+++++ NERV Tokyo-3, Command Bridge. Sunday, +19.

Verðandy flowed onto the bridge at the same time that Kozo was limping his way in from his predecessor's office. "Good evening, good sir. My husband should be aboard his 'Eva' shortly."

With everything else that had been happening, it required more than a bit of effort to stop from swearing violently. "I apologize, Miss, I had not been informed that Pilot Ikari had married…nor that you had been given bridge clearance." Hobbling his way over to the tactical station, Kozo tapped in the sequence that would display the interior of Unit-01's cockpit. Watching Shinji slide into place, he felt both a wave of relief that his best pilot was ready and a tension headache building at the continued breaches of protocol. Flipping the microphone on, he put his best foot forward in the spirit that he'd been instructed to use, "Thank you for hurrying in, Captain. It appears you were out on a date, unfortunate timing."

Shinji frowned in confusion, then shrugged. "Ðandy and I were walking home, sir. I guess we were closest to base. Do we have anything on this one?"

"It appears to be an arthropod of some kind. If the traffic cameras are to be trusted, it appears to be leaking some type of acid from its central mass." With a glance over at the other stations, he found nothing else worth mentioning. "Four very long legs, probably too thin to target effectively from a distance." He looked back to Shinji with a self-effacing grin. "I have confidence Captain Katsuragi will have better tactical advice when she arrives." Shinji's grimace did not go unnoticed, but went unremarked owing to Asuka's arrival at Unit-02's platform. "Please prepare for launch, Captain. I will be sending you and Pilot Soryu up to halt the enemy's advance. When Pilot Ayanami arrives, she will join you as backup."

"Hallo, Shinji," Asuka greeted him brightly through the intercoms on the suits. "Were you already on base?"

Initially puzzled as to why the temperamental pilot was being so 'happy', Shinji remembered that someone had modified her memories of the 'date' he'd apparently been meant to go on. "I was close by when the alarm sounded. Tactical and Science are probably still ten minutes out, so we'll be on our own for a bit." He paused while LCL filled the tube he sat within, then sucked in the first disgusting lungful and swallowed his nausea. "I will take point, you try and work towards a flanking position to its east. If you miss, or it deflects the bullets, or something weird happens, you won't be spraying down occupied buildings."

"Oh you," she snorted out a laugh, "you know I don't miss my target."

Do not let her rile you up, beloved, Ðandy's voice stroked his thoughts. With your permission, I will make clear to her what your relationship is once the day is saved.

Shame mingled with relief that the problem wouldn't be his to resolve, and Shinji took his wife's advice to heart. "Ready to launch when you are, sir. Let's try and save the city some repair bills."

Thirty seconds later, with both pilots prepared and both Evas launched to the surface, the night took yet another dark turn when the power switched off nationwide.

+++++ Tokyo-3. Sunday, +19.

"What happened to the power?" Asuka hesitated in moving any further, switching her external cameras to feed her a combination of infrared and sonar to compensate for the otherwise near total darkness surrounding them. "Shinji?"

"I'm two fifty to your two o'clock," he responded, keeping his voice quiet out of habit. "I can't see the enemy, we need to be careful where we step. It uses acid, might be traps."

"We're on battery, I've got less than four and a half minutes of power. We need to take it out quickly, the city can deal with the damage."

"No," he snapped, "we are not going to go rampaging through the city like mindless idiots." The echo of the Angel's presence that he felt when they were near began to coalesce around an area several hundred meters ahead of him. "Stay still, use your ears."

As anyone who had dealt with Asuka in the past might have told him, he should have saved his breath. "Listen, Captain, we're fighting a war here. If people were paying attention, they're in shelters. If they weren't, then whatever happens is on them." Ejecting her useless umbilical and moving forward, she huffed. "It was in this direction when I lost power, I'm advancing to contact. Try and keep up."

