+++++ Sasami's home. +2

"It went fairly well," Sasami reported to Washu with a hint of venom. "Might have gone pretty well if you hadn't drugged him to get him to speak his mind too."

Washu was not impressed by her sister's ire. "Doubtful. You didn't see him sitting in that tub." Showing another series of graphs and charts, she circled one in particular. "What I thought was a fugue state was actually total dissociation. Without a bit of a boost, he would have spent the next four or five days awake, alive, and wholly unaware of the world around him." Stretching her fingers out, she purred with an evil grin, "I'm going to go find the man that did this to him, and I'm going to make sure he's delivered to the Galaxy Police in a 'dangerous criminal' cage. One with extra amperage."

"Humanity has jurisdiction over the crime," Sasami declared firmly. "Until and unless they are made a formal protectorate, the Galaxy Police would just return him here after wiping his memory of the trip. Besides," her lips quirked off to one side, uncertain about how she felt regarding the truth, "I believe that Hikari's father is going to make a visit to Nagano soon." Waving away the dilemma, she refocused her ire on Washu. "What did you do to him?"

"Nothing terrible," her reply dripped with faux protestation. "A boost to his endocrine system, so that it will produce more of the hormones he'll need to stop being so dour and other chemicals that he'll need to actually heal from the injuries he's endured. I also reinvigorated his cardiovascular system, encouraging his body to…enthusiastically repair the atrophied arteries and enlarge the alveoli to process oxygen more efficiently."

Sasami's level glare made it evident that she did not believe her sister at all.

"They…maybe also were designed to repair the web of fractures and microfractures throughout his skeletal system."

Sasami's eyes closed, her temper rising.

"They might also be able to even out his legs, so that the left isn't shorter than the right by one centimeter."

"I'm giving you to a count of three."

"Don't you want him to be nice and healthy?"

"One."

"I mean, if he's not healthy how could he pilot that abomination?"

"Two."

"Wouldn't tonight have been better if he was able to walk around without all of that pain?"

"Three!"

"Bye!" Washu winked out of Sasami's room, leaving behind a ghost of a laugh and the knowledge that she was correct and there was nothing Sasami could do about it.

With a curt gesture to the nearby wall, Sasami brought up the vitals monitor she'd slipped into Shinji's hotel room when they walked him up to be certain he was safe and secure. As expected, he was fast asleep. The events of the day had taken their toll on him, and the last thing he would have been able to manage was staying awake much longer. Standing outside the hotel room, just within the scanner's range, were two of Hikari's father's 'kids'. Both men alone were threats of the highest order to be found on the planet, together she felt confident that his safety would be assured against anything short of a sizable explosive. His sleep was undisturbed by nightmares, that she could see, yet also did not contain the dreams she would hope he'd have.

Dreaming was important to any living creature. It inferred a vibrant mind with well-ordered creativity to expend. Dreams rarely meant anything, as seers and oracles were rare to find in any culture, but the act itself had purpose and meaning. Still, it was perhaps better that for now he simply slept. Tomorrow would have its own trials, and perhaps he could face them without as much anxiety with a clearer mind and rested body.

Lazily stripping out of her clothes, she snapped her fingers to cleanse herself of the day's filth before tossing the clothing into the hoops to be erased from existence. Looking at herself in the mirror, she turned her spine to see all angles and nodded contentedly. The transformation was continuing as expected…but she remained herself for the moment. Her hands slid down her sides, over her skin, and she pondered whether Shinji would find her curves pleasing... "If things go that far…of course."

+++++ The Tokyo-3 Intercontinental. +3

Having never slept on a bed as comfortable as the one in his now ruined apartment, Shinji had not been adequately prepared the previous evening to lay down on the bed in his hotel suite. When his eyes fluttered open, at a time his body had become programmed to wake up at, he spent the first five seconds trying to remember when he'd laid down. The anterograde amnesia that is a normal part of the process of falling asleep seemed to have begun even earlier than he believed possible. He couldn't even remember saying goodbye to Hikari, Sasami, or Nanako.

