Chapter 11: For Valour

"The chances of surviving a Victoria Cross action are just one in ten, but if you do survive, the medal can never be taken away from you. You can go to the gallows wearing it. And no matter how many letters you have after your name, VC always comes first."

-Jeremy Clarkson

"Is that wise, sir?"

The chief gave Bishop a concerned look as the pilot took a healthy sip from his silver flask, before slipping it back into a pocket of his flight suit. It wasn't terrible, this Japanese whisky, the closest local substitute he could find for his preferred beverage.

Upon arriving back at Fuji earlier that evening, he'd been surprised to find his aircraft armed and ready to fly. The chief was right, there was debris in the engine, and it probably would have exploded if he had tried to start it up again. The mechanics diligently worked to repair it through the afternoon, despite his inexcusable behavior after the day's first flight, for which he relentlessly apologized and provided a peace offering of several cases of beer. Pilots who drew the continued ire of their ground crews generally didn't live long enough to regret it.

"Don't worry chief, just a little shot for good luck." He flashed the burly man a confident grin. "There's no animal alive that fights harder than a Canuck with a tot of whisky in him. The yanks and two generations of krauts found that out the hard way." The chief seemed unconvinced, but didn't comment further as he helped the pilot into his flying gear under the harsh floodlights that illuminated camp Fuji's tarmac amidst the inky darkness.

That wasn't entirely truthful, Bishop thought to himself with a frown. He did certainly develop a taste for the drink back then, but unlike many of his comrades, he made a point of never flying into combat with alcohol in his system. Something was different now, though.

He was scared. He was scared shitless, and a nip of liquid courage was the only cure he knew of.

That old fury that he'd had in spades earlier that day was gone, the burning desire to kill that led him to take the sort of risks that made him an ace. The sort of risks that the task before him now required. Visions played across his mind of the last Angel chasing him, of his narrow escape from this one's mountain-melting beam, and most worryingly, of those two kids looking up at him.

C'mon man, grow a pair, the pilot admonished himself. Fighting's all you'll ever be good for, and what bloody use are you to anyone if you can't even do that?

He'd come to the irritating realization that he truly cared for the pair of rugrats, and that was a problem. People he cared for had a nasty habit of getting themselves killed, and the distraction of that nagging worry was comprising his ability to his job, which paradoxically was to try to keep those kids safe.

Katsuragi had taken his advice about contingency planning to heart, and he was her backup plan. Should that first shot fail to kill the Angel, he would be ready to dive on it at a second's notice, either delivering the finishing blow or distracting the thing long enough for a second shot to be attempted.

It was probably a suicide mission: he would be awfully vulnerable in the dive and pull-out, unable to manoeuvre effectively until he was levelled off and slowed down. Hell, the thing had clearly registered the Avenger as a threat before, who's to say it wouldn't just vaporize him as soon as he appeared close enough overhead?

Well, better it shot at him than at the Evas. At least he had some chance of dodging it. With a nod to the chief, he mounted the ladder to the cockpit, casting a glance across the valley at the orange glow of the forest fires that still burned on the shattered mountain. His reflexes weren't what they used to be, but he still managed to give that thing a run for its damn money.

He could do it again, he told himself sternly. He would do it again. For the kids.

"Um, Ayanami?"

"Yes?"

Shinji paused to look up a the dizzying array of stars that could be seen out here, far away from the city lights. He'd never seen so many; not that he'd ever bothered to look for them. Shifting uncomfortably on the hard concrete of the raised platform, beside which their Evas stood ready, he stole a glance over at Rei's slender figure. Her white plug suit seemed to glow in the brilliant starlight, and he almost forgot what he was going to say.

"It's uh, well..." She gave him a sideways glance with those crimson eyes, imploring him to get on with it as he stammered like an idiot. "I mean, uh, I just want you to know that, I-I wont, I won't let anything happen to you." He nodded decisively, trying to reassure himself as much as he was her. "I'll protect you, so don't worry."

Shinji's job was to bear a massive Eva-sized heat shield, and to use it to protect Ayanami's position should the Angel fire on them. It would mean deliberately putting himself in harm's way to protect her, which just a few short weeks ago he would have never even considered doing. Though he was still terrified at the prospect, he knew he had to do it in spite of the fear. How could he live with himself if Ayanami got hurt because he was too scared to his job?

Her eyes seemed to widen for a split second, and Shinji could have sworn he saw a tinge of red in her cheeks before she quickly returned her impassive gaze to the valley stretching before them. No doubt, the idea of someone risking their neck for her sake was completely alien to her.

"...It will not be necessary," she finally whispered after a moment's silence. "I will not miss."

Shinji could only nod. Even the Major had seemed deeply impressed by her performance on the firing range, and he wholeheartedly agreed with the decision to give her the shooter's position. The man's words about duty still rang through his head. It was his duty to protect Rei, Shinji knew, and he resolved that he would do his duty or die trying.