"Damn it, Soryu, I said-" His mind displayed the comedy of errors in advance, whether intuition or instinct he tried to use the sense to warn his fellow pilot, "On your left!"

Slow to react to what she perceived as orders, Asuka and Unit-02 were caught off guard by the Angel as it bowled her over. Losing her pallet rifle, now trapped beneath the bulk of the four-legged insectoid, she attempted to rally and pull out her prog-knife only to discover the true threat of the otherwise harmless-seeming Ninth Angel when it ejected acid directly onto Unit-02's upper torso and arm, melting right through the armor and innards, destroying her left arm and the knife she'd intended to use.

Her scream of agony made Shinji feel like a fool for standing still. With a roar of anger, he summoned an octet of Light Hawk Wings in the form of a loose bludgeon and charged. Two and a half hundred meters vanished in four enormous strides, the vague outline of a plan formed just before he dropped his shoulder into the dorsal mass of their opponent. Tackling the Angel off of Unit-02 was the first step in his reckless strategy, using Unit-02's uninfected lower abdomen as footing to continue shoving the Angel backwards he then brought the second and final step into play by slamming his enormous club down atop the Angel. The core, wherever it was, did not survive contact. The ruined flesh of his foe had sprayed acid outward as its structural integrity failed, washing the immediate area with a thick coating of acrid gore.

Dismissing his club and carefully picking his way back to Unit-02, Shinji made the most of his remaining minute and a half of power by dragging her uphill away from the growing puddle of dead Angel. "C'mon," he strained out, "I got you…almost…." There was no talking on the other end of their communications. No more screaming, crying, swearing, nothing that would indicate that she was alive. "Soryu?" Twenty seconds of power. "Soryu?" He didn't have a choice, he was going to have to eject and try to manually release her plug to see if she was alive. "Fuck."

Climbing down Unit-01 was the opposite of easy, as he had to avoid viscera and acid while struggling to keep a firm grip on the dew-slicked surface of his Eva during the descent. The fuzzy feeling in his head due to the Angel's proximity did little to aid his balance, and it took more than twenty seconds for him to reach the ground so that he could dash over to Unit-02. A quick search of the red giant's neck showed him the manual release mechanism…and the ruined crank handle thereupon.

"…Fuck." Taking a quick mental inventory of what he had at hand, he discarded the desperate idea of slicing through Unit-02 with his Light Hawk Wing to avoid harming the woman he was trying to help. "Maybe…ok, ok yeah…." Setting his hands out in a grappling gesture, he blew out a sigh, "Here goes…." Keeping his mind totally focused on the appearance of the crank handle, pushing all emotions out of his head, he fought to make use of what Skuld had told him. He couldn't bother with anger, or desperation, or worry, not if he was going to create something helpful. He had to focus…had to concentrate. Had to-

The metallic clanking of something snapped his train of thought, drawing his attention down to the ground before him where the crank handle from Unit-01 had landed. Whispering from behind him, his benefactor was clearly restraining something of a giggle, "Use yours, you silly man."

Turning his head enough that he saw Holy Bell smiling calmly at him, he felt his world begin to brighten. "I could kiss you."

"Maybe later, once you're not drenched in…that," she gestured along his LCL-covered body. "If you're going to save her, you should get moving."

And move he did. Setting the tool in place, he put his back into manually freeing Asuka's entry plug. Gratitude to Washu for the strength her actions had given him drove him to push harder, seeking the limitations of his body as he neared his goal. It had been two and a half minutes since he'd last heard her voice. Nearly ripping the hatch free once he could reach it, he reached into the entry plug and hauled an unconscious Asuka out to lay her on the ground. He smashed his head down against her ribs, finding the merest trace of a heartbeat. "She's not breathing…she…ok, uh…." Rolling her over, he pushed down on her back to try and expel the LCL that remained in her lungs. Several globs of solidified LCL slithered free of her lips, three strong pushes emptying her as much as could be done. Flipping her back, he looked at her and scowled. "C'mon…breathe, damn it."

