Weep for yourself, my man,
You'll never be what is in your heart.
Weep little lion man,
You're not as brave as you were at the start.
Rate youself and rape yourself,
Take all the courage you have left.
Wasted on fixing all the problems,
That you made in your own head.
- Anonymous band
Chapter 6 - End of the beginning
Asuka fumbled her key into the lock of what she now considered home.
It was early in the morning and it had been a long trip. The eva's had both been brought back to Japan on a large cargo submersible on loan from the British Navy, who seemed to be in love with anything that went under water these days. The pilots and Nerv personnel not necessary to move the eva had all gone on a much faster air craft after all the boring debriefing stuff.
She was congratulated for taking down one on the production model evangelions within seconds of Arthur's intervention. His sudden appearance in her fight gave her enough of a distraction to cleanly clip the white eva's wings, and cleave it's S2 organ in half. She barely managed to contain the resulting explosion with her AT field, shielding the allied troops from the blast.
Arthur had been reprimanded for reckless action, and even the colonel had gotten in a few gowling words about proper battle field discipline. Arthur had just stayed strangely quiet throughout all of it, nodding in the right places, seemingly paying attention, but his eyes drifting in and out of focus.
Misato had said something about getting an AT field reaction from his eva. Maybe the poor dumb kid was just reeling from the shock of feeling that kind of power. Asuka remembered the first time she made her own field, all those years ago. She was literally bouncing off of walls for a week. But to be fair, she was only six at the time.
The American colonel had managed to keep up his rage for the entire process, and was still livid when Nerv and the British delegation left his base. His yelled phone calls could be heard clear across the base.
But that was all in the past now, and Asuka was just tired.
Misato had dropped her off at their apartment, saying something about writing initial reports, and collecting situation reports from the other staff, whilst dlivering some other reports to the commander, and filing other reports. Or something like that. The truth was that Asuka had stopped listening when Misato mentioned reports.
She opened the door, dragging her suitcase behind her.
And bumped into Shinji, carrying his own, much smaller bag on his shoulder.
They both jumped.
"Asuka!"
"Shinji!"
There were a few moments embarrassed silence whilst both teens looked for something to say to each other.
"How... how was the mission?" Shinji asked.
It seemed like years since they had spoken to each other. True, Asuka had tried pestering him in her usual fashion before, but he had been so cold, and so distant that it was like talking to a glacial wall.
"Not bad," she finally said guardedly. There was another few moments scilence while she considered what to say next, "Met the new pilot."
"Oh?" said Shinji, probably only feigning interest.
"Yeah. He's British."
"I... heard."
"Yeah. You probably have."
"Yeah."
Awkward quiet again flooded the little doorway of the apartment. Asuka still stood in the doorway, her luggage still in her hand, and Shinji stood a little way into the apartment, still in the process of putting on his shoes.
"Um..."
"Going somewhere?" Asuka asked, indicating his bag.
"Um... yeah. Back to my teacher's place."
Asuka nodded, "That sounds nice."
"Yeah..."
"When are you coming back?"
Shinji paused. "I'm not sure..."
Asuka dragged her luggage out of the way, and put on a friendly, if a little forced, smile, "Well it's good to have a break every now and then. I really should go back to Germany to visit my family sometime too!"
Shinji was still for a second, and then finished putting on his shoes, "Yeah. You should," he mumbled quietly.
"Are you going by train?"
"Yeah. Easiest way to get there."
"Okay. See you when you get back," Asuka said brightly, trying to reduce the awkwardness of the situation.
"Okay," Shinji walked past her quickly, "Bye, Asuka," he said over his shoulder, and disappeared down the stairs of their apartment building.
Asuka shut the door, and breathed out. She hoped she had not been too forceful with him that time. That was the most he had said to her in weeks, and she had tried not to scare him off, even though she was itching to yell at him for ignoring her.