The night was utterly silent. It was as though every creature in the forest down to the smallest bug was holding its breath in anticipation. Once again, the boy cast his gaze up at the stars, his eye catching a flicker of movement somewhere far above. Though the object was very far away, he could just make out a flash of sliver metal as it reflected the angry glow of a jet of orange flame.

Zero hour.

His tense features cast in the warm light of the instrument panel, the pilot looked down at his watch just as midnight ticked by. An instant later, the lights of Japan's towns and cities 80,000 feet below began to disappear. They'd actually done it; that insane woman had somehow managed to reroute an entire country's power into a giant sniper rifle.

Where a moment ago the millions of twinkling yellow lights had sketched Japan's outline, there was now only darkness below him. He couldn't have cared less, however. Aside for occasional glances down at the instruments, Bishop's eyes were turned firmly upwards.

It was the most incredible sight he'd ever seen in all his long years in the air. This high in the atmosphere, and with no light pollution from below, the stars that were usually individual pinpricks of light became an infinite sparkling blanket that bathed the cockpit in an otherworldly glow.

He couldn't help but be annoyed, then, when the radio crackled in his ear, forcing him to divert his attention from the view, the likes of which he would likely never see again.

"All stations, this is command." He could hear the strain in Katsuragi's voice even from this far away. "Operation Yashima is a go. Repeat, commence operation."

He acknowledged the transmission after everyone else on the frequency had a chance, including the Eva pilots. What the hell does Yashima mean? he wondered idly as he went through the motions of arming and checking the fire control system. The target not difficult to find; it reflected radar waves like a giant mirror, making it appear even larger than it already was on the scope.

Ensuring that all was done, including deploying the Jericho trumpet, he tilted a wing and looked down at the dark landscape below. Breathe Rei. Remember your breathing, he mentally willed the girl, not wanting to break her concentration by lecturing her over the radio.

"Arrow one, lock onto target and prepare to attack, await final instruction." One of the bridge crew commanded him. He gave a curt acknowledgement, turning onto the computer's displayed heading and pushing the engines to full afterburner to pick up some speed.

A moment later, the dark landscape below was suddenly lit by a brilliant streak of light.

"Increasing energy readings from the target, ma'am." One of the bridge crew's voice crackled in Shinji's ear.

"Shit. Rei, it's now or never. Shinji, get ready to defend unit zero if that thing attacks."

"Y-yes Ma'am." Now faced with the immediate prospect of having to step his Eva into the Angel's mountain-melting beam, the boy was no longer so cock-sure that he could do his duty. His heart was pounding in his chest, and his mouth would be dry as a bone if it weren't filled with LCL. That self-preservation instinct that had made him freeze up in that first battle was rearing its ugly head again, and the only thing thing that kept him lucid was the mental image of unit-00 being destroyed.

Rei won't miss, he told himself. She can't. Still, he braced himself, or rather braced the Eva, digging in its giant metal heels and bringing the massive shield closer to its chest. The 50-metre tall chunk of space shuttle suddenly seemed awfully small and fragile.

For those interminable few seconds after Miss Misato's warning, there was utter silence, everyone waiting with bated breath to see who would fire first. He wanted to scream at Rei to pull to trigger already, but he knew better than to distract her now.

Then all at once, the night around him was lit up bright as day. The ear-splitting crack followed an instant later as the positrons tore asunder the atmosphere in front of them, and Shinji's heart leapt as the beam of light flashed out across lake Ashi. He couldn't see the effect on the target through the flash, but the cacophony of radio chatter that followed the shot told him something had gone wrong.

"That looked like a good hit, does anyone have a visual?"

"I saw an explosion off to our right somewhere!"

"Its AT field is down!"

"This is observation post alpha, the smoke's clearing, we have a visual on target, standby... Negative! That's a negative impact! Target remains!"

"Oh my god! How could we have missed!"

"We're done for."

"The Angel fired its weapon just before the positrons made contact, it must have caused the beam to veer just slightly off target and miss the core."

"Shut up, all of you!" Misato's commanding voice finally restored order on the comms. "How long until we're ready for a second shot?"

"We need thirty seconds, ma'am!" Shinji wondered which of the techs' frantic voice he'd just heard as he watched them swarming over the positron rifle, frantically changing out burnt fuses and hauling heavy cables into position.

"Damn. Major?" The boy remembered then that the pilot was somewhere far overhead.

"On the way." The Major's calm voice cut through the panicked chatter like a knife.

"Target's energy readings are spiking again, ma'am!" Another voice Shinji didn't recognize.

"Shinji, get into position, now! You need to protect unit-zero at all costs!" There it was. The order he'd been dreading.

What are you, crazy? You're going to get killed! Run! He tried in vain to convince himself not to do what he was now doing: manoeuvring the Eva between Rei and the Angel. He planted the shield firmly into the ground in front of unit-01, before crouching the mech behind the meagre bit of cover an instant before it happened.

