(Nostalgia)

I really wish the angel had not targeted the simulation body's arm of all things.

No, this isn't right: It was fortunate that the initial infection was in the periphery, which made its progress easier to curttail, and I certainly don't wish the pain involved on my fellow pilots.

But it was inconvenient to me, that it was that very same arm again which had been aching after I burned Unit Zero's arms grasping Sahaquiel's core.

Or not the same: It wasn't my own, nor Unit Zero's, but the salient part was that they had been linked up to the same nerve.

The hot bright string of pain travelling up and down my arm right now was not due to any sort of immediate, organic problem, I could open and close my palm just fine and move all my fingers as usual.

It was just some residue signal, probably, unpleasant as it was, there was likely no real danger.

It would surely pass, it had passed before.

I had leaned against the wall of the corridor I had been walking through on my way back from the latest synch test, and squeezed my eyes shut, focussing on taking deep breaths until it passed.

I had grasped my ellbow with my other hand – pressure, I'd read, alleviates pain because our mind cannot focus on both inputs at once.

I suppose I would have to report this malfunction to Dr. Akagi, especially since it had now happened several times.

When it happened at home, it helped somwhat to help a shower, but now I was far from my place of refuge.

Which meant I was not far from Dr. Akagi.

No doubt she would want to give this a thorough examination, lest the other pilots also develop this kind of issue. There were no spare parts for their arms.

No doubt it would be a rather involved examination that would take away from her already rather demanding work on the Dummy System. No doubt, a rather unwelcome intrusion.

Perhaps – Perhaps I didn't have to tell her, not yet.

If it got worse, or if it happened more frequently, I suppose I would have to tell her, it is only logical. But as of now, the issue might still go away.

Maybe I didn't have to see her – it would be hasty to come for something that may still resolve, right?

Locked in that instand of temporary agony, it was then that I perceived something achingly familiar, a sound to which I had always attributed a numinous quality – something that seemed to take me out of this instant and away to some other time and place, I don't know when or where, just that it must be something different, something somewhere out there, something that would seem as out of place here as the heavy notes of solemn piano music might appear in a place like NERV HQ, amid its stark, functional corridors.

Some may have been surprised, but it was not surprising to me.

I knew this sound. I even knew the melody.

I had heard it on and off, once and again, on stray occasions interspersed by long intervals of absence, for as long as I'd been alive, and maybe even before that.

Without thinking, my legs took me towards the origin on the melody.

It didn't really register in my mind when exactly it was that I had pushed myself off the wall.

It was just something to do, somewhere to go, some point in the distance that might be focussed on. I didn't really have a plan for what I would do once I got to the end of the path – I would probably just have turned around and gone home, even if I had reached it – which I did not.

Something else happened first, something I could not predict.

An encounter along the path.

And here it shows that I must have been distracted, by the ache in my arm, or other things, because though it should have been possible to hear his steps, I didn't register them at all.

I just turned the corner at a fork in the corridor, and there he was, apparently having stumbled along the very same path as me, following the same distant lure.

He was just there, and stopped in his tracks when he saw me – that is, Ikari-kun did.

He was there. I had seen him earlier during the synch test, I would have thought that he would be heading home now.

Instead he was here, and looked at me, and I must have looked at him, too, for I retain a clear impression of his face – at first he was surprised, but then he shied away from my glance, as a child might when they're caught doing something bad.

I noticed him clenching and uncleching his hand a few times, which seems to be a nervous habit of his.

"Oh, uh, Ayanami! Hello. Good day. I- I didn't expect to see you here…"

I didn't expect anyone else to be here, much less him.

I didn't have the slightest idea what I might say if he asked me what I was doing here, though there was really no real reason to be speechless, I was not anywhere I wasn't supposed to be.

So empty was I of answers that I seemed to physically feel that void constricting the contents of my chest.

So, I asked first:

"Ikari-kun? What are you doing here?"

This startled him a little, I think, which was not my intention.

"I, uh- I was just-"

He scrambled for the words. "I was going to go home, really. But then I heard this – This music. This piano, and- I guess I was just wondering where it's coming from, all the way down here –"

Though he had given an answer, it seems he felt compelled to justify himself further.

Only later would it occur to me that he may have taken my silence as dissatisfaction or demand, when I simply had no comments to offer.

"I mean, I know it isn't really any of my business, I guess it's probably there for a reason, I know there's all sorts of facilities down here, like the swimming pool and everything, but – the music just seemed familiar, almost nostalgic, as if I'd heard it somewhere before. Or that's what I thought – maybe this sounds silly."

"No. It makes perfect sense."

"Huh? Why?"

"What do you mean, 'why'?" I inquired, narrowing my eyes a little. "That's Commander Ikari playing."

Ikari-kun couldn't restrain his reaction. There was a marked change in the color of his face, a raw and honest note in his tone:

"My father?!"

"Yes. We are not far from his personal quarters, I believe. So far as I aware he owns a mansion on the surface, but his work doesn't often permit him to return there, so he has a room down here at NERV headquarters where he sleeps, and sometimes plays the piano when he finds the time for recreation, though that is not often."

I couldn't understand why that simple statement seemed to have Ikari-kun so conflicted – surely he would not be surprised that the Commander's workload would necessitate for him to stay at NERV most of the time?

He would be aware of just as often his father left for business trips, and besides, was this not the very reason for why he had been placed with Major Katsuragi to begin with?

It didn't add up.

"Why are you so surprised?"

As it would turn out, I had misunderstood what part of my previous statement had been the cause of his consternation:

"I dunno… it's just- I can't really believe that my father plays an instrument."

"Why is that?"

"He just… doesn't seem the type, I guess."

"How so? You are his son and you enjoy music."

He hesitated there, for a moment, evading my gaze.