The next ten seconds was spent with horror mercilessly crawling up his person. The room around him looked like it had been pieced together with pure silver and hand-carved hardwood. It looked like just breathing the air in the room would cost someone more than most people made in a year. It looked like his belongings from Nagano were just set nonchalantly in a chair that didn't come with a price tag because if you had to ask the price you were in the wrong store. It looked like his clothes, his dirty clothes that had spent a dirty evening in dirty air in a dirty public market, were sitting on a carpet that was probably woven from the hair of the Imperial Princess and fiber spun from pure gold. Lastly, the climax was the realization that it looked like he was soiling a bed by his mere presence within eyesight of it that was built with the solidified dreams of the honored dead. From another chamber adjoining the one he had been sleeping in, a woman came hurrying into the room. Without realizing it, Shinji had begun to scream in terror, summoning her presence.

"Shh, shh, shh," the woman quickly sat on the bed next to him, lightly stroking his face and rubbing his chest, "it's ok, Shinji-kun, it's ok!" Her dark raven colored hair, riding down to her shoulders before being drawn back into a long ponytail, caught the sun's light and glimmered with hints of a deep blue among the inky black. "You're safe here."

Twitching anxiously, but nevertheless being soothed effectively by the strange new woman, Shinji began to suck down air as his body burned through the sudden overdose of adrenaline. "Wh-wh-wh-" Gulping air several times, he gave up on verbalizing his confusion.

"You're in a hotel, about a kilometer from your school." Her voice shifted ever so slightly from soothing to encouraging, "You came here last night because your apartment building fell down."

Too wound up about the price tag associated with the furnishings to notice how beautiful his new acquaintance was, Shinji found a few spare words rattling around in his pockets to give her, "H-how…afford…expensive…?"

"You're not being charged for anything," she assured him. Switching the hand that had been stroking his temple to rubbing his neck, she continued providing him warm support. "Horaki-chan? Your Class Representative? Her father's company is providing this for the next few days until suitable housing can be found. Some…dignitaries are arranging recompense from NERV for the effort while explaining that it truly was unsatisfactory that the savior of humanity was being kenneled in a roach-infested slum."

He blinked a few times, another unsolvable riddle dumped in his lap. Nobody told his father what to do. His uncle had tried, once, and wound up unable to walk or eat for weeks. The only words he ever heard from outside of his house were people speaking of 'the son of the devil' that lived there with his minder. Gendo Ikari was unstoppable. "I…I'm sorry." All he could do is apologize, and hope that the people who they sent weren't too badly hurt.

"Whyever for?"

"Th-the people you s-sent…." He looked away purposefully in shame. "Th-they're p-probably badly h-hurt."

With his eyes away from her, the woman's face became a mask of frost. Her voice, however, retained every bit of warmth and caring she had for him, "They didn't seem terribly hurt to me this morning. I think one of them might have struck his knuckles against something, but he wasn't favoring the hand so it must not have been very hard."

When Shinji looked back, he saw her understated smile reassuring him that he'd heard correctly. "Th-they w-weren't?"

"Why would you think they would be? It was a simple matter of legal obligations, after all. Your employer put you in an untenable living situation, and you were fortunate enough to not be killed as a result of their dereliction of duty." She shrugged as if it were the most common thing in the world. "As citizens of this city, which you saved through your honor and bravery, Horaki-san's company stepped in to make sure that you wouldn't be harmed during your housing transition. While they won't charge full price for the room, as a gesture of goodwill, they're still owed some recompense for the use of it to properly house a NERV employee."

His stomach rumbling hungrily drew his attention and reddened his cheeks. "I'm-"

"Clearly hungry," she interrupted the ritualistic apology by standing and drawing his hands with her. Helping him to his feet, she settled a robe over his body and tied the belt off to keep it from tripping him. "I was told that you worked very hard yesterday, so your body is probably going to need more today than it did yesterday. Why don't we go take a look at the room service availability and see if we'll have to order out instead."

