Relapse:∣▍

Chapter 7: "...I'll live, I'll become all I need to be…"

Ritsuko Akagi couldn't sleep.

NERV's chief scientist was used to burning the midnight oil, her and her coffee machine were old friends, they had made it through college together, then grad school. The thing was almost magic to her, no other coffee machine seemed to give her the same rush of energy.

At the moment the thing was dormant, tucked neatly away from prying eyes, with its' black tendril-like stains that signaled its years of use. No, coffee was the last thing she needed, she was doing her best to fall asleep right now, the day's tole finally coming due.

She sat at her desk with stacks of paper strewn about, slouched in her chair and a file open in her hands.

Shinji Ikari

The Third Child

Pilot of Evangelion Unit-01

Born: 2001

Deceased: 2015

Current Status: Alive

The records would be changed of course, outside of rumors spread by NERV personal to other branches, any official records of the incident would be wiped.

The blonde rubbed her eyes under her glasses. Was she the only one losing her mind over this?

The commander seemed apathetic about his son's wellbeing, as long as he could pilot, he was perfectly fine. She hadn't had time to chitchat with Misato about the seeming death and resurrection of their favorite introvert, but while his body was cooling off in the morgue her violet haired friend was clearly hiding her emotional turmoil.

Emotional Turmoil…

What a professional way of saying 'eating themselves up because they got a kid killed' or 'trying not to have an emotional breakdown while an Angel is attacking.'.

It wasn't like Ritsuko could blame her old friend, she'd been there right by her side and it wasn't something she'd be forgetting soon.

Those screams…

But the boy had been dead, with a capital D. No pulse, no brainwaves, nothing. A rapidly cooling corpse.

Then six hours later… poof, Shinji Ikari was back to the world of the living and his sync ratio had skyrocketed.

From what little she saw of the boy, she half expected him to die again from suffocation as Misato practically orbited around the Third Child. Two pieces of matter can't exist in the same space? Misato was trying very hard to break that law of physics.

To Ritsuko, it was jaring seeing her friend that way, Misato Katsuragi had always kept people at arms length. She never quite let herself get attached to those around her, that had been obvious to her since their time in college. That was with one exception of course.

Apart from a quick briefing she didn't have a chance to interact with or examine him until after they were picked up and brought back to the GeoFront.

There had been no time, some nurse had done a quick checkup and then they had to send him back out there to fight the Sixth Angel.

Afterwards she was tasked with bandaging his hands or more accurately, she made sure it was her bandaging his hands.

The whole act of him prying open Rei's entry pod was a bit too 'father like son' for her to think nothing of it, but there was nothing to do but dwell on it. Perhaps deep down the younger Ikari was exactly like his father, he just kept it hidden under a very introverted shell.

When she sat there, wrapping his hands in gauze, she knew something was off. Neither had said a word except for a quick 'thank you', but she could tell, be it some sort of sixth sense or years of scientific curiosity, the boy was not the same.

How was he different? That still alluded her.

But by the way the hairs on the back of her neck stood up while she bandaged him, she knew something was off, perhaps just one degree but it was enough for her to notice.

Throwing the file down, she picked up another one, once again her brain shifted back to finding a cause for the boy's sudden return from the afterlife.

LCL

That was the only logical answer that her brain could come to. Perhaps it was simply forcing LCL to be the answer just so she wouldn't go crazy with the notion that it was quite literally an act of god that had brought Shinji Ikari back to the mortal plane.

From NERV's own research they knew it had (albeit small) positive effects on the human body. Typically, most test subjects had found it to be rather refreshing (after they got over the smell and taste of course). Test subjects had performed better in physical activity after being exposed to the red fluid, though it was marginal at best and varied from person to person.

But no one had ever died in it, let alone submerged in it and inside and EVA.

Her mind kept spinning, then it hit her.

The lungs.

After extracting the boy from his half-melted entry plug, they had simply cut open his plug suit to search for a pulse. A defibrillator wasn't going to do them any good if there wasn't a heartbeat, which there was none.