"I guess so, but - I'd figured he'd think that that sort of thing is just a stupid sentimental waste of time. He isn't really the sort of person who gives a lot of importance to people's feelings, so why would he care about art? Enough to actually go through all the trouble and practice needed to learn an instrument...

Though, maybe I'm thinking of it too stereotypically. It's not like I can say that I really know what he is or isn't like. How would I really know if he's the type to play an instrument?

I guess this all just reminds me of how little I really know him…"

His voice trailed off there, at the end, deteriorating into a feeble little whisper bereft of force or vigor.

The watery glittering in his eyes spoke of a lot more misery than what he visibly revealed, and his silence despite this told a tale of quiet resignation.

I didn't like seeing him like this, but what could I do?

"...the Commander is playing his music, so, he must be free right now. This means that he would not be occupied if you wished to go and pay him a visit." I pointed out, just to make sure that option would be in Ikari-kun's awareness, even if it would not naturally come to the forefront of his attention.

But the Third Child only shook his head: "Thanks, but, I don't think this would be a good idea. I wouldn't want to interrupt his free time when he rarely gets any. Besides, it probably wouldn't do any good either way – father and I, we just don't understand each other."

"Why don't you try to understand him?"

My intention was never to accuse Ikari-kun, simply to tell him not to give up prematurely – but perhaps I should have been more tactful. He got defensive at once:

"I've tried! Believe me, I've tried! But how am I supposed to do that, if I barely know him?"

"If you want to know him, then maybe you should go to him. Why don't you do that?"

Ikari-kun was at a loss for a moment, overcome by conflicting inner responses perhaps. But then at last he spoke, tired and exasperated: "He doesn't even pick up his phone when I call him."

That wasn't really a direct answer or reason – though perhaps, he thought in emblematic.

But in either case, I thought it better to let the topic rest, seeing as Ikari-kun was clearly distressed.

Besides, it was not my place to be suggesting that he do something I had never dared.

I knew that the Commander's personally quarters must contain a piano because I'd sometimes heard it, but I didn't actually know what lay beyond the dimness at it's entrance.

Maybe I'd thought that what was impossible for me might yet be possible for Ikari-kun.

Maybe I'd thought wrong there.

We stood there in silence, being bathed in the gloomy tones of a cascading memory, listening as note by note passed by, saturating the air of the corridor with its vibration, sinking into our bodies.

"What is it like?" he asked then, of all sudden, his stormy countenance softened. "Father's mansion, what is it like there?"

"Why would I know that? It is his private dwelling, completely unrelated to his work at NERV. What reason would he ever have to bring me there?"

"...I'm probably imagining it way wrong, but I can just picture it in my mind. A big tall house, surrounded by a high brick wall, and an overgrown garden – maybe with a broken old swingset or a rusty monkey bars, where I might have played if my mother hadn't died."

"I find it unlikely that it would be overgrown. With his salary as the leader of NERV, Commander Ikari can surely afford a gardening service."

"Probably, yeah…"

There was a long pause after that.

An interval of time just passing, of the music just washing over us.

Then, he turned toward me, turning his eyes away from the corriodors ahead and the grave tunes that provened from them.

I couldn't say what kinds of memories or ruminations might have been playing in his mind.

"Say, Ayanami… are you really sure that we haven't ever met before NERV?"

With this, something in the air changed.

Like some forbidden seal was about to be broken, some fragile veil of sanity instants from being liften from our eyes, like a mixing of things that should have been forever twain like the heavens and the earth, a distant cousin of that unwelcome sensation when the different sauces of the dishes on your plate start touching.

I couldn't even say what it was that set in me on edge.

I could say that it was something about how he stood there, how he turned towards me, but I couldn't say how this was different from all the other times where I'd felt indifferent or welcoming about it.

I just know that I found myself wondering what it is that he wants from me right now, what it is that he's seeing, as he looks at me right now.

What the image of me reflected in his pupils is being made into a symbol for.

The thought occurred that he might be seeing something that it not me, longing for something that I cannot be, expecting something that I cannot provide.

And when I thought of that, I felt something in my chest contracting.

I felt something in myself harried, pressured, hounded, yearning with desperation to tear itself away from the surface of my body and shrink away into some tiny faraway crevice.

Of course, I did no such thing, as I could not come up with any actual, logical reason to do so.

I just stood frozen in place, growing very still, contriving some reply in the most toneless, forceless little voice:

"Why it is that you keep saying that?"

Some part of me finds it hard to believe that Ikari-kun must simply not have noticed what was going on inside me, for the experience filled me to the brim, but in hindsight, it's the only conclusion that makes sense – how could he possibly know what I was thinking or feeling, when we were still separate, uncomplimented individuals, divided by the fastness of our personal AT-Fields?

He just kept stepping closer.

"It's just… I somehow got the feeling that I have known you for a long time. That I'm safe with you, somehow. Don't you feel that as well?"

He had not quite reached out his hand to me yet, maybe he never would have, but he had lifted it just a little, from its usual position of hanging by the side of his body.

I took a sharp step back.

"I- I don't have the faintest idea what you might be talking about. Excuse me, but I need to go now, there are things I need to do."

I'm not even really sure why I felt this urge to leave;

I only watched myself step down the corridor, one foot in front of the other, an automatic clockwork motion.

Only when I was sure that he must be well out of earshot did I allow myself to speed up, to somehow slip into a run, away from Ikari-kun, away from the music, away from everything.


Feel free to imagine the music Gendo's playing somewhat like this: [youtube]watch?v=MAbCjpm0Alo

Also, since someone asked: PoH is getting finished after this thing is done. Probably shouldve finished that before starting the next thing but the idea for this one just overcame me. For the moment all the ff time I can muster is only going into this thing here.