+++++ Washu's pocket dimension. +3

Finishing the oral portion of her report to the Jurai Empire, Washu frowned at what she'd just been told by one of her spy-bots. "Misaki, dear…why is Minaho in Shinji's room?"

"Family business." The flat reply was all she would offer in return for an only tangentially related question. "So, it is your learned opinion that this 'Unit-01' poses a significant risk to galactic peace?"

"In the wrong hands, yes. What family business? Shinji's not family…yet."

"The type of family business that's rude to ask about. Is Shinji 'the wrong hands'?"

"He's about the best hands you are likely to find on this planet, so far. He feels it rather keenly when someone is hurt, and he isn't the kind of person to just go out and seek a war to fight. Shouldn't I know why you have an unregistered alien interacting with a subject of interest?"

"No, you shouldn't. Try and get a closer look at the beast. If it is preventing more intrusive scanning remotely, then make every effort to gain proximate contact with it." Giving Washu the smile one gets after getting payback for any number of previous losses, Misaki Masaki Jurai waved politely and cut the holographic feed.

Washu blew out a long-suffering sigh. "Ok, I've probably earned that." With her scientific mind aroused now, she realized she hadn't been ordered to not talk to the latest arrival and smiled. "Turnabout being fair play and all that."

+++++ Tokyo-3 Academy. +3

Shinji's morning had been an unpredictable rollercoaster. Thinking more intently on it, Shinji realized that his last several mornings had been rollercoasters. Once more riding in an SUV with Nanako chauffeuring him around town, he realized they weren't headed directly to his school. When the SUV slowed to a stop outside of a very pleasant townhome and Hikari climbed aboard, he understood at least more why they'd take the detour. "Good morning, Ma…Cl…uhm…."

"Hikari is just fine, Shinji. After last night, I think we're well into the friendship stage." Her freckles brightening slightly as she gave him an amused grin, and the sun giving her skin a healthy glow, she managed to stop him from responding in any way other than a dopey nod. With a light laugh at the comedy of it, she moved the conversation along, "So how was the hotel room?"

With a great deal of effort, he managed to strangle his response down to a choked whisper, "Expensive!"

Nanako's eyes speared him through the rearview mirror. "Did someone hand you a bill, Shinji-kun?"

"N-no, ma'am."

"Nana-chan, or Nanako if you must, but I'm not old enough to even come close to being a 'ma'am' yet." She raised one eyebrow sternly. "You're not fibbing to me?"

"N-no. I asked for one, and they just smiled and handed me a blank sheet of paper with the hotel's letterhead."

"Good." Returning her full focus to the road ahead, she exited the conversation as suddenly as she'd entered it.

"The room did look very nice," Hikari agreed, sighing inwardly in relief that nobody had made the terrible mistake of letting Shinji try and pay for something himself. "Especially the balcony. Did you get a chance to look out as the sun rose behind the building?"

"I, no, uhm…I…I was…." Shinji began to curl in on himself, realizing that he was about to complain about something that had happened.

Once more, Nanako entered the conversation as this time she pulled to a stop outside of another apartment building, "He woke up and had a panic attack. The striker that volunteered for the assignment helped calm him down some. After the shit he's seen, it's not shocking that he'd think he'd died and gone to heaven instead of just woken up in a real bed for once."

Surprising Shinji, Sasami climbed in on his opposing side and forced him to scoot over so he was seated between her and Hikari. "Good morning! How did you sleep?"

"I, uhm…I don't even remember falling asleep. I didn't wake up once until I was supposed to wake up."

"Well that's good, though," Hikari enthused. "That means that you actually got some rest! You do look healthier already." Taking his chin between her fingers as the car started off again, she turned his cheeks to catch the light. "Definitely healthier. How do the new clothes feel?" She released his chin, but trailed her fingers ever so lightly across his skin as she did so.