She dragged her suitcase to her room, and felt something subtly wrong with the apartment. It felt more empty in here somehow. It was also a lot more clean that it usually was, but she passed that off as being because she and Misato had not been there for a few days. The air usually had a faint smell of perfume and the two ladies left their marks in the form of discarded beer cans and fashion magazines.
The apartment now was scrupulously clean, and even the bins had been emptied. It seemed very cold, and strangely lonely in here.
She kicked her luggage into her room, and patrolled around the place, wondering why everything felt so off. Nothing was out of place, and everything looked the same. There was still the pile of her's and Misato's shoes at the doorway, piled up in the way that Shinji thought looked tidy. Well, Shinji's shoes weren't at the door any more, but that was because he had just gone out. Wait, did he only have one pair of shoes?
Icy thoughts began to pool in her stomach, and she walked, quite steadily to Shinji's room, even though she wanted to run. Outside the door she took a deep breath to calm her suddenly rapidly beating heart, and slid it open.
It was empty. Completely empty.
Even the bed had been stripped, and there was the faint after-smell of vacuuming.
Automatically she rushed to the door, and in a daze slipped on her shoes, and grabbed the door handle.
She stopped as she realised she had forgotten her key.
She stood there for a few minutes, her mind running to catch up with her body's actions, her hand still on the door handle. She could hear the tick of a clock somewhere in the apartment, counting away the seconds of her hesitation.
What could she do?
Run out and drag him back by his hair? What good would that do? She could scream at him until he relented and came home, but that would be a false return, with no guarantee he wouldn't just run away again. She could beg him to come back, but that just was not how she lived her life, and he would see through a deception like that.
Her hand came down slowly.
Maybe it was better like this. He hadn't been happy here the past few months, and probably never had been truly happy. Better for him to go home now, job done and Angel's defeated. Asuka, Wondergirl and Arthur could handle the rest.
"Fine," she said, her voice hollow in the empty apartment.
The clock ticked as she stood there, the conflict in her heart openly contradicting the resolve of her conclusion.
"Stupid Shinji."
Arthur felt the box fall apart in his hands.
He sighed. A few thousand miles, from England to America, a plane ride, a train trip, and then a private car from the train station, and the damn cardboard decides to fail two inches outside his door.
He stood in front of the door of his new apartment, large backpack on his shoulders, and now some scraps of cardboard in his hands, the recent remains of a box which held his dress uniform and some other fragile items of clothing which now lay in a pile at his feet.
He dropped the fragments of his box onto the pile, and took a key out of his pocket. At least the floor here in Japan was relatively clean. If the same thing had happened in London his clothes would probably have been ruined beyond repair. But this place was destroyed and rebuilt so much, everything was still spotless.
He opened his door, and dumped his heavy bag in front of it to keep it from shutting on him. He bundled up his fallen belongings as best he could, and went inside, stepping over his bag.
His apartment was actually his own, signed and paid for out of his own pocket. The British Army was giving him a residency allowance, mainly to keep him out of the Nerv base. While the logic of having him stay on the base near the evangelion could not be faulted, the diplomatic core had been kicking up a fuss about how much control Nerv would have over their pilot. So, although staying in the Nerv geofront would be smarter and cheaper, he was going to have to live out here.
Major Katsuragi had told him that, if he wanted, she was going to have a spare room in her place in a few days, but Arthur had declined the offer. The look in her eyes when she told him about the room suggested that her apartment was not going to be a happy place for a while. And he found out later that Asuka already lived there. While he didn't dislike Asuka, judging by how she was on their first meeting and the trip to Japan, she didn't seem like a very easy going housemate.
And besides, he would be a fourteen year old boy living with two women he was not related to. Hijinx would undoubtedly ensue.
He walked into his tiny apartment. It had looked bigger in the pictures. He sighed again, dropping his bundle to the floor. There was a small, round coffee table in the centre of the room, a pretty large TV in the corner, a folded up futon next to the wall, and some flat pack furniture leaning next to it, waiting for him to waste several hours putting it together.
He grabbed his bag from the door, and let it slam behind him.