The shouting over the radio reached a fever pitch, but the boy didn't hear it. Everything seemed to slow down, and he could see the flash on the Angel's side that heralded his coming doom. An instant later, his world became nothing but blinding white light.

...Am I dead? Is this Heaven?...Hell?

From the searing heat coming from all around him, he figured it was probably the latter. But the fact that he could still hear Misato's voice crying out his name convinced him that he was still among the living. He hadn't imagined the heat, though. The angel's beam was scorching the Eva and its pilot from the sides and above with enough intensity to instantly melt solid rock. He did not feel any heat from directly in front, though.

Amazingly, the shield was holding. Miss Ritsuko told him it would it would last for 15 seconds at the most. By his reckoning, the tech had said they needed 30 seconds more about 10 seconds ago.

Casting a glance behind, he saw that he had positioned himself perfectly. The shield was sufficiently deflecting the Angel's wrath away from unit-00 and the brave techs who continued their desperate work in spite of the world bursting in to flames all around them. She would be able to get another shot off. He just needed to hold on.

You're going to die, the coward inside him nagged. They won't be ready in time. You're going to have to die to protect her.

"FINE!" he yelled it as loud as he could, his lungs burning from the effort of holding the shield upright against the immense amount of energy being thrown against it. The edges of were beginning to deform and melt away after a few more seconds, his little bit of cover growing ever smaller.

Soon, he could see light beginning to peek though a few spots in the shield. He pulled it closer to the Eva, hoping to reinforce the rapidly failing defence.

It was for naught. It was only a few seconds more before the shield had finally given all it could, with much of the centre beginning to melt away, exposing the Eva's armour directly to the Angel's beam.

The boy gave an involuntary scream as the sensation of the mech's armoured skin melting away reached him through the neural link. It wasn't just the remote pain he was feeling, however: the LCL in the entry plug was quickly becoming uncomfortably hot.

Hang on kid, I'm coming.

Even from this height, Bishop could clearly see the point on the landscape below where the Angel's particle beam was being deflected off of Shinji's shield. He'd been at the briefing for the operation, knew as well as anyone that the kid would probably be dead before Rei was ready for another shot.

With that thought driving his motions, he tried in vain to shove the throttles even further forward than their maximum setting as his mount roared towards the earth. For the first few seconds of the dive, all seemed to be going well. He was on target, on track to hit mach 3 well within altitude limits. At around 65,000 feet, however, he was startled by an almighty BANG from somewhere behind him.

Looking down at the engine instruments, his heart sank as he saw engine two's RPM dropping and the oil pressure quickly reaching the upper limit of the gauge.

No no no! Not now! The techs must have missed some tiny piece of debris in the huge engine that had finally rattled itself loose as more and more air was rammed into it. He only had himself to blame; a full engine inspection was a job that usually took an entire day or more, and he'd only given them a few hours.

No time for regrets now. The engine was still putting out a bit of thrust, and he was still accelerating, but not nearly fast enough to be able to reach the minimum speed for an automatic launch before the aircraft broke up. Thinking quickly, he reached down to flip the fire control system from auto to manual. The only options left were to either abort the attack now, or to keep diving for as long as possible, getting up as much speed as he could and firing the dart at the last possible second, hopefully leaving him enough time to eject before his beloved steed became a ball of flaming wreckage.

Sorry, old girl.

Truthfully, there was only one option. And it sure as hell did not involve abandoning that boy to his fate.

50,000 feet. The mach indicator was hovering at around 2.8. Fast, but not fast enough. If he could squeeze just one more little bit of speed of her...

40,000 feet. No turning back now. The needle was vibrating furiously along with the rest of the aircraft. The targeting system was still locked on with good tone, if that damn needle would just inch a little bit further clockwise...

35,000 feet. There it was, mach 2.9. That was probably as good as he was going to get with a damaged engine. He was approaching 900 knots indicated, there was now no hope of ever pulling out of this dive, and he could see bits of airplane beginning to fall away in the mirrors. He mashed the pickle with his thumb, feeling the bang and jump as the dart shot away towards its target an instant before the port wing was ripped away, sending the Avenger into a violent spin from which it would never recover.

I missed.

She'd done everything that was asked of her, everything that she was told. But she still missed. That wasn't how it was supposed to work.

Ikari...

The boy's tortured screams silenced all other sounds on the comm circuit in Rei's ear as the more of his shield was blown away. Despite what he must have been going through, however, he didn't budge or take a single step back.

He was sacrificing himself. For her.

The concept was completely alien to the girl. She was supposed to be the sacrifice. Not him or anyone else. She felt a sensation she had never truly experienced. It was like a set of cold fingers closing over heart, causing it beat ever faster as she watched unit-01 being slowly but surely consumed by the white light.

Was this... fear? Concern for another's well-being?