Standard procedure had the body stripped and put into quarantine for 24 hours… so no chance for an autopsy, no chance to drain the body, and no chance to empty the lungs.

Did those LCL filled lungs save the boy? Somehow keep his tissue from deteriorating while eventually bringing him back to the world of the living? Could his inflated sync rate be the result of having LCL be infused into his body?

A part of her wanted to jump at the idea, stand on the desk and proclaim her explanation to the world in triumph. The other part of her wanted to beat that part of her over the head with a stupid stick. This was completely outside the realm of anything the red goo had been observed capable of before, why was she jumping to conclusions?

To satisfy her own person turmoil, of course.

Throwing that folder onto the desk as well, she leaned in and rested her head on a stack of papers. That was enough of an explanation to permit her some sleep tonight. Tomorrow she'd be able to poke and prod the boy all she wanted, permitting his suddenly very overprotective guardian allowed for it.

For now, the world slightly shifted back to where it was before she had to think about a literal zombie piloting an Evangelion.

And that was enough for her to finally sleep.

ʡʘʢ

As the boy's eyes opened, Shinji Ikari knew one thing.

He had gotten the best sleep he had in quite some time.

Stretching he felt joints pop as his head fell into his hands, rubbing his face he found himself just sitting there, remembering the dreams, no memories that had come to him in the night.

Then the lack there of.

Looking over at his clock he saw what time it was, 8 am, he figured Misato had simply let him off of going to school.

Not that it would matter much anyways.

The events of last night came rushing back to him. Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath, trying not to worry about the fact he had nearly punched Misato.

Dragging himself to his feet, he ignored the specter lurking in the shadows and made his way to the bathroom.

With some water splashed onto his face, the boy leaned on the sink, trying to ignore the bleeding redhead that hovered behind him in the mirror.

"I am Shinji Ikari…" he mumbled to himself "Third Children, Pilot of Evangelion Unit-01…"

How does one keep their sanity when they've been pitched through time and space? Even he wasn't completely sure he was, after all the Third Children did have an invisible hitchhiker with him.

"You know, now she has to worry about your stupid nightmares to."

He nodded but wouldn't look at her.

"If you had told me about yours, we might not be here." he grumbled.

He had had a long time to think over things that could have gone better, a long time to torture himself about how he could have been better.

Squashing those thoughts cold he looked back into the mirror, despite the few hours of peaceful sleep he'd received there were still dark bags under his eyes. If he went down that road again he'd be in for plenty of more exhaustion filled mornings.

Here was the best chance in a long time to make things right, he wasn't going to waste this one.

Shinji finished his routine and stepped out into the kitchen to begin preparing a brunch for himself. Perhaps he could whip up a nice dinner for Misato as an apology for his antics the previous night.

Before he could get started though he noticed the blinking light on the messaging machine. Knowing it most likely be his guardian, he hit play.

"Hey Shinji, hope you slept in a little, I couldn't convince Ritsuko to let you out of testing for the morning. So some Section 2 personnel will be around at eleven to pick you up, we can grab some lunch before Rits decides to go all Frankenstein ok? See you then!"

With a long beep the messaging machine finished its recording.

The Third Children understood the joke and to anyone else it would have been mildly amusing. But to him, well… in some less fortunate lives he'd been subjected to more than just a brain scan.

Figuring he had time to cook them both a nice lunch, he went about scouring the fridge for ingredients. The lives where he wasn't praised for his culinary skills were few and far between. He didn't even know why he was good at it, with musical instruments he had the time to practice and become good that way. Perhaps when this was all over, if this could ever be over, he'd try his hand at being a chief.

ʡʘʢ

The violet-haired director of operations just eyed the chief medical doctor with distain.

Currently the two of them sat separated from the Third Child, who was currently laid out and waiting to be put through a CT machine.