Small kitchen, with just a stove and a sink. There was a small fridge in the cupboard space under the work tops, and no oven. He looked inside the other cupboards and found nothing apart from a startled spider and some fragments of the rooms recent refurbishment. The walls still smelled of paint, and the tatami mats in the room creaked under foot.
He looked inside the bathroom, and was disappointed to find a fairly normal looking toilet. It had some weird pipes and a valve on the seat, but was nothing like the electronic wonders he had heard about. The bathroom also had a square bath, which looked just big enough for him to squat uncomfortably in. Fortunately it also doubled as a shower, so it looked like he would not have to worry about breaking his knees when he needed to wash.
He went back into the main, and indeed, only other room. It would have to do. It was all he could really afford in this city, especially since most of the housing sites had already been spoken for by the old residents, who were flooding back to reclaim their homes in the wake of the Angels destruction. The apartment was a lot further from the Nerv base than he would have liked, and a long commute to his school as well.
He sighed again. School. He couldn't believe they were still making him go to school. As if piloting a giant robot was not hard work enough, he was going to have to learn about algebra in a foreign language, and he still had no idea what they planned for him to do during English lessons. Maybe he would just have to feign ignorance, or worse, be forever used to demonstrate pronunciation.
He collapsed onto the floor next to the coffee table. The landlord was kind enough to leave a tiny cup and a packet of green tea as a welcoming gift, along with an old looking water heater that was already plugged in. He waved a hand over it, and imagined he could feel heat coming off it.
Arthur dug through the pile that was the remains of his cardboard box, and pulled out a small bag of English breakfast tea. Tetley tea, his uncle had warned, was one of the rarest commodities outside the British Isles. There were imitations everywhere, but nothing could compare to the tea found in a humble British supermarket, so Arthur had brought his own with him.
He dropped one tea bag into the tiny cup, and poured in hot water. It looked like two moutfuls of tea to him, maybe three tops, and there was no milk to go in it, but after about two days of near constant travel, he was damn well going to have a cup of tea.
Arthur stretched out on the floor, waiting for his tea to brew. Almost instantly images from the battlefield flooded his mind. It was happening a lot to him these days.
He shook himself, and sat up. Taking a sip of the scalding tea, he glanced at the flat pack furniture. It looked like it would keep the images away for a frustrating hour or two.
The council stood in the kind of silence that only featureless obelisks can.
The circle was broken. A painful gap where Selee Two had once stood was flooding the pitch black cavernous communication chamber. All eyes, if the squares had them, were focused on his absence.
That one of their members had been killed was unthinkable.
"This is a dark day," commented Selee Seven.
His comment was met with more silence, members of the council either ignoring it, or unable to add to it.
Kheel, behind his mask as Selee One was concerned. Selee Two had been pivotal in engineering world economics for the past decade. With his support, Selee had been able to exercise enough control over global markets that anything the organisation needed was easily purchased, and for a fraction of the price if left to natural price selection.
Now, the council members would be just as subject to market forces as the rest of the world. Great construction projects, like the Nerv geofront or jet alone factory, would be an economic impossibility. Yes, Selee Five could work out the logistics, and Selee Three could work around the bureaucratic red tape but Selee's power was now significantly limited by it's wallet.
Someone would have to take Selee Two's place, even if at a reduced capacity.
"Our fallen comrade requires a successor," he told the council. It was both a statement of fact, and a subtle order for a suitable volunteer. "His duties to this council still need to be filled, even after his death."
"He'll be a tough act to follow," was Selee Ten's gruff response.
"I can assume some of his duties," offered Selee Eleven.
"Are you certain you can keep them up along with your current duties?" asked Selee Five, perhaps the only member of the council apart from Kheel who knew exactly what each person on the council was doing.
"It shouldn't present a problem. Legal matters often coincide with economics after all."
"Very well," Kheel agreed.
"We need to discuss our revenge against Ikari," Selee Seven said, an edge to his voice.
"Yes we should! We should take his headquarters now!" snapped Selee Ten.