"Please hurry," she mouthed almost silently, addressing the tiny forms who furiously worked to prepare her weapon for its next shot.

A few seconds later, which felt like an eternity, the techs began to scatter, and the last one dismounting from the giant rifle waved his arms up at her. That was the signal. She racked the charging handle back, ejecting the spent primary fuse and chambering a fresh one. Now it was just a matter of reacquiring the target and allowing the rifle to recharge. It still wouldn't be quick enough though. Shinji's voice was already beginning to grow faint.

Before she could even begin the targeting process, however, the world around them that had been obscured by the blinding white light suddenly became visible again. Everything was still for a split second as the searing heat all around dissipated.

Unit-01's half-melted, misshapen form was briefly silhouetted by a steak of light that seemed to come down from the very heavens. It pierced the Angel just below the centre of its top peak, and even from this far away Rei could see a gaping hole torn in the thing's glassy skin.

There followed a bone-chilling howl that Rei had never heard before, a mechanical yet somehow animalistic trumpeting sound that drowned out even the Angel's enraged scream. It was as though all of humanity were roaring their defiance as one.

Yet, it still wasn't dead. Its otherworldly cry of pain abruptly ceased as it seemed to have locked on to a new target, this time with its deadly beam directed straight upwards.

Rei had no time to be thankful for the opportune distraction.

"Rei, the Angel's hurt badly. All it will take is a glancing blow to the core to finish it, so take your time and carefully aim while its still distracted." Captain Katsuragi gently instructed the girl. She desperately wanted to know that unit-01's pilot was unharmed, but she had to do her duty first.

The rifle's power system was fully charged, and with a deep breath in, she carefully aligned the reticle directly over the Angel's centre.

Attagirl. She heard the strange man's calming voice in her head. Take another deep breath. That's it. Keep the sight centred, feel your heart rate slow. Now, let it out, and smoothly squeeze the trigger. Don't pull. Squeeze.

She did as she was told.

They later found the dart lodged in the remains of the Angel's core. It was no doubt in immense pain, if it was capable of feeling pain anyways, and if the launch had gone according to plan it would have been a clean kill.

Bishop had no idea that his target was in its death throes, however, or even that he'd hit the damn thing at all. He was a tad preoccupied with his aircraft disintegrating around him, fighting the G-forces of its violent death-spiral as he tried to reach for the ejection handle.

It took all his strength to move his hand from the control column to the yellow-striped handle less than a foot away. Finally managing to wrap his fingers around it, he took a final look around the cockpit, before mustering his remaining strength to give the handle a sharp tug.

It all seemed to happen in slow motion. First, the canopy was jettisoned. He watched it tumble gracefully away, feeling the shock of the cold night air blasting into the cockpit even through his insulated suit.

Less than the blink of eye later, two pairs of explosive charges under the seat fired, sending it and its occupant shooting upwards with 14 gs of acceleration, before the seat's primary rocket motor ignited to propel it away from the doomed aircraft.

Despite having taken many a foolhardy risk in the air, Bishop had never actually had to eject from a jet before. He'd heard the vertical acceleration described by comrades who had as 'having one's head forced down through their ass.' He couldn't help but agree, it was all he could do to maintain consciousness for those terrifying few seconds. Unpleasant as it may have been, he was ready for it. What he hadn't been prepared for was hitting the air outside the cockpit; at the speed the jet was flying when he abandoned it, the sensation was akin to being slammed into a concrete wall.

After the initial shock, however, everything became oddly peaceful. He watched with detached fascination as his faithful steed tumbled away towards the earth. A fine reward for all its long years of service, for defending the land that built it against any and all challengers, extraterrestrial or otherwise. At least she was going down in a blaze of glory, not rotting away in some boneyard.

That would become an understatement a moment later. The night was again lit by a blinding flash of light, this time streaking straight upwards from the darkened city below. It narrowly passed him by as he continued his free-fall attached to the seat, and he could feel the scalding heat from the beam as it impacted his stricken mount. The Avenger's falling remains instantly burst into flame, the aircraft's metal skin being liquefied an instant before the thousands of pounds of jet fuel and ammunition still aboard detonated in a massive orange fireball.

Right around then, there was a sharp jerk as the parachute deployed, yanking him upward away the seat which tumbled earthward with the rest of the debris. With flaming wreckage falling all around, he was acutely aware that he was now being kept aloft by nothing more than a very flammable piece of fabric.

Get away! Shoo! He mentally willed a piece of the nose cone not to hit his parachute as it narrowly missed him on its way down.

As the last of the Avenger fell away from him, he was left hanging in his parachute harness, slowly drifting towards the earth with nothing do but hope the wreckage didn't hit anything important. He was low enough to see the Angel clearly now, and he got the uneasy feeling that it was staring right back up at him.

Alright fuckface, you win. Go on then, do it. He'd done all that was asked of him, distracted the thing's attention as long as he could. He could face his maker knowing he'd done all he could.