Shinji pinched the shirt, pulling it out just a bit. "Uhm, v-very comfortable. Better than…uhm…."

"One hundred percent cotton," Sasami judged, pinching his sleeve and rubbing her fingers lightly against it. "Considering the polyester-ramie blend you were given before, this couldn't help but be a lot more comfortable."

Hikari ran her fingers along the fabric of his pants, just above the knee. "Ooo, that's linen. That should breathe very nicely for you." Catching him looking at her in confusion, she simply smiled charmingly. "I've often felt poorly for you men in class. We get the choice to wear skirts that stop us from boiling alive during the hottest months, you get stuck in full length pants."

"Once again, definitely better than the polyester-wool blend you were wearing," Sasami agreed. She too had taken the chance to feel his legs, and for the same reasons as Hikari: to determine if he could walk. His legs were fairly steady, though a bit clenched due to the 'violation' of his personal space. Since they weren't trembling, that meant Washu's actions hadn't backfired horribly and yesterday's run hadn't had long term repercussions developing.

Both women saw him start to blush, and found it adorable that he looked towards a point that favored neither of them nor let him see their lingering touch. He sat there for the rest of the ride, with the friendly and comforting touch of two women with good hearts further buoying his fledgling social confidence.

+++++ NERV Tokyo-3. +3

Ritsuko sat in her lab, tapping her way through the results of the latest materials acquisition tests, when she simultaneously received a visit from Misato and direction from Gendo. Waving idly in greeting to her friend, she gave preferential attention to the order.

Arrange for the Third Child to have a synchronization test today.

"So I get my ass chewed in front of my subordinates for not giving everyone time to get the pilot ready for combat, but I spend all day yesterday here waiting for his ass to show up for training only to hear at twenty-one-hundred that he'd never been scheduled for training!" Misato stomped her way behind Ritsuko's monitors and leaned on top of them to pout angrily. "How was I supposed to know that he'd been ordered to show up at the train station that day anyway?"

"Probably by reading the high priority message you'd been sent on the phone you're legally obligated to carry as part of your employment with NERV," Ritsuko drawled. "But that's just my best guess." Turning her own work-issued phone around, she showed the text from their commander. "I was going to ask him to come after class today, since word has come back from his school that his education has been unsatisfactory up to this point and they're threatening legal action if we take him out of school during normal hours for anything short of another attack. While we might be able to win in court, the optics alone would devastate our reputation."

"Oh. Well…." Kicking the table without much force, Misato huffed. "Then I'll spend today checking over the training programs we were going to run yesterday." Her eyebrows drooped, and a mildly hurt expression grew. "Why did you snap at me like that the other day?"

"Because you weren't interacting with your future ally in a manner that was constructive or supportive." Ritsuko spread her hands and shook her head. "He's seventeen Misato. From the looks of him, his social growth has been stunted worse than yours was. After looking at the scans we took of him post-battle, he's a victim of a lot of accidents, a lot of abuse, or a lot of both. We were asking him to throw his life into the fire so that we could have another day of relative comfort. He's not a volunteer in the military, who wanted to be there and expected to deal with regimented anger and state-approved stoicism. He was a conscript who'd had to ride in a vehicle with you and your damned racecar antics through an N2 mine, only to be dropped off in front of a gigantic Evangelion he'd never have guessed existed and told to fight the titanic alien monster. I snapped at you because the way you interact with men was going to get us absolutely nowhere positive, and we didn't have the luxury of time because you showed up late." She twined her fingers together and raised her thumbs up to gesture towards Misato before setting them back on her desk. "You'll note that I'm not yelling at you now, and that I'm sharing the fact that you won't be wasting another day here. Victory cures a great many ills, but I'd like to think in my place you would have done the same thing to do everything you could to secure that victory."

"…What do you mean 'the way I interact with men'?"