Selee Three cut in, "We can't. Your stunt with using the American troops has the entire world on edge. That colonel has sparked off something big in the States, and he's making a big enough fuss that people are talking about a civil war."
"So?"
"So now the entire world is on edge. The biggest, most well equipped and experienced army in the world is fracturing down the middle. Every country around the world is recalling their troops from joint foreign operations, and looking at defending their own borders. A few are even looking to revisit old grievances they have with the Americans. Everyone's watching each other so intently now, I couldn't even get you a foreign bodyguard."
"Not even mercanaries?"
"Even if we could afford them, they're being hired by the battalion by other countries."
Selee Eight agreed, "The UN peace keeping forces are in tatters because of these new defensive policies. It's power is falling completely apart. We even lost the aircraft carrier that was supposedly given as a gift from the Americans."
"And those production model eva's are about as reliable as an armed snowman in the desert!" spat Selee Ten.
Selee Four spoke up, "We are encountering significant personality conflicts within our dummy system. We are working on some... preventative measures to stop it happening again, but we're still waiting on the Science and Research division to provide us with necessary materials," he said pointedly.
"We've hit set backs because of political pressures and prohibitive costs of production," Selee Twelve shot back, the usually silent member ready to defend his division with full force.
Selee Three bristled with perceived injured pride, "The political division has had it's hands full ju-"
"Silence."
The council went quiet, Kheel's calmly spoken command forestalling the bickering and finger pointing that would follow.
He allowed the silence to continue for a few moments, contemplating the hole in the council left by Selee Two. How quickly these men jumped at each other when deviating from the Scrolls. Perhaps they finally realised just what a fragile and dificult task it was to drive human evolution.
"You brought it to the council's attention," he said, his voice singleing out Selee Seven, "What do you suggest?"
Selee Seven, if the black boxes had expressions, seemed to smile, "It's simple really. We attack Ikari in his only weak spot."
"What is that?"
Selee Seven was the council's head of intelligence. Although Kheel and Selee Five kept tabs on what the other council members were doing, even they were not as privy to the sheer quantity of information available to him. And he knew exactly where to put the blade into Ikari's back. He had known since he first met the man, and had seen the best place to make him bleed.
"The one weakness he refuses to acknowledge, and the same weakness that resides at the core of Unit 01..."
It was late into the afternoon before Misato got back to her home.
Misato walked into her apartment, small satchel containing her uniform and a few other items dangling from one elbow, and a small mountain of reports for her to get through before tomorrow. Aoba and Fyutsuki had been competing for who could generate the most data and results from the plug tests, and with Ritsuko no longer around to help her, Misato had to go through them all on her own, before tomorrow.
She grimaced, repeating the words 'before tomorrow' in her head several times in case a frosty can of beer tempted her away from work.
She staggered into the kitchen under the weight of the papers. She saw Asuka slumped over the kitchen table in a loose fitting t-shirt and a comfortable looking pair of shorts.
Misato sighed inwardly. Asuka still looked skinny from her self imposed exile, but she was already showing signs of filling out properly again.
She dropped the papers on the table, and sat next to her at the table, resting her face on her hand. "What's up Asuka?"
Asuka didn't respond, and just held up an envelope.
Misato opened it. Inside was just a key and a few Yen notes. Misato sighed outwardly this time, "I guess saying goodbye was too hard for him."
Asuka slowly turned her head around, "You knew he was leaving?"
"Yeah. He called me while we were in America. He had a big fight with the Commander, and wanted to leave as soon as possible. I thought he would wait to say goodbye to us though," Misato said, taking the notes out and sealing up the key in the envelope.
"Well he kind of did. I caught him leaving this morning when you dropped me off."
"Oh god. You didn't hit him too hard did you?" she asked, counting out the notes. They were just enough to cover Shinji's share of the bills for the last month.
Asuka nearly giggled, "Misato!"
Misato grinned, "Sorry, sorry. So? What did he say?"
"Nothing. Didn't even mention he was leaving."