Apparently, however, it still wasn't his time. He had a front row seat a moment later when Rei's second shot caught the Angel off its guard, piercing its body dead centre and shattering the damaged core as the superheated beam of positrons passed through it.

Despite himself, the pilot cheered. He cheered until he was hoarse, cheered until his parachute snagged itself on an antenna atop one of Tokyo-3's skyscrapers, leaving him hanging 200 metres above the ground, face to face with the Angel's flaming corpse. After a hurling a few obscenities that would make a sailor blush at the fallen monster, he looked down to see one of the Avenger's scorched vertical stabilizers lodged in the side of the building a few stories below where he remained suspended. Its tail number was still visible, and he experienced a familiar sensation as he read it.

He couldn't help but feel as though he'd lost a friend. Just one more among many, he supposed. Sure, to anyone else it might have just been a machine, albeit a very expensive one, but he and many of his fellow pilots swore otherwise. Aircraft, especially old ones, had personalities. Each had its own quirks, its own unique feel to the controls; some were fussy, some were docile. Some were hangar queens who refused to ever function properly, while others seemed to just keep going no matter what happened to them.

110179 was one of the latter, a fighter in every sense of the word. She'd taken enough punishment to destroy a lesser machine ten times over, and still got him home safe and sound each time except for this one. It took a weapon that literally melted a mountain to finally kill the old bird, he thought with a smirk, and even then she'd managed to more than repay the Angel for its kindness before succumbing.

Well, here's to you old girl. He fished around in his flight suit for his flask, careful not to touch the release catches on the front of the parachute harness as he withdrew it. He first poured a shot out, watching the amber liquid tumble past the crumpled tail fin, before bringing it to his lips to empty the remainder in one healthy swig.

With the last of his provisions now gone, there was nothing to do but wait for someone to notice him swinging there in the gentle breeze. It would probably be awhile: the city below him was completely evacuated, and anyone who'd been watching his attack on the ground probably assumed he was blown up along with his aircraft, and would have no reason to come looking for his remains.

Alone with his thoughts, he again contemplated the piece of wreckage below him, and asked himself a simple question.

Why weren't you blown up? Why eject, why not go down with the ship? Isn't this exactly how you wanted to go out, what you swore to do if you were ever shot down?

Deep down, though, he knew the answer, which only led to yet another question.

Why are you so afraid to die?

Rei felt no jubilation at her victory. As soon as the kill was confirmed, she instantly had unit-00 on its feet to close the few hundred metres over to where unit-01's remains stood. When she saw the state of the Eva up close, that same strange feeling in her chest returned. Much of its armour was melted away, fusing it to the ground with a solid mass of deformed metal around its feet. Its limbs were twisted, and the thing's hands were curled into a pose that belied the sheer agony its pilot must have experienced in the those terrible few final moments.

It was still far too hot for the recovery team to approach. A few brave souls tried, only to turn back when their skin began to blister and burn as they came within a few metres of the Eva. Signalling for the tiny figures to clear out of the way, Rei brought unit-00 directly up behind the stricken machine, wrenching off the somewhat intact back armour to expose the entry plug. As gently as she could, she extracted the metal tube and cradled it in the Eva's hands for a moment, inspecting it for any external damage. It seemed to be untouched, although she could feel the heat coming off it through the neural link.

If he was still alive, he needed to be extracted as quickly as possible.

Slowly and carefully, she lowered the entry plug to the ground, ensuring the hatch was the right side up, before reaching for the plug eject handle beside the seat in unit-00's cockpit. Her view of the outside world instantly went black, and she felt the unpleasant sensation of being violently shot backwards to an abrupt halt. Off to her left, a square of dim light became visible as the hatch popped open, raining LCL from the un-drained entry plug onto the ground far below.

Determinedly wading through the now waist-high liquid toward the open hatch, the girl hit a control on the inside wall beside it, and poked her head outside to watch as a folding ladder extended from just below the hatch all the way down the ground. She was unperturbed by the vast distance below her, or by the decidedly sketchy-looking way down. Her one and only concern was for the safety of unit-01's pilot, not for her own.

Nimbly scurrying down the ladder, she jumped down the last few rungs and took off at a run towards where the entry plug lay. A group of men were gathered around it, but much to her frustration none them were attempting to open the hatch. Without a word, she tried to slip past them, but felt a strong hand grab her shoulder and pull her to a stop.

"Whoa there, young lady." A gigantic technician in a jumpsuit and hardhat spun her around to face him. "You can't get too close, that thing's still hot enough to burn you."

"The pilot is still inside." She glared up at him with her crimson eyes, causing the huge man to stir uncomfortably before answering.

"Don't uh, don't worry little girl, we're having some heat-proof rescue gear brought up so we can get him out of there. It'll only be a few min-" He was cut off as the girl wrenched herself out of his grasp and took off towards the steaming metal tube.