"Breathe for her," Holy Bell urged him. "Take a deep breath, put your mouth over hers, and blow with steady pressure. You can save her!"

Having never seen rescue breathing or the more advanced CPR performed, Shinji hesitated for a brief second with the thought of placing his lips on an unconscious young woman. It felt instinctively wrong to do so, but he couldn't doubt Holy Bell's trust in him. Sucking in as much air as he could, he gave the fiery redheaded pilot the kiss of life. Nine times he pushed air into her lungs, ten times he set his lips against hers. Partway through that tenth effort, Asuka coughed violently and he pulled away. "It's ok," he breathed out in relief. Scooping her up off the street, he looked around for someplace that wasn't as hard to lay her. Ignoring her vomiting down his suit, understanding all too well the impulse to do so when dealing with LCL, he kept up his stream of reassurances, "It's ok…you're going to be ok."

For her part, Asuka clung tightly to him for warmth and balance. "…Scheiße…." A coughing fit wracked her lungs. "Ohhhh, scheiße…."

Laying her on a bench, on her side, Shinji laughed with anxious energy, "I have no idea what you're saying, but I get the feeling I should agree." Suddenly, the streetlights flickered to life with the city slowly coming back online, startling them both. "Fuck me, that scared me," he groaned, falling back down onto his ass and laying his arms atop his bent knees. "Ok, we're ok…we're ok."

"Meine…I mean, my arm is…." Asuka flexed her left arm, working her fingers open and closed slowly. "I could feel it melting." Surprised when Shinji scooted forward and began chafing her arm, she relaxed again as she watched the look of focus take over his features. He'd saved her. Again. He'd made her look useless. Again. He sat there, with the contents of her stomach adorning his plugsuit, having carried her to a bench because it was the most comfortable thing he had at hand, trying to work feeling back into her arm that had been hurt because she…because he…. "Why aren't you yelling at me?"

"Wouldn't do any good," he answered honestly. "If you feel like someone's challenging you, you stop talking. If you feel like you did something wrong, you stop talking. Neither of us has any idea what we're dealing with, and of the two of us I have more time in combat and each battle is like starting all over again. I can't say that you're wrong for wanting to prioritize killing it, because we had limited time. I can't say that I was wrong for wanting to play defensive, to make sure we didn't damage everything we're trying to save." Moving from chafing to massaging, he shook his head slowly and sighed. "We have different ideas, different motivations, and yelling at you isn't going to put me in position to see and hear yours. Right now, let's just be ok…ok?"

A large SUV pulled as close as possible, unable to get around the enormity of Unit-01. Popping out, Maya and Nanako hurried over with blankets and backpacks stuffed full of first-aid essentials. Prioritizing Shinji, leaving Nanako to handle the known-to-be irritable foreign pilot, Maya wrapped him up in the blanket she carried and looked him dead in the eyes. "You are in so much trouble, mister." The look of horror on his face was too cute for her to keep up the mock anger. "When someone stops breathing, and you get it restarted, you leave them where they are unless they're in imminent danger. You don't know what all has gone wrong with her, she might have had spinal injuries." Pulling out a bottle of water, toothbrush, and toothpaste, she set him up to get rid of the LCL taste. "You did good, Shinji. You saved her life."

The euphoria of relief took his anger with it. "You thcared the thit out owf me," he spoke around his brushing.

"Fair's fair, Cap'n," Nanako chortled out. "We had no idea why you exited your rig, it wasn't until you got her out that we had any clue as to what was happening."

Asuka frowned at Nanako, then at Unit-01 as Shinji spit out his toothpaste. "The power was out, how did you see anything?"

"The Evas have low-power cameras on them, so that we can find where you are using landmarks in the event of our systems going down like this." Maya waggled her tablet phone, lying fluently. "I frequently get ramen from the shop down the street, so I recognized where you were from the images. When the power came back on and we got a satellite uplink from your GPS, we were already halfway here."