"Oh."
"He said he was going back to his teacher's place, and like an idiot I thought he meant a short trip or something." She laughed mirthlessly, "I even said 'See you when you get back!'"
Misato nodded, resting her chin on her hand again, to look side long at her young charge, "Yeah that sounds like something Shinji would do. He's not big on the drama."
"I know, but he could have said something, right?"
"Yeah."
There was silence whilst the two women thought about how different the apartment felt without Shinji's presence. Misato could already feel the potential build up of beer cans.
She turned to Asuka, "You going to be okay?"
The little red head gave her a quizzical look full of pride, "Of course I'll be okay! It's not like my life revolved around the invincible Shinji. And besides, Hikari told me in an email that she's coming back in a few days. And school officially starts next week."
Misato smiled, "Okay then." She looked at the fridge, "Hey want a beer?"
"Misato!"
"What? Shinji's not here to stop us anymore. I say we get drunk, have ice cream for dinner and watch a girly movie in our pyjamas."
Asuka gave her a hard stare. "Misato. Never have kids. I'm serious."
The older woman gave her an innocent look, "Well, you in or out?"
Asuka sighed, "I'm in minus the drunk and girly movie part."
Misato was relieved, "Good. I don't think we even have any girly movies here."
"Well we have that musical, Red Windmill."
"Why in the name of Nerv do we have that?"
"Well... Shinji really liked it."
Misato paused, "... Yeah that sounds like Shinji."
Asuka nodded, standing up, "It really does, doesn't it?"
Shinj slowly walked to a familiar door.
This was something he had to do before he went back to his teacher's home. He breathed deeply, remembering all the times he had been to this door.
He conjured up embarrassing details, and a few ones of shock at the state of the first girl's bedroom he had seen in his life. A slight redness passes across his cheek as he recalled the time she had walked out the bathroom, still damp from the shower, clad in nothing but a towel.
This girl had been present at some of the lowest points in his life, often just a silent companion to him, her mere presence giving him comfort in his darkest times.
He owed her a great deal.
This was, after all, the first girl he had any significant connection to. Some onlookers, he knew, chose to see that connection as romantic feelings. But Shinji knew it was more the draw of something familiar and strangely nostalgic, as if he'd known her for much longer than their time together would suggest.
He raised his hand to knock on the door.
He owed her an explanation, if nothing else.
Rei lay on her bed, fully clothed in her school uniform, idly contemplating the vagaries of reality.
Most other girls would be wistfully staring at the ceiling, seeing in the textured patterns and light fixings their hopes, dreams, ambitions and fantasies. Their minds might wander across potential boyfriends, highlighting them as worthwhile pursuits along side good grades and what university suited them best.
In short, at the tender young age of fourteen they would be focused on the now, and future, the past being relatively foggy and small in comparison.
Not so for Rei.
For Rei the past was perhaps much more foggy, but a good deal bigger. Memories drifted like great ice bergs in the mist of her mind, threatening to sink her lonely consciousness with their sudden icy could see them, and sometimes feel them vividly as if they were a present occurrence. But most of the time they loitered on the edge of her waking mind, threatening and looming.
So she had a great deal to think about.
She was struggling to come to terms with the alien way these images of her past felt to her. They felt as though they belonged to someone else, and she had merely inherited them from some other source.
She rolled over, stretching and creasing her uniform with careless abandon. The clothes didn't feel like they belonged to her either. They carried her smell, and the fit her perfectly, right down to a slightly grazed part on the inner sleeve where she habitually caught it on her thumb when she put on the shirt. Never the less, she still felt as though she was wearing someone else's shoes.
Like the scars she felt across her body, there were invisible markings left around the room, significant things that she knew were missing. Maybe a chair was not quite in the right place, but she had no idea where to put it to make it better.
There was a bump on the wall at the head of her bed.
New people were moving in all the time now, despite the recent Nerv actions in the USA. People were once again attracted to the illusion of security offered by the Nerv geofront, even though the Angels had shown how weak a defence that could be.