Ritsuko eyed her flatly. "Without warning, he believed he was being drowned in an unknown, foul-smelling, liquid. For all he knew, there was some sort of system failure and we were unaware that it was happening. You told him to suck it up because, and I quote, 'You're a man, aren't you'? Would you expect that you, or me, or any other woman that has fought through a sea of misogynistic bullshit to attain the rank and status we hold would be somehow justified in reacting poorly to being drowned, but that any man should simply sit there and let it happen because of the sins of their fathers?" When Misato flushed and looked away, Ritsuko sighed and added in a more gentle tone, "Your kneejerk reaction is to treat men as expendable, as if there'll just be another waiting to buy you a drink or do you a favor as soon as you turn around. The sad part is, you're generally right. In this instance, however, there was no viable second option and your behavior was pushing him towards locking down instead of stepping up. Again, we didn't have the luxury of time and I did what was necessary to put us in position to have this conversation instead of dying."

Digging her toe into the ground, Misato grumbled a bit before saying in a more audible volume, "I'm sorry."

"And I'm sorry that hurting your feelings was necessary for us to win." Standing up, Ritsuko came around the table and hugged her longtime friend close. "I know you're better than you were on that day. Keep working hard on getting Shinji ready, and everyone will forget about the rocky start."

Glumly returning the hug, Misato was clearly mollified but not content. "I should probably find a way to apologize to Shinji-kun too, shouldn't I?"

"I'd say that you should just try treating him better. I don't think he's the kind of guy to hold a grudge, just remember who's looking to hurt him."

+++++ Tokyo-3 Academy. +3

The breakfast made by Sasami had filled him to a point that made him pleasantly comfortable for the four hours between it and the lunch from Hikari. Now running on the track, once more with Gen at his side, the energy he'd received from Hikari's meal drove him to break the standard he'd set the day before. He still lingered far behind the pack, but not nearly as much as he had before. The difference was noticeable, even to him in his fatigue.

"I had heard that you were carried from the field yesterday, Ikari-san." Gen, despite having run nearly twice as much as everyone else, spoke as if he'd just been engaging in a light stroll. "That those who bore you did so as friends, protecting you from the callous words of those without the will to put the safety of others over even their own lives."

"Y-yes…." Shinji recognized when a statement required a response. "I…wish…his…sister…."

"It is good and well to defend the honor of your family, should it be challenged," Gen cut off the statement to allow Shinji to breathe easier. "His sister was in a hospital for a day, receiving the best possible care. His father, my subordinate, has asked that I beg your indulgence on his behalf."

"Your…sub…."

"Indeed. That he is my subordinate, that he works to bring honor to my Family, means that the health and safety of his children are matters of great concern to me. That his son chose to try and push culpability off on you for his inattention is…." He pondered the words to choose for a few moments. "You were not raised to understand this, which is your father's shame to bear, but there is no cost that should be left unpaid when it comes to defending those that stand beside you in honor. Should Horaki-san's victory require my death, I would embrace it without fear or hesitation. Should Dojima-san's safety require my blood, I will spill it proudly. That Toji-kun chose to act like a petulant child instead of a man nearly grown bears down on his father's honor. That drag upon his honor now becomes a drag upon my own. Just as the glories he has won for me are not my own, no matter how much I am rewarded for them, the ignominy of his shame may not be caused by my acts…but the punishment for them must touch me still. Do you understand?"

"Respon…sibility…not…culp…ability."

"An apt phrasing and excellent summary of the situation." Patting Shinji on the back, he smiled in approval. "Will you hear his plea, then? The choice is yours, and if you would rather nothing to do with it there is no shame in it. It is you who were wronged, and no debt must ever be accrued to a party so wronged."

Shinji's gut reaction was to accept whatever was asked of him, without hesitation or even the hearing of it. The situation being what it was, however, he began to feel that answering that way would somehow disappoint his teacher. "I…will…listen."

"Excellent. Please wait with Hikari-chan after class, then." In a voice likely to be heard from the moon, he bellowed out, "Bring it in!"