Sixteen years in.
"You'll be merged into the No.2 Combat Group along with the Second Redemption Unit," he told Unit 2-A.
All three of them stared straight ahead, stock still. The third, though, trembled slightly and her arms spasmed at intervals - mental contamination, simply called 'the shakes'. The newest models had sacrificed yet more safety in the pilot-Eva interface for ease of production, leading to irreversible and exponentially worsening neuromuscular degeneration after the first twelve hours of synchronisation. It always started in the fingers, he noted as she fought to keep her hands balled into fists at her sides.
"No.2 Combat Group will be led by me, so no more Pollie Pilots. Pollie- sorry, Political Officer Aida will handle all Political functions." Dying was bad enough without 'uplifting primers' piped into your ears. The exhortations of The Faithful were tiresome enough under ordinary circumstances. "Any questions? Yes, you."
The second asked "I thought Second Redemption would be assigned to No.3 Combat Group?"
"No.3's under-strength as of last week, it's being merged into 1 and 2. I got the Penal - oh, sorry," he said sarcastically "Redemption Units assigned to us." Everyone knew how he felt about the Redemption Units. His thoughts darkened.
Ritsuko...
He didn't understand her. He remembered a time when he'd thought that he had, maybe - a little. But he'd just been lying to himself. The woman's mind was like the face of the moon, Ganymede, Titan - distant, alien, its depths hidden 'neath even the most sensitive and advanced of scientific instruments' gazes.
Hidden, and cold. He and Misato had limits. They'd paid for that.
He'd often wondered how the world could mesh so perfectly with Ritsuko's morality, and not their own, when only theirs had even the faintest trace of humanity or human decency to them.
"No more questions? No-?ohwait, sorry. Yes?" The third one raised her hand, which she had gotten under control for the moment - though as he watched, he could see her fingers twinge and strain against her 'grip'. "Mister Ikari... are we going to die?"
He'd expected it to be about 'the shakes', so he was caught off-guard - a rare thing these days. Once upon a time, he might've struggled to answer her question in an adequate and timely fashion that kept her on the path he had in mind for her. As it was, he knew exactly what to say. "Doctor Akagi is on the verge of a breakthrough using Evangelion technology and the secrets behind Second Impact. The details are classified, but this war will be over before you've even earned your stripes. We just have to make it through to then, okay?"
He remembered when a stripe had indicated a year of experience. One year, for his birthday, class 2-A had banded together to make an armband (from linen) with the correct number of his stripes on it and then bugged him until he gave in and agreed to wear it for the day. They'd done the stripes extra-thick, so the 'armband' ended a metre from his fingertips. They'd thought it was hilarious, especially when he'd nearly tripped on the damn thing half a dozen times.
He reckoned his delivery had been adequate, though his grin had probably been overly grim. Only the third didn't appear reassured. He made a mental note to give her another pep-talk later. He may not have been a Pollie, but it was his job to buck up morale.
"That it? Alright. Now piss off, 2-A." He smiled as they didn't move, and hesitated as well.
Another 2-A (most, even) might have bolted. But these ones didn't, so he had time to reach a conclusion. As if in a dream he spoke his mind. "Fourteen years ago," he said "Mari Makinami and I were assigned to teach the first Class 2-A."
"I have been the teacher and Training Officer of Class and now Unit 2-A for longer than you have been alive. I taught Tanaka Date, Konstantin Konev, Zongren Li, Dylan Sivright, and Kensuke Aida Junior. But in our first class there were twenty-three kids no-one's ever heard of, and no-one is left to remember. You don't even know who I mean by 'our'."
"I'm Shinji Ikari," he said. "What is your name?" he asked the third Child.
When he got home that night, Horaki and Aida weren't there yet so he decided to spend the time putting the finishing touches on their supper. But first he went to his room.
The drab, unpainted all-concrete flat was a wartime construction so the only things in his room were his futon, his clothes, and the piles of papers clustered about the spot on the floor where he filled them out. He opened the window to let some light in and folded his coat up, putting it in a neat pile on the floor.
He went and knelt by where he'd propped the cork-board against the wall, right by his pillow. He only had the one photo-phrame - his 18th birthday present from Misato. It was a simple little thing of thin plastic. It had his first photograph of her in it - the one from all those years ago, scribble and all. His thoughts always returned to how well-made her clothes looked, how carefree and young she looked.
Originally there'd been a different photo in it, of someone else, for all of thirty seconds. But he'd realised that the subject of said photo wouldn't have approved. In fact she'd have clopped him around the ears, then told him to stop being such a nonce and get over it - well, her - already.
Most of the things pinned to the board were small, faded photographs and I.D. cards, but the centre of it was dominated by a proper photograph half-covered with various scribbles made with permanent marker. Directly beneath it there was an empty space. In it, he placed this last photo.