But with the Angels defeated, Nerv had taken on an almost invincible reputation, with news channels reporting all clears and documentaries in the works about the Angel Wars and the Gallant Eva Pilots, who Had Given Up Everything To Save Mankind, as if the whole thing had been some kind of television drama. Happily the security division had kept the rabid media away from most personnel, in their usual subtle fashion.
There was another bump, this time from the opposite wall. Rei sighed. She wondered if her new neighbours knew just who they lived next to now, and just what they were doing by interrupting her valuable thinking time.
There was a knock at her door.
Evidently not, she thought to herself, relishing in the arrogance of her internal voice. She felt that it separated her from the shadowy memories of the other girl she was pretending to be.
She swung herself off her bed, and smoothed down her crumpled uniform before answering the door. She opened the door, and almost immediately the person who knocked started speaking.
"Er... hi!" said a boy she didn't recognise. He was around her age, with dark brown hair and blue eyes. And decidedly foreign.
She looked at him critically, curious and faintly annoyed by both his interruption and strange accent, "State your designation."
He blinked at her, taken back by the abruptness of her order. He reached slowly into his pocket and took out a little book. He flicked through quickly, but couldn't find what he was looking for. "Er," he said nervously, "Could you say that again? My Japanese isn't that good yet."
She raised an eyebrow worthy of Gendo, "What's your name?"
"Oh! My name is Arthur Cooper."
She nodded in acknowledgement of his name, and waited patiently for him to state his business. There was an awkward minute, as the boy waited for her to say something as well.
Since no comment was forthcoming, he nervously continued, "Um, you're Rei Ayanami right?"
"Yes."
"Major Katsuragi told me you were in this building. Um, I moved in today."
Rei nodded, and feeling some strange pressure to contribute ti the conversation added, "How are you related to Major Katsuragi?"
He looked blank, and again came out the little book, which Rei guessed was a phrase book. "How do you know her?" she asked more simply.
"Thanks," he said gratefully, "I'm the new pilot. From Britain," he added when she showed no reaction.
Truthfully Rei had not thought much about the new pilot, focused as she was on her new duties as pilot for Unit 01, and the developing situation with Shinji. Seeing him on her doorstep was more confusing than anything else. So, in her typically blunt fashion she sought to alleviate the confusion.
"What are you doing here?"
He smiled, probably because he could understand her without resorting to his phrasebook, or her rephrasing, "Well, I just moved in today, and I wanted to know if there were any good restaurants nearby."
Rei considered this, her hand still on the door handle. She did not really know if there were any places to eat around her building. She usually took her meals at the Nerv base mess hall, or school cafeteria, and had a large supply of instant noodles for the times when she didn't. But there was that thing she walked past every time she came back to her apartment, and she had seen it loitering in the small park outside again.
"There is a ramen cart in the park area next to this building."
Arthur smiled, "Thank you. I am really hungry."
Rei nodded, and started to close her door, assuming their business was done, but he suddenly stopped her, "Wait!"
"Yes?"
"Um. I was wondering if you would like to join me?"
Rei looked at him, for a few seconds confused by the question, and then felt the blood rush to her cheeks as she began to think about the social implications of a boy asking a girl for a meal, alone at night.
He obviously saw the colour on her face, guessed what she was thinking, and began backpedaling as fast as his limited Japanese would allow, "Ah, no, not like... er... I mean, because we are both pilots and... um, maybe we should get to know each other better, and..." he broke down speaking English to himself in a berating tone.
He sighed, and straightened up, "Sorry. Thank you telling me about the cart. Goodbye," he said in a forced calm tone. He threw up a salute, realised what he had just done, span around and walked away as fast as he dared, glaring at his hand as though it had betrayed him.
Rei watched him head towards the elevator, and realised she was hiding a little behind her door, as if it could shield her from the social embarrassment that had just happened.
Thoughtfully she closed the door behind her, and went to sit on her bed.