"I didn't know there were cameras. I've gone over the schematics thousands of times! What else are you keeping from us?"

Shinji clapped his hands together hard, sending a sharp report down the otherwise empty streets. "Soryu, do not start yelling at our support." When her angry glare shifted to him, he weathered it with an impassive glower. After another car pulled up alongside the first, he leveraged himself to his feet and kept his voice calm, "We're ok. Let's just be ok."

Once Asuka was safely in the hands of the NERV EMTs, Maya helped Shinji hobble his way to their SUV. "Backseat's been covered over with blankets, easier to clean." Working with Nanako, she got him laid down on the bench seat, then climbed in and laid his head in her lap once the door was closed. "There. Now I have you where I can keep my eyes on you."

From her position in the driver's seat, Nanako looked back at him with clear concern over his wellbeing in her eyes. "We headed home, Cap'n, or do you have stuff to take care of back at base?"

"Home, please." The last thing he wanted to do was deal with the people at NERV right now. "I want to use my own shower, my own bath, and my own soap."

Maya was grateful that everything had turned out well enough, and as Nanako got them rolling towards home she sighed out happily, "I'm glad you enjoy that soap. It smells great on you."

+++++ Ikari Manor. Monday, +20.

With the day off of school due to the infrastructure damage the Ninth Angel inflicted on the city, Shinji sat at the dining room table with each other member of his home save for Ritsuko for breakfast. Ritsuko's absence was due to the need for rapid repairs to Unit-02 after Asuka's hasty actions cost much of the titan to be destroyed. The general discussion had been adeptly steered towards the concerns he had been getting off his chest the night before by the other party to that conversation, allowing him the freedom to assess everyone else's reactions. Instead of the negative reaction his worldview had primed him for, he felt one understanding look after another buoy his mood.

"Well," Maya Amano ventured after Verðandy wrapped up, "let's look for ways we can give him choices, then. Big or small, every time he gets to make a decision for himself has got to feel like a victory to him."

Watching Shinji nod slowly, Minaho mused, "We should also try and make it easier for him to spend time with all of us. Partnerships in twos or threes, to build up a rapport."

"My sister and I," Skuld agreed. "Miss Horaki and Miss Suzuhara are also a natural pairing."

"Their Majesties," Nanako added. "Minaho, Maya, and I."

"Rei and I," Maya Amano flicked her finger between them, "because if nothing else I'd get to spend more time getting to know her."

"I'm sure Washu and I can come to some form of timesharing agreement." Hild blew a kiss to the redhaired goddess. "After all, we have the added benefit of being able to venture into his dreams."

"Which would leave one day open for him to spend by himself," Hikari concluded. "Or with someone else, if he wants to. I know that I need time alone to recharge from time to time myself, and I believe we're fairly unified in our hopes that he can build friendships outside of the household as well."

The general murmur of side-conversations died out when Shinji spoke cautiously, "It all…seems so difficult when I'm in the middle of it. I'm not," he paused for a few breaths, searching for the words, "I'm not looking for anyone else. I wasn't looking for any of you, though, and that's what's made all of this seem so…much? Like I was facing a mountain of sand, and I only had a spoon to move it with. Everything you've done for me, everything you've given to me, I wouldn't…I'm not wanting to give it up. I just…." He blew out a slow sigh. "Decisions as to who is and who is not in this relationship have been made by other people in this relationship, and as far as I know the only person that I brought in myself was Ðandy, and I…didn't mean to do that."

"But you are glad you did, and I am overjoyed you did," Ðandy comforted him with a soft rub along his arm, "what concerns you is that it might happen again."

"Should, for the good of the universe, another needs be admitted to our number," Funaho was careful to phrase her statement in a way that made it seem like less of an Imperial Decree, "I believe it can be done in a manner that does not repeat the unfortunate timing of our invitation to Miss Amano."

