head.
"Eheheh, I'm…well not exactly the neatest person" to which Shinji shot her look that said 'No, really?' He then decided to gird his loins to clean the Augean stables.
"Why don't you go and freshen up, I'll clean up. Probably manage dinner too" he said, to which Misato looked at him surprised and just begins to say something which Shinji cut off.
"Look, it may not be obvious to you, but I can see you are exhausted. So please Misato, you opened your home to me. Atleast let me do this much" he said, which he saw touched her heart, given the warm smile she was shooting him.
"Thanks so much Shin-chan" she said, which caused Shinji to blink back tears, as she used a nickname he was given by her in all his previous lives.
"Ah, don't mention it" he said as he swallowed past the lump formed around his larynx. Misato ruffled his hair affectionately as she went further in the house.
Shinji decided to get out of it by setting some music on and getting to cleaning up the house.
"Um….Misato, don't mind if I put on some music?" he called out as he started organizing the available cleaning supplies.
"Knock yourself out" she replied to which Shinji ported his MP3 player to a wireless speaker (which incidentally was streets ahead of his old SDAT). And scrolling down his list, hit the right song.
-x-Thunderstruck by AC/DC-x-
As the initial strings began to play, Shinji got to work. He quickly set about collecting all the mess in the house and split it into three piles. Laundry, bio-degradable and recyclable. He then put all the laundry items into a hamper and set it beside the door. The biodegradable was packed into black plastic bags and taken down to the dumpster and disposed off. The recyclable was dispatched similarly. By the middle of the song, Shinji had cleaned out the common areas and had begun cleaning the kitchen. He then checked the fridge , then choked down on his reflex to puke when the smell hit him. And did that indistinguishable pile of green slime just blink at him?! Whisky Tango Fox?!
Deciding that discretion was the better part of valour, Shinji hastily shut the fridge, and then looked around for a chain and padlock to seal the fridge, so that he could cart it over to Ritsuko to look over.
"WARK!" he heard behind him to see Penpen. Shooting the genetically modified Hot Springs Penguin what he hoped was a winning smile, he pointed to the fridge.
"Apparently Misato is working on the Theory of Evolution in her spare time" If it was possible for a penguin to turn pale, he was sure the horrified look Penpen was sporting would have been more than adequate to convey it.
The penguin then vanished in a cloud of smoke, quickly re-appearing, dressed in an orange HAZMAT suit. In his hands were silver duct tape, box cutters and reams of bubble wrap.
Shinji just knew that this was going to be a long evening.
-NGE: RX-
The next morning when Lieutenant Maya Ibuki entered her mentor's lab after pulling another all-nighter analysing combat data retrieved from the Sachiel fight, she saw a nice fridge sitting innocently in the corner of the lab. What caught her attention was that it was completely wrapped in bubble wrap, the edges sealed tight with silvery duct tape, with a hand written sign pasted on its front in red with the symbol for biological hazard.
Blinking to see if she was hallucinating from the long nights she was working, Maya saw that, no she was not seeing things. The fridge was still shiny, the bubble wrap was still on it, the duct tape still sealed it and the biohazard sign was still there.
Now, normally, Maya Ibuki is a sensible young lab assistant who would not dream to touch a thing marked dangerous. Especially in her sempai's lab. But 72 hours of nonstop analysis and coffee had impaired her judgement as she became suddenly irrationally angry on seeing what could only be a prank being played on her beloved sempai.
So, against all better judgement, she decided to open it.
Fifteen minutes later, passersby could have heard a piercing shriek emanating from one of the labs.
-NGE: RX-
Normally, Gendo did not get involved in day-to-day activities of NERV headquarters, delegating such tasks to his mentor Kozo Fuyutsuki. But this time, something serious enough to warrant his attention was brought to him.
Interrupting a monthly report he was providing to SEELE, he was requested to attend a most pressing issue regarding a biological contaminant released into NERV HQ.
Concerned, he immediately made his way back to his office at great haste, where he called up the information to see the recorded footage.
To see a green-slime-thing slithering away screaming from a demented looking Maya Ibuki, chasing after it with what looked like an improvised flame-thrower made of a deodorant can and a taped on cigarette lighter and a CO2 extinguisher.
Gendo blinked a few times to check he was seeing this right, then looked at Kozo who had brought him here.
"I know that we are subverting the laws of nature on a daily basis, but this is a bit much, right?" he said, gesturing at the scene where the damn slime, knocks over a guard, grabbed his baton and tried to fend off the lieutenant as she tried to get a clear shot at it.
Kozo just shrugged in reply, as the scene continued, with Ibuki tried to hit it with a blast from the extinguisher.
-NGE: RX-