It was strange how the new pilots always sought her out. Even Nagisa had come to find her, and she had some vague, shadowy memories of Asuka introducing herself to her at school.
Each encounter had left a different impression. In Asuka's case it had been irritation, and in Nagisa's, open dread and intimidation. Not since her encounter with Shinji and the ID card incident had a first meeting with a new pilot elicited feelings of embarrassment.
She stared at the wall opposite her, feeling her stomach rumble. Talking about the ramen cart had left her thinking about her own dinner, and for some reason the idea of instant noodles was suddenly unpalatable. And it did seem foolish that she should eat the dried variety when fresh noddles were easily available.
And the British pilot had a point. They would be working together, and that would be made easier with prior social interactions. True, Asuka had suggested the same thing on their first meeting, but the boy hadn't irritated her with demands of friendship, claiming convienice as an excuse to bother her.
She stood up and headed to her door.
If anything, this different reaction to the situation would distance her from the old borrowed memories. And that was worth pursuing.
Shinji stood in front of the now open door of his teacher's next door neighbour's house, the cool mountain evening air relieving some of the stifling pressure he felt. He scratched the back of his head nervously, the light inside flooding out onto the street behind him.
The girl stood in front of him, slackjawed and stunned.
She was shorter than him, although they were the same age, her mid-length dark hair tied into two little pony tails held low behind her neck. She had a slightly chubby, rounded face, giving her otherwise plain face a cuteness that accentuated the innocent aura that surrounded her.
He knew that she usually wore contacts, but now, as Shinji had seen before, the wide brown eyes were shielded behind some comfortable pink, but thinly framed glasses. He remembered the day when they helped her pick out those glasses. It was the day before he received the letter from his father, with the simple summons to Tokyo-3.
Since the mountains were a lot cooler than the city, people tended not to waste money on air conditioners, but in the near perpetual Japanese summer it was still hot enough to warrant the loose fitting t-shirt and very thin shorts she wore now, as she was clearly not expecting any company other than her family.
She tried to stammer a few words at him, but they wouldn't come out, the faint smell of shampoo and sweet soap wafting out from her. She must have recently been in the bath.
She was expecting him least of all.
Shinji smiled awkwardly, "Hi Emiko."
She still could not respond.
"Um... I'm back..."
He voice finally returned to her, and as her parents came up behind her to find out who was at the door, she finally responded to him.
"...Shinji?"
To be continued...
A/N: Gamble gamble gamble. In this part of the story we take some steps in plot development that aren't necessarily natural conclusions from episode 24. Steps like this were taken before, but since we're moving out of the introductory arc, the characters are going to start making some real decisions about the direction of the plot.
Also moving away from the introductory arc, and settling easily into the (relatively) happy romantic comedy arc. As an analogue to the series, this is about the time when Asuka showed up, and everything got a whole lot more light hearted.
End of Arc Omake to follow, and a review response will be attatched to that.
Massive thanks to the two guys who reviewed, you guys are totally awesome. Seriously, kept me happy even on the 12th hour of my Sunday shift. I'm still a petty man though, and would love another review! So please, don't hold back! I'll even take a flame, and relish the opportunity to thoroughly discuss and defend my work... my arrogance is like Asuka's and knows no bounds!
And now, cut to Misato...
Misato smiled happily at the couple singing on the screen in front of her. The warmness from the alcohol was mingling delightfully with the frosty ice cream, and she felt an unabashed wave of contentment override the sadness of Shinji leaving. Sprawled out comfortably on the sofa with just her pyjamas on, she felt all the stress of the day rise out of her body.
She burped, the gas taking the last of her tensions with it.
Nothing can quite match the contentedness of a hard working human with absolutely no work to do, and nothing to worry about for the next day.
Asuka, in a similarly mellow sprawl, little tub of ice cream tucked under one arm, and spoon clutched in hand, was digging mercilessly through the cream.
Asuka looked up, "Hey Misato?"
"Mmm?" repsonded the Nerv officer dreamily.
"What are all those papers on the table anyway?"