Skuld, who had remained mostly quiet, tapped one finger against the table. "There are a few others I see. Some more likely than others. A few that concern me, too."

"Sister," Ðandy murmured warningly.

Holding up her hands, the younger Norn shook her head. "Listen, as far as I'm concerned he's the only man I'll ever be with. He and I will have time to come to grips with it, but not a single thing I've seen from him shows that I'll regret standing by his side as we fight this fight. I retain the right to be concerned about some of the additions I'm seeing and have not, as you may have noticed, named. I'm not going to usurp what little freedom any of us gets if I can help it, but I'm also not going to keep my mouth shut and take the blame when something blows up that I could have helped prevent."

"A fair precaution," Misaki allowed. "One that we will speak of later."

Rolling her eyes, Skuld sing-songed, "Yes, mom."

"Now that we are all aware of what plagues our beloved," Sakura asserted before things could devolve into anarchy, "I believe it might be helpful if we informed him of those things we have been doing while he has been busy with his own projects. I myself have put the finishing touches on several business deals for properties that abut our own here. One owned by a dear lady with no surviving children to pass her estate to, in exchange for some support and company while she yet lives. She is seventy-three this year, and served a lovely tea while we spoke of her orchards."

Minaho gestured to Sakura, looking at everyone else, "I seriously couldn't believe how good that tea was! We were sitting out on her veranda, watching her employees tend to the late-season trimming, drinking this citrusy tea that went beautifully with these little cookies she served us." Her grin turned a little sad. "She's giving us the land at a real bargain, because she hopes that we'll use it to teach our children about agriculture and balancing the land with the people."

"I've been beating my head against the wall setting up the class trip this year," Hikari took up the charge. "Since I won't be going, for obvious reasons, I'm having to delegate the on-site tasks to Takahara-chan. She's texting me constantly in a panic about stuff that I've already answered twelve times. It's like she's never been given responsibility for anything before, and I don't know if I'm more terrified or annoyed about that. How do people make it to senior year never once having had to hold some form of responsibility?"

"Ugh, I am so glad I'm not going," Maya Amano groaned in relief. "Okinawa's nice and all, sure, but with the absolute lack of money in my purse all I'd get to do is sit on the beach and watch the ocean. Hard pass." Looking over to Rei, she held out a hand and smiled. "You and I are going to spend that week clothes shopping, my friend. We're going to make your wardrobe glow."

Calmly accepting Amano's offer to hold hands, Rei looked around the table. "I am afraid I have not done much beyond studying. I have finished several biological chemistry text books, in addition to the three psychological texts I was assigned by Jurai-Sama."

"You finished those?" Funaho was surprised. "I had meant for them to be something of a meditation for you, and not simply an exercise in reading."

"I appreciate Nietzsche's precautionary thought exercises," Rei assured her. "It is wise to seize the opportunities before you when they are presented, instead of wasting life in meaningless hedonistic excesses. I believe that if we apply his philosophy to this household, there is much we might accomplish as a unified force."

Listening as everyone shared their successes, their plans, and their congratulations, Shinji began to wonder what it was that he should be working towards. He was in a house with so many women that already had enormous accomplishments under their belts, who spent their days occupied in various ventures to support and further the household's success. Listening to Nanako enthusiastically talk about the defenses she'd been emplacing around their home, he leaned his elbows on the table and let his gaze drift off to the distant future. Maybe I should worry more about what I can do, instead of what's inevitably going to happen.

+++++ Ikari Manor. Monday, +20.

Once more alone, on the shores of Lake Ashi, Shinji was putting more practice time into making the Light Hawk Wings do something more useful than kill. With the weight resting easier on his shoulders after the morning's discussion regarding how he felt, his emotional state was stable enough for him to not allow his frustration or disappointment to overwhelm him. At first, he spent time trying to make the Wing take a different shape. It took him an hour to encourage it to form a triangle, but as soon as he lost focus it snapped back into its typical hexalateral polygonous shape. The frustration rippled along the surface of his calm for a few moments, but he managed to retain control over it. "That's something, at least," he breathed out in relief.