The finality of it struck him, and he wanted to lie down for a while. A long while. He wanted to sleep now, even before the sun was down, and wake up not just to another day but to a tomorrow. A real tomorrow, different in a good way to what came before...
But he had a meal to prepare right now, and a night-shift - complete with a meeting with Akagi - to go back to after that. He made himself get up and leave with only a single backward glance.
"Doctor." He sat.
"Shinji. We have an opportunity to win the war."
"Bullshit."
"I was experimenting with the work of the late commanders Fuyutsuki and Ikari when I made a discovery that may change everything."
She brought up some images. "The truth behind Second Impact."
"This... it's an Angel."
"Yes, Shinji. Second Impact and The War are related. Your father's work appreciated that. Building on his work, I have found a way to end The War."
"Third Impact," he said flatly "is not-"
"This isn't Third Impact. It's something new. I set up a facility at the South Pole to continue my work in private."
"You expect me to believe all this."
She placed a very thick folder in front of him. "I even included layman's translations for you."
"Kind of you I'm sure."
"Indeed. Now, while I finally have the breakthrough I've been working for all these years, there is just one problem." She brought up an image.
"Angel."
"Yes, my work did not go unnoticed. I want you to lead a task-force to take my facility back."
"I'm needed here."
"This work could win us the war."
"I've heard you say that every day for twenty years."
"I mean it this time." She was serious. "This is the real deal. No more patches, no more emergency measures. This is a clean fix. If I get this right, we can all go home tomorrow." She sniffed. "Figuratively speaking, of course. But if I can salvage that research and get it to the bio-wombs, this war is as good as won."
"You're the only competent pilot left, and the most experienced. Can I count on you?"
"Enemy Z-42 is expected to attack after 24 hours."
"We've got more than enough mincemeat to throw at it."
"Ritsuko..."
"They don't need corset-stiffeners like you to hold them together right now. What they need is an end to the war. Even if we don't lose more than... five in this engagement, what then? You know the state of MkXIX production, let alone everything else."
"This is different. I have a kid now. I can't just leave her to face-"
"Shinji," she said, deliberately, "I'm not my mother. I don't know what it's like to be a parent. But this is our only hope. You could save her today, but what about tomorrow? And tomorrow? And tomorrow? This is our only chance of ending this war for good."
"I know that you and I, and Misato, haven't seen... eye-to-eye on a lot of things. But I've never promised anyone anything I couldn't deliver."
'Unlike you' went unsaid, he noted. She knew when to bite her tongue.
"So when I tell you that this is it - everything we've been hoping for - then I expect you to believe me."
It only took him seven minutes and a cigarette - courtesy of her - to reply, though it seemed like much longer.
He returned home later that night.
The light was off when he got there. He turned it on and it hummed to life.
They'd eaten dinner and scrubbed up after themselves. No 'thank you' note or anything, of course, but he knew they were grateful.
He went to his room, turned on the light. Packed an overnight bag. He hesitated for a moment. Then he went to the kitchen/laundry/bathroom, opened the maintenance panel and hauled a large case out from the crawlspace beyond. He left it in the center of the communal-room.
He hesitated outside the secondary bedroom, but went in eventually. He tried to wake her gently. "I'm sorry, but... can I hear you play?"
"Shinji..." she was kinda pissed.
"I'll get you a dumpling when I next get back from work, okay?"
She woke instantly. "Meat?"
"Um, no, those..." he mumbled, trying to conceal his revulsion. "Those don't taste very nice," he lied, "but I'll get you some spinach ones."
"Three."
"You drive a hard bargain."
She gave him a death-glare.
"But I am forced to concede acceptance to your conditions."
Already got the knack of bribery. She'll go far in this world of hers.
...'of hers'?
She stumbled out of bed on her own and followed him to the communal room. "Won't this wake Kensuke?"
"He's slept through worse. Here." Before she could pick up her instrument he hefted the case and dumped it into her arms. "Happy Birthday!"
"But it's not my birthday..."
"You have no idea when that is."
"I totally do, and it's ages away!" She felt the contours of the case. "But thank you. It looks nice."
"It's just a case. You should see what's at the heart of a matter before you start assessing it in earnest."
"Whatever." She snapped the locks, and opened it. The sickly-sweet smell of resin filled the air - if only because it wasn't edible. If it were, it would've all disappeared years ago.
"It's... beautiful."
He smiled. "I know."
The finest that nine cigarettes could buy. In Misato's day it would've cost... a car, maybe?
She sat on the chair, extended the spike and slotted the tip into a hole in the floor, gave the strings a few experimental plucks as she tightened the bowstring. "You tuned it."
"Most days. I confess I may not have been able to help myself from getting some practice in."
"I thought presents were supposed to be unused?"
"Probably. Could you play...?" She knew which one.