"Hey! Stop!" The man called uselessly after her, but made no attempt to pursue. She could feel the heat on her face as she arrived in front of the hatch, but the plug suit protected her from the worst of it. It couldn't protect her from the direct heat of the metal, however, as she grabbed the handles for the emergency hatch release without hesitation.

She gave an involuntary yelp as the flesh on her palms sizzled, but refused to let go as she wrenched at the handles with all her strength. This type of pain, at least, she was used to. With a final groan of complaint, the handles finally rotated fully to their open position, and she stumbled backwards as the hatch swung open towards her. A wave of LCL came pouring out, the scalding fluid letting off vast clouds of steam as it hit the cool night air. Pushing onward through the coppery-smelling vapour, she mentally prepared herself for what she may find in the plug's darkened interior, before taking a deep breath and ducking through the hatch.

"A-Ayanami?" Ikari's voice was weak, and he sat slumped over in his seat, barely able to lift his head, but Rei's heart leapt when she saw that he was still alive and conscious. The exposed skin on his face was beet red from contact with the hot LCL, and the boy's entire body was shivering uncontrollably, a sure sign of heat-related injuries. Nonetheless, he still managed to flash her the tiniest of smiles.

"D-did, did we win?" he asked.

He seemed somehow relieved to see her, perhaps because he knew now that his sacrifice hadn't been in vain.

"Yes, pilot Ikari," she managed to whisper, unable to stop the corners of her mouth from turning up as she met his eyes.

"We won."

For what seemed like an eternity to him, Shinji's world was one of blurry figures and muffled voices. He seemed to be in an endless fitful sleep from which he couldn't wake no matter how hard he tried.

He thought he recognized Miss Misato's voice a few times through the haze, along with many others he didn't recognize. He wanted to call out to them, beg them to please wake him from this nightmare, but they couldn't hear him.

So there he remained, trapped in his own mind, doing what little he could to keep himself sane.

Open, he commanded his eyelids for the millionth time. They didn't so much as flutter.

Open! Nothing.

Please, please, Open!

They did.

He was staring up at a white ceiling, his eyes immediately assailed by harsh florescent light. It was an unfamiliar ceiling, but the sounds he heard all around him were all too familiar. He heard the steady beeping of a heart monitor, its rhythm punctuating the other ambient sounds of a hospital room.

"Well, top of the mornin' to ya, kiddo." Shinji rolled his head towards the sound of the voice with some effort, finding the Major seated in a chair to the right of his bed. The man was casually leafing through a newspaper with seemingly not a care in the world as he flashed the boy an easy smile.

"W-where's Miss Misato?" Shinji asked anxiously. He could have sworn he'd heard her voice just a little while ago, but maybe it was just a dream...

The Major reached over and gave him a gentle pat on the arm. "Don't worry, she'll be back soon. I just popped in to say hi, and she asked me to keep an eye on you two for a while so she could grab a bite to eat."

"Oh..." Shinji felt a twinge of disappointment. He'd really missed her while he was unconscious, he realized then. "W-wait, what do you mean by 'you two'?"

The Major just nodded towards the opposite side of the room. Rolling his head to the other side, Shinji's eyes widened when he saw Ayanami curled up in a chair beneath a window that looked out into the geofront, fast asleep. Her face was utterly serene, and she was tucked cozily under what seemed to be the Major's uniform jacket. She shifted slightly, pulling the thick wool tunic, which looked like it made for a pretty good blanket a bit tighter around her, but did not wake as the Major continued.

"She and Katsuragi have hardly left your side since you got here." Shinji turned his head back to see the man gazing over at Rei's sleeping form. "Speaking of which, you've been out cold for about a week now. How're you feeling?" The man's smile dropped, his face becoming creased with concern. "...You want me to get the doctor?"

Shinji shook his head gently. "N-no, I feel pretty good actually. Just a bit tired I guess."

The Major nodded slowly. "Well, that's no wonder, they've got you on some pretty strong painkillers here." He made a show of reaching up to read the label on the IV bag hanging beside Shinji's bed, letting out a low whistle. "That's good stuff, you must be on cloud nine right about now, you lucky dog. All they'd give me is this."

He chuckled as he showed Shinji his hand, revealing an IV tube the led up to another bag of clear fluid hanging next to the boy's painkillers. "Saline solution, talked the nurse into hooking me up. I had a bit much to drink last night, and this stuff is the best hangover cure you can get." He tapped his nose knowingly. "Remember that for when you turn eighteen."

Shinji couldn't help but crack a smile at the Major's cheerfulness, forced as it may have been, before looking down to find the inflamed skin on his hands and arms to be red and splotchy. "W-what happened to me?" he asked, a bit alarmed, but not feeling any pain.