"Part of the problem, I believe, is that you're attempting to convince a fundamental force of nature to go against its…well, nature." The unannounced presence brought Shinji's attention around, an unassuming blonde woman with unnaturally pale skin sitting on empty air with her legs crossed at the knee observing him. Her voice was melodious, her tone free of negativity. "There are generally two ways to work with natural forces, neither of them likely to result in jovial cooperation."

Too many chance meetings had decided to go sideways on him of late, and he would not let her presence be ignored. "Who are you?"

"An emissary. Sent here to…clean up the mess left by that witless proto-divinity Ma'at." Her dress, made of a material that shouldn't exist, whispered softly as she uncrossed her legs and stood up to walk down invisible steps to ground level. "I am here under a flag of truce, and have no weapons with which to defend myself." Setting her arms lightly outward, she turned in a slow circle to display her figure. "In the hopes that I might speak with you more openly." Facing him once more, she put her wrists together before her. "If it would assuage your concerns, you may bind me as you wish."

It was at this moment that Shinji finally noticed a bird several meters above and behind the strange new woman. A bird that had been flying through the air, and was now perfectly still with its wings arched to flap. "You froze time."

"I slowed time," she corrected. "To my knowledge, there are only two beings who might stop time in its orderly progression and I am neither My Lady nor Him." Offering her hands again, she looked at him expectantly.

"I don't have any rope," he motioned for her to drop her hands back down, "and the last time I tried to create something solid I left a pretty bad burn on my arm. Do you have a name?"

"I do," she smiled apologetically, "but I am forbidden from uttering it. I am here to negotiate on behalf of My Lady, not my own. I speak for her, of her, for now."

"O…k." His eyes narrowed in irritation. "Does she have a name?"

"Not as such, no." Motioning with her hands in understanding of his frustration, she added, "My Lady exists beyond such simple trifles, beyond the need for singular distinctions to delineate her from any other. She has transcended beyond divinity, beyond the weakness of purpose-driven existence. My Lady is…and she wishes to offer you peace. She understands that you might one day extend your reach far past that of any other, and desires for you to see that your vision and her own need not conflict."

Shinji's face remained flat, his temper being stretched thin. "Order, right? Why can't you just call her Order, like the last psychopath she sent my way?"

"My Lady did not send Ma'at to you, good sir, the whelp strove to rise above her station. I do apologize for the inconvenience, and I assure you that she neither did nor does speak for My Lady." Taking two exploratory steps toward Shinji, she gestured to the lake. "Might we walk while we discuss our situation? I find that engaging the body frees the mind to more carefully consider opportunities."

"There's nothing to discuss. You want to offer me something so that I join your side, I won't give up what I have for someone who doesn't have the decency to come meet me herself. I have other things to do than waste time listening to an offer I won't take."

"You would refuse peace?" Her tone remained unhurried, "You would refuse safety for your people? Please, do not mistake my purpose here, I do not come to seek assurances from you. My Lady would prefer to avoid unnecessary strife if possible, and she recognizes that a conflict with you would likely result in a great many otherwise avoidable deaths, so would it not be better to simply vie for peace first? To show the gentle hand, instead of the iron fist?"

Shinji sighed. He was tired, almost to tears, with people coming to him with lofty ideas expecting him to even have a passing understanding of the issues involved. Hild?

Popping into existence at his side, the achingly beautiful ruler of Hel patted him on the chest with a coy wink. "That's my Sugar. Faithful and true." Turning to face the trespasser, her smile grew threatening. "So, you going to leave on your own…or do I get to play?"

The blonde visitor blinked in confusion. "How are you free to move? I have limited time for all but him."