It was simple, but the best works were. Or at least, the arrangements for amateur/child players were. He could still recall, vaguely, the lyrics. Asuka had managed to beat them into him in the days leading up to the first New Year's Eve of the war - looking back, he couldn't believe just how much meat they'd had (two whole chickens!) - but he hadn't sung them with anyone since von Halder.
She was still wringing an okay-ish vibrato (for the amount of practice she put in) out of the final note when she said "I don't really like Beethoven."
"Oh?"
"Well, I do, because it's all really good music. But Brahms is so much more expressive. And Elgar. And Britten."
A controversial opinion, but not a baseless one. He found himself smiling.
Would you look at Little Miss Cultured?
"I'm going for a conference in India, so I'll be a few days. There's some money on the counter, and Aida knows how to cook. But no street-vendors, okay? Promise me."
"But-"
"But nothing. I told you where they get their cooking oil from, let alone everything else. So no street-vendors, okay?"
He got a nod, which was probably good enough. Formalities aside, he wasn't exactly the boss of her. More a... drastically older sibling with parental overtones. And the occasional, deeply discomfitting stirring he despised for the way it cheapened his affection for her.
"Again, sorry to wake you. But I kinda needed this." He was still surprised at the way he could be so brazen with his feelings. She said nothing.
"In it for the dumplings and street food. I get it," he said smiling. "But seriously. No street food," he said, wagging a finger very seriously in a way that made him feel kinda silly... but mostly just stuck-up and unadventurous, even he was right to have kept that kind of stuff well away from her.
Kensuke was still barely awake. "So why didn't he really go to India, again? Start over..."
"Because it's rainy season but he didn't take his poncho or anything and Eva Unit One is gone, everyone said so."
"Oh," he said, cursing the impurities that he knew were the actual cause of hangovers and not the alcohol itself. "Fair enough."
Alone in the cabin, Shinji scribbled hesitated with pen and open notebook in hand.
He looked out the porthole at the fleet beyond - tankers, container ships, frigates, destroyers. The Home Fleet, they called it. Whatever she'd said about this being a last-minute thing, he was almost certain that she'd had her suspicions that something like this would happen. There was no way she'd have had the entire fleet on-hand otherwise. Piracy was just too much of a problem to for the U.N. to strip this many combat-vessels (i.e. all of them, he reckoned) from their duties.
For the upteenth time he looked to where someone had carved 'Ryouji+Misato 4eva' into the bedside table, and wondered if Mister Kaji was still alive.
He returned to the notebook. Eventually, he began to write.
Kensuke - don't ever lose sight of your principles. Keep your head above the mayhem. Look after Hikari for me.
New page.
Hikari - sorry I couldn't do more. Keep up the cello. Look after Kensuke for me.
He knew he'd regret it if he didn't, so he added - I love you.
Then added it to the end of Kensuke's note as well. New page.
Misato - thanks for everything. We did what we could, didn't we? I love you.
New page.
Ritsuko - don't you dare die on us. You haven't made things right yet.
New page.
He hesitated, and stared out the porthole again.
Tanaka - I'm sorry I didn't do more for them. But thank you for making me realise I should be trying to. Even if it didn't really work out.
Same page. New line.
Konstantin - you dumb, bullheaded Russian bastard. I wish I'd known you better. 1A's never been better than it was under you. Thanks for being so supportive.
Mari - my feelings haven't changed. You know that, you patronising asshole.
She'd just flick him on the nose and poke him mercilessly if he said anything as sappy and blindingly obvious as 'I love you'.
Kensuke Snr - I told you it was dangerous, but you just wouldn't listen, would you? But we owe you, all of us. We wouldn't have made it without you, you know that?
Asuka - I'm sorry I couldn't help you, or be the person you wanted me to. I'm sorry things turned out the way they did. I'll make it up to you.
Touji -
He hesitated.
Touji - thanks for being so cool about everything. You really kept us together, you know. I'm sorry it had to end that way.
Hikari Snr - you always did your best for all of us, and thanks for" he hesitated "being there. Have I done the right think by your daughter? I've done the best I can, but I still fear it's not enough. I'm sorry I wasn't there sooner for her. I'm sorry I never looked into her circumstances, and I know it was wrong of me to just assume that things would work out, but thinking about you and everyone else was just too painful.
Father -
He scribbled it out.
Gendo - you were a weak, selfish fool. I will always wonder why you were allowed to do so much harm.
Rei - your name keeps coming up in Ritsuko's work, and I can't help but wonder who, and not just what, you really were. I guess I'm sorry we never got the chance to find out.
He re-read the page several times over the course of the next twelve minutes. Then he tore out the pages addressed to people who were still alive, went to the porthole, and dropped the book into the ocean.
Finale/Epilogue to follow.
Thanks for the (so detailed!) feedback, everyone.