The Major sighed heavily, lowering his newspaper. "Well, from what I've been told, you've got burns pretty much covering your whole body. That stuff inside the entry plug was apparently approaching the boiling point when they finally got you out of there."

"Oh god..." It all suddenly came back to him. The searing heat all around. The combined sensations of the Eva's skin melting away and the searing-hot LCL surrounding him. His breaths became shallow, the beeping of the heart monitor rapidly increasing in tempo.

"Hey, hey, hey..." The Major spoke softly and stood to put a hand on the boy's shoulder. "It's okay, you're gonna be just fine. The burns aren't too severe, they'll heal up in a few weeks." Shinji took a deep breath, willing himself to be calm as the Major gave him a lopsided smile. "This is nothing, you don't even have any blisters. I've been burned so badly that I needed skin grafts."

"R-really?" He seemed to know what he was talking about, and the Major nodded sagely, showing the boy one of his heavily scarred palms.

"Yep. Had a fire in the cockpit that melted my gloves. The skin was all black and leathery, and my hands smelled like cooked meat for a whole month afterwards. The doctors had to cut it all off..." He trailed off when he saw the disturbed look crossing the boy's face. "Well, you probably don't want to hear all the details, but suffice to say that if I managed to survive that, you'll have no problem getting over a glorified sunburn."

Seeing he had put Shinji back at ease, the Major retook his seat, leaning back in the chair as he continued. "Anyways, you were damn lucky. The burns aren't too bad, but much longer in that tube and you would have suffered serious brain damage from the heat." He jutted his chin towards Ayanami, who continued to sleep through their conversation. "She was the one who opened up the hatch, if they'd waited until the medevac team got there, it probably would've been too late."

Shinji nodded. "Yeah, I remember that part at least..." He must have lost consciousness shortly after Ayanami rescued him. In fact, one of the last things he remembered was... did she smile at him? Could Rei smile?

"Well bully for you," The Major said with a chuckle. "Meanwhile, everyone was so worried about poor little Shinji that I spent six goddamn hours hanging in my parachute harness before anyone thought to come looking for me."

"Oh, uh sorry..." Shinji shared a much needed laugh with the Major, before the man again turned to face him.

"So, I guess Rei saving your ass makes you two about even, huh?" He fixed Shinji with a serious gaze. "That was an awfully brave thing you did, keeping yourself in the line of fire even after your shield was gone. You should be proud."

Shinji looked down, feeling his cheeks flush as he avoided the man's eyes. "I-I just didn't want Ayanami to get hurt."

The Major nodded slowly. "Combat forges strong bonds between people, bonds that can make you do stupid things." The small smile returned. "That's the way its always been. Once the bullets start flying, any thoughts of fighting for your country or whatever else go right out the window. The only thing you're fighting for then is your own life and the life of the guy..." He glanced at Rei's sleeping form. "...or girl, fighting alongside you."

Shinji stared at Rei. The Major was right, the only thing he'd been thinking of, in the few moments when he could think between the overwhelming pain and fear, was her.

"Still, whatever the reason, I want you to be proud of what you did out there, okay?" The Major reached under his chair, lifting up a large green duffle bag and rummaging around through its contents. "In fact, I'm glad you're awake, I had something I wanted to give you before I left..."

"You're leaving?" Shinji looked up anxiously at the Major as he continued to rummage through his bag.

"Yeah..." he nodded distractedly. "Not much for me do here with my airplane scattered across half of Japan, so NERV's sending me back to Canada to oversee the transfer of the new jets they ordered. A UN convoy bringing some supplies from Germany is supposed to pick them up in Halifax, apparently they'll be transported aboard an ex US navy carrier. Ironic, huh?"

"Y-yeah." Shinji felt a pit in his stomach at the thought of his newfound mentor leaving him, even if only for a while. "How long will you be gone?"

The Major gave a shrug. "Probably a month or so. I'll be coming back on the carrier, the plan is for the mechanics to begin modifying the Avengers while they're aboard the ship, so I'll need to stay with them the whole way to supervise the work. Why?"

"Dunno, just curious." The boy made a show of acting casual.

"Hm," the Major grunted in reply as he continued sifting through his bag. "Ah, here we are." He finally withdrew a small brown leather case, about 6 inches long by 2 inches wide. From its size, Shinji would have guessed it contained a necklace or some other sort of jewellery. "I never really felt like I deserved this," he said in a restrained voice as he handed it off to Shinji. "...So uh, why don't you hold on to it for me for awhile. I think you've earned it."

He inspected the case for a moment, inscribed with the letters 'VC" on the front in gold lettering, before opening it. It contained a medal, a bronze cross on a plain red ribbon, bearing the image of a crown surmounted by a lion. A scroll below the crown bore the inscription 'FOR VALOUR' in English.

With a gasp, he snapped the case close again. "P-please sir, I can't possibly accept this..." Shinji was touched by the gesture, but firmly pushed the case back towards its owner. "I-I read about what you did to get it. I don't deserve it, please just-"

The Major cut him off with a raised hand as he took it back, opening it again and withdrawing the medal before laying the case in the bedside table.