"That's for me to know, and you to not worry your pretty little head over." Hild took the remaining two steps towards her opponent, pressing her 'superior firepower' lightly against the other woman in a display of dominance. "Last chance. Scoot on home, or I'll show you what I can do with a toothbrush, a banana, and some chalk."

Taken aback and clearly confused, the visitor looked to Shinji, opened her mouth, then thought better of what she'd been about to say and simply vanished from sight. The bird that had been seemingly frozen began moving as if nothing had happened, the air around them once more playing with the grass and flowers adorning the front yard. Watching Hild's hair float idly in the same breeze, Shinji felt both attraction and gratitude in equal measure. "Thanks."

Looking over her shoulder at him, Hild stuck her tongue out playfully. "Think I'm gonna let some blonde bimbo butt in on my man? Hardly."

He couldn't help but laugh. Of all the women he now had in his life, it honestly seemed as if she was the only one that just didn't worry over what he might be or had been. To her, he was truly 'just Shinji'. "I have a sudden urge to walk…care to join me?"

If Shinji shared the ability nearly every other woman in his house had, the skill to understand the thoughts and feelings of the person he was speaking to, he would have likely suffered sudden coronary failure from the way that Hild's love of him smashed everything else out of the way. Instead of giving in to the feeling, though, she extended one hand to him and crossed the distance to take him up on his offer. Her outfit changing to that of a simple farmwife, her hair braiding itself and lolling over the shoulder opposite him, she smiled softly and purred, "For you, Sugar? Anything."

+++++ Ikari Manor. Monday, +20.

"She's powerful." Washu had responded to Funaho's plea, setting aside what she'd been working on with Ma'at to help better defend the homestead. Standing in her friend's bedroom, she was reviewing the encounter from Shinji's memory of it. "I toy with time, but even I am careful about what I'm doing when I do so. If you're not careful, you suffocate the people you allow to move between seconds, or you bind them, or any number of other hazards involved with purely physical actions and thermodynamics. That doesn't even account for the causality dilemmas if you goof. This Order, whoever they are, might just be stronger than me."

The noise Misaki made, made it very clear that she was not amused by that answer. "We need to prevent it from happening again. What can we do?"

"I can try to create an ontological anchor, make it so that any attempt to pause time around him must be done in a broad enough area to allow for those near him to also remain attached to his perception of spacetime?" Washu shrugged. "I'd have to have someone able to mess around with time test it, though. Happen to have one handy?"

"We do, actually," Funaho answered the rhetorical question with a frown of disgust. "We just have to convince her to help us."

This time, despite being even less amused, Misaki made no sound at all as she glared at her wife. They all knew they were talking about Tsunami, about her portion of the trinity of goddesses that involved the flow of time. Misaki was already having her patience stretched with Hild, Verðandy, and Skuld about. Asking her to work with the woman that had stolen her daughter was looking more and more like a bridge too far.

"I wasn't going to bring her up…but I'll go have a chat with her," Washu sued for peace, "see whether or not she even thinks it's possible. While I'm there, I'll bounce some ideas off her, see what else we might try. It couldn't hurt to at least talk with the resource we have." Acknowledging the air in the room, she vanished from sight to be about her work.

Funaho let Misaki's glare linger on, impassively returning with a steady gaze of her own. "You asked me to allow us to be entangled with him. To go beyond the simple friendship we had planned on maintaining towards a more permanent union. If you believe that our daughter's untimely death is going to repeat the cycle, then I will ask you to kindly return to Jurai and allow me to handle this for now."

Whether it was the content of the statement or the blunt way in which it was delivered, Misaki was the one to look away first with pain and shame evident on her face. "You…you know why I cannot."

Standing up from her seat, Funaho walked over and pulled Misaki into a hug. "I am not asking you to work with her, my love. All I require is that you do not interact at all, to avoid hurting you or our chances at keeping our new beloved safe. Keep your eyes on him, on our hope, and leave the difficult part to me for now."