First it was a routine physical, then it was blood tests, then Rits had the boy doing physical exercises to compare to the baseline taken when he joined NERV.

That right hand had been concerning to her. When asked, Misato had said the boy did it while cooking for the two of them, which the scientist didn't believe for a second, but trying to get information out of the woman while she was sober was near impossible if she wasnt willing to tell.

So they went on like nothing had happened. Four hours worth of tests, scans, you name it, she made him go through with it. Shinji, bless the boy, hadn't said a word, hadn't grumbled or bemoaned his predicament. No, he did everything the good doctor asked without question.

Actually… he had been a bit too quiet.

That was until they had sprawled him out on that table and hooked wires up to him. Then things got very interesting.

"You see this?" Ritsuko pointed to the screen, which Misato barely glanced at.

"Just tell me what you're thinking Rits." Misato mumbled, as she took another sip of coffee.

Damn… something in that blonde's old coffee machine was magic.

"Why is his heartrate accelerated?" she asked, from her seat.

Misato rolled her eyes "Gee, I don't know, maybe it's something to do with making him jump through hoops for the last couple of hours."

The scientist rolled her eyes. "His heartrate was never this high when we went through these tests before. You saw his vitals during his last sortie, they barely elevated till the end, once Rei was taking the brunt of the Angels attack."

"Your point?"

Taking off her glasses, sighing, Ritsuko's eyes bore into her friends. "Are you even going to question why Shinji is alive?"

She just had to rub salt in that fresh wound, didn't she?

Instantly those brown eyes narrowed over that coffee mug. Ritsuko hadn't seen that glare since the girl and a certain someone had gone their separate ways.

Now she was its' target.

"No… no I'm not going to question it Rits." She said softly. "I'm not going to spend hours thinking about why I… he got this second chance." Placing the mug down on the table, she took a breath and closed her eyes.

"I don't want to know. Is it too much to not look this gift horse in the mouth?"

"It is when he's piloting the most destructive weapon created by mankind."

The director of operations nodded, that was a fair point, but still…

"I can still hear his screams Rits." She said softly, turning and looking out the glass at the boy. Wrapping her arms around herself she shivered as some chill went through her.

"When I'm alone and I think about why? I just hear him…" she stopped, the words catching in her throat. "Maybe there doesn't need to be one."

The woman still refused to look down at her and Ritsuko finally understood.

She didn't care. She didn't care what had brought him back, she didn't care if the reason was scientific or divine, she didn't care about any theories the blonde could offer her or any ramifications that could present themselves should there be more… malicious forces at work.

No, Misato Katsuragi only cared that the boy was alive, the answer as to how was utterly inconsequential to her.

The doctor just nodded, mostly to herself, and placed her glasses back on. Turning back to the computer screen, the machine was ready. With a few keystrokes she initialized the test and as the boy was drawn into the machine, she noted the increased heartrate, but said nothing.

The boy didn't make a single motion that indicated he was about to freak out or experience a panic attack (even if all his vitals said he was), so the doctor let this sleeping dog lay. She'd continue to dwell on the subject later.

She just prayed that there wasn't a price to be paid for not confronting it now.

ʡʘʢ

The Third Children had never been so happy to be in Misato's car while she was behind the wheel.

A few hours of being prodded like some new object by Ristuko had left his exhausted. Whether it was the near constant reminder of what the good doctor had done to him in previous lives or the mocking by his personal invisible tormentor, the day had left his exhausted.

Misato luckily hadn't questioned the food he had brought with him. He made sure to keep it simple, remembering that he wasn't supposed to have memories of cooking food for her here.

She had simply smiled and said he'd be a great cook one day, before scarfing down (what to her was) a delicacy.

Once they were back at the apartment, Misato went off to take her daily relaxing bath, while Shinji went about making dinner.

Opening the fridge to the wall of cans he half considered trying to ween the woman off her nightly alcoholic tendencies. Apart from her expected lack of cooperation, deep down Shinji knew there was another answer as to why he didn't go about getting the woman dry.