"It's a long story kid, but believe me when I say that you deserve this more than I do." He stood from his chair and stepped closer to the bed, looking down at the trinket in his hands. "This decoration is to be awarded for only for the most conspicuous acts of bravery, daring, valour, self-sacrifice or extreme devotion to duty in the presence of the enemy," The Major said softly as he leaned down to pin the medal to the front of the boy's hospital gown. "...And what I saw that night was the most conspicuous act of valour and self-sacrifice I've ever seen."

With that, he stepped back and offered the boy a smart salute, waiting while he weakly lifted his arm to return the gesture before retaking his seat.

"Oh, and I have something for Rei too, but I don't want to wake her up. Here," He reached into the duffle bag and handed Shinji a cloth patch. It showed two crossed rifles stitched in gold thread on a green background, with a gold maple leaf above them.

"That's my old Army marksmanship badge," he explained. "I can't wear it on my Air Force uniform, and she's a much better shot than I ever was, so I thought she should have it. Don't want her to feel left out now, do we?" he said with a chuckle. "So uh, give it her when she wakes up, will you?"

Shinji simply nodded, putting the patch on the bed beside him and turning his face away from the Major so he wouldn't see the tears welling up in his eyes. Nobody, not even Misato, had ever given him such genuine words of praise. Every fibre of his being was screaming that he didn't deserve such an honour, that he was sullying everything that medal stood for just by being near it, but despite himself his chest still swelled with pride every time he looked down at it. He couldn't bring himself to tear it off and fling it back at the man, even as the self-loathing coward that lived inside him begged him to do it.

They sat in silence for a while after that, the Major returning to his newspaper, while Shinji alternately gazed out of the window and watched Rei as she slept. Eventually, there came a gentle knock at the door.

"Hiya Major," Misato said cheerfully as she gingerly opened the door and stepped through with a pile of folded blankets balanced in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. She spoke in a whisper, presumably thinking that Shinji was still asleep along with Rei. She set the blankets and cup on a table near the door before turning to face the seated man. "Brought some blankets, we can give one to Rei so you can have your uniform back," She said with a quiet chuckle, "and I thought you could maybe use a coffee. Thanks for looking after-"

She abruptly stopped when she looked over at Shinji and saw his open eyes looking back at her. Before he could say anything, she pounced on him with the speed of a cheetah, wrapping him up in a hug so tight that he struggled to breathe.

"I was so worried about you..." She whispered in a voice choked with emotion. "Don't you ever do anything that stupid again!"

Shinji didn't know what to say, glancing over at the Major for guidance. The man simply shrugged and gave him a lopsided grin, casually removing the IV needle from his hand as he stood from his seat.

"Give the kid some credit, Katsuragi," he said as he made his way over the table, taking a sip from the steaming mug before grabbing up a blanket and making his way over to Rei. "He's tougher than he looks, he'll be just fine."

Misato slowly nodded as she finally released him from the hug, still keeping her hands on his shoulders as she bombarded him a million questions about how he felt, tears streaming down her cheeks all the while. The Major, meanwhile, gingerly removed his jacket from Rei's sleeping form, before ever-so-gently draping the blanket back over her in its place. She gave a small murmur of complaint, shifting a bit, before settling back into a comfortable snooze.

"Well, this has been fun, but I've got a train to catch," he proclaimed dryly as he shrugged into the tunic and fixed his peaked cap on his head.

Before he could collect up his belongings and make his escape, however, Misato finally took her attention off of her ward for a moment and strode over to him. Before he could react, she wrapped her arms around the man's torso in a hug that looked almost as tight as the one she'd given Shinji.

"Thanks, Major," she whispered as she continued the embrace. Shinji had a chuckle at the man's obvious discomfort as he awkwardly patted Misato on the back, squirming until he was finally released from her iron grasp.

"Yeah, uh don't sweat it..." he said with a decidedly confused expression. He then hurriedly grabbed his duffle bag, his cheeks reddening slightly as Misato returned to Shinji's side. With a final glance around the room, he locked eyes with Shinji. "Take it easy, kid," he said in a choked voice. He seemed to want to say something else, but stopped himself with a visible effort, turning to hurry out of the room without another word to either of them.

Misato continued to fuss and fret over him, making sure his pillows were perfectly fluffed and that he had just the right amount of blankets and sheets. As she was draping another blanket over him, she finally noticed the medal pinned to his gown, looking down at it with a curious eyebrow raised.

"Where'd you get this?" she asked, gently lifting the bronze cross to examine it.

Shinji cast a glance towards the empty doorway. Lacking the energy to explain fully, already feeling himself beginning to drift back off to sleep under the calming weight of the extra blankets, he simply yawned and answered with a small smile.

"I earned it."