+++++ Ikari Manor. Tuesday, +21.

With repairs taking longer than anticipated, school remained closed the next day as well. Unwilling to allow their lessons to suffer, however, Ritsuko took a rare day off to act as instructor to those still in need of one. Swapping seamlessly between teaching styles as her students required, she spent most of her time with her hand resting on Shinji's back and working him through the exercise. After several hours of struggle, she felt it was time for him to take a break and lightly clapped her hands together. "Ok, ladies. Let's take ten and let Shinji rest for a bit. Hikari-chan, could you and Amano-chan go make some snacks?"

"On it, Teach." Maya Amano popped up, her new medication seeming to work wonders in improving her morning energy. "I'm thinking apples, carrots, and raisins. What about you, Class Rep?"

"I'll handle the apples, and get everyone drinks. You make the carrots presentable," Hikari agreed. "Rei, would you like to help us carry everything?"

Standing easily, Rei inclined her head with respect. "I would be glad to assist you."

Once the dining room had emptied, as she'd hoped, Ritsuko sat down by Shinji and took his hand. "Misato is…not thrilled."

Unable to get a read on Ritsuko's emotions, Shinji replied with standard honesty, "I couldn't put up with her yelling at you, but I didn't want to do the thing you asked me not to do…so I went into the bathroom and asked for Ðandy to help me figure out what to do."

"Getting you out of there was the best thing she could have done, in my opinion," she reassured him. "You didn't need to have that stress put on you, and she wasn't operating with all the information she needed."

He hesitated. "Is she mad at me?"

"No, not really," she laughed out without humor. "She's very mad with me. She feels that I went about doing what we've done unfairly, and that she was never really given a chance to offer her own company to you."

"…I don't understand."

Letting out a slow sigh, Ritsuko nodded. "I know. That's why it wouldn't have been helpful to anyone for you to be there for that fight. When put on the spot for an answer, you'd only be answering with your own thoughts on the matter and not with the parts of social proprieties that are typically enforced. With the Angel attacking, and knocking out the power, she and I were stuck in an elevator rehashing old wounds for a few hours. If you'd been with us, and not with one of our more talented magicians, Soryu would have been fighting alone. Just a lot of good luck from bad situations, hm?"

"I'm sorry you fought with your friend." Having never really had one to speak of himself, he felt he'd probably be really hurt to get in a fight with any of those he had now. "Did you help her understand some of what's going on?"

"No, I kept it mostly to myself. She knows about you, Maya, and I, and she believes that we're fooling around with a few other ladies, but she doesn't have any idea who. After what I spoke to Misaki-san about last night, I'll probably need to have a chat with Rei-chan about things. She shouldn't have to hide her happiness, and as we ease her off of her medications I want her to have the freedom to hug you in public without setting off a firestorm. I'm…going to let her tell you what she will of our talk, out of respect for her privacy, but I think she'll need your help…can I count on you?"

With a hint of confusion, but mostly of determination, he replied quickly, "Always."

"I know. I just want you to know what's happening. I'm not going to dictate your time or actions, the same way you've promised you won't do to me." Cupping his face, she offered him a confident smile. "You are a wonderful man, with a wonderful heart, and I trust you will always use it when dealing with what we face."

Her touch warmed him, soothing away the negativity that had lingered at the edges of his mind. He was trusted. He mattered to them. He could put up with the occasional problem, if he'd receive their love in return.

+++++ Author's Notes:

Guest: RE: Updates.

I am glad to hear that, my friend. I wish I had more time to write and edit the story, so that I could update more often, but I worked through the holidays trying to keep my hospital up and running smoothly. Lot of illnesses out there these days, I urge everyone to hydrate, eat well, and wash their hands frequently.

Guest: RE: Paperwork.

They say that love moves mountains, but I have never seen love strong enough to move the amount of paperwork I do on a daily basis.