It let him get away with things.

When your guardian is half asleep by 9pm because she's been drinking since she got home, it was rather easy to explain some of the things he might get caught doing as her own drunken imagination the next day.

If he ever needed to slip out of the apartment, he wouldn't need to worry about her, just the Section 2 personnel. There was also the fact that she knew about Lilith and how much knowledge she had of NERV's true goal was still unknown to him.

Right now it was better this way.

It was selfish, he knew, but it was also for the greater good. He had used that excuse plenty of times for plenty of things that he was sure he'd pay for one day.

"Oh, I'm sure all those things were 'for the greater good'." She called out from the living room couch.

Wait... they had a couch now?

"Remember the time you used Unit-01 to go on a rampage through the GeoFront, I'm sure that was 'for the greater good'."

He closed his eyes and did his best to ignore her jab, before setting the table for dinner.

It had been a rather quite afair, with only small talk between the two of them about his schooling and the friends he had made since arriving to Tokyo-3.

He found his dreams slightly less horrific after a hug from Misato before bed. He couldn't tell if it was more for him or for her guilt-ridden mind. Though he also didn't know how much the alcohol had to do with it as well to be honest.

He was distinctly reminded about month long stay inside Unit-01, and how beaten down Misato had been after he opened his eyes.

The Third Children made sure to squeeze her back and give her more reassurance it wasn't her fault, the only response he got was an almost inaudible sob and a tighter hug, but it eventually had to end.

Instead of sleepwalking he got to experience another less violent failing of his, one that made his feel a thousand times heavier when getting out of bed.

He made a quick breakfast, said a quick goodbye to a half-asleep Misato, and was out the door just as Toji and Kensuke made it to their apartment complex floor.

All three of them froze to process the moment, before his two friends shot themselves at the 14-year-old. A series of congratulations, thanks, and one manly tear later, they had to begin their trek to school.

They were off, walking to school through a route that he could literally close his eyes and still follow.

"So did you hear the news?" Kensuke asked, with his patented devilish smirk.

Toji just frowned at the boy "He's been gone the last few days, of course he hasn't."

Shinji shook his head with a smile, it was refreshing to see these two again.

"Just tell me."

Kensuke stopped, turning and grabbed the boy's shirt.

"Two words. Spring. Dance."

Shinji looked over to Toji, who shrugged and nodded. "They told us it's being planned, nothing else, they don't even have a date yet."

Turning to the larger boy, Kensuke stuck out his finger, "That's not the point, girls from all over the school are going to be looking for dates, that means us!"

The thought of seeing Toji and Hikari dressed up and together did intrigue him. He wasn't a matchmaker though, for all his experience, that wasn't something he knew.

The need to save the jock's arm and leg now became even more prevalent. He would be walking for that night, Shinji would make sure of that.

As they continued their route, the two boys went and continued retelling all the completely unimportant details of the days he was absent.

Shinji couldn't help the small smile that rose at the end of his lips. Nor could he ignore the warmth that he felt in his chest.

This world… it was, warmer? Not in the sense that it was physically hotter, no, it just felt… better.

Like it was unaware of its impending doom, that the people everywhere were happier, more alive.

It felt, brighter.

And the boy could help but allow himself to half-embrace it, even if it was only a little while.

"You'll regret that." she heard whispered in his ear, keeping pace with the stooges.

I know.

ʡʘʢ

Days passed into weeks, before the familiar routine once again took him.

That was before Misato had driven him here.

It was too early for this, much too early for him to be on this baren hillside, looking out over the seemingly infinite poles marking individual graves.

He hadn't even stopped Jet Alone yet, but here he was.

The Third Children had been completely blindsided when she had reminded him and had done everything he could to get out of this.

Much to her confusion.

Then he had to learn she had been ordered to drive him here, directly from the commander himself. She had even forced him to pick up a bundle of flowers that Shinji had half the mind to throw out the window.

