(Lack)

I don't think I fully understood until after Commander Ikari returned.

I heard about it from Dr. Akagi, but it is only after she was done with today's suite of tests and maintenance sessions that he sent for me, as he usually did.

He went away often, on his various pursuits and undertakings;

It was all fairly routine, at this point.

I found him standing near the great glass window in his office alongside Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki, looking down the NERV pyramid at the artificial lagoon.

It seems that they were just finished discussing the recent battle.

"That's one more angel destroyed."

"Yes… the eleventh, now."

Commander Ikari's eyes remained focussed right ahead, his aim transfixed on his vision of an inevitable future:

"And seven remain."

Less than half, now.

The midway point had passed us by a good while ago.

I had not even noticed.

What had I even been doing?

Or rather, what had I been getting distracted with-

Even though the figurative hands of the clock were quite physically staring me, as the Commander observed:

"But we have obtained the lance. And thus, mankind has a little reprieve – for a short while."

From up here, he was surveying the off-loading of a large object from one of the long bullet trains that were used to ferry goods and vehicles from the surface to NERV's underground lair.

The object was completely draped in tarp, so one could only guess as its approximate shape, but there was really only one option for what it could be, seeing as the Commander had specifically departed to fetch it.

To most of the staff that was now busy transporting it, it had simply been explained as an important sample taken from the site of Second Impact.

What it really was, was the ignition key that had set off Second Impact in the first place: An ancient artifact far older than life on earth itself, so far as we knew, the only one of its kind that still remained, the product of technology we could barely understand, and now, a tool, which SEELE had ordered for us to retrieve so that it might be used again to cause the Third – a means by which even the ancestral mother of all mankind may be coerced to the will of that secret cabal.

Commander Ikari, for his part, was aiming to use a different method to that end – namely, myself.

Nonetheless, its acquisition by our faction represented a significant milestone for the plan.

Had SEELE grown too suspicious before this point, they might never have allowed for such a powerful trump card to fall into our hands.

Its arrival here at NERV HQ represented the end of a critical period, and with it, the locking in of a path with almost complete certainty – the last confirmation that the Commander's scenario would truly come to pass, now that not just it, but both Adam and Lillith had been gathered in this facility.

Ostensibly, this ought to be good news – but never had I doubted this. Ever had I had faith that the Commander's plan would unfold as he had intended it.

This was expected – there was no reason to celebrate, or be relieved, just as there had been no reason to fret before.

This gathering was not like Major Katsuragi's victory celebration:

Everyone here knew the truth.

Or so, I would have thought, as I had though for years, sure in what, I think now, was hard to distinguish from childlike faith, the belief of a little girl in the closest thing she had to a father, not so different from Ikari-kun's painful, giddy faith.

I'd read about it in books, of course, that children tended to idealize their parents until some time in the process of adolescence, they matured into the ability to form more complex ideas and beliefs of their own. I'd known this, but I'd never considered myself as anything similar than the normal human children in those stories.

Perhaps, I mused darkly, this ultimately wasn't so different from the Second's misguided beliefs that she was special and more mature.

All this time, I had thought that I was one of the ones who know the truth.

Now, I was beginning to wonder if such a thing as the truth could even be said to exist in any meaningful way.

To us, this may be a definite victory, but for many, this might have been confirmation that the lives they led, the lives they were so fiercely fighting to protect, were just about to end.

In the grand scheme of things, it may have been inevitable, but that didn't mean it wasn't sad.

Once upon a time, I may have been confused about Sub-commander Fuyutsuki's pained tone expression, but now, I think that I could understand him.

It was with a heavy heart that he commented on the proceedings below:

"The ever-bloodied Lance of Longinus…"

"A weapon with the power to kill gods – or to create them." mused the Commander, seeing in this object only the ends to which it may be used.

As far as he was concerned, there was only one fact that mattered:

"Things are going according to our scenario."

Before long, Subcommander Futyutsuki had excused himself, and left myself and the Commander to depart for another of our occasional dinners.

This, too, was not unusual.

Something that had taken place many times, in this same dim room, at that same, overlong table that parted us like a gulf.

We did not speak much, naught but a few things to do with work, the schedules of the next few days, what was to be done with the Lance, once it had been unwrapped, measured, studied and prepared, and the upcoming batch of serial experiments that should mark the next stage in the development of the Dummy Plug system – apparently, Dr. Akagi's research had progressed in leaps and bounds as of late, not to be outdone by her recently promoted colleague.

There were a few inquiries of more casual nature, too, thrown in more as afterthoughts, halfhearted ridge-fillers that went only as far as to make it so that one could claim that an attempt had been made, some token quota served.

Most of the talking, little though it was, had indeed been done by Commander Ikari.

My only contribution was to nod, to say 'Yes Sir' when confirmation was expected, and give answer when I was prompted.

This, too, was how it had always been.

Nothing had changed.

Not the place, not the setting, nor the usual subjects or rhythms of conversation, not the Commander himself.

Only as some completionist last resort did I consider the possibility that I might have.

What for?

However long as I could remember, I had considered this frosty silence to be kindness, his presence like a heavy ghost that lowered the temperature in the room and killed the candlelight as he passed.

I thought it was merciful of him, not to ask of me to do more, speak more, interact more than whatever was needed to satisfy his purposes, whatever needs caused him to summon me here for reasons other than work, reasons I did not understand, but for which I nonetheless harbored a slim gratitude, like a forgotten unloved toy every one of the sparse times that it is taken out and fiddled with anymore.

I could be of use to him, though I did not know how exactly.

And I thought it a mercy, that he subjected me only to the bare minimum of an interaction.

For a long, long time now, I had seen my direct dealings with humans as an imposition, another bothersome chore, like the process of eating itself.

An unpleasantness to be kept at the necessary minimum.

Something to endure, until I had fulfilled my obligation, had my use, served my purpose, so that I might be released now, free of further demands, allowed now, to be left in peace.

It was always like this, in my each and every dealing with humans:

Either I give them what it is they want, and for that, I might be wanted, sought even.

I may hold a competence or capacity – and this makes me a field for them to plow, a resource to be explored.

Or I can stand aside, as the entity that watches, and exist wholly outside their circles, untouched, unseen and unwanted by anyone.

An inhuman being flasked away in a person-like shape, or the created shell itself, a something for another's convenience.

Neither side of that equation is anything worth wanting.

Nothing about being with others had ever been desirable, except perhaps perhaps the faintest trace of having a purpose, having a use, of leaving a trace at all.

To this temptation, I had been drawn – to the Commander, sitting in front of me across the long table, hard and cold and silent, but I could never endure it for very long.

How different this was, from the gathering around the Ramen Stand, the easy laughter and effortlessness of the Major and her charges – surely not always, not fully, but at very least for that moment, that snapshot in time.

Or that other time, when they took me to see that wildlife preservation facility.

I cannot say that I was truly a part of it, but even in watching it, there was something stimulating there, something fresh and novel, a newness that drew my eyes to look.

I had never thought that spending time with others, though no less exhausting, could also be pleasurable.

That it could fill me up with new experiences and memories, with a fleeting warmth, rather than only being yet another thing to take from me.

That it could be something that I might enjoy, or even seek out and look forward to.

That celebration was so very different from my time with the Commander.

Unlike the Major of my fellow pilots, he never talked about his reasons.

He never asked mine – perhaps he supposed that I must not have any, besides the ones he remembered giving me, unchanged as the contents of the vessel that he had filled, as something unliving that sits on a shelf while he's not looking.

I'm not sure that it ever occurs to him to consider what I'm thinking, or what I want.

He offered me a portion as well, but never asked why I'd refused the steak.

He didn't insist for me to eat it, as a father might when disciplining his child – and I'd been grateful, that he had let me be.

I was relieved every time, whenever something wasn't required – for there is no escaping from that which is. If it's an order, if it's part of the inevitable, the long-since-fixed future – then it must be endured.

So, for every previous time, when the Major or Horaki-san or anyone else had suggested that I come along on some optional venue, I had declined, for the same reason, and been glad to have declined.

So I had never before had the opportunity to discover what was dawning on me now:

I was so glad, so grateful, that Ikari-kun and the others had kept inviting me to their celebrations.

I'd been glad to be spending time with them – not too much at once, maybe, but I can't imagine that I would have missed the extra hours that I could have spent staring at the ceiling.

That I would ever have preferred another interchangeable moment passing in an eye-blink to the sort of experience that left such distinct memories behind, that made the time feel like it had actually passed.

What a thing to understand now, when my life is almost over.

When I had thus far renounced every single opportunity…

Certainly, I could resolve now, to show up to every single celebration or meeting that the Major and the others might call, but who knows what circumstances might bright, what wedges may be thrown in the way – I might be occupied, or too tired, or perhaps there would be no more celebrations, from now. Sooner or later, we would not always be able to avoid casualties by a hair's breadth.

How short was my life, and how much of the little, meager opportunities in it had I utterly, irrevocably wasted, drawing its narrow circles even smaller by no hand other than my own?