He hated this place.

It brought back too many bad memories, memories that didn't need to be remembered, they only forced him to relive his own failures that put him in this mess.

As his feet crunched the red soil, he only focused on that singular figure. A black mass towering over all other slim metal polls.

He didn't want to be here, it was pointless, just another means for Gendo to try and control him, but he had no choice apparently.

At least he could see if the NERV commander was any different.

Coming up behind the man, he tossed the bundle of flowers into the dirt, in front of the fake grave.

"Misato forced me to bring these here, it's a waste."

The man hadn't turned to face him yet, instead he kept his eyes fixated on that pole.

Looking at the landscape, the pilot of EVA Unit-01 took a deep breath of the clean air and closed his eyes.

"I didn't come here to look at a meaningless pole."

Again, Gendo did nothing for a moment, before speaking up "People let their memories fade in order to move on, although there are some things we must never forget."

"Yui taught me that lesson, and I come here to remind myself of how much they matter."

The boy rolled his eyes, wishing the man could see him, those same meaningless lines, how many times did he have to be subjected to them.

"Spare me, I'm not the one who threw away everything she cared about."

The breeze blew between them, ruffling their loose clothing, there was more than just pictures in that statement.

"You ran away three years ago, do you remember?"

God that memory was so old, it was like a faded and cracked photograph, but that didn't matter, he remembered the feeling.

"No, all I remember is finding out if someone actually cared."

Turning around Gendo eyed the boy's cold gaze, it was piercing, a vague memory of and argument with Yui crept into his mind's eye, overlaid on those brown eyes.

"Enjoy the meaningless pole."

The boy turned to leave, not caring what the man said, not wanting to hear anything else from him.

"Everything I need is inside my heart."

Shinji stopped, his fist clenched, his teeth grinding. A thousand retorts wanted to roll off his tongue, but he forced them down. How did this man always get the better of him, how did he make his blood boil like no one else could in every life?

Taking a deep breath, the boy just turned his head, spat at the ground, and headed back to Misato's car.

The only sound was the whine from Gendo's transport in his ear and the crunching of soil under his feet.

ʡʘʢ

"Stop the car!"

They had been screaming along the mountainside when he saw it. The boy had only been half-listening to Misato's words about how good the visit had been for the two Ikari's.

That's when he saw it.

Throwing off the seatbelt that probably had just saved him from going into the windshield he opened the door and practically ran to the other side of the road with complete disregard for possible traffic.

Staring up at the mountainside he knew this wasn't his imagination, as soon as he had seen the white lines etched into the red hillside, he knew.

Images of that beach had snapped right into his mind's eye.

Spread out on the mountainside, clear of ruined buildings probably left over from the Second Impact, the outlines of a slim figure seemed etched into the ground.

Behind him he could hear Misato's door open, shouting at him to wait, but before she could run after the boy her earpiece had rung. He didn't much care, not when his mind raced with images of that beach.

Images of the production EVAs sticking out of the ground, arms outstretched as they stood in the red sea.

What was this?

Nothing even close to this had occurred before, nothing….

"SHINJI!" she yelled at him, getting back in the driver's seat.

He forced himself to turn, breaking free of the spell the image had put on him. Making eye contact with the woman, he instantly knew that look on her face.

"It's the Seventh Angel, we need to get back to HQ now!"

The boy blinked, this wasn't right, after Ramiel…

He ran back to the car, practically diving into the passenger seat as the Alpine A310 screeched away from where they had stopped.

This world had just got a lot more interesting.

A nice long chapter for you guys today. They most likely wont be this long in the future, I just decided to merge two shorter chapters into this larger one. I actually prefer this since it's the just one chapter for the time-frame between 1.0 and 2.0.

SHOUTOUTS!

Rowboat Girlyman 1- Same here, thanks!

dyinglittelstar- Glad you liked it.

Alright, I think we all know what's about to happen, so buckle your seat belts.

Until Next Time